David Baker "How to Play Bebop" Poll

[MarkRhodes]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/073...=sr_1_1&sr=8-1

The link is to Volume 1. There are two others, three in all. They run 50-or-so pages each and cost around 10 bucks each. I've had mine but never done much with it. When the thread about Richie Zellon's online bebop course started, I thought, "Hmm, maybe. But you know, it's not like I've worked through all the bebop stuff I have on hand. Maybe it's time to give David Baker some more of my time." So far, I'm getting a lot out of it, mostly technical facility. (The second and third volumes are devoted more to 'jazz language" and learning tunes.)

I know this book has been mentioned here in several places but usually in threads without reference to it in the title---which makes them a chore to track down.

So after voting, please feel free to comment on your experience with the book. I would especially like to hear from teachers who have found it useful with their students.

[Dana]

I voted choice 3: I found it helpful but less helpful than (fill in the blank).

Personally, I got more out of Jerry Bergonzi's book, Inside Improv Vol. 3 - Jazz Line.

YMMV

[Rob MacKillop]

I couldn't vote. I have no experience of it, but do care!

Among wind players it is it is the most-used book, and although that might be a recommendation, it troubles me that so many people use one particular book. It's obviously very influential, though.

[MarkRhodes]

I voted choice 3: I found it helpful but less helpful than (fill in the blank).

Personally, I got more out of Jerry Bergonzi's book, Inside Improv Vol. 3 - Jazz Line.

YMMV

I don't know anything about that book. What am I missing?

[pamosmusic]

... less helpful than transcribing fewer lines on my own. Not that Dave Baker actually encourages this but having them all in the book allows you to skip all the listening and go straight to playing the lines. You don't get all the context and are less likely to be able to use them in a genuine way.

[dingusmingus]

I bought vols 1-3 a few years ago and didn't get too much out of them. Now, with a little more experience and a better practice approach, I'm starting to turn back to them. So this is a timely thread. I'm interested to hear how others use the books.

Vol 2, for example, is a gazillion ii-V-I lines, and the like. A few years ago I was a lousy reader, and also didn't know what to do with licks. Now I find a lick I like, analyze it, play it through all keys, over tunes, etc. One lick can give me several days practice.

[Dana]

I don't know anything about that book. What am I missing?

Hi Mark,

Perhaps nothing. I have most of David Baker's books. He's certainly an established jazz educator. I just think the Bergonzi books fit my learning style better.

This is just my opinion, but for me David Baker's books are a little too much discussion, history, and not enough 'here's how to actually practice this stuff'.

For me it's 'Blah, blah, blah, here are some examples, blah blah blah, here's a few more examples, blah, blah, blah..... The Baker books also seem to be more about memorizing 'licks', an approach that has never worked for me.

With the Bergonzi book it's a more direct, concept based approach. Here's a major bebop scale, here's how it works, and here are some ways for practicing them. Then minor bebop, then dominant. Then scale segments, anticipations, etc. It includes a recording of tunes to practice with.

Again it's just how I learn. Other's might prefer the Baker approach, which definitely gives more background, history, and suggests recordings to check out.

... less helpful than transcribing fewer lines on my own. Not that Dave Baker actually encourages this but having them all in the book allows you to skip all the listening and go straight to playing the lines. You don't get all the context and are less likely to be able to use them in a genuine way.

I agree with pamosmusic. While it might be fun to 'skip all the listening and go straight to playing the lines', I think students miss quite a bit of the learning process in doing so.

JMO and YMMV.

[docbop]

These days I try to stay away from guitar book and when I get books they are either general improv book or sax books. I find that using books written in notation makes me think more about what concept is being presented to digest it. Then the fringe benefit of it is also sightreading practice, and I start thinking about scales in notes and not dots on a grid. Then another benefit playing the exercises which usually cover twelve keys in one position it becomes a fretboard knowledge exercise. Last checking out books for any instrument or for piano or sax you get to look at a topic from a different point of view and that can have many benefits.

