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Permit me to limit examples of each to past players that we all know, infact, sax players serve to make for an even clearer distinction (well, for me anyway). OK, we all know Kind Of Blue and, if we leave out the other instruments, we each could cite our preference for either the playing of Cannonball Adderley, or for John Coltrane. Some of course will say they like the playing of both equally (like I do), but most of you will at least acknowledge the vastly different playing styles, and hopefully agree that Cannonball relied more on language based material, whilst Coltrane was exploring more pattern based ideas.
Now, I think most of us would say we utilise both approaches with our own improvisations, but what I'm interested to know is - which approach do you seem to favour, regardless of your intentions
The Cannon / Trane comparison might be helpful here. For instance, which player, given a choice, would you rather transcribe and analyse for furthering your own material? Or do you prefer to think of more modern examples when considering Language and Patterns? If we transcribed you, do you think we'd describe you as predominately pattern based, or more Language based?
Me, I think I'm probably 60% pattern based, 20% language based and 20% playing simpler melody based phrasing that I'm "hearing" and trying to express. Not that I have a problem with that, because I'm totally OK with it. I mean, I could say the same for Coltrane (60 /20/20), although he was operating on a much higher level
. And yes, I know it's difficult to delineate this stuff. For example, much language is itself pattern based (Bird, Hawkins, Clifford etc), while some patterns can resemble language. Also, totally free formed melody based playing can be patternized (sequenced etc) to a high degree (Rollins is a great example).
Nonetheless, I still think we can roughly categorize elements in one's playing according to the above. How would you honestly describe your own style in these terms? Are you happy with your own breakdown, or are you working on changing things? For myself, a few years ago I was a little embarrassed by my love of patterns, thinking it "inferior" to language or melody based playing..... but over time I've come to embrace it as well as the challenge of using what I know in varied ways so they don't necessarily sound like patterns.
As an interesting post note, I'll add that once upon a time I was sure I preferred Cannonball to Trane. These days I'm not so sure....
Last edited by princeplanet; 09-30-2017 at 11:50 PM.
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09-30-2017 01:35 PM
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It's a duality and distinction that's maybe more useful when you're learning than when you're playing. Why is this an important categorization for you? I am curious.
They speak to me of a matter of perspective and scale, patterns are larger building blocks that have a different imperative when making a musical statement. There's a different process of thematic and motific development. Ask a baker if they prefer working with short molecules or complex molecules.
Maybe it's easier for the general listener to recognize a pattern and harder for them to follow an arc to the larger picture? Is Sargent an oil painter or a watercolourist? Which definition of form serves to get at the art behind them?
It's a little funny to think in those terms. Are you an arpeggio player or a scale player? I'd love to have seen Paul Desmond or Ornette's answer to that question.
Each tool has limitations. Each tool has challenges that lead to different solutions. Each tool has the task of taking that tool and transcending its superficial form and integrating it with some sense of semantic content, some sense of larger meaning. Each lexicon set has its own syntax; it ain't soup until the broth and the stuff are part of something that nourishes the palate and the stomach.
But maybe I've missed the point completely.
Sorry
David
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Language is simply the rhythmic figures, inflections, syncopations, poly rhythms and accents you apply to all your runs, patterns, scales, arpeggios , Etc
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I see Canonball, Desmond and Ornette as as deep language players. They are focused on creating melody in the moment. There is a direct connection between singing and their solos. While Trane certainly could play with a lyrical melodic quality when he wanted to, especially in the so called "sheets of sound" period he seems to be focusing more on expressing the harmonic totality via the use of more pattern oriented devices. The connection between song traditions and these solos is much more tenuous.
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What is the difference between a pattern and a motif?
Is the same contour similar enough to constitute a pattern?
Is the same rhythm but with different contour and intervals enough?
How about a scale pattern note wise but with a different rhythm for the realization of each pattern kernel?
Or different note sequence? ex. CDEG ADGE BGED FEDG (notes DEG being the constant)
What if one is just focused on an emotional contour or telling a story?
