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So, I'm reading through Berliner's wonderful 'thinking in jazz', pages 110 onwards and its lining up a few concepts.
One thing that comes up is something that I've felt my self intuitively towards is the idea of a more organic aural awareness of music that doesn't enshrine transcription as a noteworthy process but rather the very fabric of my teaching and learning. Berliner mentions a band leader who asked if a student had heard a tune - when she replied she had, he counted it off. The point being - you should be able to play what you hear, and remember what you have heard.
Obviously, most competent jazz musicians are able to effortlessly repeat phrases back on first hearing, but Berliner talks about jazz teachers 'shadowing' their students - doubling their phrases fractionally behind as they improvise them. I've never had this experience, but I'm sure some other members of the forum might be able to share their own experiences of this. Apparently it's maddening!
Berliner discusses Barry's workshops from the point of view of this approach. It's long occurred to me that Barry is working the muscles of musical memory as well as mere musical reproduction on instruments. This is hardcore training, aural weightlifting, Berliner calls it 'gruelling' and I have often found myself too exhausted to continue, while Barry's powers of concentration are going strong. With all due respect you can't learn this side of Barry's teaching from YouTube videos. The 'stuff' of his teaching is perhaps less important than how he teaches it.
I can only say that my powers of recall have improved over time - something that's true of many of Barry's students according to Berliner. Through Zoom, I now have the option of attending Barry's class every week, and I am happy that my skills in this area have improved a lot. I'm still hardly a very good aural musician by the standards of some of my colleagues, but I'm getting better.
You can see analogous practices in the work of Banacos and Tristano. And Edwin Gordon's Learning Sequences in Music is kind of the theory text for why all this stuff is so important, although for various reasons I doubt these jazz educators were aware of his work.
About two years ago I moved from learning solos as set pieces to trying to shadow recorded solos (BTW I hadn't read Berliner at this point, it just seemed a good way to echo the process of improvisation.) Learning 1000 songs is another one... And of course transcribing solos (although there are many greats who never learned a whole solo.)
So this is what I was I meant on the other thread when I said that 'ear training' and 'transcription' are drops in the ocean. Ear learning should be the water we all swim through.
Take off your water wings. There's only one way to get better.
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08-21-2020 05:49 AM
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Classical musicians devote a lot of efford on sight-reading. Jazz musicians perhaps should devote as much efford on sight-playing (oral-playing?).
I agree with your Barry Harris observation. There is a lot more to Barry Harris workshops than the material. Getting your ass kicked week in week out in the workshops in the beginning and not quite understanding the goings-on as much as more experienced students give a lot of drive to shred the material during the week. The joy one feels when they gradually start getting things is another motivation factor. Also as you said part of the challenge of the workshops is getting your ears up to speed.
Playing back phrases by ear is one aspect of ear training. But there is also the harmonic ear training. Being able to recognize voicings, extensions by ear. What do you think about that? I'm transcribing the comping tracks of Barry Galbraith's Guitar Comping book. It's helping me in being able to hear the notes in inner voicings, distinguish between crunchy and open intervals inside chords, recognize extensions etc.
I trying to treat ear training as a mindfulness exercise. It's more about having deliberate awareness and attention to musical events than doing dry exercises 3 times a week I think.Last edited by Tal_175; 08-21-2020 at 11:38 AM.
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Honestly, I think you are having to do ear training, you need to put more ear work into all aspects of your playing. Ear training = practicing your instrument really. Sight reading is ear training too, because you have to audiate rhythms.
Formal ear training is about naming things. That may be useful in some instance. But I've not noticed a direct connection between my functional pitch recognition and my ability to play phrases on the guitar by ear. It's like they are two seperate things.
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Ocean is a good word for this.
We got fingers,ears,eyes,theory and finally feelings. Connections both ways between the various info bits - it is the ocean, yep.
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A fun tool would be a recording of jazz phrases of increasing length and complexity, with a space for the listener to duplicate the phrase. Certainly not the same, at all, as doing this live with a teacher who can challenge with changes of pace and unexpected ideas, but it could still be a useful and even fun tool for the teacher-less middling player.
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Completely agree. Pitch recognition is very important, but it's just one aspect of having "great ears."
I'm thinking in particular of two guys whose ears were legendary: Mozart and Pierre Boulez. Mozart (allegedly) wrote down Allegri's "Miserere" after hearing it once while he was still a child. Boulez was famous for being able to conduct the most thorny 20th century repertoire without a score in front of him.
