Arpeggios or Licks?

[GuyBoden]

I'm not trying to stop the discussion on note choices here; just side-tracking for 2 seconds:

I can't explain it, but it's discussions about the minutiae in 'what to play' that just keep bringing me back to the Louis Armstrong approach to soloing.

Satch didn't know much scales or chord-scales or correct notes as we do, yet him shredding triads or playing around triads resulted in unforgettable, legendary solos. I wonder if we are missing the point of connecting with audiences when we think/focus a lot on harmony and very specific harmonic colours? The opening tonic line in Satch's solo on Basin Street Blues is simply going up and down just a triad, but by golly did it command my attention from the get go. The authority, the tone, the time.... The triad sounded like the most complex thing I've ever heard in jazz. Sounded better than the densest bebop line.

Again, I'm not advocating some kind of anti-progressivist, anti-intellectual stance on playing the music. If you feel like you need to learn more harmonic colours, feel free to do so. But I just wonder when is that players start thinking, "Ok, enough's enough. Whatever I have with, Imma make good solid music now for the people." Personally, I've come to that point. I know what I want for myself. I know what's good enough for me.

Ok - thanks for hearing me out! (Please get back to discussing what to play over what chord.)

This great solo.

Got me into listening to more Jazz, when I was a teenager in the 1970's.

[brent.h]

Amazing how basic triadic/chord-tone playing grabbed your ears in the 1970s and my ears 50+ years later.

How great and powerful is that!!

[GuyBoden]

Amazing how basic triadic/chord-tone playing grabbed your ears in the 1970s and my ears 50+ years later.

How great and powerful is that!!

Yes, it really emphasises the importance of knowing "Chord Tones".

And then rhythmically, Louis Armstrong was so, so advanced.

[pamosmusic]

It was in another thread: 6 months into jazz - overwhelmed and not sure where to focus. Advice?

Thought it was odd that he called them "hard to learn/play" since they each have only one note that's different from the major scale (i.e., the b3rd & b6th).

P.S. - Actually, I see he answered my question in the post I referenced, he doesn't think in terms of scales, but in chord tones, which I do myself.

Harmonic minor kind of is hard to play on guitar for whatever it’s worth

[pamosmusic]

If one is used to doing things one way for a long time and invested a lot of time into it, other approaches seem more complex and counterintuitive to you. It might not mean that they are. This is certainly a blind spot for me - I keep forgetting how much time I've thrown at music, and that things that seem obvious to me are not necessarily obvious to those who are coming at it fresh.

So, I come at it more from the other angle. So I practiced the B minor on the Dmaj7#5. I am, however, at the point where that's completely intuitive for me, because I practiced it a lot.

I would agree that your way is theoretically simpler - the chord and the scale are almost the same thing. But, OTOH, you have to learn a lot of different scales, one for each chord quality, and the patterns and lines and so on are all different from chord to chord - at least until you get well practiced at constructing these things on the fly. (There's other practice implications as well.)

OTOH you can have fewer scales to learn - but you have to master and internalise a lot of rules of application (like Barry Harris or Allan Holdsworth, for example.) So that's a more "theoretical" approach, but it reduces the amount of material you have to learn. A given melodic line can be applied on pretty much any chord quality with this knowledge. So there's a huge medium term pay off there.

(My hunch is that the second way is more traditional as it seems to relate to the practice of chord substitution - but I don't really know.)

Of course there's a synthesis which involves both...

Either way, we all have to have done some learning haha. By the time we can do it without thinking, the difference may be largely academic.

I do think a new student has to commit to going down a path for a few years - and that commitment is probably more important than the specific path. That's why getting a good teacher who understands your musical goals is often so helpful. They are like a guide through the wilderness. Otherwise you may end up trudging around in circles without even realising.

Yeah this is how I am. I had a student ask yesterday, but it happens pretty often — what do I think about when I’m playing.

When I’m practicing, I think about whatever thing I’m interested in at the moment. I’ve spent a lot of time putting minor sounds over all the chord types, a lot of time with major sounds, a lot of time doing more out there upper structure stuff, a LOT of time building guide tone lines over tunes.

I’ve been into Barry’s minor scale stuff for like …. Six months now. But it doesn’t matter. Whatever floats my boat, I dive in and think about it a lot for however long it’s interesting to me.

But when I’m playing, ideally I’m not thinking about much of anything. Maybe what the drummer or pianist is doing or whatever, but you work on this stuff for the purpose of going on autopilot.

But it’s really interesting, that you get to a point in age or experience or something where you really have to remind yourself of how much time you’ve spent making this stuff feel intuitive.

