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I enjoyed that.
Originally Posted by christianm77
Not so much the piece in the OP.
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07-25-2018 06:30 PM
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My impression of the OP's guitar example...
Pluses:
- there were some darned nice lines
- nice energy
- nice tone
- I agree that there were influences from Holdsworth and Kurt R., but also some Tim Miller.
Minuses:
- Energy level was relatively a flat curve or flat line, even when the rhythm section kicked it, he mostly stayed home
- Not enough variation or tension and release, which means not enough story telling. He could have ended earlier or played longer and the overall effect would have been about the same
- No clear climax. He needs to learn how to be somber and subtle but also how to get harried, pissed off and mean. Then he will be more captivating/interesting
Last edited by Jazzstdnt; 07-26-2018 at 10:24 PM.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
Right, its folk.
Across The Blue Mountains.
Nice find, thanks for that.
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Haha! Tell us you really feel eh? Originally Posted by christianm77
Nerdy noodling is more fun to play than it is to listen to...
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On the Ben Eunson video... I'm not sure if what I'm hearing is Reg's term "harmonic rhythm", but I might call it "outside/altered density" with respect to phrase resolution... the playing does not show much concern for it, which makes my ear not show much interest in it.
Basically, he is missing something that I think is important. When one is playing very inside and melodic, one can go quite slowly and all sound fine. When one goes outside, or altered, of is attempting to harmonically fit square pegs into round holes, it is pretty important to attend to speed - not the speed of playing so much as the speed of resolution. If the resolution is not managed well, the lines become tedious.
Much of what he is doing in the video is highly outside, altered, and somewhat harmonically disjoint, which is fine if one paces the resolution. In essence, I think he is playing to slowly for those particular lines. He wants to play those lines, so he should either speed up to offer more frequent resolutions, or pull their complexity back a bit.
Some have already mentioned he sound kind of like he is showing the latest thing he has learned and is playing it over and over, almost like an exercise to learn where it works. To my ear, a good part of that feeling is coming from him playing about half the speed where those things make sense (by resolving faster).
*Try using the YouTube tool to increase the video playback speed and see if his playing doesn't sound more coherent.
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Anything sounds good if you play it fast enough - Allan Holdsworth Originally Posted by pauln
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I liked the tune, but I thought the guitar solo got a bit repetitive because he seemed to be playing the same basic phrase-shape over and over, i.e. each phrase sort of started in the same place, ended in the same place, and had a similar number of notes (or so it seemed) each time. It would be better if he 'mixed it up' a bit. There isn't a clear harmonic/melodic structure in the solo for the listener to fasten on, so it has to rely on creating interest by varying its shape, line, texture etc. When he finished the solo with a few chords, it came as a welcome relief - maybe he could have interpolated some chord-type textures during the solo.
If I was trying to play this kind of thing I would be trying to mix it up by various means, e.g. use both long phrases and short phrases, start them and end them at different points, use different note lengths within the phrases, use varying space between phrases, alternate bursts of short notes with some long held notes, and so on. Jimmy Raney gives advice like this in one of his Aebersold books and I think it applies to anything, not just bebop.
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One man's catchy is another man's cheesy. Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
Not much cheese in OP.
Good.
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Yeah we heard that band at the 2015 London Jazz Festival (I think?) and me and the missus got obsessed with that record... Amidon was also on the recent Jacob Collier BBC prom which I have yet to check out... Originally Posted by Jazzstdnt
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I found it a bit typical of the genre though. Well executed mainstream modern jazz. Originally Posted by Vladan
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I like this stuff but as a one-time listening sort of thing. Main theme is especially enjoyable, but the solo work - while impressive - doesn't "tell a story" (to me) unlike a lot of "straight-ahead" tunes that I can listen to over and over.
That is also my personal deficiency with single line improv - the ability to tell a coherent, internally consistent story, a characteristic that distinguishes a great player from someone diddling around. (I'm NOT accusing the player of diddling around.) Can this be learned or is it just a reflection of one's internal state of mind?
Also a fan of Strats, which - contrasted with Teles - get no love in the jazz world.
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I just took another listen. He had an increase in intensity/speed at one point but then it calmed back down to the steady as she goes stuff. His solo hit me as a series of pattern based melodic lines that sounded a lot like an advanced players practice session, with a backing track (his band). Ouch. Sorry.
I would maintain that a performance is a different thing from a practice session and should be much more captivating for the listener. More variation, more surprise, more space vs. high to very high intensity, more story telling, more melody. I'm reasonably confident that he can do all of that, so it's a choice to play whole solos like this.
Remember the old Huey Luis tune "It's Hip to be Square"? Well now it's apparently it's hip to be monotonous.
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I hate it too. What the hell kind of name is Snakes and Ladders? Are they saying we will bite you in the grass if you don't climb up a ladder? And what's with all the notes? Is playing notes somehow like a snake trying to climb up a ladder, that if we take giant steps and go for it that it'll pass for good? I'm sorry but I like a good Dixieland marching band; that's going somewhere. If you have a good marching band, no way a snake is gonna come up and force you up a ladder.
More tuba!
David
Well maybe these guys are OK even though they look kinda young
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Didn't care for it in the least. If I can't leave a show/club and be able to whistle/hum at least one tune, then I got nothing out of it. Where's the melody....or is melody too old fashioned these days?
