-
It's important for beginning jazz guitarists to build a "vocabulary", isn't it? Don't we know that pro jazz musicians play as well as they do because they're not really improvising every note but drawing on a large repertoire of internalized licks, some original and others passed down through the tradition?
Of course, if anyone ever thought everything was improvised completely on the fly they'd be wrong. But the pendulum seems to me to have swung too far the other way, with many people seeming to believe that the great players really just have a big dictionary of "vocabulary" in their heads that they choose from when taking a solo.
Although there's a big element of preparation in all competent players' improv, and most players (including me) have characteristic ticks that come up again and again, I'm not convinced that memorized licks have to be, or usually are, a big part of successful jazz improvisation. Especially once you bracket out what might be a special case: high-tempo bebop tunes with fast changes.
There are now endless books, websites, courses etc teaching you "essential jazz licks". Why? Charitably: analysing licks and solos gives us an insight into what kinds of materials can be used to get certain kinds of sound. Cynically: they're fairly easy to produce over and over again, and because they promise a quick fix (if I learn a bunch of Wes licks I'll sound like Wes, right?) people keep buying 'em.
I may, as usual, be taking a road that's less travelled because it doesn't go anywhere... so what are the thoughts of more experienced jazz players here? Do you memorize licks? When you play them in a solo, how similar is what comes out to what you learned? What proportion of a typical solo is licks versus something else? What is that "something else"?
-
06-13-2012 04:12 AM
-
I memorize licks to a point. Analyzing how/why they work, where they are being drawn from and how to apply their intervallic message in other progressions with similar relationships between chords that have different tonalities etc...is more crucial than having a bunch of handy licks available IMO. This way I own the method, not just a lick....
-
Yes. I think very few good players continue to use the same lick in the same place for very long. Jimmy Vaughn said of brother Stevie Ray, "He never played it the same way once," or something like that.
Originally Posted by brwnhornet59
You can get a lot of mileage out of a good lick without playing it the original way you learned it.
-
Interesting and important topic!
I don't think anybody is saying that it is.Although there's a big element of preparation in all competent players' improv, and most players (including me) have characteristic ticks that come up again and again, I'm not convinced that memorized licks have to be, or usually are, a big part of successful jazz improvisation.
The advice that I give and that seems to be given often is to learn vocabulary (licks, if you will) to understand the structures and concepts as well as idiomatic tendencies in this genre.
That is NOT the same thing as saying "learn these licks so you can play them on stage."
I don't think that's such a subtle point, but just to be clear, when I'm making post after post encouraging beginners to transcribe and listen, I'm not advocating that anybody memorize licks then perform them, I'm saying to look at and listen to the actual music to learn..well...everything, because it's all there.
I really disagree with your perspective of the "learn vocabulary" approach. I have never ever heard anybody advocate to learn licks and then use them on stage in a solo. Never. From my eyes and ears, nobody is saying that. We learn some licks to study them.Cynically: they're fairly easy to produce over and over again, and because they promise a quick fix (if I learn a bunch of Wes licks I'll sound like Wes, right?) people keep buying 'em.
I memorize melodies - they may be heads or they may be parts of somebody else's solo. Heads I try to keep in my memory so that I can perform them (or reinterpet them) because that's obviously part of jazz performance. Solos I forget very quickly, but I spend some time assimilating something into my vocabulary and then it tends to sort of automatically get assimilated and personalized.Do you memorize licks? When you play them in a solo, how similar is what comes out to what you learned? What proportion of a typical solo is licks versus something else? What is that "something else"?
Here's a great example: I was learning some Monk lines recently (from Bye-Ya) and I realized he has a little tendency to play a four note ascending line (often something quasi-pentatonic in its intervals) then continue that line by playing the exact same four notes an octave higher. He might do the opposite too, a four note descending line then the continue the line by playing those same four notes an octave lower. I learned some of these lines, but not with the intention of spitting them back in a solo. I then practiced making my own lines that fit the criteria I just described and seeing if I could even improvise with that concept...basically two-octave four-note scales.
-
Another important point about this improvisation/lick issue - how LONG does something have to be to be considered a lick? One measure? Four measures? If we say two notes, that can't be a lick, because that's just an interval and there are only so many intervals. Wait, then isn't three notes just a combination of that limited quantity of intervals? So if there are only so many three note permutations, isn't a longer phrase just a combination of those limited arrangements of notes?