Perfect pitch? Almost certainly. But that can't be all there is to it. Just being able to recognize pitches isn't enough to memorize something like Wozzeck, anymore than being able to recognize numbers is enough to memorize pi to 100 digits.
And I can certainly attest that Barry Harris' workshops are exhausting, I would come out of them feeling like my brain was fried (didn't help that they ended well after midnight most weeks).
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I once had the pleasure of observing a conducting class with Boulez. Schoenbergs piano concerto. He was singing all lines in solfege...(which is the way the French do I guess) but from memory
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TBF Miserere is quite repetitive. I’m more impressed by Boulez tbh lol
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Agreed, the ocean.
I've mentioned before that the biggest influence on my playing really started when I was the guitarist of the host band of an open mic, four hours every Sunday evening for ten years. That was over 2000 hours of highly focused performance in a challenging situation for an ear player like me. The host band itself had about 80 tunes of a wide variety, and half the time the drummer or the bass player was a sub sitting in (because we were all in other bands), and about half the time the host band had sax or trumpets. The guest musicians that showed up to play called a wide variety of additional songs including their own compositions which we usually accompanied, unheard. Every evening was an adventure, a challenging live learning session, and a glorious bunch of fun.
I was always quite fearless in the prospect of the unexpected, but as the years passed that evolved into a calm legitimate confidence playing the tunes I'd never heard with people I'd just met... I guess that would be the deep end of the ocean; a wonderful place to swim.
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Hey Lawson... your playing is really coming on btw, very much enjoyed your last videos. Can I point out you can also do the above exercise with a recording? I might suggest something simple at first like a Jim Hall, Charlie Christian or Grant Green solo. Or Chet Baker, Miles, Prez or Paul Desmond if you fancy getting away from the guitar...
Originally Posted by lawson-stone
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Actually there’s nothing wrong with water wings although you may have to be pushed to discard them eventually. Getting in the water is the most important thing.
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I've actually done some transcription. This exercise strikes me as something else, kind of a dueling guitars scenario. Originally Posted by christianm77
But... I need to back off playing pre-written solos, much as I enjoy them, and try some off-the-record borrowing.
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There is not much talk about the exhaustion when learning/practicing. But found some blog about learning a language in the internet. They said that its a good thing...
feeling "spent" I mean.
Makes sense actually. Comparing to physical training now. When just keeping a good shape, all we need is to do a light training now and then. It takes so little effort to keep whatever is gained compared to pushing forward and getting better... muscle, endurance etc. Skills maybe.
But this thread made me remember one interesting thing from 20ish years ago.
I went to some guitar festivals abroad. So I needed to be able to talk in English. I've had only had learned some in school but with no practical usage in real life. Internet was useless also in those times. So - some schooling, some songs. Thats it.
But I was so excited to go and for a few weeks, I used English... when thinking. About anything. Occasionally looked some words up.
This worked like magic. I was surprised to hear myself babble away with no hiccups later.
Anyway - a good question time: how much time do we spend thinking about music? If only when learning and practicing, then that might not be enough for bigger ambitions.
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Oh god yeah. If you aren't tired after practicing for an hour, you aren't really practicing.
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Thanks so much for that little encouragement at the start. I should also say one of the most productive things I've done was follow your suggestion of patting on 1 and 3 rather than 1-2-3-4. It was perfect to try with the written out solos I'd memorized and immediately smoothed out some parts I was having trouble with. I'm trying to make alternate beats my default way of counting time. Originally Posted by christianm77
I might pull out some recording and try to match phrases spontaneously and see how it goes.
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You've gone through plenty of material. I'd suggest you come up with your own solos... even if you hear a line in your head, figure out the line on guitar, write the line down... sort of like transcribing what you hear in your head. Maybe you'll find the Charlie Parker lines might be ingrained and come out on their own. Originally Posted by lawson-stone
Myself, I often solo in really slow motion. Probably why I like ballads.
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I don't think it's an either/or. If inspiration is a little hard to come by there's no better way to get the juices flowing than doing a little listen/play. Creativity and listening go hand in hand. Some people seem to think listening to music and getting into it inhibits creativity. I have always found the opposite. Originally Posted by fep
My advice is to be aware of exactly what you are specifically working on
- to practice playing lines that you hear on the instrument, then listen to the line, and play it back.