It’s the reverse side of the Dunning Krueger effect. People who don’t know much think a task is simple because they can’t see everything that goes into it. People who are experts in the same task can act like it’s simple because they’ve forgotten how long it took to learn.

[joe2758]

I've been doing my job for over 15 years, and I rarely have to think at all, and yet I'd say I'm very good at it. It would be amazing if I could flow in the same way with music.

[brent.h]

bro u skilled, thats y u dont need to think bout it no more

[joe2758]

It's funny, in Fernando Sor's method book geared toward amateurs he mentions this same subject. It was sort of nice, to paraphrase something like "If music is purely an enjoyment for you, don't forget you are most likely an expert in something else"

[brent.h]

It's funny, in Fernando Sor's method book geared toward amateurs he mentions this same subject. It was sort of nice, to paraphrase something like "If music is purely an enjoyment for you, don't forget you are most likely an expert in something else"

haha dayum... thats not a quote to read if ur feeling down about playing guitar

[henryrobinett]

Harmonic minor kind of is hard to play on guitar for whatever it’s worth

Not really.


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[joe2758]

haha dayum... thats not a quote to read if ur feeling down about playing guitar

Yeah, and that's my baseline

[pamosmusic]

Not really.


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Okay.

[henryrobinett]

If one is used to doing things one way for a long time and invested a lot of time into it, other approaches seem more complex and counterintuitive to you. It might not mean that they are. This is certainly a blind spot for me - I keep forgetting how much time I've thrown at music, and that things that seem obvious to me are not necessarily obvious to those who are coming at it fresh.

So, I come at it more from the other angle. So I practiced the B minor on the Dmaj7#5. I am, however, at the point where that's completely intuitive for me, because I practiced it a lot.

I would agree that your way is theoretically simpler - the chord and the scale are almost the same thing. But, OTOH, you have to learn a lot of different scales, one for each chord quality, and the patterns and lines and so on are all different from chord to chord - at least until you get well practiced at constructing these things on the fly. (There's other practice implications as well.)

OTOH you can have fewer scales to learn - but you have to master and internalise a lot of rules of application (like Barry Harris or Allan Holdsworth, for example.) So that's a more "theoretical" approach, but it reduces the amount of material you have to learn. A given melodic line can be applied on pretty much any chord quality with this knowledge. So there's a huge medium term pay off there.

(My hunch is that the second way is more traditional as it seems to relate to the practice of chord substitution - but I don't really know.)

Of course there's a synthesis which involves both...

Either way, we all have to have done some learning haha. By the time we can do it without thinking, the difference may be largely academic.

I do think a new student has to commit to going down a path for a few years - and that commitment is probably more important than the specific path. That's why getting a good teacher who understands your musical goals is often so helpful. They are like a guide through the wilderness. Otherwise you may end up trudging around in circles without even realising.

Ok. I’m not sure but I think you misunderstood me. I was answering a question about what I did when I started out. That was the early 70s!! I spent YEARS and YEARS analyzing and practicing all the scales and modes, altered arpeggios, to the point where I don’t have to think about them. And my own training ground was sometimes brutal. I write a lot of songs with polychords and triads with different bass notes. Forces you to think until you don’t have to. As a matter of fact my sax player is often asking Joe, the pianist, how he approaches some of my chords or changes. Leaves me right out of the discussion. Joe was a professor in jazz and headed up the Brubeck Institute. He really knows his stuff. He was the first pianist in my band going back to the mid 80s. He used to mistranslate my chords. Simplifying. He mentored the pianist who took his place. My chart would say D/G and he’d write it as Gmaj7. Close but wrong. Or A/G as GMaj7+11. When he came back he realized, respecting me as a composer, that I meant what I wrote. And it makes a difference. I write and have to figure out how to play it. All those E/Eb diminished things. For many, many years I did this. I used to work on superimposing modes, chords, a lot of foreign pentatonics, Trane type subs. As well as playing a lot of modern songs AND bop. Ultimately the goal, for me, is to not think while playing. Like Rollins said, you can’t think that fast. Nobody can. Methods are great when you’re finding your way. But once you’ve found it don’t confuse it by continuing some other thing. Just play. Jazz is the ART of improvisation. Over thinking kills that. BUT YOU HAVE TO GET TO THAT POINT HONESTLY. And if Armstrong is your jam, excellent. Diminished scales aren’t for you! If harmonic minor scales are too hard, fine. They’re no harder than anything else I’ve found. They’re super important. Like that major7+11#9 chord. Or the m7b5 - 7b9. Gotta have it. I rarely have to call it what it is. I just see it on the fretboard. The ONLY time I have to call it something is when I teach, which I don’t do anymore, or band member asks. For me my dictum is don’t think, KNOW. World of difference. It can take a lifetime to know. Sorry about the length. I was in a plane.


