Posted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 12:53 pm
when I improv, I try to stay to a wide range of notes, usually high ones, but not too high.
high notes aren't a must in solos.. I can play and I have heard people play very exciting solos while remaining solely in the staff. If you're playing extremely high, but extremely out of key, you just sound like any other egotistical high school horn player... annoying.
PLAYING IN KEY is the most important part of soloing, and that comes with memorizing scales and understanding basic music theory. If you play one or two notes per measure, but they are in key, you'll sound better than 95 percent of the people that try to play a lot of notes way out of key.
The next most important part is IDEAS, and that just comes with listening to jazz, playing out of fakebooks to learn new riffs, and really trying to communicate through your horn. Remember, music is an art form, and art is a form of expression. If, when you solo, you don't feel as if you are expressing yourself, then the quality of it will be mediocre at best.