Your post is consistent with how I've heard you you describe your process and I always find it interesting?
I wasn't going to answer because it doesn't quite line up with my mindset but that's not to say it's not an interesting question. I know there are others that break things down in a similar framework as you
describe above. I'm also curious to hear what they have to say. So where are they?
Of the three, I do consciously at times choose to assert melody. I do practice scale and intervallic
patterns but my goal is ear training, building technique and greater freedom to morph a motif to
a different pitch level. I also build up or deconstruct an idea which is motivic playing. For better or worse,
I don't practice licks per se. Recently as a form of technical practice, I will transcribe phrases and play along
with them at whatever speed I can quickly achieve. I am seeking greater knowledge about
around phrasing, rhythm, style and note collections. I also like to sing along with solos but I make no
conscious effort to play this material. I hope that it asserts some positive influence on my playing but I
don't know how to quantify that.
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I've got a couple of Jerry Bergonzi improvisation DVDs where he uses what he calls 'shapes' and 'sequences' and varies them in systematic ways and takes them through different tunes. Interesting stuff, and it's surprising how musical he makes it sound.
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Jerry can make anything musical...
Originally Posted by grahambop
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Agreed, although on the DVD it's a student of Jerry's who plays the exercises on the sax, not Jerry. He just outlines the exercises verbally, and does some comping on piano while his student plays them. Which demonstrates the validity of his approach even more, I think. Originally Posted by guido5
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Didn't mean to sound like I was disagreeing. If it is the Jazz Heaven series you are referring to, they are great discs with wonderful material. Brian Levy the "student" is a fine player and teacher as well. Highly recommended.
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Yes those are the ones. I was amazed how good the exercises sound. When Jerry explained them I was thinking 'well this is going to sound just like an exercise', but when Brian Levy plays them and takes them through a tune, it sounds like a proper solo. They use standard progressions like Solar, Moment's Notice, Green Dolphin Street etc., so it's all very useable material. (The DVDs have audio tracks of the piano comping as well, very useful). Originally Posted by guido5
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Yea, I think it's a great point for discussion... not sure there is a right, wrong, maybe even good bad, but going through the thinking or awareness has to be good for becoming a better musician.
I generally in the simplest of understanding, think and hear in spatial concepts. If point "A" is the beginning and point "B" is the end, that is the basic reference. The time between point A and point B. everything else is the organization of that space. That's why I push FORM so much.
Whether I'm hearing Patterns or some type of Language, comes 2nd. I also tend to really see not that much difference between the two.
Rather more a result of the performance or usage of filling the space.
I mean what's a melody... specific target points that have a relationship to harmony. A note really has no existence without a relationship to a chord... just because one hears a melodic phrase or idea by it's self doesn't mean there isn't harmony... played or implied.
Being unaware of something doesn't delete it's existences. Sorry, I guess that is another discussion. Anyway, I just believe that the filler material between specific Tonal Target Notes... is all some type of pattern derived material. Some patterns just appear and sound more mechanical than others, usually from user's technical skills.
Most of my opinions are the result of composing, arranging and from analysis of music... you can't really arrange without analysis of what your arranging. When you breakdown melodies, part of analysis, you need to be aware of which note(s) define the melody.
And part of that process is knowing what makes the note(s), decisive, defining ...what establishes the nature of the melody etc...
usually come down to a few notes with relationships to a few chords.... or even just one note in relationship to one chord.
And personally patterns become patterns from usage. Where does language come from ? Are we just the results of what we're exposed to and what we do with it.
Personally I dig Cannonball, I love development of blue notes without searching for higher meaning.
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Originally Posted by grahambop
Desmonds solo. Patterns. Very musical, very expressive, like language.
DavidLast edited by TH; 10-03-2017 at 11:39 AM.
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We can't get away from patterns. Patterns are rhythm and the stuff of life.
