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Wow man, that is some serious snark. I’m sorry I asked.
Originally Posted by rintincop
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11-18-2019 10:01 PM
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Just to let you know you're not alone, James, on the whole journey, or on your reaction to these last posts. I had a listen to the YT clips and they (the clips, or the aforementioned posts)still meant nothing to me!
I've tried all sorts to get into playing jazz over many many years. I've read the books, transcribed the solos, taken lessons, etc etc and so far none of it has helped.
My current plan is to go back and learn some really old tunes, learn the melodies and the harmonies and the words. I'm already finding some lovely little phrases(*) that the original writers composed that follow the changes, and I'm figuring that if I learn a few of these, then start to improvise around (but very closely to) the melody, that will be step # 1.
I think the books and videos and lessons and all the other stuff that I've tried will probably kick in around step # 12.
It's almost like pretending I'm starting in 1919 instead of 2019.
(*) Already starting to see how many (most?) blocks of chords get reused over and over and thus, if there's a nice composed line from one tune you can drop it into another, and so it goes.
Regards
Derek
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You know you can achieve a lot just by learning to play the melodies really well, then just fooling around and changing them a bit. If you keep on doing enough of this you will be improvising.
Lee Konitz advocates this (google his ‘ten step method’) and he is one of the greatest true improvisers in jazz.
Another way is just to create little riffs based on the chord tones of each chord, and gradually join them up to get something more like a complete solo. This is basically what jazz guitarist Chris Flory says he does.
Last edited by grahambop; 11-19-2019 at 06:34 AM.
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Also check out the forum lessons section, lots of stuff here:
Free Jazz Guitar Lessons
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Thanks for the advice. I appreciate it. Right now my practice mostly centers on three things: 1) Memorizing the heads and chords to standards 2) Memorizing Parker heads 3) Studying Jazz Blues as an on ramp to Bop
That’s going to have to be enough for now as the theory stuff is incomprehensible to me. I can’t get my head around it. And I have a music degree! Lol
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Yes, well, I also wonder what happened to the original poster, perhaps PM him and see what happened? My guess is that he gave up, and I say that regretfully because I can see how easy it is to lose faith, in one's self as well as in one's teacher. You have to be very lucky with your teacher if you're coming from rock/blues, you need a teacher that came to jazz from the same path in order for a teacher to explain how the approaches are very different, and how to undo deeply entrenched thinking and habits and replace them with a whole new discipline that will take far longer to master than whipping around a coupla blues scales against everything!
The hardest thing for rockers to get their head around is making the changes, and the thousands of hours of practice required to learn the art, not just the manual moves, but the cerebral ones. The tendency is for rockers to just zone out and play what they feel using just one familiar scale. This is a habit that has taken years to develop from usually an impressionable young age. For this reason, I say that if you're learning Jazz guitar from scratch at the age of 30, you have a far better chance of becoming a convincing jazzer by the age of 40 than the rocker who picked up playing blues/rock as a teenager.
As far as I'm aware, there has not been a successful course or book that caters for the rock player that wants to bop, and I'd wager that very few negotiate the crossover compared with the failures. Which is why, a few years back, I gave a series of lessons to a friend coming to jazz after years of straight blues and I planned a course of "stepping stones" as a kind of experiment to see how things unfolded. It worked! Basically CAGED positions for every inversion of drop 2 chords (all types) and basic major and dominant pentatonic scales to swap between after learning to identify which chords in a tune were of the Tonic family and which were Dominant. He listened to Swing for 6 months to also get the phrasing aspect. Then we added chromatic enclosures and passing notes (which took a few months) and all his listening to Lester started to come out in his playing. He got to the point where he sounded legit against ATTYA. It wasn't flashy and lacked the kind of complexity and sophistication of bop / hard bop language I prefer myself, but he was outlining changes in a clear and effortless style putting in 10 hrs per week in just 18 months. So yeah, it can be done.
