Playing across the neck vs. playing along the neck

[jster]

So I was working on Giant Steps. As part of that I was drilling dom7 arpeggios. As part of that I was playing along with a blues loop, I7, IV7, V7. And that was going well. I tune in 4ths, so it is pretty easy to move around. Diddle a riff. Move up a string, diddle the riff. Move back. Move up a string and over two frets, diddle the riff. Whatever. Sounded nice. But then I got to thinking, which was probably a mistake. I had a guitar teacher once upon a time who said that jazz players don't play guitar, they play more like sax players. They somehow transcend the geometry of the guitar and don't fall into the cliches that the geometry suggests, like the rock guys do. Sounded good at the time. I thought I understood it. And I guess I do understand it in the negative sense of what to avoid. But I realized today I don't really understand it in the positive sense of what to do. That teacher was kind of a dick so I got rid of him before I could hear the rest of his spiel. But today I wondered, by merely moving up two frets to the V arpeggio and then down two frets to the IV arpeggio, was I failing to play like a sax player?? Of course it is great to be able to do everything. But is it a bad thing to move along the neck? You watch Django and he's going all along the neck. Metheny too. Doesn't seem unsax like. Maybe it is even more sax like. But hell, grab the line where it feels good. Why rework it so you can stay in one place. Now maybe I stacked the deck by talking about a blues and if I was talking about a standard standard it would be different.

So as you can see. I am confused. What is the relationship between:

1) Avoiding guitar cliches,

2) Playing like a sax player,

3) Playing across the neck,

4) Playing along the neck,

5) What Django and Metheny are doing?

And, at the end of the day, can we really transcend the guitar? Could the lines Metheny or Django or Scofield plays really have come from a sax player? And could Brecker's lines really have come from a guitar player? Leave out the chord stuff and the crazy growls and instrument specific stuff.

Thanks in advance.

[danjw]

personally I tend to do both.
It's all about being flexible in your approach I think. Also, each lends itself to different techniques. moving laterally up and down one string, or string set for me lends itself to legato or trem playing; whereas diagonal or position playing suggest a staccato/palm muted/percussive sound. Sometimes in fact I like to repeat an idea in and out of these techniques to give texture to what I'm playing.
With regard to breaking cliches I'm trying at the moment to see note patterns as a whole that I can dip in and out of at will. In other words not just thinking "I can play this ascending or descending" but picking out the larger intervals that exist in any scale or arp.
Metheny's a master at this as are scof and Wayne Krantz.

[AmundLauritzen]

The best way to sound like a sax player is to transcribe sax players. Brecker is an excellent choice. So is Trane, Chris Potter, Jerry Bergonzi, Sonny Rollins, Joe Lovano, etc. There are a some unguitaristic guitarists worth transcribing. You already mentioned Metheny, but Joe Diorio, Kurt Rosenwinkel and Jonathan Kreisberg are also players who don't sound guitaristic but more horn like in their approach.
What I like to do is transcribe fragments of lines that contain vocabulary that is new to me. Transcribing shorter fragments allow me to learn it vertically(in one position), and horizontally(up the neck).
Another good way to make lines up the neck is to first make sure that you have plenty of vocabulary in every position. Then, you can use different devices as "connective tissue" between positions to get from one to the other. I like to use diminished scales a lot for this as they lend themselves well for this approach, particularly on the first four strings. Pentatonics are also good for this.
Andreas Oberg advocates the approach of horizontal playing, and he is a master at it. You might want to check out his teaching site.

I think the blues/rock school of playing really puts people in the mindset that the guitar is an instrument where you have this one blues box to play lines in.
Learn scales, arpeggios, and lines in all positions, all keys and then start figuring them out horizontally. The more places on the guitar that a line is accesible to you, the more versatile it is.

My 2 cents.

[backliner]

I try to break up box playing by connecting the boxes or arpegiating between them up or down the neck.

Sometimes it's automatic if I've started a line in a grip (box) that is going to run out of notes as i go up or down in pitch.

Some of the patterns and licks I use for "transportation" along the neck are memorized and designed to get me from one place to another smoothly.

Johnny Smith was great for two (or three) octave arpeggios that connect scale patterns in different positions that move distances along the neck.

Mimi Fox is an advocate for linear playing along the neck and breaking out of "guitaristic" sounding boxes.

I don't like staying with a grip in a box too long unless I'm trying to stay out of somebody else's frequency range.

[TruthHertz]

Have you listened to things Mark Turner and Kurt Rosenwinkel have done together? At times their playing is like one mind, phrases on sax are things that may have been done by Kurt, things done on guitar could have been played by Mark. The imaginative quality of the phrase is the biggest challenge of any instrumentalist. It would seem even more difficult for guitarists because so many guitarist stress hand technique more than ear/phrase development. Look at how many discussions stress repetitive mastery of scalular and linear phrases or "licks" over the ability to sing a phrase. A horn player is singing every time he exhales into a horn.
Some guitarists get this, and they have some concept of building a solo that is not based on nervous ticks of the hand strung together into the form of a song. They will utilize their technique to place their hands in a position to realize that individual phrase.
As far as movement on the neck, if your sound is first, you can play it all in one position and if that's what you need then the music is good. (That's not the easiest approach but look at 10 string classical guitar players, you'll see that approach in the extreme)
You can play an entire solo on a single string and if the melody in your ear is a good one and you can play it, then the music is good (look at Tiny Grimes, 4 string guitar player, had to move up and down the neck, he only had 4 strings. He was good enough to play with Tatum.)
Whether it's across or along the neck, that's a matter for you to decide and the realm of practiced technique. It's the motivation that should dictate.