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[JazzKatua]

0% of your practice time should be dedicated to watching YouTube tutorial videos.

I’ll do a video about it soon.

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Indeed; what I watch on YT is vids of GREAT players like Tal Farlow, Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, ... (just to name a few)
But have to admit; I watch what Frank Gambale is doing since his approach of playing matches mine since the late '90s. So I'm dedicated to keep on following him and to me it makes sense. FG opened my eyes on guitar playing and understanding music with his 'Modes: no more mistery' vid back then.

It's a learning path everybody has to discover for him-/herself.

[JazzKatua]

Ok. I’m not sure but I think you misunderstood me. I was answering a question about what I did when I started out. That was the early 70s!! I spent YEARS and YEARS analyzing and practicing all the scales and modes, altered arpeggios, to the point where I don’t have to think about them. And my own training ground was sometimes brutal. I write a lot of songs with polychords and triads with different bass notes. Forces you to think until you don’t have to. As a matter of fact my sax player is often asking Joe, the pianist, how he approaches some of my chords or changes. Leaves me right out of the discussion. Joe was a professor in jazz and headed up the Brubeck Institute. He really knows his stuff. He was the first pianist in my band going back to the mid 80s. He used to mistranslate my chords. Simplifying. He mentored the pianist who took his place. My chart would say D/G and he’d write it as Gmaj7. Close but wrong. Or A/G as GMaj7+11. When he came back he realized, respecting me as a composer, that I meant what I wrote. And it makes a difference. I write and have to figure out how to play it. All those E/Eb diminished things. For many, many years I did this. I used to work on superimposing modes, chords, a lot of foreign pentatonics, Trane type subs. As well as playing a lot of modern songs AND bop. Ultimately the goal, for me, is to not think while playing. Like Rollins said, you can’t think that fast. Nobody can. Methods are great when you’re finding your way. But once you’ve found it don’t confuse it by continuing some other thing. Just play. Jazz is the ART of improvisation. Over thinking kills that. BUT YOU HAVE TO GET TO THAT POINT HONESTLY. And if Armstrong is your jam, excellent. Diminished scales aren’t for you! If harmonic minor scales are too hard, fine. They’re no harder than anything else I’ve found. They’re super important. Like that major7+11#9 chord. Or the m7b5 - 7b9. Gotta have it. I rarely have to call it what it is. I just see it on the fretboard. The ONLY time I have to call it something is when I teach, which I don’t do anymore, or band member asks. For me my dictum is don’t think, KNOW. World of difference. It can take a lifetime to know. Sorry about the length. I was in a plane.


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Nicely put!

At home you can exercise whatever you want; the most complex SH*T ever if you want, but at a gig COMMUNICATION between the musicians (regardless of their technical ability) is UTMOST.

So playing a complex scale on some chord: if the rhythm section doesn't get it, makes no sense. They don't know what you're talking about. Play together in a way EVERYBODY understands what the player is communicating.

[pamosmusic]

If harmonic minor scales are too hard, fine. They’re no harder than anything else I’ve found. They’re super important. Like that major7+11#9 chord. Or the m7b5 - 7b9. Gotta have it. Tapatalk

Not to put too fine a point on it, but you’re doing the thing Christian described right now.

I didn’t say Harmonic Minor scales were TOO hard, that they were prohibitively hard, that they weren’t important, or that the sounds contained therein weren’t useful.

I said that they’re kind of hard, and in the context of this discussion, with folks talking about how they learned, they kind of are.

Harmonic minor scales are kind of objectively more awkward to play on guitar. Kind of like playing altissimo is harder on a saxophone. It’s the mechanics of the instrument. Someone may have more or less trouble with them but it’s hard to say that putting an augmented second between your second and fourth fingers is no harder than putting a major second between the same. Or shifting to accommodate when you wouldn’t shift otherwise etc

Is it possible you don’t think they’re any harder because it’s been a few decades since they were or maybe you learned them early enough that all the other stuff was just as new and weird?

Teach fifty students and some will get it and others won’t, but they’ll all tell you harmonic minor is tougher to get under the fingers than a major scale.

[Christian Miller]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but you’re doing the thing Christian described right now.

I didn’t say Harmonic Minor scales were TOO hard, that they were prohibitively hard, that they weren’t important, or that the sounds contained therein weren’t useful.

I said that they’re kind of hard, and in the context of this discussion, with folks talking about how they learned, they kind of are.

