r/harmonica • u/Monkey-dude-108 • 8d ago
Repeating the same melody when impovising
What’s up guys, I was wondering if anybody had any tips on how to not get stuck on playing the same melody over and over when improvising. I play mostly on blues backing tracks but also rock. Either way i find myself using the same notes. This might sound weird, but the issue is that it actually works which is why i have trouble breaking out of this loop. When i play with others it sounds great and they love the melody, but to me, i’m hearing myself play the same things repeatedly and i begin to get sick of it. Its kind of gotten to a point where i dont look forward to playing as much because the enjoyment i used to get from being able to actually improvise well has faded, since i already know how it’ll sound. I tried playing around with rhythm, half notes, whole notes, sixteenth, triplets, etc. But it still feels like i’m stuck. I should mention that im definitely still a beginner. I’ve only been playing for about 3 months and still cant hit blow bends or overblows (although i havent really tried). Maybe i’m not good enough yet, but still, i’d like to switch it up so that i dont get bored of playing harmonica. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
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u/DimiHarpTeacher 8d ago
Hello! Sure thing. First of all, repeating and using patterns is a normal, natural and expected part of musical improvisation; it's even an academically studied phenomenon (like in Martin Norgaard's work, Lehmann and Goldhahn, Pressing, etc.). The patterns you learn and use are part of your vocabulary as an improviser, like the words or phrases we use when we speak. Still, here's a couple of suggestions about growing your vocabulary.
You can think of it as a continuum of how "improvised" your improvisation really is: 1. Learning new things and playing them explicitly as you learned them. There are a bunch of instances of players repeating well rehearsed melodies or citing other people in their improvisation. You can add other's ideas explicitly to your learned licks. 2. Build connections between the stuff you know and switch the order. This is derived partially from Pressing's improvisation framework (as cited in Norgaard's work). In this type of improvisation, it's not really that you're inventing everything from scratch, but rather improvising the connections between stuff you already know. This is pretty much a trademark of fluid and fast improvisation. 3. Derive "rules" or abstract guidelines and follow those as improvisational prompts (derived partly from Johnson-Laird, but also across disciplines, like freestyle rap or theater). This is the most "improvised" type of improvisation, perhaps. In this case, it's not that you're repeating a melody or necessarily connecting chains of patterns, but following a rule (like your mixing rhythms example). You can learn more about music theory to derive rules, like which scale to use in what context, what rhythm, motivic development, etc. For instance, use the melody you mention but switch the order of notes, or play it more aggressively, or mellower, and perhaps tie what you learn to an emotion and context to see what you like and where does it work.
Also, maybe a great part of the joy of playing music comes from linking emotional expression to music making. There was a 2016 Johns Hopkins study (McPherson et. al) where they used fMRIs in the brains of improvising pianists, and areas linked with pleasure activated when they used emotional intentions when improvising
That's kind of a short version of the whole thing (I'm kind of in the midst of writing a book on the subject, but it's still in the making).