Why Do My Solos Sound Random?

This is a question I hear from players and see all over the internet. They hear the melodic artistry of great jazz players, and then compare it to the notes they play while they improvise. There's often a huge gap. In simple terms, the solo doesn't feel like music.

You're playing a string of unrelated phrases. One cluster of notes follows another, but not because they're build something together. You're making your way from chord to chord, doing your best to navigate each one, but you never say anything that truly feels musical. It isn't really you.

You probably assume the problem is vocabulary. You need more scales, more licks, a better understanding of harmony, or a deeper knowkedge of the language. They have their place, but through the years, I've become convinced they're usually not the real problem.

The real problem is much simpler but much harder to recognize.

A random solo isn't usually caused by a lack of musical knowledge. It's because the very thing that gives music coherence, which is the musician's intention, gets pushed aside by something else.

The Survival Trap

Your musical intention is what gives a solo coherence. The rule in life is: what you focus on you get. If you're staring at chord changes throughout your solo, you'll play a chord-sounding solo. It's random.

The problem is that somewhere between your desire to make music and the first difficult chord, your intention quickly changes to thinking about surviving that chord.

You don't sense it happening. But instead of trying to communicate a musical idea, you begin trying to survive. The goal becomes getting through the next chord, the next key, or the next difficult passage without making a mistake.

You're shifting your attention toward calculation. What's the chord? What scale fits? Where's the third? Don't miss the change. Those questions aren't wrong. They're an unavoidable part of learning to improvise. But focusing on them come at a cost in your performance.

That's why solos can sound disconnected. It's not that you're playing random notes. In fact, most of the notes probably fit the harmony. The problem is that every new chord asks you a new question, and your attention immediately shifts to answering it.

Instead of one musical idea unfolding over time, your solo becomes a bunch of smaller musical decisions. One phrase successfully negotiates this chord. The next phrase gets you through the next one. Then another. Each decision seems perfectly reasonable on its own, but they don't add up to the music you want to play.

I've come to think of this as playing small ball. Your musical world becomes very small. Your attention reaches only as far as the next chord or key, so your ideas only extend that distance. You're not shaping a solo. You're solving a series of harmonic problems.

It's understandable. You're learning, and every improviser passes through it. But it's also why so many solos feel fragmented. They aren't being guided by your musical muse. They're being constructed one brick at a time.

What Great Improvisers Are Really Thinking About

You spend years developing skills and knowledge, but when it's time to stand up and solo, concentrating on them is exactly what is tripping up.

We don't stand up and solo to calculate chord changes.
We stand up to make music.

Years ago, Richie Beirach and I talked about this. Richie was answering questions readers had asked in a Music Savvy blog post. The question was, "How can I keep from being chained to the changes." Richie's typical no-holds-barred answer was...

"Do you think Herbie Hancock is thinking about the chord changes? Do you think I'm thinking about the chord changes? Nooo."

Richie Beirach

Richie said something out loud that continues to challenge one of the biggest blind spots in jazz education.

We think that great improvisers are calculating their way through a tune. We see them identifying every chord, choosing the right scale, thinking about chord tones, and carefully weaving through each harmonic change.

But if that's where their attention really lived, where would there be room for musical intention? Where would there be room to listen, respond, imagine, and communicate?

More obvious, if they were going through all these mental gymnastics, they couldn't play the incredible music they created.

Harmony is essential. It has to be learned, practiced, and thoroughly understood. But that's the work of the practice room.

Performance asks something very different of us. It asks us to stop consciously manufacturing the music and trust the work we've spent years doing.

When you stand up to improvise, your job isn't to demonstrate your understanding of harmony. Your job is to make music. Harmony provides the framework. Your job is to fill that framework with meaningful music.

So Why Do Solos Sound Random?

I don't really think that the types of solos referred to as random are actually random.

More often, they're exactly what we should expect when your intention keeps shifting from making music to surviving the next chord change.

That multitasking fragments your attention. Instead of following one cohesive musical stream, it's pulled in a dozen different directions. What's the chord? What scale fits? Don't miss the change. Don't play a wrong note. What does the audience think? The music isn't guiding your attention. The calculations and self-doubt are.

The result is a solo that sounds exactly like the process that created it. Random.

Learning more scales, memorizing more licks, and studying more harmony won't solve this problem by themselves. Those things are essential as preparation. They free you from consciously thinking about them as you perform.

Don't just survive the chord changes. The job of an improviser is to make music that floats over the harmony.

Learn to let all of that preparation do what it was meant to do. Release your attention from the calculations and return it to what mattered when you first stood up to play: making music.

That takes courage by the way.,

Accept that you can't manage every individual note while playing a meaningful and intentional musical solo. Let go of the need to control every moment and trust the years you've invested in learning your instrument.

That acceptance is often the moment when your solos start sounding the way you want them to.

Not because you've learned more. Because you've finally released yourself into the music.