One of the challenges as a horn player is how to accompany a singer in a way that makes the
music interesting but doesn’t get in the singer’s way. Here are a couple ideas:
1) Think of what sounds you can physically produce; what is unique to your instrument.
2) Think of the way the song and musical genre is typically played and whether you can access
some of those elements in your accompaniment.
For 1) I generally start conservatively, playing softer, with longer tones and smooth transitions
between notes. The extreme version of this is “playing pads,” just long tones within the chord,
or if the music is modal rather than chordal, fundamental tones like the root and fifth. You can
usually find a way to connect long tones with passing tones, which makes your line more of a
counter melody to the singer, and has a less static, background sound. In other words, start
conservatively but add things to make your part musically interesting.
In addition I concentrate on tone and rhythm/attack. You can make what is essentially a pretty
static line comprised of pad tones into a more interesting statement by adding dynamics,
vibrato, judicious syncopated rhythms, and other elements that give your statement a more
personal touch. Let your instrument speak, but don’t speak over the singer.
For 2) I listen to what the other instruments in the ensemble are doing. In rock, jazz, blues,
R&B, and similar popular styles, this often means the bass, guitar, keyboards, and sometimes
drum rhythms. If there’s already a horn part, or a horn playing fills, you have a good blueprint.
But if the song doesn’t have an actual horn part, I listen to see what I can do to both fit in and
enhance what others are doing. Sometimes this means doubling the bassline, sometimes it
means finding chord tones to enhance the guitar or keyboard chords. Often there is space
between the singer’s phrases to play short answering riffs, or a melodic cue leading to the
singer’s next phrase. Part of the fun is often to build a horn part that mixes these elements. I
think of it like playing shortstop in baseball.
Here’s a theoretical situation: You’re playing with just a piano player and singer. The song is
Summertime. It’s a bluesy tune, so you can throw in some blues licks around the vocals. But
there are versions with a strong descending bass line, so you could evoke that with a
descending line, following the chord progression (as long as you don’t get in the way of the
pianist’s left hand lines). The melody has some dramatic moments with long held notes. You
could evoke a harmony voice by finding a complementary note in some of those moments. You
can also create a rhythmic syncopation at certain points, playing against the piano rhythms, as
long as the singer doesn’t give you the stink eye. Lots to do, lots to do!
Here’s a version of Blue Skies that I did with singer Casie Schennum. It’s just a cappella vocal
and clarinet. I tried to incorporate several elements, playing chord tones, evoking a bass line at
moments, and adding some answering fills to the vocals. The most important thing was to hear
the song in my head, all the various versions I’ve heard over the years, and to find inspiration
from those versions.
https://youtu.be/2_8rV9qLT9s