So I go back to the Baker book now and then when trying to figure something out and see if he has a different explanation that will help me digest it. But also the Baker books are for me Bebop style sightreading and fretboard knowledge exercises.

[MarkRhodes]

... less helpful than transcribing fewer lines on my own. Not that Dave Baker actually encourages this but having them all in the book allows you to skip all the listening and go straight to playing the lines. You don't get all the context and are less likely to be able to use them in a genuine way.

From the other side, what I find useful in Baker's book is the "jazz calisthenics" and "perpetual motion" exercises that have you play lines built on bebop (-8 note) scales and get your fingers used to playing lines with lots of chromaticism.

Another thing: this isn't a book written for the guitar. Not only is there no tab, there's no talk about fingering, period. So you have to work out your own fingerings----running patterns of a measure or two through all 12 keys is going to lead you to discover how many (efficient / playable) ways you can finger a line (-and you won't use the same fingering through all 12 keys because you'll be on different string sets). This is not unusual in itself, but some of the lines have 7-8 half steps in a row and you have to figure out how to handle them at tempo and then switch to the next key on the fly. Really makes you learn the fretboard. (There's knowing it as in being able to name any note your finger happens to fall on, but knowing in the sense of flying through all twelve keys without having to think about it is something else....)

[dasein]

David Baker, Jerry Bergonzi, and Barry Harris all pretty much cover the same material.

it's really not "How to Play Bebop" as it is "How to Play Eighth Note Lines Where the Chord Tones Fall On The Beats"

i think the real value of these exercises is as an ear training exercise. it's not so important to play these examples verbatim -- there's aren't exactly tons of examples of someone playing a major scale with a half note up or down one octave -- but so that you get your ears used to hearing chord tones fall on downbeats

here's an example of a line that Barry said used his "half-step rules." in eighth notes:



it's a chromatic scale with a minor third thrown in between the E-F and B-C. clearly, the added notes aren't half-steps, but i don't think Barry really cares. what he cares about is making sure the chord tones land on strong beats

the rules are a good starting point, but as long as you adjust your lines accordingly, you can add as many half steps as you want

---

for learning bebop, i think the best way is to go to the source:

- learn a bunch of heads. many classic bebop tunes are really contrafacts of earlier standards (Ornithology is How High the Moon, Donna Lee is Indiana, etc) so you actually start to get an idea of how they're thinking about chord changes

- start transcribing: Bird, Dizzy, Bud Powell, Fats Navarro, even some guys like Don Byas.

it's always important to transcribe, but especially so for that first wave of bebop players. the rhythmic feel of their lines (accents, syncopations, etc) are so specific​ that there's no way to learn it except through careful listening

[MarkRhodes]

for learning bebop, i think the best way is to go to the source....

I think David Baker would say this is what he did. He transcribed lots of solos by bebop greats, analyzed them, and discerned many "common practice" elements. Obviously, if one can listen to Charlie Parker solos, pick up a guitar and play them back at tempo, study is superfluous. But for the rest of us, a good guide is a great help.

[MarkRhodes]

Good to see so many responses the first day. The spread is interesting too, though I now wish there had been a fifth choice: No experience with it but I'm open to the possibility... (I think this would have served Rob MacKillop well, and perhaps others too.)

[christianm77]

Where is the option marked 'I open it every so often, get inspired for 20 minutes, then realise how much more there is in this the book and close it with a sense of massive insecurity.'

I've personally got more out of Barry Harris's stuff, which is related...

[RyanM]

They're good books. I think a lot of guitarists just don't know how to practice his bebop scales (which I think is a different usage than Barry Harris). Or at least I didn't, until I learned from some Steve Neff lessons to play them through the cycle, using resolution licks at the changes (he calls them "Bebop Links"). Basically you use the scale to keep the eighth notes flowing while you develop vocabulary.