But you can deviate from patterns and repetition in playing by listening. I rarely play the first solo, even in my own group. I want to hear the tone and direction that was set first to determine where I might want to go. Also, the last phrase a guy plays can take me somewhere new and unexpected. That's a conversation.
Language to me is to be mastered, then forgotten about. Keep your mind blank and open playing, and ideas within the language---within what you 'know'----will come...
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My knee jerk reaction is to vote language over patterns any day of the week, but to be fair, using patterns is for some (Trane) a means of creating a different "language". Anything that makes music that people respond to is valid.
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language vs patterns is a false dichotomy.
To suggest Trane typifies one while Cannonball another kind of reduces profound and deeply informed improv to two of thousands of things that are happening in their playing. Kind of like saying Newton was more into addition whereas Leibnitz was more into multiplication.
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Hmm, I was hoping you guys wouldn't get so philosophical!
I like the idea that came up that everything is language, if you make it sound like it is.... and to that end, yes, Trane and Cannon (and every other good player) make everything thing they play sound like a meaningful conversation...
Notwithstanding, I'll still insist that a player's style is quantifiable in these terms. Observations like "Meh, I just hear the same old safe language choices..." (Cannon?) or " Meh, I just hear the same kinds of patterns over and over..." (Trane?) or " Wow, he always sounds like he's spinning new melodies of the top of his head, with no cliched language or predictable repeated patterns!..." (Rollins?)
Not saying a preponderance of any one element is good or bad - it's all in the handling, obviously. Still, I find it interesting that no-one can offer a break down of their own playing into these basic terms, when I bet that we could all listen to other players and be able to make our own assumptions about reliance on certain aspects over others. Granted, some players are easier to decode in this regard than others, which is certainly not to say that said player would be less compelling to listen to, right?...
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I go to see Jerry on a pretty regular basis. Students who're new to jazz hear a lot of notes and they're impressed by the ability to play a lot of notes. Students who've been studying a while hear the figures and they're impressed by the variety of them. Students who've been playing and studying a long time can hear his place among the greats and they're impressed by the comparative experience of life performance. The other players and his peers hear someone who's put it all together and they hear, not the pieces, but the man- and they're impressed by the language we all speak in our own sweet way.
People only get what they hear and everyone hears something different. When I worked on the lydian scale, I heard chord scales. In answer to your original question, I guess I try as hard as I can not to think of myself as a part of one "camp" or the other, because that would be distracting from an arc I'm working on constructing. I practice in parts, I try to play avoiding the imbalance of thinking technique.
But that's just me
David
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I don't get the distinction. I think language is pattern. I think, my own opinion, is that human beings excel with patterns. I think EVERYTHING we do is based on patterned thinking. I think, and I tell my students, that those who excel, those people we refer to as geniuses, are those folk who can see or create ways of seeing patterns very quickly. Everything human is infused by patterns, uniquely created in some cases. Look out an airplane and see the land arranged in patterns. Any house is constructed in geometric shapes. Cars, driving, listening to music, playing music, painting, how we think of the alphabet, how we put on our shoes even down to how many of us arrange our memory. WE ARE a patterned based people. Language is the arrangement of thought through symbols of words, notes, whatever.
Gotta get back to practicing.
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Language is rhythm made into form. Yes, it's patterns b/c everything is.
I like Tom Harrell's observation (paraphrased): 'Form is rhythm on a higher level'...
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Lots of issues here...
First, all the ideas (pattern, language, melody) may be used as a basis for the other two, as some have noted:
- all is pattern, the variation being the space of language pattern and melody pattern)
- all is language, the variation being the space of pattern language and melody language)
- all is melody, the variation being the space of language melody and pattern melody)
Second, additional ideas (rhythm, harmony, color, tension, etc.) may just as well serve as a basis, for example:
- all is rhythm, the variation being the space of pattern rhythm, language rhythm, melody rhythm, harmony rhythm, color rhythm, and tension rhythm.
Third, the OP has given player listening examples to define ideas describing what we hear, but has asked about how we use these ideas when playing ourselves. Listening is different from playing, so I don't think the ideas of categorization when listening to others necessarily match the ideas we conceive when playing ourselves.
