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A hilarious scene !
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02-25-2018 04:29 AM
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Massive thanks for all the valuable insights and for the clips / vids charts etc. It’s good to know I’m not alone which is of course what this forum is all about. My take always so far are understanding and breaking down the form and identifying the challenging bits, keeping track of the melody as I move through the changes and just really getting familiar with the song.
I love Tim’s comment that it is just a song after all. In all the effort to alter the song through improvisation this is an easy thing to forget which I think can sometimes be the worse for the listener.
Regarding form, I have to be the laziest bastards in the Northeast. And I’m not afraid to admit that my avoidance thus far in plowing in to the analysis of form and structure has not done me any good. Taking the above suggestions has already produced results. So will continue to absorb the above insights and continue tracking threads. Glen From Connecticut.
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I've read that Basie once said that there's nothing wrong with staying close to the melody.
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Question.... what is your approach to learning a new tune?
I'm only asking because I take too much for credit.... after reading the don_oz post ... I realized that you might not understand what learning a tune is.
When one learns a tune... you generally start with the melody, and as don_oz posted, learn that melody with the harmony.
I still believe you need a Form to fit any melody and changes in.... the spatial form. But that should be a given... you don't play your guitar without actually first picking up your guitar.
You need a visible or mental shape or layout... to organize, layout, assemble... bring together... all the parts of the music to represent the Tune.
And while your learning the melody, you use that melody to help learn the changes, melodies make specific references to harmony, at least as the tune is notated...Obviously that is only one time through the tune... and if that's all you do is recite the same changes from the chart etc... your not really playing in a jazz style... your playing a jazz tune... if it is even a jazz tune.
After you learn the tune... then you would start the process of improvisation... solos.
Soloing can be melodic development, and usually involves harmonic development... your probable not ready to start this process yet.
Anyway... there is a organized approach to learning tunes. When I was young in college, I transcribed music for $. You didn't get paid that much.... you needed a fast organized approach....Long story short.... you start with a shape, (form), and fill in the blanks. It works, and in the process you at least become aware of some basic understanding of what your trying to play....
Back when I transcribed tunes... there were no computers or slow down apps etc...
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Good topic!
What really helped me was to solo for 2 measures and then play the chord,
solo 1 measure or so and play the chord etc.
Here´s a quick take of my playing. (Has nothing to do with playing any melody though)
Hans
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“Here's the first 8 bars. The first clip is just noodling round the tonal centres, the second doing what I've said above. See which you think sounds better! “
Both are nice but my ear likes the harmonic clarity of your second half. I’m outlining the chords well enough and I am at the point in my playing (somewhere on the intermediate spectrum I guess) where I’m mixing up the order of the chord tones which certainly produces a lot of nice sounds. However I wouldn’t go so far as to call this phrasing. Thank you for the audio. Some very nice ideas in there. Glen
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Originally Posted by goldenwave77
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So many wise things have already been said, so forgive me if this already has been covered but here are my two cents:
Firstly: don't worry too much about it! Everyone trying to dig into those vast jazz tunes with all those complicated chord changes go through what you are experiencing now at some point (I certainly have, and I must admit: it still happens from time to time). Don't forget us jazzers are trying to do something bordering on the impossible here
Some people already referred to this, but what really helped for me is working on and with the melody. Especially when starting out I didn't want to do this at all, I wanted to improvise, play lines, like my heroes. It seems boring to just practice 'melody'. But after I gave in and really worked on my melody playing I started to improve my feel for the form and the changes much quicker. Learn to sing the melody, learn to play it, play it to backing tracks, play it with a metronome only, play a chord melody, etc you should aim to do as much of this as possible or at least dedicate some time of your practice routine to this.
Eventually, your end goal, where you want to get, is that you know the melody (and therewith the form) so well, that you feel and hear where you are in relation to the melody, all the time. That is when you really get to know the tune and when you are improvising on changes and you know the melody really well. You start to interact with the melody and that is when the true magic of improvising happens, at least to me.Last edited by AmsterdamJazzist; 03-15-2018 at 10:10 AM.
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Originally Posted by AmsterdamJazzist
Video: How to SMOOTHLY play diminished chords
Today, 02:19 PM in Improvisation