The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Does anyone here perform solo guitar arrangments the same way each time, with no spontaneous improvisation added on? I'm just trying to dig deeper into what the norms are for performing...

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  3. #2

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    I'd be interested in hearing people's thoughts on that.

    I don't do a whole lot of solo guitar gigs anymore. I used to do a lot of them, and I wouldn't ever perform anything the same way twice. I think being able to do that is a great skill, is it artistry... I don't know, I'm not sure. Honestly, I'm not sure if performing solo is really Jazz or if it's something a little different that borrows from elements of it, that's just me.

    For me the key was to get to a point with playing solo that I didn't need arrangements and can just play the tune by myself. That way when called to do a gig I can just play the compositions and standards I want to. I do have specific things worked out for sections, re-harmonizations I lean towards for example, but for the most part it's all improvised after that point including introductions or endings etc. Some tunes I like to play solo I change the keys which I think is super important to know how to do, especially as a Guitarist since all keys are not created equal.

  4. #3

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    When I played more classical guitar I did. I think early on, that became the polar opposite of what I learned jazz is, though.
    I saw pre-arrangements as a process of re-creating an existing piece of music. The process is a step by step construction of something that already existed. So the excitement of jazz, or improvisational music, wasn't the product of having a pretty tune, but rather the process of making something given some structure but employing compositional or arranging skills. Because that's the way I learned jazz, that's the way I see it: as a creative endeavour. I play pre-arrangements when I'm by myself, and I also make a conscious effort to change my direction if I detect a too familiar route if I'm playing for real.
    There are books on famous chess games, and one can relive games step by step. It's truly inspiring to watch the dialogue unfold and be there as one of the players. Playing a solo piece is like a chess game between a player and a piece; a living dialogue. You need to think ahead and use your imagination to create an outcome. Playing a pre arrangement of a chess game is cool, but it's not the dialogue of playing and intention. I wouldn't think of it as chess.
    That doesn't diminish my love for Johnny Smith or Julian Bream, but in the tradition, playing by rote isn't jazz.

    Good question Jazzy_Dan.

    David
    Last edited by TH; 08-26-2017 at 12:08 PM.

  5. #4

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    I totally think there is a place for playing pretty much memorized arrangements, even with a chorus or two of pre-composed variations on the themes of the melody. For people like me, totally spontaneous improvisation is not going to happen at a really high level. Let's face it, I can't compose compelling music at my leisure, sitting with my instrument and note pad. What makes me think I'll do better "live" and spontaneously?

    Of course, jazz improvisation is rarely total spontaneity, and we all know that. Still, I've found that learning what I call a "framework arrangement" of a tune helps. I work with the tune until I can create maybe three or four "arrangements," studying different ways to play each section. Then when I play, I "spontaneously" select the way of playing each section that comes to mind in the moment.

    I also shamelessly play some memorized solos as well. I want my listeners to hear some good music!

    Side Story: I'm a preacher, and we had a really excellent preacher in my town, who wrote out his sermons word for word. Once a month, he would make it available to anyone who wanted it. Of course, all us young preacher-boys would pretty much hi-jack the sermon and use it ourselves. I asked him "What do you think of guys like me preaching your sermons?" He laughed, with kind of an ironic expression, looked at me and said, "Well, that might be the only good sermon you preach!"

  6. #5

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    My solo CD is about half arranged or at least loosely arranged tunes. Over the years I've compiled many arrangements of tunes, never written out, but memorized. (Others are sort of arranged on the fly, playing solo on gigs).

    But when you play w/people it's another ball game. You throw out what you did before and listen...

  7. #6

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    Good question. With solo stuff I generally work up an arrangement of the melody with chords, and stick with it thereafter (but I find I am able to do this much quicker than I used to, I guess it gets easier the more you do). But then I like to play one or two improvised choruses as well. This is much harder and I'm still working on it.

    I basically try to do what Tim Lerch advocates here, but I'm not this good at it!


  8. #7

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    Yes and no...on many tunes, I have a pretty good idea of how I'll play the head, but after that, it's caution to the wind.