I think Volumes 2 & 3 are the real meat of his method. Vol 2 is just a collection of licks- hundreds of ii-V's, turnarounds, etc. Volume 3 is actually how to practice bebop. How to learn the heads, what to do with the transcriptions. e.g. play rhythm changes alternating between 3 different heads: first 8 bars of Dexterity, next 8 Moose, next 8 Anthropology, next 8 dexterity, and so on. Or, practice Parker transcriptions by playing 4 bars of his solo, improvising the next 4, etc.

His method is basically about learning the tunes and vocabulary from transcription, and assimilating them into your playing. The books are also good for a reference; he has lists of contrafacts, blues and rhythm heads.

[NSJ]

They're good books. I think a lot of guitarists just don't know how to practice his bebop scales (which I think is a different usage than Barry Harris). Or at least I didn't, until I learned from some Steve Neff lessons to play them through the cycle, using resolution licks at the changes (he calls them "Bebop Links"). Basically you use the scale to keep the eighth notes flowing..:
.

Sheryl Bailey 101. Doninant 7th bebop scale (mixo mode + M7 passing tone, placing all the chord tones on the downbeats. Only played in 8th notes, only played stepwise except the 3 arpeggios played on the 3 chord tones. ( System #1) Basically a way to play ii-V licks

That's the "inside" version . Altered dominants with chromatic upper structures ? Move the entire thing up a minor 3rd (eg, G7 to Bb7) (System #2) or a tritone (G7 to Db7). ( System #3).

Mix and match #1 with either 2 or 3. Play #1 over the ii chord snd either #2 or #3 over the V chord.


The interesting thing is that everything moves up in minor thirds . Like Barry Harris' M or m 6 harmonized scale using diminished chords.

Like Jack Zucker's system of chord substitution, where a chord moves up a minor third . Basically treating major and minor and dominant seventh chords as if they were diminished patterns.

[MarkRhodes]

The interesting thing is that everything moves up in minor thirds . Like Barry Harris' M or m 6 harmonized scale using diminished chords.

I learned some of that from Carol Kaye. It's a useful thing to know / do.

[princeplanet]

I had a good look at everything from all 3 books. In fact, I converted from notation to midi, every single musical example from them (thousands!) and even put backing tracks to them in BIAB! This helped me get a better overview, and I could then easily concentrate on the lines I liked, which were surprisingly few! Maybe just a dozen or so. But so many of the lines are simply variations of each other,

As I've also done the same thing for many other "lines" books, I just found lines out of each that I liked and then started to "roll my own" once I got a feel for "speaking in Bop"...

Man, I spent literally hundreds of hours mapping notation to midi - just so I could hear everything up to speed before deciding to learn any of it. It wasn't a waste of time (I hope), and one day I'd like to see if I can get permission from various publishers to release a BIAB version of all the Jazz Lines books I've stored as BIAB files. Ideal way to learn them- you pick the ones you like complete with backing, you can loop it, change tempo, change keys etc...

If anyone has ideas about how to release these commercially, I'd love some advice!


Some that I've done:

D Baker vol 1, 2, 3

Aebersold Vol 1, other volumes (i forget the numbers) Dom Lines. Maj and Min Lines, ii - V lines , RC lines. Turnaround lines

Valdez

Tim Price

Les Wise

Sal Salvador

Don Mock

1001Jazz Lines (my fave)

Goodrick Modal lines

Wes Essential lines (*as well as several complete solos)

[docbop]

I had a good look at everything from all 3 books. In fact, I converted from notation to midi, every single musical example from them (thousands!) and even put backing tracks to them in BIAB! This helped me get a better overview, and I could then easily concentrate on the lines I liked, which were surprisingly few! Maybe just a dozen or so. But so many of the lines are simply variations of each other,

I wouldn't call the Baker books lines books they are more exercise books to illustrate the topics at hand.

[princeplanet]

I wouldn't call the Baker books lines books they are more exercise books to illustrate the topics at hand.