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This. Yes. Believe me, I've looked. I can't find a "Rock to Jazz" method anywhere either. It's just trial and error so far. Mostly error actually as I do not have a teacher. I'm glad you were able to get a student across that threshold. Kudos. Originally Posted by princeplanet
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Cheers, and kudos to me for, out of ignorance, sticking with my own crossover which took 10 hard years (around 10,000 hours). So yeah, find the right teacher and you may cut that journey in half. Originally Posted by Jamesrohr1
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Looks to me like you're the logical person to write that book! Originally Posted by princeplanet
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Haha! Trust me, it crossed my mind! But I'd want to be sure that any "From Rock to Jazz Method" would suit a majority of students, so I'd need to try it again with a dozen students to see how many make it across. The test sample was of average intelligence and ability, but may have had above average stickability... But really, the thing that worked about it was the one on one time (2 hr session each week) and follow up phone calls and emails. Just me explaining things in person and showing things on the instrument gave him confidence and faith, and that's kinda hard to get from a book, or even a youtoob... Originally Posted by lawson-stone
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Man looking over this thread reminded me that one of the posters here took their own life
((
it had nothing to do with giving up on Jazz or guitar but giving up on life.
We should always strive to find something that gives us meaning and hope in this world.
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There’s this book, I bought it many years ago, still got it somewhere I think. Originally Posted by Jamesrohr1
Don’t remember much about it, I think I had already figured quite a lot of it out for myself by the time I got it.
From Rock to Jazz: Alternative First Steps Toward Playing Jazz Guitar: Amazon.co.uk: Ian Cruickshank: Books
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Whoa! For real? Originally Posted by NSJ
Man looking over this thread reminded me that one of the posters here took their own life((
it had nothing to do with giving up on Jazz or guitar but giving up on life.
We should always strive to find something that gives us meaning and hope in this world.
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So ... no snark, for now, but watch it Bub. I'm another one of those blues/rock guys who has tried to learn jazz; a lot of people do this. I have a little bit of formal training -- some classical lessons as a kid, some jazz lessons in college (while I was spending much more time playing R&B/Rock/Blues), and a little theory and ear training (not jazz-oriented), but most of what I've picked up in jazz has come via osmosis from other players and self-study. I can improvise on bop tunes. The hardest thing about bebop, IMO is not theory, or knowing what notes to play. It's capturing the rhythmic feel, especially the way Bird et al used triplets, rests, syncopations, and "over the bar line" phrasing. You can start with a really quite basic collection of licks based on ii-V-I arpeggios and sprinklings of chromaticism and step-wise phrases. Bop heads are the best places to cop those. [A lot of people get the Bird Omnibook and study that to pick up Bird-isms, but a lot of people just listen to records.] Originally Posted by Jamesrohr1
Cool Blues, Ornithology, and Scrapple from the Apple are relatively simple (compared to Donna Lee, Moose the Mooch, Confirmation) and are like bebop dictionaries. Learn those melodies, and inject fragments of them into ii-V-I phrases you encounter in other tunes. Truth be told, it's harder to play bop heads than it is to blow on the tunes in a bop style; but a little bit of those goes a long way in terms of getting the sound of bop as a style ingrained in your playing.
All that said, the thing that has consistently proven most helpful to me is playing with other people -- more than lessons, more than reading theory, more than practicing, more than going to to some Barry Harris classes ages ago. If you are already a decent player in another genre with good ears, good time, and a sense of phrasing, and especially if you can play blues reasonably well, you have the foundations you need. Learning tunes and copping bits of people's solos on records will give you some vocabulary. Go to open jams, check out meet-up.com, trawl music stores, whatever it takes, find people to play with and apply the things you study with the musicianship you already have. Here on the forum, try participating in some "study groups" and ignore the theory discussions.
John
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Re: Snark
When my teacher told me something similar (maybe it's not for you) it made me buckle down and work harder. I was hoping to get at you in a similar manner... I didn't realize at the time that my teacher and was not simply putting me down but was instead trying motivate me to try harder. He was really pointing out tha fact that maybe I was simply not into it enough.
Life get's in the way. It's very hard for anyone to find enough time to get into it.