    Actually, playing a whole set of music note for note sounds very stressful to me.

  9. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jazzy_Dan
    Does anyone here perform solo guitar arrangments the same way each time, with no spontaneous improvisation added on? I'm just trying to dig deeper into what the norms are for performing...
    I did that for about a decade - first as a (successful) coping strategy for performing at private functions events, but later as a way of memorising harmonies with a view to being able to hear, recall and produce them at will. (In my own limited way, I can now do that - which is gratifying.)

    But nowadays I get bored easily - at my best, I keep it short, resisting the urge to stifle, and eschewing The Looper, too. At my worst, I (foolishly and regrettably) indulge in excess. No prizes for guessing what goes down best with impartial listeners.

    On the other hand, I take the view that it's a bad idea to perform/gig at all unless conditions are (at least) acceptable. (I also think my definition of acceptable might be luxury for some.)

    The most important thing about performing, imo, is not whether it's improvised - it's whether you can give a lift to the one or two people present who need it more than the others. That makes a difference.

  10. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by destinytot
    The most important thing about performing, imo, is not whether it's improvised - it's whether you can give a lift to the one or two people present who need it more than the others. That makes a difference.
    You mean... we have to consider... the LISTENER!

    So true, and so easily forgotten.

  11. #10

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    Lots of great wisdom...thanks everybody. So it seems that some others are in the same boat as me. I can write/compose much better when spending time working out (writing)a tune, but I'm a little weak on the spontaneous improv element of performing the tune. Apparently time and practice remedy this. I've been trying to build up the guts and feasiable approach (and a feasible number of songs) to play low key gigs (with not a lot, IF ANY people). I was thinking I would play 3-song sets (of worked out arrangments) to a very very very small audience, and when I get comfortable enough, attempting some spontaneous improv on the same tunes and/or adding on more songs as I get more comfortable.

  12. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by lawson-stone
    You mean... we have to consider... the LISTENER!
    I think that, when it counts, there's only one listener (singular) - but 'hearer' is closer to what I actually mean. I certainly wouldn't defer to an audience, or treat them with condescension - but I know that's what I do whenever I fail to demonstrate trust. (Be still and know...)

  13. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jazzy_Dan
    Lots of great wisdom...thanks everybody. So it seems that some others are in the same boat as me. I can write/compose much better when spending time working out (writing)a tune, but I'm a little weak on the spontaneous improv element of performing the tune. Apparently time and practice remedy this. I've been trying to build up the guts and feasiable approach (and a feasible number of songs) to play low key gigs (with not a lot, IF ANY people). I was thinking I would play 3-song sets (of worked out arrangments) to a very very very small audience, and when I get comfortable enough, attempting some spontaneous improv on the same tunes and/or adding on more songs as I get more comfortable.
    I think that's a totally realistic and entirely "do-able" plan.

    What I do also is, when I learn a new way to negotiate a particular set of changes, say a ii-V-I or something, I take a standard I already play and try to play it using the new "vocabulary." What happens over time is for each tune I've learned, I have several options and I know how they go together. So then when I'm playing, say, "Misty," and I decide I want to give it a darker turn, well, I know how to play it with substitutions that give it just that. In the middle, if I see people hate it that way (yes, they usually do) I also know how to bail and resolve to something more accessible.

    I don't have a lot of tunes I can play like that on, maybe a dozen after many years of struggle, but it has become my standard practice method: take a tune I play and try to fit all the solo guitar "vocabulary" that I know to that tune until they become like tools on a workbench, or colors on a palette, that i can use at will.

    I am doing the same thing with single-note/line playing. I learn a solo by some competent player, and then I cannibalize the solo for parts to use in solos for tunes I know. That is a more recent thing for me, so I can't give you a very reliable report yet on how it's going! Still, my first rule when I play is, "Have something to play." That doesn't mean "memorized" but in some way, it does mean "prepared."

  14. #13
    Variation in "feels" helps a lot with inspiring new ideas , even if you're using similar voicings etc.
    Base level , try to be able to play anything a few different ways:

    Straight ahead - with swing eighths (or really 8th note triplets)

    Latin - with 16ths base

    Double time - with your would-be 8ths becoming your quarter notes etc.