I agree, but I still think doing all the exercises, for me, was not the best investment of time for my own personal goals. It has to, at some point, get down to a matter of taste, you gotta love the material you're learning. I just found that I got more excited by material used as examples in other books.

You can't say "but it's all the same language", every one speaks Bop with a different accent, or inflection. Writers of Method books, through their own tastes, reflect this. That's why Baker has his acolytes, as does Bergonzi, Coker, Barry Harris, Sheryl Bailey etc.

[dingusmingus]

Man, I spent literally hundreds of hours mapping notation to midi - just so I could hear everything up to speed before deciding to learn any of it.

Wow, that's pretty extraordinary. Were you playing those on a midi keyboard, or entering them in notation? It almost seems bolstering your (guitar or keyboard) sight reading skills would be easier in the long run--not that I'm a good reader myself!

[MarkRhodes]

I wouldn't call the Baker books lines books they are more exercise books to illustrate the topics at hand.

Well, they do have hundreds of lines in them! In Volume 2 alone you have 101 ii-V lines in major, 125 in minor, 100 iii-vi-ii-V lines, 100 patterns over major chords, and 45 turnarounds, and several patterns to play through the cycle----that's right at 500 lines right there! Few people will want to internalize them all but it's a smorgasbord of first rate bebop lines to choose from.

[MarkRhodes]

I had a good look at everything from all 3 books. In fact, I converted from notation to midi, every single musical example from them (thousands!) and even put backing tracks to them in BIAB! This helped me get a better overview, and I could then easily concentrate on the lines I liked, which were surprisingly few! Maybe just a dozen or so. But so many of the lines are simply variations of each other,

As I've also done the same thing for many other "lines" books, I just found lines out of each that I liked and then started to "roll my own" once I got a feel for "speaking in Bop"...

Wow, that's commitment! If you found a dozen lines you like---really like---internalized them and learned how to vary them several ways, you got your money's worth, right? (Charlie Christian---pre-bop but still great--showed how a handful of licks and skill at varying them to suit the current mood could take a player all the way to Carnegie Hall!) I wonder, though, if you go back later whether you might like some lines you weren't wild about originally, learn then, and then you'd have, o, two dozen lines you could play two in various ways. Then you mix and match parts of lines and soon have hundreds of things to play....

[pamosmusic]

From the other side, what I find useful in Baker's book is the "jazz calisthenics" and "perpetual motion" exercises that have you play lines built on bebop (-8 note) scales and get your fingers used to playing lines with lots of chromaticism.

Nice. Good point. So perhaps it depends on the purpose? If you want technical studies for idiomatic jazz playing then they're probably as comprehensive as it gets. If it's for expanding your vocabulary then maybe it misses the point (ie extensive repetitive focused listening).

[princeplanet]

Wow, that's pretty extraordinary. Were you playing those on a midi keyboard, or entering them in notation? It almost seems bolstering your (guitar or keyboard) sight reading skills would be easier in the long run--not that I'm a good reader myself!

How did I do it ? It's a secret! I may want to find a way to sell them one day But yeah, a lot of time that could have been spent on being a monster reader, this is true.....

[princeplanet]

Wow, that's commitment! If you found a dozen lines you like---really like---internalized them and learned how to vary them several ways, you got your money's worth, right? (Charlie Christian---pre-bop but still great--showed how a handful of licks and skill at varying them to suit the current mood could take a player all the way to Carnegie Hall!) I wonder, though, if you go back later whether you might like some lines you weren't wild about originally, learn then, and then you'd have, o, two dozen lines you could play two in various ways. Then you mix and match parts of lines and soon have hundreds of things to play....

The plan was to internalise a few dozen, but somewhere along the line, I learned, through all that exposure, to somehow invent my own lines, and now I'm trying to internalise them.... The case against that is how could my own ideas compete with the lines / ideas brought about by hundreds of the greats? Well, they can't, and of course they don't. But they do sound like me, ​and I look forward to years of satisfaction from building on that....