32 Tips and Tricks for “Letting Go” of Your Creative Inhibitions

I’ve discovered a few things along the way that have helped me immensely in overcoming my fear of improvising to help me to “let go” and just play. These are either ideas for when you are improvising, soloing, or composing or just some really good things to know. They will work with your learners, too:

1. Embrace silence. You don’t have to be playing all the time. Breaks are good and can be very musically appropriate. Silence can even add tension.

2. Repetition is also good. If you find a pattern you like during a solo, play it again, and again.

3. Do something unexpected with the rhythm. Even if you’re only playing three or four notes, changing the rhythm can make a huge difference.

4. Quarter-note triplets are cool. No matter what style you’re in, quarter-note triplets always make for a cool-sounding pattern. But less is more.

5. Pentatonic scales. They will always sound good. If you’re struggling to make your early solos work, try using pentatonic scales. (1-2-3-5-6)

6. Minor pentatonic scales. If you know your major scales really well, think in major pentatonic and start on the 6th degree and see what happens.

Dorian mode (1-2-b3-4-5-6-b7). It works well going between blues and minor pentatonic. Try composing a melody in a different mode.

1. If you’re in the B section (the “weird” part) of a jazz chart, just get weird and play some tasteful chromatic passing notes.

2. Go by what feels right. There are no “rules.”

3. Let go. I mean, this one is easier said than done but as soon as you can truly let go, you will begin to be able to improvise and compose unhindered.

4. Use a jam track. This is truly the best way to learn improv in a non-judgemental way, especially if you are in your own basement without anyone home.

5. Mosh. This is a strategy I use with my learners where they all do a “solo” at the same time so that no one’s sound is sticking out and making learners feel like they are being put on the spot.

6. Take a simple song and rearrange it.

32 Tips and Tricks for “Letting Go” of Your Creative Inhibitions

1. Just use three to five notes. Most of the best songs only use three to five. Have you heard of the “One-Note Samba”? One note is sometimes all you need. The reason we think that we have to use more is that when music became written down, it became more complex. The notation became a means to remembering how to play it. That mentality seems to have carried over into our creative consciousness—for it to sound good, it must be complicated. It’s just not true.

2. Play arpeggios.

3. Pitch bends. These work well in rock music and most popular styles. I know your prof said to never scoop to the pitch, but it’s alright in some cases. Try some to see where they fit best for you.

4. Growls and other extended techniques. Opening a high-energy solo with a growl can be very effective and a simple way to add interest.

5. Large leaps. They are usually unexpected, so they can easily draw in the listener.

6. Scoops, falls, doits, shakes, and turns. These are pop horn terms that are used often in all styles of popular music where horns are involved. Pitch is much more fluid in popular styles. It is possible to sound too “pretty.” Jazz players in big bands add in these all the time even if they aren’t written in and it’s completely acceptable to do so—where appropriate of course.

7. Changing horns for different genres and styles is normal. I play trombone, and for a long time, I thought that if I couldn’t play all styles and genres on one horn that I just needed to practice more—also not true. Some horns are better suited to different genres. I have a large-bore orchestral trombone with the F attachment for classical and orchestral gigs and a smaller, straight tenor for any jazz, rock, or ska and I have used it for classical gigs, too. Different sized mouthpieces are good to have as well. I switch to a smaller mouthpiece for lead parts in a jazz ensemble and to my larger one for most other applications. I have even been known to switch mouthpieces between tunes. Why make it harder on yourself if you don’t have to? If the tools are there, use them.

8. Find an adjective and a place name, put them together and make music out of it.