    If you're working on the chord melody, play something on every subdivision of the beat when you're working out this stuff. That comprises about 98% of the work that really needs to be done in my opinion. There's really nothing else to do anyway, when you're just hammering out something slowly with voicings. In the process you learn to truly play anything differently every time anyway.

  15. #14

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    Since i'm not a professional musician and I only mainly play for myself mainly as a form of therapy ( because playing music is the most beautiful thing in the world and keeps us sane , no matter what our own respective levels )the few times I played out at private dinner parties this year were 100% experiments . I decided to have nothing prepared and to wing it 100%, pure improvisation, like a piss poor attempt at a Keith Jarrett Kõln Concert. It was my attempt to play 100% purely spontaneous fully improvised piano style guitar. Well, that's the goal anyway.

    Here's what I discovered:

    I didn't think I was very good and didn't like the sound as well. Lots of room for improvement.
    The guy who's parties is it is really likes it and always wants me back for whatever strange reason.
    If anyone has said anything, mostly it was complementary. I find most people don't notice the music until there's no music. Then something feels Amiss.
    You can pretty much play anything you want , as long as it sounds somewhat tonal at times but more importantly, keeps momentum and flow going. That matters for more than repertoire. .
    The best compliment I ever got was when trained musicians who are teachers and in the symphony came up to me afterwards and said, "what piece was that "? That happened twice
    The most I've been able to do it is 90 minutes straight. Then It gets physically exhausting .
    In a large warehouse space, when amplified, any electric guitar will do. In fact, a plank is probably better than a very nice carved arch top.
    In fact, the best guitar for performance and comfort and sound in a large space is the cheapest one that I own: the Gibson ES 339.

  16. #15

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    @NSJ....I might try that...lol. Sounds like fun.

  17. #16

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    Quote Originally Posted by NSJ
    Since i'm not a professional musician and I only mainly play for myself mainly as a form of therapy ( because playing music is the most beautiful thing in the world and keeps us sane , no matter what our own respective levels )the few times I played out at private dinner parties this year were 100% experiments . I decided to have nothing prepared and to wing it 100%, pure improvisation, like a piss poor attempt at a Keith Jarrett Kõln Concert. It was my attempt to play 100% purely spontaneous fully improvised piano style guitar. Well, that's the goal anyway.

    Here's what I discovered:

    I didn't think I was very good and didn't like the sound as well. Lots of room for improvement.
    The guy who's parties is it is really likes it and always wants me back for whatever strange reason.
    If anyone has said anything, mostly it was complementary. I find most people don't notice the music until there's no music. Then something feels Amiss.
    You can pretty much play anything you want , as long as it sounds somewhat tonal at times but more importantly, keeps momentum and flow going. That matters for more than repertoire. .
    The best compliment I ever got was when trained musicians who are teachers and in the symphony came up to me afterwards and said, "what piece was that "? That happened twice
    The most I've been able to do it is 90 minutes straight. Then It gets physically exhausting .
    In a large warehouse space, when amplified, any electric guitar will do. In fact, a plank is probably better than a very nice carved arch top.
    In fact, the best guitar for performance and comfort and sound in a large space is the cheapest one that I own: the Gibson ES 339.
    What an excellent post - thank you, Navdeep!

    Powerful amplification can enable one to play gently, without sacrificing (to me, crucial) dynamics in the attack - and I believe that's connected to one's temperament (and to 'connection', too).

  18. #17

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    I've had the opposite experience as @NSJ. I too play for "therapy" reasons only. I too have been asked to play an event by friends. Once I played with another player without any prepared music. We played several choruses of a major blues, then a minor blues. Then vamped on a IV-V modal thing. Then a slow minor blues. 45 minutes of playing.

    No one noticed. No one turned their heads. We might as well have been Pandora over the PA.

    The previous year I went with several memorized solo pieces. Five, I think. People pulled up chairs to listen. The asked questions about what I played, questions about my guitar, questions about where else I played.