- to work your memory, work on your recall of progressively longer phrases.
- to play something perfectly note for note, slow it down where you need to.
- for fast and fluent ears, train at speed and approximate a little at first.
- to practice improvising by ear on your instrument, play phrases on your instrument
- to practice dictation to notation, try to write it down without an instrument. (I find this a completely different thing.)
And so on...
Obviously, writing things down is not part of the core process of improvising or playing jazz, for all that it's a useful skill. Barry would discourage it in class. Reason why is that you want to work your musical memory. Anyway Berliner goes into some detail on this, it's quite interesting.
Barry seems to prioritise fast and fluent ears, and musical memory above perfect accuracy (although he will stop and correct some errors) and notational fluency.Last edited by christianm77; 08-21-2020 at 07:22 PM.
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I met Boulez back in the late '80s at the Avignon Festival and observed rehearsals with the Ensemble Intercontemporain. An incredible experience to witness him working up close! However, even someone with a seemingly infallible ear like Boulez felt the heat in Messiaen's harmony classes: Originally Posted by christianm77
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nowadays I am tired after an hour of doing anyting... Originally Posted by christianm77
I catched the "awerness" (related to aural happenings). I think when we are thinking about understanding music performances (both jazz, both classical) we wrongly only focus on musical skills. My experience that awarness is more general skill. The motivation and ability to notice every little detail and happenings, and details... some people are tuned to this, some people will not understand, even if after the happening someone try to explain them all details and observations. Maybe my explanation is cloudy, I mean without a general awarness attitude and personality there is no chance to understand a classical music or jazz performance, even the listener have perfect pitch.
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I found my listening skills increased substantially when I started writing my own compositions. But I didn’t do good exercises so I cannot compare.
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Berliner's book is fantastic, A bit heavy though, I recommend reading a pdf version on a tablet and annotating it. (there are excellent software tools for that). It's really an eye opener and reading it led me to change many things in my practice
Back to the topic, ear training is a lot of things. The EarMaster software tool used at a number of music schools (Berklee among others) is also an eye opener, i.e. not only the ear
, as it covers a large number of different aspects: aural memory, harmonic hearing, sight singing / hearing. Very well thought out. A session with it is exhausting. I really recommend this tool to any music student, preferably on a tablet (ipad only) and not a desktop computer which is a too constrained environment needing to use more than one's ear: mouse, seating in front of the machine. A tablet is less invasive and closer to being in a musical environment (like reading a score).
I have zero interest in the Earmaster company by the way
Here is a link to it for the curious folks: EarMaster 7 - The #1 Music Theory & Ear Training Software
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Didn't say I only practiced with EarMaster ! Also worked on tunes, transcribing, etc .. I agree all of that contributes to one's know how and that we recognize isn't just one note a time, not even an interval i.e. two notes. EarMaster also trains to recognize chords and phrases. Originally Posted by christianm77
EarMaster was practiced no more than 10 to 15 mn a day. I appreciated its structured approach and framework. I wasn't yet able to set up myself, nor anyone I knew (music teacher included !) . That reminds me of what you said about Barry Harris, how things are taught might be as or more educative than what is taught.
Did you follow all EarMaster lessons or only a specific set ? It's quite a long term commitment.
Jazz is said to be a communication language and like most languages, we grow our knowledge of it both though hearing and reading and speaking, I doubt that missing one of these works well. Deaf persons have a hard time learning to speak ...Blind persons can't write.
About reading, no one is enumerating characters !! we recognize objects,, but one must first to learn how object are built, graphic symbol components on one hand (no pun intended) and elementary sounds (so to speak !). Kids spend a number of years just to learn the elementary sounds ... Students of foreign language do the same, some even fail to master the sounds correctly.
Some languages even have no written form. I recommend visiting the language museum in Paris , 5th district, another eye opener. I entered out of curiosity once, and ended up spending a lot of hours in there.
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yeah I actually deleted that post because I thought it a bit unecessary, but thanks for the thoughtful reply. Originally Posted by mhch
i don’t really know much about EarMaster TBH just what I read on the feature set, I should probably check it out to see if will recommend for students.
That museum sounds fascinating...
