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Well said!
Originally Posted by max_power
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04-05-2011 03:54 PM
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Well, in essence jazz is an aural tradition and it has a somewhat set vocabulary from which we create and organize fresh ideas. Locking someone away with harmonic frameworks (tunes) and the tools (scales, chords, etc) will force them to invent some kind of music... It may make musical sense in the end, but it won't be "jazz" without exposure to jazz.
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It's all part of learning a tune. You don't really "know" the tune unless you've listened to a few different versions of it and internalized some ideas for how to play the melody and how to solo over the form. Originally Posted by JonnyPac
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True. I'm just addressing the assumptions that beginners might have that the written heads and changes include everything they need to work from. Melodic paraphrasing is one of many improv devices... there is much to explore!
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It's not easy... or there would be a lots of great players. You need to play live if you want to play jazz... sure you write a tune or arrangement and you can memorize...what you notated... but in jazz that is just the start. And yes you need to basically cover everything if you want to develop real musicianship... but there is a balance. Which can be different for each player reflecting what each player wants to do with music... The jazz world isn't what it was fifty years ago... You need much more info. There are to many good players... not great, but good. Eventually your trying to play what you hear... but if you haven't developed your ears to hear... buy that I mean more than simply what's notated on the chart, or when you listen to others do you hear what their implying or just what their playing... Anyway my point is you need to educate your ears as well as teach them to hear by transcribing. You need to know where the tune is going... not just where it's been.
This may sound like a ton of work and maybe not possible and your right... You need a plan... there are plenty. Five year plan, which is adjusted all the time. (Should really be ten year plan). schedules and check points... It won't happen by chance. In that plan you'll run into learning tunes, scales, arpeggios etc... and licks and a whole lot more.
But as I said upfront start playing live music... Hey JP always great thread to bring up... best Reg
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Naah, generally when a soloist begins the first thing he does is abandon the song. You keep the chord progression and the pulse, everything else goes hang. If you're soloing on 'I've Got You Under My Skin,' you don't do everything in crotchet triplets, do you? If it's 'Girl from Ipanema' and you keep that bossa shuffle going all the way through your solo, it'll probably be inappropriate, the drummer will be somewhere else. And yes, I know about that 'outline the melody' stuff, it's a nice exercise, it isn't what people actually play, it just sounds like that often because the melody is implied in the chord sequences. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
But that isn't what is expected of a jazz guitarist. A novice jazz guitarist will be expected to comp, full stop, much as a beginning rock guitarist will be expected to play 'rhythm' guitar. A bit later, he or she will be expected to be able to play a few riffs or runs to order, maybe read parts. Then he should know how to solo. The tune isn't the jazz guitarist's job, that's for the singer or the horn men - many jazz guitarists spend their entire careers without once playing a melody in public. The situations where a guitarist needs to be able to carry the tune are anomalous ones (and tremendously unprofitable ones - chord-melody stuff, playing alone in restaurants, fronting a bass-drums-guitar trio in lounge bars...). That isn't the way to go, except for self-realization, the enjoyment, OK, but it is neither mainstream jazz nor a guitarist's typical development. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
So this is my 'learn the tunes' counter-argument. Learning guitar in whatever style goes like this, in this order: comps, runs and things, reading, playing solos, and finally and maybe never, tunes.Last edited by JohnRoss; 04-05-2011 at 07:20 PM.
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Are there any legitimate teachers out there who don't recommend transcribing as an important element in developing as a jazz musician?
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I think Reg has demonstrated JGR's point in the popular video thread here. He just pulls tunes and goes with it. There is a point where a real jazzer can just play over any typical changes on the fly. Heck, it's impossible to internalize every song that could ever be called at a real-book gig. Many times you need to react to the other players in ways you'd never guess in the practice room.
I only internalize tunes I love, not the usual blowing session stuff. Just read it/comp the chords and play a solo that compliments the performance at hand. I'm not a CM guy or solo guitarist (as cool as that stuff is); it is not the only way to play jazz guitar as JGR says. Comp like a piano, solo like a horn is more my bag.Last edited by JonnyPac; 04-05-2011 at 09:00 PM.
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Heads are good, of course. They just don't teach you the full jazz (bebop) stock vocabulary or how to connect busy lines, etc in most cases. The GS solo is much more revealing than the head, right?
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Nobody suggested they did.
John and johnny, I get what both of you are saying but we're talking about beginners here...you gotta learn a hell of a lot of tunes before you can pull off just sitting down and playing a song well.
I'd argue you need to know the melody of a tune to comp effectively when starting out...it takes work to get your ears good enough to go in cold.
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Dave Liebman has an interesting article on his site regarding transcribing:
"How does one learn tone, nuance and develop a true and believable jazz sense of rhythm? Certainly there are exercises and method books which can help a student attain these goals, but there is a built in elusiveness to these concepts since they are virtually impossible to notate in any convincing fashion. The best approach is exact aural and tactile imitation-the first stage of all artistic growth. For jazz, the most valuable form ofimitation is a direct master-apprentice relationship in which the live model (master) demonstrates directly to the student demanding immediate and exact repetition until mastered before moving on. Learning in this way becomes a natural outgrowth of constant exposure and reinforcement on the spot. But without that opportunity, I have found transcription is the next best method. Some musicians object to transcribing as stealing other people’s ideas. My contention is that in one way or another, whether it be as detailed as I will describe or as casual as Charlie Parker supposedly standing outside of a club in Kansas City hearing Lester Young and then going home with phrases in his ear and mind to practice and recall, most artists have done something of this sort. And the best players are usually the ones who will tell you immediately that so and so was their main inspiration and they began by copying him. This is a process-a means to and end and to my mind very necessary."