Harmonic minor scales are kind of objectively more awkward to play on guitar. Kind of like playing altissimo is harder on a saxophone. It’s the mechanics of the instrument. Someone may have more or less trouble with them but it’s hard to say that putting an augmented second between your second and fourth fingers is no harder than putting a major second between the same. Or shifting to accommodate when you wouldn’t shift otherwise etc

Is it possible you don’t think they’re any harder because it’s been a few decades since they were or maybe you learned them early enough that all the other stuff was just as new and weird?

Teach fifty students and some will get it and others won’t, but they’ll all tell you harmonic minor is tougher to get under the fingers than a major scale.

I think it depends on your approach to fingering. How you teach fingering is a whole question in itself. I teach classical positions to kids FWIW, but that's not how I actually play. I generally avoid single string aug 2nd stretches in scales for instance. Sure I can play them and have practiced them, but my hands don't gravitate to those fingerings usually.

[pamosmusic]

I think it depends on your approach to fingering. How you teach fingering is a whole question in itself. I teach classical positions to kids FWIW, but that's not how I actually play.

I don’t know … bigger interval … position oriented and it’s a stretch, but a looser and shiftier mode of playing then it’s a bigger shift.

Again, not saying it’s devilishly hard or whatever. Just that it’s an extra notch of awkward and it makes it a challenge for people just coming to it in a way that major scales are less so.

EDIT: addressing your edit … and yeah … no one wants to make that stretch, but shifting to avoid is a shift you wouldn’t make otherwise, etc etc.

[pamosmusic]

Stop adding to your post Christian, my god.

[Christian Miller]

I don’t know … bigger interval … position oriented and it’s a stretch, but a looser and shiftier mode of playing then it’s a bigger shift.

Again, not saying it’s devilishly hard or whatever. Just that it’s an extra notch of awkward and it makes it a challenge for people just coming to it in a way that major scales are less so.

I think I've intuitively eliminated most of those awkward things, rather than getting really good at them haha. It helps that musically a direction change on the aug 2nd is rare in Western music. You usually go through it, or the octave displacement thing going 7 to b6 is really common. So alternative fingerings work fine. And generally I shift rather than stretch in any case.

But if I'm playing classical guitar it's obviously different. You don't get the option.

[pamosmusic]

I think I've intuitively eliminated most of those awkward things, rather than getting really good at them haha. It helps that musically a direction change on the aug 2nd is rare. You usually go through it, or the octave displacement thing going 7 to b6 is really common. So alternative fingerings work fine. And generally I shift rather than stretch in any case.

But if I'm playing classical guitar it's obviously different. You don't get the option.

Yeah that’s true, I call harmonic minor in jazz the Grant Green minor scale … harmonic minor, but really it’s root to fifth with the major 7 below and the b6 above just to bounce off of. If he wants to switch octaves he almost always skips from the root or the seventh down to the fifth.

My dude was not fooling with that b6 to 7 nonsense

[pamosmusic]

With classical guitar, they usually like the 1 finger on the fifth, slide up to b6, pinky on the 7, slide up to the root.

I have a new student working on Capricho Arabe so I’m all harmonic minor all DAY the past week or two.

Or I guess for the ten minutes a day that I’m brushing up on classical guitar but whatever

[Christian Miller]

shifting to avoid is a shift you wouldn’t make otherwise, etc etc.

As players I think we have very different views on shifts in general. I would rather use more of them all the time, for musical reasons as much as anything. But there's a smart ergonomics to it too that I think people overlook.

How this goes for pedagogy - no idea. There's part of me that feels teaching children any other way than the orthodox, positional way is tantamount to malpractice. But it's not how my favourite jazz players play, by and large.

[Christian Miller]

Yeah that’s true, I call harmonic minor in jazz the Grant Green minor scale … harmonic minor, but really it’s root to fifth with the major 7 below and the b6 above just to bounce off of. If he wants to switch octaves he almost always skips from the root or the seventh down to the fifth.

My dude was not fooling with that b6 to 7 nonsense

I do that 90% of the time lol

[Christian Miller]

With classical guitar, they usually like the 1 finger on the fifth, slide up to b6, pinky on the 7, slide up to the root.

I have a new student working on Capricho Arabe so I’m all harmonic minor all DAY the past week or two.

Or I guess for the ten minutes a day that I’m brushing up on classical guitar but whatever

I find all the classical scale fingerings counterintuitive, how they shift and where they choose to shift in particular. I do enjoy them, but I have to really make sure I’m paying attention.

I hate shifting with my pinky. But my pinky is hot garbage.


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