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And please don't forget this thread was supposed to be about technique practicing.

Scales, modes, scale patterns, arpeggios, chords, licks - they can all be practised for technique as well as for improvisation. You can work on both aspects at the same time and be even more efficient.

I suppose that is so, but I fear they would become to embedded in my improvisation. Although I like your playing and improvisation, so I suppose that should not be a problem.

By that logic, wouldn't everything you play (and also hear) get embedded, so you therefore can't play or listen to anything?

Quite. But when you are improvising you are not forced to play ideas that you don't like. The idea is to have a large bank of ideas at your disposal so you can play the thing that you feel is right at the exact right moment.

Well, yes and no, I would say that at least the extent to which it gets embedded depends on the context and way in which you practice. After all, jazz instruction books very often suggest that you practice the different subjects in the context of tunes precisely to get them incorporated into actual playing. But beeboss has a point when saying I can choose what to play, although some patterns are kind of subconscious.

You want interesting combinations of notes to come out effortlessly just by imagining the sound of them in your mind, and a large part of that happens at a subconscious level.

You have to have practiced in the right way to enable this to happen, and a large part of the practice is to help the material sink in at a subconscious level. If you haven't properly absorbed it it isn't going to come out in your solos. On a technical level we need to drill the correct movements so they become second nature and effortless.

If you find yourself repeatedly playing patterns that you do not like the chances are large that this is because you do not have a repertoire of things to play that you do like and that you can play easily at that point.

+1 what beeboss said

here's another video. Of course there are other ways to work on improvising other than scales and arpeggios, but no teacher is going to tell you not to work on your scales and arpeggios

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o7EIEX8OM0

I think the most important thing about learning music is to be honest about yourself. You seem to have this resistance about learning the fundamental aspects of playing the instrument, and somehow playing scales/arpeggios will "get embedded" or somehow interfere with your musicality and creativity. The question I ask, is how well have you mastered your scales and arpeggios? How well do you know your diminished whole tune scale, lydian, lydian dominant, pentatonic scale, bebop.. etc?? are you able to let them come out of your playing like the words you speak, that is, naturally without effort? If speaking these basic ideas are problem for you, it's no wonder you can't communicate anything more meaningful beyond that. these things should help you improvise melodically better.

As the Hal Galper demonstrates in the video above, if you play scales emphasizing chord tones on the strong beat, you should be playing melodically.

maybe it will be helpful for you to post a recording of yourself so that people here can help you on what you really need to work on. So far, we have only your description of what you think your problem is, but the problem you described (not playing melodically) is kind of subjective, and is based solely on your observation at this point. Listening to a recording may help us find the true culprit of your problem. It could be your lack of proficiency in these basic elements, or it could be an entirely different problem altogether.

Hi again. Thank you very much for all the suggestions.

I'm sorry if I gave the wrong idea about my practice. I'm not opposed to practice scales, I just don't want to base all my practice of improvisation on it. I am and will be studying scales. The question was more whether or not it would be good to practice them in the context of a tune. Maybe I was wrong and I could practice both on a technical and improvisational level by practicing them in this way.

I've been reading my previous posts and I don't think I mentioned having a melodic playing problem, but maybe I do and it's implicit, haha. This was most about technique. Anyway, I took your suggestion and upload a small improvisation over 'You Must Believe In Spring,' it's a Michel Legrand's tune but I learned it from the late Bill Evans' album with that same title. It was first take and not very prepared, please excuse some mistakes and the poor recording quality. Criticism would be very appreciated. Here is the link:
http://www.box.net/shared/mf60kdcleprb7qy289xa

About technique, I've started with Bach's first invention and it seems very interesting. I will also print some Hannon exercises to see how that's like. I've also got some Oscar Peterson hannon-type exercises I should take a look at, and I will be practicing scales and arpeggios. About the latter, what's the standard way to practice them? Should I include extensions too?

Thanks again.

There are lot of things to practice outside of scales, like taking licks/ideas and working them in all keys, melodic playing emphasizing chord tones, specific extension, transcribing..etc all these things are helpful in conjunction with working on scales and arpeggios.

Also, playing scales and arpeggios doesn't necessary have to be by the book or mechanical all the time. You can do like D triads over C7 and other poly chords, or start the beginning of each V chord on the 3rd and descend using the bebop scale, those things will sound hip. Or you can experiment with different rhythmic element while doing scales, like anticipating the next harmony by starting the scale on the 4th beat of the previous scale, or doing different accents/articulation, like accenting every 3 quarter notes, or every 2 triplets..and so on

As beeboss kind of mentioned it's your responsibility to find interesting way to work on them. Many jazz musicians created their own exercises to work on. I've come up with a lot of exercise for myself, dealing with different problems. they are usually based on something I transcribed, or some rhythmic/harmonic ideas that I want to develop. But I still do go back to scales/arpeggios, when I find that the lack of proficiency of them in some keys are hindering my progress.

btw when I clicked on the link i got a message saying it's broken

Thanks for the tips on exercises, and you're right, I should develop my own. I think the link is working now, can you please try again? I'll try another host, otherwise.

I think that is exactly right, etcetera. We need to develop the ears to hear what other better players are doing and then have the discipline to apply those own ideas to our own playing. If we can isolate our own weaknesses then we know where to apply our work.

But there is a lot more to technique than just scales and finger waggling stuff. Many people neglect the rhythmic techniques (crossrhythms and time signature exercises, slow and fast tempo stuff, hand co-ordination etc) which is a bad mistake. And there are many many harmony exercises to work on. Even simple stuff like transposing a voicing by major thirds can really make the brain ache.

I do try to do some Hanon or basic scales or some other technical exercises every day if only for 15 minutes, just to keep my technique moving in the right direction. I find if I stop doing this my fingers start to feel like rubber after a few days. For me it is not really to help proficiency in the different keys (although there are so many scales and ways to practice them that you can never run out) but rather just to focus sometimes on the basic movements of piano playing and to reinforce the correct movements.

Heteroskedasticity it sounds to me like you are on the right track .

I totally agree.. I think one of the most common problem I see with students is that while they RH is able to solo, they lose their time feel completely because their LH is undisciplined and end up affecting the RH.

heteroskedasticity

I think you have a nice touch and melodic approach which is really nice. I guess my concern is that sometimes I feel like I don't hear the form, or certain harmony seem to last longer/shorter than it's suppose to, and sometimes it sounds like you are playing harmony that's not reflecting the original changes. It's not a problem if you are playing by yourself, but it will be if you are working with people.

Well, I think you will benefit from more "in-the-box" practice, like outlining scales/arpeggios with the metronome and making sure to do so with the right duration of time. And you'll start sounding more like the masters as you assimilate more of bebop language... which is done through transcription, analysis you'll find that a lot of bebop language is made of scales/chord outlining, with specific emphasis to certain "outside notes" (like 9th, b9 #9..etc) . the best thing to do is find a teacher who can show you.

Thank you very much for all the inputs and for taking the time to listening to the recording. I think you're very right about the form, there's so much to work on. About the harmony, I am indeed always playing by myself only (I've never met a jazz musician here) and I don't see that changing in the following years, but who knows. What artists do you recommend for transcribing?