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The Museum | Mundolingua Originally Posted by christianm77
Earmaster offers several levels, At each level one learns definitions and practices recognition by ear (dictation) or by eye (sight reading), or both (error recognition), writing/notating, sight singing (you can do that using your voice or an instrument) which works very well, attention being paid on pitch and duration accuracy). Those levels are
- beginners: note / rest oriented, notation of pitches and duration, a bit of interval hearing and comparison, 4/4 and 3/4 time signatures
- General workshops: the whole thing in depth, intervals, chords, rhythm, melody, chord progressions
- jazz : chord, chord progressions, rhythm, scales, melody
- RCM level
Plus one can create his own tailored extra exercises for students
Earmaster is for the really motivated person, requiring to follow the course over months or years, depending on what level one focuses on.Last edited by mhch; 08-22-2020 at 09:30 AM.
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Seems that formal or traditional education reveals its importance. The majority of jazz players dismissed the classical way and after several years of futility We realize the good things solfege does for musicians.
People use to say that classical musicians are pure sigth readers but it is not right, may be they doesn't work improvisation but the reveal to be profficient in it with less time of work. They are good sight readers and sight singers and can apply that easily.
Anyway I think the actual ear training education boom, comes from the necessity of overcontrol; We want to control every aspect of the line but jazz is liquid music, is about the moment, overcontrol is the contrary of jazz, We have to feel the order in the disorder, the overcontrol leads to stability, to rigid music, that is not jazz.
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Barry Harris is doing zoom lessons? Originally Posted by christianm77
I've heard about several good musicians (Mulgrew Miller is one) that never transcribed but They played in the style of the target musician. I think this is more interesting than repeating verbatim lines.
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Yes. There’s one today. Get on it. Originally Posted by sjl
Transcription is a very confusing term. Many people seem to think this means working out whole solos or even writing them down (which some have done); but for many others it’s a much more ad hoc process of listening hard, stealing bits and pieces as you go, and learning how to play by ear.
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word. Originally Posted by sjl
(Although solfege can be a bit dogmatic itself. May be useful at the early stages. After a while you may not need it anymore... Good sight singers don’t actually use it, because they have to song words lol.)
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I really, really enjoy learning "vebatim lines." When I was in the thick of learning the written out Jimmy Raney solos on the Aebersold set, I was astounded at his lines. I also was astounded to HEAR those lines coming out of MY AMP. One of my amps actually thought it had been sold to a real jazz guitar player.... Originally Posted by sjl
For some people. the discipline of nailing something exactly, especially when moving out of one's area of comfort or control, is a good thing. If I'd just tried to "get the idea" of Raney's lines, I would have colonized his ideas with my lame scale fragments and licks. Playing 64 bars of Raney's "Just Friends" until I could play it quickly and confidently taught me more about bebop than my previous 30 years struggling to learn jazz. Of course, part of the power was that I had 30 years of study and effort, even if it was rather modest in its yield. But when I started learning those solos, for some reason things really began to make sense.
Most importantly, it was humbling. Without putting myself down or being falsely self-effacing, after playing Raney's stuff, I realized my problem was in my head, not my hands. He has brilliant musical ideas. I don't. He has no impediment in expressing his ideas on the guitar. I do.
So I have begun re-thinking my approach, and those 7 or 8 written-out solos I learned--which I can still play!--were a powerful learning experience for me. And it was the demand to get them note-perfect, not to cheat, that drove the whole thing.
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That's enough for me, I want to enjoy what I'm doing. Originally Posted by lawson-stone
We all have different goals. As far as ear training goes, did that, didn't like it. Now my ear training comes mostly from learning tunes, writing tunes, recording tunes.
My biggest enjoyment is in writing and recording my own music. Everything else pales in comparison. I'll still work on learning as long as the deferred gratification isn't too deferred, I'm getting older.