If the OP can redefine "language and pattern" not from observed listening to others but to internal aspects of playing/performance, we might get some traction; but the redefinitions would need to be pretty rigorous in order that we could identify them within the abstractions that comprise the playing guitarist's musical mind.
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Im one of those people who has issues with the word language at all - I hate the term "the Jazz language" although it stems more from the way it makes some of my students think.
Language is delimited by and possesses prescribed meanings, which Im not going to get pedantic about - although its clear that the purpose of words as symbols can have both mundane and poetic qualities .....well maybe not all words
-- but more importantly language shares the property of syntax with music, especially given as some people have said, that patterns are a continuously emerging property within all organised forms. Its the nature of syntax to tend to some sense of order/sequence/ consequence/cause/effect, and regardless of the gesture, there is some tendency to order at play, even if its subversive, in both Coltrane and Cannonball.
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I like to think of the massive collection of words/symbols, being spoken, written literal language or music and other forms, as having their end purposes being communication. Patterns of simplicity or complexity.
I think that’s why atonal music, abstract art is so difficult for most to understand. Those patterns are broken down. One must use other means to grok. Aesthetic, emotional. But rhythmic patterns, keys, scales, harmony, melodies are broken.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Player A:
"My playing consists of about 10% patterns, 10% language and 80% melody - on the fly"
Player B:
"No way dude, when I listen to you I'm hearing about 70% patterns and 30% common language - I'm not hearin' any "on the fly" melody!"
Player C:
"I'm hearing nothing, except that you need a few more years practice"
Player D:
"Um, what's a pattern?"....Last edited by princeplanet; 10-04-2017 at 06:23 AM.
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McCoy T is an example of patterns, but very cleverly weaved in. Herbie Hancock used a lot but in a chromatic
way . Coltrane you can hear clearly plats a lot of patterns type stuff around his Giant steps era.
I unfortunately be totally accurate and give a specif track or album. But everyone should get what i mea.
Wayne shorter often used little repeating phrases / lines but probably more consider motifs or themes developed or altered. There is obviously an overlap,
Little arps may/could be considered patterns ??????? Scales are patterns but longer ???????
Is it repeated use of something or material that makes it a patterm???
What i will more definite about is on Diminished and to some extent wholetone there is a clearer use of patterns, which i think can used to make lines more logical melodic etc etc & altered
Take licks The Lick or Cry me a river lick could they be considered patterns, Mnnnn
ar this point of writing the thought has drifted thro. is it the amount of times its played that makes it a pattern?
Personally 2 months ago thought ( i was writing a lot ) i should incorporate more patterns as they are fine
as with anything id played or treated melodically which is always the case.
Yip imo an interesting question, and also thinking about it makes one think overall what more can i do/use or the opposite should i perhaps use less of a style/device.
I wrote this without reading all the other comments, so if alreasy said so be it,
considered those points repeating patterns, Not much humour in Jazz is there.
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To me the opposition is a bit wrong...
Pattern can be structual element of language.
Comparing with poetry... in some period where the poetic language was extremely developed and common there were lost or regular maetaphors, similes, rhymes, meters...
The art of great poets was what they did with these means, how they organized them, and - which is more important even - how they managed to break them still keeping the refernce.
One of the major tools to achieve it is understanding the any piece of art is built around tension between its form and its content...
Petrarca wrote nore than hundred sonnets that followed juat a few fiexed formal organizations, the most interesting thing is how he organized content in reference to these forms... they kind of react one another and make chemestry.
I believe that one of the biggest proble of modern musical education in general is that it is often assumed that music has no content. Which causes senseless manilulation of idiomatic patterns.
It seems to me that the oposition in the topic title comes partly from this too - from basic notion that using patterns can substitute or be oposed to using language
Language is complex system for expressing meanings.
Pattern as it is - can have meaning only within some laguage (even if it is very primitive language)
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