How To Solo Over Changes

- Transposing Motifs
(arpeggios, melody, bebop)

- Target Notes
(go for the notes that illustrate the chord changes)

- Melodic Voice Leading

(do the same motifs with the notes changing

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Damon Smith on soloing:

I'd say stick to bass players for now. I would listen a ton, and then when a
situation comes up, think of a bassist that is great in that situation.

For fast solos, think Mingus on tensions, maybe 70s Dave Holland. Mid-tempo swing,
Paul Chambers, Wilbur Ware, Ray Brown. Slow ballad, maybe Mingus on Moanin' and Red
Mitchell. When you know what something sounds like, but, don't have every note
memorized, you have a better chance of having it make sense in context as well
adding your own twist to it.

Let the situation give you the harmonic and formal context.

For etudes, just a pick a solo feel and put it over various forms in various keys.

Also, understanding things like evoking a blues feel by using both the major and
minor thirds is helpful. Understanding the difference between material related to
movement and ornament vs. structure and harmony will go a long way towards building
a vocabulary.
When you do transcribe focus more on the why than the what.

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FHiddy:
take a complicated head (like a Charlie Parker tune) and make 20 etudes out of it.
Make sure you do a lot of transposition too -that's critical.

What's an etude? Take it one phrase at a time. Different keys, different feels,
starting on different beats in a bar, tweak the line; make minor major and vice
versa. Use the phrase to start or end a new segment of a solo you're making up. Can
you move it around in the cycle of 4ths or 5ths? Half time? Double time? In odd
meter? The possibilities are endless once you combine variations together.

Put a recording on a looper on your phone and go for run or walk for an hour. By
the time you're done you should know it pretty well. Make sure you take breaks in
there somewhere. Check out Ran Blake's book Primacy of the Ear.

Lastly if you want be able to conceive phrases then you gotta sing those lines! At
least in your head. If you can't sing it, you don't play it! Want a mind bender?
Take the above variations and see if you can sing it all away from the instrument!
Even just singing a phrase in different keys over cycle of 5ths has done wonders
for me.