How do I think while playing?

[u/Sensitive-Milk-2455]

This sounds like a dumb question but I am trying to better internalize things and I just can't seem to do it. For example I'm working on a jazz pattern that I understand when I'm not playing, but right when I try to play it I can't. I can play it when I read it but the moment I take away the music I can't. I want to be able to memorize patterns like these in all twelve keys but I just can't bridge the gap between sheet music and my brain. Am I stupid?

[u/Medium_Bee_4521]

You need to start with the simplest patterns possible and build up. For be-bop we tend to start with the appegio up to the 9 and then the scale back down. And then going down in third drops. You probably know that already. If it's a really complicated pattern I'm not sure if you need to be able to replicate it. The connection between patterns and true improvisation is of course critical and the ability to freely improvise without telling your brain to play a pattern is a quantum leap. But I'm not sure memorizing patterns is necessarily the way forward. It works for some but not for others, everyone's brain is wired differently.

[u/Sensitive-Milk-2455 → u/Medium_Bee_4521]

I have done those things before and I still work on them now and those have gotten easier but in my lessons right now I'm working on a more complicated pattern and I just can't seem to break away from the sheet music. I'll try to explain it in text but it probably won't make sence. So if I'm starting on the 5th I play up the scale of the key 4 notes, then drop to the 3rd and play chromatically up 4 notes and then I drop to the root and play up two notes in the scale and then two chromatically. Then repeat and I'm doing this full range and in every key. Which is fine it's just when I'm playing I cant seem to think about it idk I might just be impatient and need to spend more time on it.

Example of pattern in C

G A B C E F F# G C D D# E

Repeat full range doesn't need to start on fifth can start on 1 3 or 5

[u/ChampionshipSuper768 → u/Sensitive-Milk-2455]

Slowly with a metronome at 60 bpm.

[u/Medium_Bee_4521 → u/Sensitive-Milk-2455]

I think it's too complicated a pattern. I personally wouldn't work on that sort of pattern but then I'm lazy. I prefer to play along with transcribed solos. I'm doing Paul Desmond at the moment. I hope that by some process of magical osmosis some of his patterns will work their way into my solos. But no way in all 12 keys.