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I dig the thing there on "transcribing". Just like "writing" music, I didn't mean to suggest literally transcribing everything. Imitating bits is all. The nuggets!
Melodies are good to learn, but again, melodic paraphrasing is only one aspect of a solo. By digging into a single Charlie Christin or Bird solo you can learn more than any head can teach you, IMO.
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Doesn't the head of the tune teach you something different than the solo? Like how to create the part of the tune that your audience will actually be able to hum and remember lol. Originally Posted by JonnyPac
How 'bout learning both?
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Lol. For sure.
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It's kind of hard for me to think of playing jazz with out thinking or hearing heads, even if only short phrases or even a few notes working over a few chords... one note over one chord... they all remind me of tunes or what has been done with tunes. It's hard for me to say... I know all the tunes, there already in my head. I wish I could play something that hasn't been already played.
When I improvise... I expect other players to know and be able to go where I imply... especially when I use references to tunes or melodies. They imply much more than simply the melody, they hint at possible harmonic areas, even rhythm figures. I also play gigs where I double horn lines all night... younger venues, I don't think I would be able to do that well... with out reference to melodies...(even though I read well). Granted if the charts are notated well, the line plays it self and we should all be phrasing the same...but we all have references to what the lines are implying, not just the notation on the paper.
The melody... chord thing.... reminds me of the chicken or the egg thing. Is the music inside of use or are we taught... I put in the time and taught myself... and now the music comes out freely...Reg
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It seems to me that that is a good argument in favour of "all musicians should sing," with which I agree, and/or that all musicians should play the piano at least a little, with which I also agree. But I don't think all guitarists have to learn to play the tune on the guitar, it's a red herring. I do it, because I was chord-melodying thirty years ago (long before I knew the term existed) and I enjoy it, but you don't have to do it, and I don't see why learners should be obliged or even strongly encouraged to do it. Tunes, the sort of tunes we're talking about, are written for singers, not guitarists, and, baldly (chord-melodying restaurant serenaders apart), solo guitarists don't play that sort of tune, they play guitar pieces, things created specifically for the guitar, Anji or Classical Gas or Recuerdos de la Alhambra. And in most real-life situations where guitarists are playing in groups, they are just not frontmen (unless, of course, they are singers as well). So the chord progressions are what counts, the melody is someone else's job, and this tune-centric approach is inappropriate. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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04-06-2011, 11:50 AM #42Baltar Hornbeek Guest
Rhythm is the earth. Harmony is the tree. Melody is the fruit? Who doesn't like a good apple?
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A beginner should know the melody because their ears might not be big enough to sense it or intuitively hear it.
It's a big deal if the melody note is, say, a 13th on a dominant chord and the guitar player decides it's a good time to whip his newly learned dom7b13 voicing he just picked up while the sax player lays into that 13.
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They should know "how the song goes" and listen to a lot of tunes... working out the line on the neck is often another story.
I've listened to a lot of Bird, but I only know how to play a few of his heads by heart. Knowing the essential bop heads is a ton of work in the shed, and I have not met a guitarist who can sight read any of them at full clip. Comping and soloing over them is much easier, believe it or not. Let the horns read them at the blowing session!
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He doesn't have to know the melody for that, he just has to know that there is no b13 or #5 in it, a peek at the chord chart should tell him that. And while we're on the subject of inept comping, there are few ways for a guitarist to get up a singer or horn man's nose better than by playing or outlining or even alluding to the tune when the singer or horn player is trying to drag it, go ahead of it, bend the note, catch a 9th or a major 7th instead of the root, or any number of things singers and horn players are there to do and guitar players, specifically, aren't. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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It can--but again, we're talking about beginners here! Originally Posted by JohnRoss
Everyone knows I'm typing all these comebacks with a smile, not a frown, right?
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Can anyone name a single relevant jazz guitarist/instructor who advocates that guitarists should not learn the melodies to tunes? Any quotes from prominent guitarists in which they state that learning the melody is pointless in most cases?
This advice goes against everything I've ever been taught but I'm open to reading more about it. If there are any prominent jazz guitarists/educators who claim they never learn the melodies/heads to tunes and advocate this approach to jazz for others, please post some links.Last edited by Jazzpunk; 04-06-2011 at 03:27 PM.
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Shouldn't think there are any. I'm not advocating it either, I'm talking about priorities, and saying the tune is primordial for a guitarist seems upside down to me, it's the last thing he needs to take into account. Drummers don't need to know the tune, they need to know when to do the sting, or cut for a couple of bars or whatever. This is because drummers don't play melody instruments (but now that I think of it, most of the drummers I've known have been much better readers than the guitarists). Neither do guitarists, really. I have a sneaking suspicion that the problem is that lots of people here feel that the guitarist should be the most important element in a band, which is not generally the case. Originally Posted by Jazzpunk
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There is a difference between talking about playing jazz or improvising and actually playing... many times you can talk yourself into thinking you have it all together and then... you have to play... not just the easy stuff and not just one tune...not just the music you've already played... what your comfortable with...but new, at least to you... now what do you do... Some players can play... some players can talk about playing... it's a fairly simple choice...
Hey Jazzpunk... NO, I can't... maybe there is a reason.
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I like to work on just one tune for many days. I maybe solo on it 50-100 times. Then I go search i-tunes for different versions of the tune to hear what others do on it. That's always interesting to me. I find different ideas that way and then go back and work on that same song again.
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