A method for success:
Practice these items until your fingers do them automatically (mindlessly):
Barry Harris school of soloing
The Basics:
Learn the major scale in it's numerous positions, perhaps focus on one stock position.
Play major scale to the 7th. Then up and down. Same thing with 7th scale.
Also play the scale :
In broken 3rds
In broken triads
In broken 7th chords
Approach the above with a chromatic half step.
5432 Phrases (876 too)
Chromatic scale (with Barry's tweek)
Merge and link both major and minor blues scales
Result: You'll solo in the jazz styleLast edited by rintincop; 11-19-2019 at 01:52 PM.
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Had a look at it's contents page. I bet you no one learned to improvise Jazz by buying this book! Originally Posted by grahambop
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yes it’s probably more of an ‘introduction’ rather than a whole method. Originally Posted by princeplanet
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The whole Barry Harris soloing system (culled from the H. Reese books, culled from the B Harris workshops) is summed up in my short outline and it works. Forget the other complicated method books capitalizing on jazz education (including Levine's and Vincent's). There is so much wandering in "jazz education" ... Imo, jazz ed. should coalesce around the Harris method.
Practice these items until your fingers do them automatically (mindlessly):
Barry Harris school of soloing
The Basics:
Learn the major scale in it's numerous positions, perhaps focus on one stock position.
Play major scale to the 7th. Then up and down. Same thing with 7th scale.
Also play the scale :
In broken 3rds
In broken triads
In broken 7th chords
Approach the above with a chromatic half step.
Be aware to the numbers (Root 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th)
5432 Phrases (876 too)
Chromatic scale (with Barry's tweek)
Merge and link both major and minor blues scales
Result: You'll solo in the jazz style
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Kudos indeed. If I've learned nothing else from this journey, it's that there are no shortcuts. Originally Posted by princeplanet
Unfortunately, I live way back in the sticks. There are no teachers, clubs, or other musicians to jam with. The internet is not great here either so Skype is out. I'll either figure it out on my own or I wont. It's a brutal slog for sure though. That's why I'm so dependent on forums like this for ideas. Thanks for the inspiration.Last edited by Jamesrohr1; 11-19-2019 at 02:21 PM.
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If it helps, I went from rock to jazz and taught myself. There was no internet in those days and I didn’t know any books to get, not even fakebooks. I never even heard of the Real book.
I did eventually get one book (Joe Pass chords) as I knew I needed to learn the common jazz chord shapes.
Otherwise I just learned tunes and bits of solos off the records.
I even wrote my own ‘fakebook’ working out the chord changes by ear (great ear training).
All took a long time, but shows it can be done.
If your thirst to know how it’s done is strong enough, you never give up.
And I’m still learning, it never stops (which is why jazz is so fascinating).
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I will say that the self teaching thing is ultimately very rewarding, but you WILL go through years where you are convinced you are wasting your time and have been doing it all wrong etc etc... Originally Posted by Jamesrohr1
If you make your own way up the Jazz mountain, without a guide, it will definitely take much longer, no question, but if you know it and don't mind, then consider it the "scenic" route, and enjoy the journey (but don't forget to smell the flowers on the way). After all, unless you're trying to hurry up and make a career out of jazz guitar, it really is all about the journey !
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You say you have been playing for decades, and that is great. Originally Posted by Jamesrohr1
But more importantly, what is your experience with improvising?
If you have limited experience with that it is good to start with the absolute basics.
Skip the theory, (for now) and focus on the instrument, your ears and hands.
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Ha! I've got that book. Just dug it out. It's no wonder I never made any progress! Originally Posted by princeplanet
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Good question. I had almost zero experience improvising previously. Which is, in my opinion, a good reason to study it. It’s always been my Achilles heel. I’ve composed or comped hundreds of solos over the years but they were never improvised. And I have never and probably will never improvise in a live setting. Working on the weaknesses seems like a fairly healthy pursuit. Originally Posted by greveost
In your opinion, what are the absolute basics I should be studying?
Thanks.
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Can you post a recording of yourself trying to improvise over something (maybe Autumn leaves)? Very hard to get a sense of where you are as a player and how to advise from what you've written here.
John
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