TromboneChat

This happens to me on occasion, and I’m hoping those with similar experiences could offer your perspective. I sub for a couple of big bands around town (weekend warriors, mostly serious), and I’m playing lead or 2nd, never seen/heard the chart before, and I’ve got 8 or 16 bars to play.  There’s barely enough time to get the feel of the chart, much less give any consideration to the ample chord changes written in.

How do you all approach playing an improvised solo when you’re sight reading & subbing?

If I don't know the tune but have the chords then I just read the chords and play. I mostly only use the chords to navigate.  I might aim for a third or a seventh by what I read, but what happens in between? I have no clue... I just try to stay with the beat. I think I use the chord more as a trampoline and jump off and continue by ear. I often have no clue in advance what to do. If I think then nothing will happen, so I don't. If people around me say it was good then I have to trust them because I don't know and I don't remember what I have done either, and absolutely no intellectual reviews during a solo. My mind is somewhere else.

/Tom

Give the solo to someone else. Or learn how to sight-read changes. It's a musical vocabulary to learn just like reading normal notation, and requires just as much work to master.

Generally you won't have a solo right off the bat -- you will probably hear somebody else play the melody first.

Often there is a solo written in and I use that as a jumping off point.  Don't expect to do a 32 chorus Coltraine solo -- just a little variation on the melody is plenty.  And don't go wild -- unless you don't want to be asked back.

It really isn't a problem for anyone who has a jazz upbringing. Myself, I came up in the Trad Boom in the UK and could read chords a long time before my sight reading was good enough to play big band arrangements.

I do not think you should treat any solos you get as a 'throwaway', especially as there are not too many trombone solos in today's big band arrangements. Make sure you impress the audience with an exciting and relevant solo. Which means developing your improvising skills at an early stage in your career.

What you "should" do depends on your level of comfort either playing by ear or reading changes.

If you were at a level of "impressing the audience" you wouldn't be asking the question.... of course some audiences are impressed if they just see you moving the slide.

A lot depends on how exposed it is too.  If there are backgrounds in the horns, play between them, don't try to play over them because you won't be heard anyway.  That's a chance to listen and fit in at the same time.

If you see a solo in your part later in the chart, LISTEN for the form, feel, and tonality so you aren't totally lost before you start.

Quote from: Doug Elliott on Oct 28, 2017, 04:05PM... of course some audiences are impressed if they just see you moving the slide.

...

Ain't that the truth?

Making sense on trombone is like a parlor trick. 

My trombone world revolves around bands reading charts, and bands with no charts.  It's funny how each of these work though entirely different.  But in a charts band, when the solo happens, it's difficult to switch gears to the ear.  The same head in a no-charts band, even in a different key, seems not such a problem. 

My workaround may be useful:  Play the pentatonic of the first chord or key.  The ear seems to get out of the notes chart and oriented after that, and then it's ear all the way. 

Quote from: Doug Elliott on Oct 28, 2017, 04:05PM... of course some audiences are impressed if they just see you moving the slide.

...

Ain't that the truth?

Making sense on trombone is like a parlor trick. 

My trombone world revolves around bands reading charts, and bands with no charts.  It's funny how each of these work though entirely different.  But in a charts band, when the solo happens, it's difficult to switch gears to the ear.  The same head in a no-charts band, even in a different key, seems not such a problem. 

My workaround may be useful:  Play the pentatonic of the first chord or key.  The ear seems to get out of the notes chart and oriented after that, and then it's ear all the way.