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

You might see some parallels in this quote. It's by Albert Einstein.
David

[jster]

Thanks all. I learned something from each of you. But I guess I want to focus and ask a pointed question. It is understandable that one would be tempted by the idea of being able to play everything in every position, especially for scales and drills. But, but, but, it is far from sufficent for being able to play like a sax player and play phrases with imaginative quality, because it is purely a mechanical matter. Just consider tone. Playing the phrase in every place isn't the goal. The goal is to play it so it sounds the best tone wise. (And that might even vary axe to axe.) And the same thing goes for how the phrase is picked. Some positions are going to be better. Sax player and piano players don't have to deal with this redundancy. The guitar player I mentioned above was running his scales in some insane way that took a number of years to complete the cycle. Now maybe that is OK for scales. But then I believe Metheny said "Why run scales when you can play a tune?" (Can anybody verify that?) Rock guys fall into cliched phrases because they know limited fingerings, but knowing all the fingerings is not a guaranteed way to escape geometry because not all the fingerings sound good. So what's my point? It is that focussing on knowing all the fingerings can be as bad as only knowing a few because both are too mechanical and too far from the 1) imaginative quality of the phrase and 2) how the phrase sounds best on the guitar. And each of you is more or less proof of that because each of you does a little vertical a little horizontal a little elbow grease, etc.

Agree or disagree?

Thanks in advance.

[zigzag]

I've realized from playing Wayne Shorter how much he slides into, and away from, notes, and how hammer ons and pull offs are needed to duplicate his dynamics and phrasing. Easily 25-30% of the notes he plays are treated that way.

As far as playing horizonally, I have found that practicing scales in two and three string groups up and down the neck, and practicing intervals up and down the neck, have improved my improvisational skills and awareness. I always try to improvise with the melody in mind.

[TruthHertz]

I think as you practice across the neck, I mean practice with your ears and learn notes of strength with fingers of strength, and practice up and down the neck with a goal to be able to hit wide leaps. You must realize that when going across the neck, major lower string roots are strong when centred with the middle finger, minors work well from index and pinky roots.
Have you glanced at Mick Goodrick's Advancing Guitarist? It might prove to be an entertaining and enlightening read.

The advancing guitarist: applying ... - Mick Goodrick - Google Books

David

[brwnhornet59]

[quote=AmundLauritzen;186921/

Learn scales, arpeggios, and lines in all positions, all keys and then start figuring them out horizontally. The more places on the guitar that a line is accesible to you, the more versatile it is.

My 2 cents.[/QUOTE]

Amen!

[JonnyPac]

Great thread with great posts! I agree with all the replies. The phrase is where it's at- box or no box, it must transcend into meaningful music.

I personally like the horizontal approach and use boxes to scoop up or down quickly, and use a lot of legato techniques throughout.

[jster]

Originally Posted by TruthHertz

I think as you practice across the neck, I mean practice with your ears and learn notes of strength with fingers of strength, and practice up and down the neck with a goal to be able to hit wide leaps. You must realize that when going across the neck, major lower string roots are strong when centred with the middle finger, minors work well from index and pinky roots.

Sounds like a great insight. Can you elaborate the why of that? Do all you pros know that? I actually am pretty fond of having the root on the index finger and doing a big box stretch, say 357,357,357... for G mixolydian and 357,357,457...for G ionian. Then all the alterations are within the box. Pow! Gotcha! I feel "fingers of strength" that way. Hehe. (My buddy likes to say Jimmy Page has "weenie fingers". Definitely not "fingers of strength." But I digress.) What is the drawback of that? What am I missing? (I tune in fourths, so big boxes work everywhere; but that may not be relevant to your point. Dunno.)

[TruthHertz]

Originally Posted by jster

Sounds like a great insight. Can you elaborate the why of that? Do all you pros know that? I actually am pretty fond of having the root on the index finger and doing a big box stretch, say 357,357,357... for G mixolydian and 357,357,457...for G ionian. Then all the alterations are within the box. Pow! Gotcha! I feel "fingers of strength" that way. Hehe. (My buddy likes to say Jimmy Page has "weenie fingers". Definitely not "fingers of strength." But I digress.) What is the drawback of that? What am I missing? (I tune in fourths, so big boxes work everywhere; but that may not be relevant to your point. Dunno.)

Nothing profound, just simply that when I'm playing across the neck (within a box) my fingerings are place in an orientation that coincides roughly with the scale of the quality of chord I'm playing over. Minor chord implied, my hands choose notes out of a minor scale shape (roughly) and I'll feel the index finger of my left hand centred on the root, maybe on the 5th, 6th or in my case 7th string. That's all.
For major chords, my root centre in the bass tends to be under the middle finger. If I'm not in a position of strong fingers on strong notes, I notice my phrasing suffers, I can't get a sense of conviction with a lot of chord tones under my ring and little fingers. That's all.

There are some that say you shouldn't play with the little finger at all. I do but I avoid phrasing and positioning my hand in such a way that important rhythmic things and intricate phrasing falls in awkward non scalular hand shapes.
Maybe some time in the future I will not feel this way, I'm certainly open to that option but for now, that's the way I see "box" playing.
David