Jeff Coffin, of the Flecktones and Dave Matthews band talked with us last week about improvisation.

First he played a crazy solo tenor improvisation, then we talked about what was in it.

We heard a ton of ideas.  He played at least a solid 15 -20 minutes.  You can use some of them in your own improvisation, but you don’t need to use all of them at once.

Mostly it’s just something to check out and think about.

I include most of the ideas:

12 notes+

anger (emotion)

assertive

body and soul

breathing

certainty

character

colorful

Coltrane

comfortable

control

cultural

do what you want

dynamics

ebb/flow

endurance

excitement

explorative

expressive

fat tone

fingers in weird places

flash

focus

foolish things (the song)

freedom

fun

good time

groove

harmonics

harmonies

howling

illustrating

ingenuity

innovation

insanity

instructive

intuitive

irreverence

jc!

listening

lots of air

loud

love

lover man

machine gun

messing around

no limits

observations

octaves

out there

pain

passionate

percussion

personal

phrasing

popping

purpose

quotes

release

resolution

responsive

rhythm

silly

sky

slipping/sliding

space

speed

spontaneity

strength

suspense

technique

tension

tradition

unresolving

variety

vibrato

vocal

way cool