> What I see in Parkers solos is that he is playing melodies .
>
> They seem to be very compositional.
>
> As I have stated before in the early days of the discussion list,
> I believe that Parker spent alot of time writing solos.
>
> In my opinion many of his tunes were just solos he wrote over standard
> tunes of the day that held up by themselves as tunes.
>
> To me, the way you practice will directly be refelected in the
> way you play.
>
> If you practice playing licks, patterns or scales, your playing will sound like that. It won't sound compositional.
>
> To me patterns, licks, etc are a way to play lots of notes at a time
> when you shouldn't be playing so many notes.
>
> It's best to play simply and let things develop by themselves.
>
> Little by little I started to hear myself play things and say, yes!
> that's what I'm looking for.
>
> At first maybe it's one measure or just a few notes in a solo.
>
> Then I started to zero in on what was working for me.
In my own primitive first steps toward learning how to improvise, I've
been coming to the same conclusions. This validation by someone who
knows a helluva lot more than I do, was inspiring.
fred cicetti