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Must be more successful in the Jazz world 'cause in the world of Rock and Blues the source for verbatim lines often comes from tab (if it is rarely correct). Apparently tab is done using slow-down software or other pitch detection, including the grace and ghost notes. The character of solos is that some notes are much more important than others, and these are apparent when transcribing by ear. The automated electronic tab assistants don't get phrasing and dynamics quite right and typically include extra notes that "are there" but really played "under the threshold". I can tell easily when someone has learned a solo by tab compared to someone who learned it by ear. Maybe Jazz guitarists listen better or have a different perspective? Originally Posted by lawson-stone
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I can't really answer it. Generally I think jazz lines are more complex than rock or blues lines. I know "listening" will vary in how useful it is because seriously, we have to know what it is we're listening for. None of us is just a blank slate. Many psychological experiments have demonstrated that we have visual and auditory "templates" that can mask what we see or hear or reconcile perceptions to models and frameworks we already have in place. Reading something forces me to play what's there. Many times (I speak only for myself) I keep thinking "that can't be right!" but then I listen to the recording and realize yes, the transcription is correct, but my mental template didn't have room for that sound or idea. Originally Posted by pauln
So for me, the ideal is a written transcription combined with the performance from which it was taken. Then I can move between reading and capturing things by ear. The written notation helps me with the notes, the recording helps me with the phrasing.
I'm still a very unimpressive player-improvisor, though, so don't take this as a "pro tip." It's not.
Sometimes we can't listen until we are clear about what we are listening for.Last edited by lawson-stone; 08-24-2020 at 10:54 AM.
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That last sentence is the number one reason why I would suggest using other people’s music.
If you already know what you are hearing and can hear it clearly, it becomes less important (but still fun and often useful.)
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I haven't been at jazzguitar.be for a while and I just saw this post.
Here's my take:
Many of us (including me) try out many kinds of approaches for ear training. That we get a bit too deep, over-analyze, and start exploring esoteric "out of the ether" type of stuff and going around in circles in a maze - when we should focus on training in one particular way (subdivided to a few units of concentrated exercises) and using a particular tool that improves skill and increase learning velocity - and for godsakes just complete what you have started.
Once you complete your ear training program, and didn't see any results - then that's the time to try out something else. But not until then. Ear Training is life-long learning.
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I can imagine a man who has absolute pitch, and understand nothing when listening Dexter Gordon. So the emphasis is on the content. I also can imagine a man who listening various jazz artists 50 years, and not a musician himself, and understands more, than many of us can imagine. Originally Posted by Jason Sioco
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Well I had a girlfriend with perfect pitch, and that assumption that she could hear everything used to annoy and upset her. And she could compose straight to score.
Naive approaches to ear training misunderstand how we hear - as Edwin Gordon points out we hear not in individual notes but in shapes, phrases, chords and other gestalts; the equivalent of words and sentences in a language. Training your ability to name individual notes can be useful (especially for dictation) but the main event is being able to hear musical 'language.'
For me it works like this - I hear a phrase and I can sort of see how it goes on the fretboard. It has nothing to do with 'knowing' what the pitches are.
But I have to hear the phrase - that's often the hard bit. At least for me. Especially if it's something unfamiliar to me.
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Pedagogy, beyond beginning-intermediate stages, is a small element in a musician's ability to play and improvise. The best training is to play live with other musicians. You will develop tonal memory, phrasing, improvisation, and technique at a very high rate as opposed to the "bedroom/Youtube artist." It is certainly a temptation with the incredible amount of materials available today to aspiring musicians to avail themselves of these learning "aids." But, there is no substitute for performing live. My generation of working musicians certainly knew the fundamentals of music but much of our education was "on the job." And, the amount of musical epiphanies we had while playing was both magical and frightening in the respect that you didn't know how they happened but they, nonetheless, became part of your musical personality.
I was playing Coltrane's album "My Favorite Things" last night and what impressed me most after 50 years of listening to the music was that Coltrane's sound and ideas were not rehashed, remade, and predictable but rather unique to him. He certainly did his homework and knew his scales, chords, inversions, etc. but what made his music special, and others like him, was that his voice was organic and unique and his ability to play with others of his ilk(McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, Steve Davis) was a major factor in his growth. Throughout the album, there was a remarkable interplay between Coltrane and Davis(Bass) that was interesting and unusual since sax players normally follow the pianist in musical interplays and there were some truly magical moments. It's this musical give and take and openness to interacting with other players that, in my opinion, creates the greatest musical growth.
Sadly, today, we are hampered by the cloud of CV where virtual playing is the only option. However, last night at the Republican convention, I saw live musicians wearing no masks and performing for the audience. Perhaps there is a light of hope in the near future. I ,for one, want to get back to live performing. Play live . . . Marinero
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The ocean... reminds me of a movie I have yet to watch, but I've heard the song.
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Originally Posted by Gabor
Just because I can identify the colors, doesn't mean I can walk up and paint the Sistine Chapel. I assume absolute pitch would be a similar experience.
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