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Jazz Guitar Improvisation in ONE Lesson
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12-04-2017 07:05 PM
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Alright, there has been a lot of replies, so please forgive me for not quoting every single one. I am grateful for all the hints at concepts and all the links. You have given me quite something to think about and mentioned names that should have come to my mind, but did not. So thank you for pointing me in those directions. The help is very much appreciated.
It appears that the topic at hand struck a nerve with some of you. My apologies, at no point did I intend to imply that good improvisations could be reduced execution of a rule based system.
Unfortunately, my thread also seems to have attracted attention from some posters, who actively choose to be offended by it. As I do not want to ruin anybody‘s day, I think that this forum and post is not the right platform to further discuss the matter at hand. Nobody needs that kind of energy.
A few closing remarks:
Implication vs. inference : kind of not my fault now, is it? I tried to be very careful and distinct. However, the heat of the evolving discussion does not seem to resemble the original question, which leads me to believe that contrary to a fellow poster’s son, people tend to talk about things that they’d rather not read beforehand. That‘s really a shame and, frankly, impolite.
Regarding my choice of degree - please understand my not really being interested in sharing or discussing my life and professional choices under the given circumstances and with everybody participating here. ;-)
It‘s a shame that on a forum like this, the same old gear questions are politely discussed over and over again, but that a question of genuine interest to me and at least some of you is frowned upon and replied to with such an abundance of negative energy.
So yes, learned my lesson: need gear advice, feel free to ask! Want to discuss something with a little more substance? Just don‘t ask.
If a mod wants to lock this down, please feel free to do so. I‘d really like to exchange ideas with anybody about this, but that could also be done via private messages. I will send some out in the morning.
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I read your original question and I regret nothing!
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Sh...
Originally Posted by pingu
Play along on this one.
I find this thesis to be quite stimulating intellectually.
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Just to add, Band In The Box can do it since early '90s, not particularly good, but anyway ... that is, spit out improvised solo, or melody, or whole arrangement in various styles, all based on set of rules.
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[QUOTE=zirenius;823454]
Regarding my choice of degree - please understand my not really being interested in sharing or discussing my life and professional choices under the given circumstances and with everybody participating here. ;-)
Honestly, I couldn't give 2 sheds about this, as Monty Python would say.
The observation, and question, were intended to be general in nature....indeed that is why I gave another, analogous e.g. with literature as compared to "literary theory".
Ideas interest me, not the people arguing them....in fact most arguments which rely on the identity of the proponent (appeals to authority, etc.) are usually fruitless, or poorly based arguments. Or they tend to get people overly emotionally involved....and that is never interesting.
I think you're taking this too personally...I will confess. I don't really know much about "musicology" as a discipline. I take it that people who do this...do not end up creating music, playing it, or composing it. ( I know that Jim Hall got a degree in composition, and actually wrote a string quartet, and had to work stuff out on a guitar...which he said helped him a lot.)
Musicology, though....need some help here.
To me, it sounds like being a literary critic, or an art critic. I respect a great writer, a great artist, but much less the critic of either....esp. the professional critic.
(And I'm not really being inconsistent, when I reserve the right to be unimpressed by credentialed mavens of some fashionable theory that will probably be bypassed in another 20 yrs.)
And as far as my own beliefs....all individuals have an unfettered right to spend their money, time and energy as they see fit....everyone is actually their own best "expert" when it comes right down to it.
I think you're reacting way too emotionally to these responses....a bucket of cold skepticism might be beneficial to you.Last edited by goldenwave77; 12-05-2017 at 12:24 AM.
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OK that's cool , but think he's gone off now anyway Originally Posted by Stevebol
Sorry bout that , come back ! there's some hard nuts
on here but its cool , we do discuss other things than gear sometimes ...
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Yeah but he's a pervert dude.. Originally Posted by christianm77
Maybe this?
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Good topic...but let me address your comment first..
It‘s a shame that on a forum like this, the same old gear questions are politely discussed over and over again, but that a question of genuine interest to me and at least some of you is frowned upon and replied to with such an abundance of negative energy.
So yes, learned my lesson: need gear advice, feel free to ask! Want to discuss something with a little more substance? Just don‘t ask.
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to be fair..you are entitled to your view of this forum..if that is all you have found on here..you haven't seen all the topics discussed here..far beyond "gear"..and a great many with immense substance and detail by many of the guests that frequent here--I'll leave it at that.
there are many Pros that post here, and in the years that I have been following and contributing here the topics of theory, rules, improvisation in jazz and other types of music have been explored in depth..
my take on your project....yes you can develop a computer program to assign a set of "rules" to the art of improve..but remember every rule that you develop no matter how convoluted or sophisticated has be played as is and broken many times by musicians who have dedicated their lives to the craft..not to say such a program would not be helpful to a developing musician or someone as yourself doing academic research.
Several musicians who's work come to mind in this regard:
Miles Davis
John Coltrane
Ben Monder
John McLaughlin
Steve Vai
Within these musicians' body of work you will find all the rules of western music applied and broken in many places..many pieces of their work have been analyzed by master musicians, musicologists and academics..in some cases it is done to bring clarity and understanding to the created music and the process to recreate it..in doing so some will expound on certain rules that must be adhered to before reaching a degree of proficiency to explore the mysteries of improvisation..but the term "rules" in regard to improvisation will have a backlash from many that feel improv in and of itself is a "rule free zone" .. so outside of the "head" in many jazz compositions rules are just a suggestion..much like traffic lights in los angeles
I hope you find my comments "of substance"...
good luck on your project
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I'm happy to correspond with you about this. I have a background in music education, jazz improv studies, computing, Analytics and Business Intelligence, and yes - graduate school and its different types of assignments, projects and papers. Please don't hesitate to send me a PM. Cheers. Originally Posted by zirenius
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Program a computer to paint a Monet while you're at it ...