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Tuba = Tuba + 1 is always best Originally Posted by TruthHertz
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That’s reminds me actually
I did play a couple of trad gigs with the guy in this band lol
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Lucky Chops are full of energy band, yes they are ok! A little more than OK, from NYC subway busking to sold out world tours, quite inspiring! Originally Posted by TruthHertz
Snakes and Ladders is a cool song title, but the snakes turned out a little toothless.
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Hey! That guy (Troy Roberts) is playing a Conn 10M!
Like what you like, skip the rest; life is short.
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Originally Posted by TruthHertz
I don't really see any "hate" expressed from any herein. It's more like "meh". Are we required to like it?
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different strokes for different folks. Originally Posted by Jazzstdnt
Vladmartino,
Where ever did you get the idea that anybody should like anything they don't like? Especially in a music like jazz, where so much of the intention is centered on and driven by the notion that experimentation and not "likability" is so important. It's a search for the right note. Not right for everyone.
If you go into a restaurant and the cilantro tastes soapy to you and the fellow at the next table is enjoying his seasonings, why should it matter? especially because some people are physically predisposed to tasting cilantro differently.
I will say that my tastes have grown over the years, and I can hear more details in an artist's "intention" than I once did. To that end, people that impressed me by their sheer command of the instrument are not so impressive if I don't see the sense of logical and organic development in the course of their solo. This, I know, is a function of my own focus and striving towards clarity and definition as a player in these areas.
When I played notes, I heard notes.
When I played feeling, I heard feeling.
When I played quotes and lines, I heard quotes and lines.
When I struggled to utilize the vocabulary I'd developed, struggled to use time effectively with phrases that create a story through contour and space, I admired things I heard that have achieved that integration. And I dislike those who play ignoring things I thought were important in my own playing.
Honestly, if someone doesn't get what I'm doing, I'd rather they get their money back and go see something they really find engaging. Life is too short not to enjoy what you pay for. There's plenty out there without sitting through what is not good for you. Don't feel you need to tell me what you don't enjoy, I'd rather hear about what you DO like.
I usually pass on the cilantro.
David
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Originally Posted by christianm77
Spot on C,
good old drinking song (the Title) amazing Holdsworth way ahead of his time and further than Bird and Trane went, imo ill be buried before even 1% catch on
A lot had to do with categorisation , is it Rock Jazz Fusion what is it???
Wordsworth is the face of modern music, the current regime are way way behind
Rip A Holdsworth
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In his book "groove alchemy", stanton moore talks quite a lot about playing "between the cracks", basically phrasing 8th notes somewhere in between a strict triplet and a straight 8th note. It's really interesting to listen to different drummers and understand where exactly they are phrasing their 8th notes: Some folks refer to these differences as "hard" and "soft" triplets. To my ears, Max Roach plays a hard triplet, whereas Billy Higgins has a very soft triplet, almost even. That said, if a soloist phrases their eighths this way, it can sound really corny. I hear a lot of more of a "modern" jazz swing feel from soloists as being almost straight 8th notes, but laid back behind the beat. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
My own feel started to improve a lot after I started to hear and appreciate these kinds of details.
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Originally Posted by pcsanwald
I haven't seen it for swing, but I've seen this for samba
A wave form plot from a recording of a pro samba group in Brazil playing a basic pattern. This is the one characterized by 16th, 8th, 16th.
On the graph were hashmarks denoting the mathematically correct places for the notes to fall to conform to the pattern.
Unsurprisingly, the pros were not playing on the hashmarks. In fact, the 16ths weren't even the same length.
It was all offset.
Meaning, if you read it perfectly, you're not playing what the pros play.
Listeners can feel it. With the pros you feel like dancing, with the metronomically correct folks, not so much.
Lately, I have spent some time with Reg's videos on youtube. The ones where he comps a tune. Last night, it was Just Friends. I'm trying to imitate his time-feel. I would guess that a wave form would show that he's in between the cracks -- which is where groove is.
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Yeah, and inevitably it does in one way or another. I don't see it as "moving forward" as an artistic expression is whole and complete in its own right. Art doesn't "advance" the way technology or science advances. Art is a relationship of experience between the artist and the audience; unlike science it does not hew to objectivity. But each generation of artists expresses something unique to them, their time and their circumstances. And the audience of their peers experiences that differently than an old fart like me will. Originally Posted by henryrobinett
I liked the head of the tune in the first video but the guitar solo did nothing to engage me as a listener. I'm probably not the age those musician speak to, I am behind the times by a few decades. In the guitar solo there was, to my ears, a lack of dynamics and of storytelling. The guy's got chops galore- indeed, the whole band has superb chops and remarkable discipline to be that tight- but you also have to have something to say. Something I liked is that he resisted the tendency to overplay and just show off. But without something to say it just sounds like you swallowed the Slonimsky book. A lot of newer jazz suffers from this, IMHO the consequence of learning it in school instead of from records and on the bandstand. The results are different.
Someone else might hear it completely differently and that's good- I'm not necessarily right in my judgment.
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According to SCIENCE! apparently everyone synchs to the skip note, wherever that is. You can put the beat on the beat or behind and adjust the ratio of your 8ths and your beat placement accordingly. Originally Posted by pcsanwald
However that’s 8ths. There’s more to life than eighths. Being able to swing on quarters for instance.
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