Les Wise: How to Learn Jazz Tunes Quickly

[MarkRhodes]

Try this using a simplified skeletal version of the melody. It need not be the exact literal tune.

That's what I do when I'm trying to sing! ;o)

I'll give it a whirl, see what happens.

[JazzinNY]

Long-time lurker here ...

I'm not qualified to speak "from the bandstand" -- just wanted to defend this method because it helped me A LOT -- with respect to chords.

You compress the time between the chords, and it forms a stronger link in your brain.

As for the melody, can't say I really use his method per se ... but I do often divorce a passage from its rhythm while learning the tune in the first place. I'll even just say the note names out loud first, then play them, real slowly.

[MarkRhodes]

I'm not qualified to speak "from the bandstand" -- just wanted to defend this method because it helped me A LOT -- with respect to chords.

You compress the time between the chords, and it forms a stronger link in your brain.

That's how it seems to me too. I remember as a kid practicing basic chord changes but I never practiced / internalized the changes of a standard this way. I have only done it with a few sets of changes so far but it has worked well.

[ecj]

That's how it seems to me too. I remember as a kid practicing basic chord changes but I never practiced / internalized the changes of a standard this way. I have only done it with a few sets of changes so far but it has worked well.

No argument about chords. Practicing doing 1 beat to a chord using the metronome is a staple of my practice. That's more because of the physical aspect of the changes, though, not to learn the roadmap. I think it's easier to lean the roadmap by thinking about the building blocks of cadences.

I do something kind of what like Les Wise is advocating for singing. I break the melody into intervals and just practice singing each interval individually with neutral phonemes, then with the actual vowels, then with the actual consonants. Then I break it up into phrases and do the same thing in rhythm. Then I do the whole thing adding breathing patterns.

So, I guess reflecting on that, if I was at the same level with guitar playing as with singing I might find some benefit to this method.

[MarkRhodes]

I received an email from Les Wise. I won't quote the email in full---as that would be wrong---but I can't pull this quote from it, as it is germane to this thread and was the main reason I wrote to him, asking him for his take with the understanding that I would report on it here.


>>>You are right when you suggested to the Jazz forum that I was not actually playing the tune per se… I was demonstrating a way to learn melodies -- FIRST by just programming the NOTES and CONTOUR of the melody—just as you would a lick or groove. <<<<<

That was my take on what he was doing and it seems to be his own as well.

[christianm77]

Melody is often overlooked as a starting point. Learning the words can also help you learn the melody. Standards are *songs*.

That said, why not just learn them as songs. Seems over complicated.

[MarkRhodes]

Mark : do you think her facility has something to do with the instrument she plays ? I recall hearing several stories similar to the one you told, and I'm thinking that the neatly organized keyboard really helps when doing things by ear.

You could be on to something. It's the first instrument she played, and the only one she's played seriously, so she really has nothing to compare it to. But what you say makes sense to me, a longtime guitarist.

Mom told me she had a few music lessons as a kid but the teacher told her, "You're just playing what I play by ear. Let's stop wasting your mother's money." I've asked her how she knew to do that but she never has an answer beyond, "I just knew."

I've heard that some horn players compose at a piano because the layout seems to help them....

Coming at this another way, I recall hearing the guitarist Slash (Guns'n'Roses) say that when he was starting out, he memorized all the notes on the guitar. I won't repeat what I actually said when I heard that, but my thinking ran along the following line. "I don't see how anyone could; the pitches repeat in various places."

It's funny that I never thought the piano would be easier to play because of its layout...

[christianm77]

That's the ticket. Tunes I memorize by looking at the notes tend to come and go and the only ones I learned that way that are actually internalized are the oldies like All the Things You Are that I've literally played 1000 times. They probably weren't internalized until the 500th time.

When I transcribe a tune and changes it's stuck. Even if you can't remember the chord symbol you know how the tune goes and the harmonic motion and you can feel the guide tone lines etc. You've let your ear swim around in the tune for a while and soak it up. Jazz is ear music. Not eye music.

Ever notice the difference in the quality of time feel when you are playing a tune that everyone knows well and a tune that people know less well? It's like night and day (pun not intended haha)

[MarkRhodes]

I'm also not sure how ditching the melodic rhythm helps?

But I'm not sure why this makes sense for single note melodies.

I talked some more about this with Les. He says the key word in the title of the video is "quickly." This method isn't for learning tunes you have lots of time to learn, or tunes you've heard a hundred times or more already. It's more like being given a chart on Tuesday of an original tune the band you'll perform with Friday expects you to have down. Or maybe it's a standard, just not one you know or have often heard, but which you need to be able to perform very soon.
In those cases, "time is of the essence," and this approach makes the most of that time.