Arpeggios or Licks?

[pamosmusic]

Not really.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[JazzKatua]

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

I’ll do a video about it soon.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[pamosmusic]

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.

Maybe. I’m very positiony but I’ll also take a shift over a stretch any day of the week.

[Mick-7]

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.

Yes, because that's an awkward way to finger it, I'd use the 1st, 3rd and 4th fingers instead (on the same string).

Maybe. I’m very positiony but I’ll also take a shift over a stretch any day of the week.

Make that "positional," fortunately, your guitar playing is much better than your grammar.

I would think it's more about the length of your fingers? (stretching that is, not grammar).

[pamosmusic]

Make that "positional," fortunately, your guitar playing is much better than your grammar.

Golly gee, thanks Mick.

[henryrobinett]

Talk about awkward. I trained myself from HS days to make that big leap from b6 to 7th with my pinky. Or I shift to the next scale pattern. But HM was always so crucial to my playing I just got over it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[pamosmusic]

Talk about awkward. I trained myself from HS days to make that big leap from b6 to 7th with my pinky. Or I shift to the next scale pattern. But HM was always so crucial to my playing I just got over it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah that’s fair enough.

[Mick-7]

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.

I think I disagree with both of your points: (1) You don't have to learn a a scale for each chord quality, just understand scale harmony, e.g., the III chord in the melodic and harmonic minor scales is a maj.7#5.

(2) You don't have to learn a lot of rules of application, just learn to play what you're hearing. I think the creative process should precede the analysis of it.

[pamosmusic]

(2) You don't have to learn a lot of rules of application, just learn to play what you're hearing. I think the creative process should precede the analysis of it.

It’s like Groundhog Day, but here goes …

Mick, people are describing the process by which they learn to play what they hear.

It is not insightful or interesting to tell people they should just do that. That’s the obvious part. What everyone finds interesting is HOW.

[Christian Miller]

I think I disagree with both of your points: (1) You don't have to learn a a scale for each chord quality, just understand scale harmony, e.g., the III chord in the melodic and harmonic minor scales is a maj.7#5.

You do need to learn to construct intervals and chords etc on the guitar.

I'm really talking about improvisational technique, which is different to fretboard mapping. I know a lot of people conflate the two.

(2) You don't have to learn a lot of rules of application, just learn to play what you're hearing. I think the creative process should precede the analysis of it.

I think this statement misunderstands the nature of creativity in the arts. Painters don't just daub on a canvas. They study colour, perspective, the human form, composition etc.

[Christian Miller]

Talk about awkward. I trained myself from HS days to make that big leap from b6 to 7th with my pinky. Or I shift to the next scale pattern. But HM was always so crucial to my playing I just got over it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Awkward? I don't know, I don't feel awkward. I do play HM a lot. But I'm more a linear guy than a scale pattern person, mostly.

I use to play more stretchy and positional, but I have gradually moved away from it. I can play those positions fine, I'm not that bad of guitar player. I just.. don't like them?

I've been looking very closely at how people like Wes do it. There's such a grace to the way he plays everything with three fingers, it flows like water and his sound is so fluid too. I wish I could do that. He has some beautiful fingerings when you get your head around them. Including for the Harmonic Minor.

[Christian Miller]

Maybe. I’m very positiony but I’ll also take a shift over a stretch any day of the week.

One use of that direction change augmented 2nd - in Romanza! So it does happen...

[pamosmusic]

Awkward? I don't know, I don't feel awkward.

I feel awkward all the time.

what were we talking about?