    I think people will tolerate ambient noodling if it is not too masterbatory . They want music they recognize and can relate to.

    YMMV.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  19. #18

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    When I go on a long time listening jazz then there comes this moment when randomly clicking on some good old legendary classical piece and I'm suddenly in awe, feels like a breath of fresh air. EVERYTHING makes sense, ALL those little notes have a REASON to be there... Then, after binging for a while, it grows old and the need for some chaos and unpredictable bursts comes back.

    Both - the written and the unwritten have totally legit reasons to exist. Do what feels right, can't go wrong even if choosing wrong sometimes.

  20. #19

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jazzy_Dan
    Does anyone here perform solo guitar arrangments the same way each time, with no spontaneous improvisation added on? I'm just trying to dig deeper into what the norms are for performing...

    I do, when I play the few jazz pieces I've written -- it's why I don't think of myself as a jazz guitarist, because I don't improvise (I'm simply not at that level yet to do so competently. With non-jazz pieces where my skillset is more evolved, I have no problem improvising and if playing solo will be happy to improvise a whole song if that's where the mood takes me, because that's where I find the soul of music.

  21. #20

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jazzy_Dan
    Does anyone here perform solo guitar arrangements the same way each time
    Only when

    a) I'm nervous
    b) I don't know what I'm doing

    I think I've only ever repeated a solo in public once.

    It was a band I hadn't played with before and a tune I didn't really know. I didn't want to let them down/mess it up so I played it by rote. I have to say it worked like a charm

  22. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    ...so I played it by rote. I have to say it worked like a charm
    Works like a charm for most people. Illinois Jacquet played the same solo on Flying Home every time. (That had something to do w/being an entertainer. Back then, audiences expected the same solo live they heard on record).

    Very few real improvisers out there. It takes real courage to take chances and not use the old trick bag...

  23. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jazzy_Dan
    Does anyone here perform solo guitar arrangments the same way each time, with no spontaneous improvisation added on? I'm just trying to dig deeper into what the norms are for performing...
    For the tunes I do solo, I work out an arrangement of the head, and generally play that note for note every time. If it's a short form, I might play the full head, improvise a chorus or two, then come back to the melody either on the bridge or the last A. On longer forms (like AABA ballads), I like to improvise the first two A's then end with a pre-arranged BA. Howard Alden or Joe Pass I ain't, so I try not to subject people to the entire long form head, plus improv choruses, plus a reprise of the entire head. (Caveat: I don't have a lot of purely solo repetoire, so grains of salt).

    John

  24. #23

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    I think, also, it's a matter of good musical taste and the demands of the song:

    I've been wanting to put When the Wind Was Green in my book ever since hearing Sinatra sing it. The melody is so complete it says everything, and to me a solo would almost ruin it. It reminds me of what Fred Hersch said about Lush Life, and I agree:

    'Why do people solo on that? Sing the song and get the hell off the stage'.

    Hear, hear. It ain't Minority. Know what I mean? Like, would you improvise on Soliloquy from Carousel? As Sellers/Clouseau said, 'there's a time and place for everything, and this isn't one of them'...

  25. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by fasstrack
    I think, also, it's a matter of good musical taste and the demands of the song:

    I've been wanting to put When the Wind Was Green in my book ever since hearing Sinatra sing it. The melody is so complete it says everything, and to me a solo would almost ruin it. It reminds me of what Fred Hersch said about Lush Life, and I agree:

    'Why do people solo on that? Sing the song and get the hell off the stage'.

    Hear, hear. It ain't Minority. Know what I mean? Like, would you improvise on Soliloquy from Carousel? As Sellers/Clouseau said, 'there's a time and place for everything, and this isn't one of them'...
    I think that's true a lot of ballads, especially Ellington/Strayhorn ones.

    John

  26. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by John A.
    I think that's true a lot of ballads, especially Ellington/Strayhorn ones.

    John
    Well, FWIW my old friend Bob Mover recorded Something to live for on soprano, swung and sans verse. Worked for me...