Building Jazz Guitar Vocabulary

[Kojo27]

I don't think the audience much cares whether you just came up with a lick or you've played it a hundred times before; they care whether it sounds good to them. Lot of players have soloed over the same tune a bunch of times and found things that work and the audience love and so they repeat them. There's nothing wrong with that.

That said, it's good to learn how to improvise. It's a craft worth the effort it takes to develop.

I'll be dragged over the coals for this, but when it comes to artistic expression, screw the audience. Or stated more civilly, the audience should not be a consideration, imo. It's about SELF expression; not "somebody else-expression." The music is what the player feels, imagines, etc. (We're talking improvised music here.) If the audience paid to see you (or not), respect them and be grateful to them. But, insofar as this kind of music is an art, just as a poet uses words to express himself, and a painter uses his material to give form to the beauty in his imagination, the notes, chords, and rhythm are the musician's tools; and his reason for performing (if he's an artist and not just an 'entertainer') is, IMHO, to share with listeners this transference of imagination to music, with the artist on stage. His job is to do his thing before people who (should) find wonder in how the musician bodies forth imaginary sounds into real sounds, right there, not far from them. It *is* a wonderful thing, when you think about it. Julian Lage leaps to mind. Recall his solo performance of Autumn Leaves -- it's magic! He's spontaneously composing, imo, and is happy to share. Maybe that's why he smiles all the time?

If we're talking about playing tunes the crowd likes to hear - sure, to a point. But it's *how* the player plays a request that is his doing, his creating. This is why I never understood bands whose goal is to "play it just like the record." What art is here? Art of mimicry is all I see.

Anyway, Mark -- I know what you're saying, I believe: if the audience is paying, if only attention, an artist whose shared music speaks nothing to them... this artist is screwed and won't be on stage long. He'd better produce something delightful. But how he does this should be 100% his call, I think. When we listen to Julian Lage play Autumn Leaves, the audience has nothing directly to do with what Jules plays on his guitar. But are they moved? Oh yeah. That video has 30,000+ views, I believe.

[CP40Carl]

Thanks KJ.

I guess that I just wanted to warn against over dependance on learning licks. I suspect that most would agree that other crucial methods of learning, e.g. transcribing and studying solo transcriptions, simply listening to jazz and spending "time on the instrument" (possibly my favourite quote from a member of this forum!) also play a big part on the road to effetive improvisation.

Carl.

[MarkRhodes]

This is what always threw me when amassing licks. *HOW*? One at a time? Surely not, I'd think.

Why would you think not? One at a time seems the most natural way. Remember that great Anne Lamott story?

>>>"Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'" <<<

[theentertainer]

I myself always found learning licks a bit time wasting. I never think in terms of licks because I found it to be quite hard and not very rewarding. I have my `own` ideas, which repeat but it`s not like I have the phrases in my head like melodies. They just come into my fingers when I need to play them.