The guys here could tell you about b5 substitutions or playing a pentatonic a half-step up from a 13 chord all day long, but I know enough about computers to know that rules in = rules out. And that ain't what improv music is about.
... unless your computer can occasionally close its eyes and just let go.
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Originally Posted by Thumpalumpacus
As my first Computer Science teacher told us... A computer has the intelligence one step above a rock. A rock know nothing and a computer know nothing and one.
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I think a lot of players roughly use a system of memorising vocabulary and spitting it back out. Maybe that could be a "system" in and of itself?
What I personally do is develop my vocabulary of short 4-5 note length jazz bits and pieces(all those little turns and things everybody plays), then apply them wherever applicable. I'm far from a jazz hero, but its a system and its working for me.
Maybe the program can learn a set of patterns and apply them in applicable positions?
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Uh-huh.
So guys - as a given/constraint let's say that the problem space is confined to developing basic/fundamental jazz line navigation skills only - no more/no less. In other words, we're talking about the equivalent of developing a capability to crawl and stand (not walk or run).
As one example - there is a G.I.T./MI book out there that peeps here on the forum we're obsessing about a few years ago, and it focused on jazz guitar improvisation. It mentioned something that the author referred to as "the connecting game".
So, without looking at that book:
1. Please;
(a) state the connecting game's rules for a variety of chord progressions by various root movements in as few words as possible that it is both syntactically perfect and logically elegant,
and
(b) produce students who can successfully apply these instructions such that they are able to render basic, sensible jazz lines when faced with random stimuli on the fly (i.e. a surprise chord progression in any key).
(a) Can you do that?
(b) Can you produce students who can do that?
(c) would a tool help?
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yes yes and yes--a black/white board and chalk/marker
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good for you. Originally Posted by eh6794-2.0
[QUOTE=goldenwave77;823467]Agreed, arguments directed at the person are always bad. I did take this one a bit personally, as the decision process leading up to this path of study was not really all my choice. To help you out on what musicologists do. I am afraid that there are a number of professional critics there. So I can't be of general help. However, I got into this from the perspective of a professional player / guitar teacher and am intrigued by certain areas of interest I found, one being the one I asked about here. But with any science - does there need to be a solid reason to seek understanding. Originally Posted by zirenius
Scepticism can be helpful and I am happy to take it - the part that annoyed me was that the majority of negativity plainly misread or had not read my argument.
No, not gone off - just gone to sleep, it got kind of late! Originally Posted by pingu
Yes, I do. And you are right: A backlash might have been expected. In all honesty, my above opinion is not my opinion of this entire forum. That was not a fair thing to say. I agree that studying the improvisers you named will lead to finding regularities within what they do. I was intrigued by finding a systematic piece of instruction that seemed to be explicitly based around rules and was wondering, if there were others - not because I want shortcuts to better improvisation (my experience tells me that this is an impossible thing to look for), but because that'd make the experiment at hand a lot easier. Originally Posted by wolflen
To be very clear. My intention is not to destroy the mystery of the moment of improvisation. Why would I? I love it when I get to that place myself. But I think that looking at the underlying mechanisms of acquiring the necessary skills certainly can't hurt anybody, can it?
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Thanx a lot, I will do so later today. Originally Posted by Jazzstdnt
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I really don’t see why this shouldn’t be an interesting area to study. I would have been a bit sceptical too, but watching the Jerry Bergonzi DVD where he creates valid musical ideas from some very simple rules showed me how useful some of this stuff can be.
Last night just for fun I tried repeatedly picking any 4 notes at random from the scale over a Dmin chord and trying to make a musical phrase from them (I imagined I was playing So What, for example). It’s surprising how many times this yielded useful results, and also made me play a phrase I would not normally have thought of.
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Also a simple rule on this forum - if people disagree greatly with what I say, I tend not to reply. What’s the point? They have a right to disagree. I don’t have time for internet arguments.
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Eight-year-olds, Dude.
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Thank you. I am borrowing a friend's copy of the Bergonzi books and will start there. Got to seriously advance this soon, as deadlines always approach faster than they seem at first... Originally Posted by grahambop
You are right. That is probably a lot healthier, I got a little defensive there. Originally Posted by grahambop
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OP, not everyone thinks improv can be taught but don't take it out of context. It would be boring if we agreed on everything. Not everyone believes in the distinction between pros and amateurs. I used to but not anymore.
Good luck with your thesis.
I used to be a pro and I hated it with a passion. I felt like a piece of meat.
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I definitely see a place for computer-based modelling as part of a well-balanced - i.e. 'blended' - learning 'diet'. Originally Posted by zirenius
A parallel in language learning might be deliberate formation of nonsense sentences - as a strategy for developing grammatical and syntactic control: Linkword Languages - The Easiest Way To Learn A Language
While I know of a few great apps for musical training, they're (perhaps necessarily, and in a good way) limited in scope.
CST - for local/chord-of-the-moment - would seems ripe for such training. You've already mentioned the Barry Harris approach, but I think that's ripe for 'gamification' - and I suspect he'd consent.
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Being the internet, it's often quite hard to get a simple answer to a straight question. Originally Posted by zirenius
The answer is very simple: yes, there is much instructional material that gives clear rules for practice. Almost any structured course does exactly that. Usually it starts with arpeggios and goes on from there.
Of course, whether the student decides to follow the guidelines precisely is another matter :-)
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