It's quite difficult to play something completely new or completely unfamiliar.
I think consciousness is really what you're getting at...
-
Yeah absolutely -- my OP was deliberately provocative but I do think that often the question of what, exactly, one's supposed to do with licks / transcriptions etc isn't all that clearly-explained, or at least it never was to me. I think beginners, especially those trying to self-medicate from the internet, can really get the wrong end of the stick. Originally Posted by JakeAcci
Jeff Berliner's fine book Thinking in Jazz is an example of a serious attempt to argue that playing jazz is largely a matter of assembling premeditated phrases. But he, too, does seem to acknowledge that the "vocabulary" analogy isn't perfect, and it's more like raw material than words and phrases we learn and repeat. I'm speaking from memory, though, it's years since I read it.
-
Reminds me of that short story in which a guy wants to test the theory that if you put six chimpanzees in front of six typewriters, sooner or later they'll produce every piece of written work that has ever or will ever be written. Of course, the experiment goes haywire when the monkees defy the odds by producing perfect copies of great classics from the get go. It's called "Infinite Logic" in case anyone's interested. Fortunately, for our purposes, I think there are enough notes to go around - we haven't run out of licks or ideas yet. Originally Posted by JakeAcci
-
I was watching one of Emily Remler's videos on youtube, and something she said hit me as quite interesting. She said she delelops a "lick" or line from a scale, lets say C scale. Now that becomes her C scale and she can apply this this for a C chord. This allows her a point from which she can improvise. I found that quite helpful.
She also said that nobody improvises 100% of the time.
-
I hope the six chimpanzees will tell great classic stories that reflect the arc of their own life experience and not recreate the work of Shakespeare and Maya Angelou. Originally Posted by Solo Flight
We learn to speak and communicate by observing and absorbing language from others but the magic resides in our differences.
-
Emily was right.
We are all "recombiners" of information...the best of us have a large pool to draw from, and the ability to follow ideas seamlessly on the fly.
Re: licks
For me, the most important thing is that a lick be written in chalk, not carved into stone...for example, i have a 13b9 lick i love (maybe a little too much) on dominants...but i play it about 20 different ways....this is crucial to me...if i set out to play something "exact" and i blow it...its much harder to recover...the lick is an idea for me...
-
Here's a great article by Sonny Sharrock that addresses this topic and more.
Jazz Guitar ONLINE
-
Bako, that's fabulous, thanks so much for posting it. I've seen bits from it but never read the whole thing.
My new favourite quote. It's a terrifying thought but I think he's right.Your work must be great, or it is nothing. There is no middle ground.
-
Wes Montgomery started out playing Charlie Christian solos.... He went well past that, of course, but as Lester Young said, "Bird had his licks and I have mine." There's a lot more to a lick than a sequence of notes in a particular rhythm: you can vary the attack, add notes, leave notes out. Play a little ahead, a little behind, with an aggressive or subtle feel. You make licks your own as your taste and technique develop.
Charlie Christian went a long way with a handful of licks that he could vary to suit the need of the moment. (That's not all he did, but it was central to his style.)
Licks are a big part of the reason we took up the guitar, right? We heard something and thought, "God, that is so cool!" It would seem perverse to take up an instrument, learn to play it, master some licks you love and then NOT play them because you already know them!
In "Thinking In Jazz," Paul Berliner quotes players talking about their "crips", the go-to licks they can always pull off. When inspired, go with that flow, but sometimes it's 11:45 and you're tired and a little bored halfway through a tune you're just not feeling tonight for whatever reason---better to play some cool lines that work than to play something lackluster just because it's "yours". Most people listening don't care if the lick is yours--they care if it sounds good to them.
-
That was fantastic. Thanks for posting it. Sonny left us too soon. Originally Posted by bako
Originally Posted by Sonny Sharrock
-
Not to get off topic, but how do people feel about quoting other melodies in a tune? A piece of another tune could become a lick. Being a newbie to jazz I'm sure this is very corny, but at the end of my Autumn Leaves Solo, the last 8 bars, I like to quote the first line of Auld Lang Syne, followed by the last line of There Will Never Be Another You. Nobody seems to think it's as cool as I do, but I enjoy it. Played in octaves it's not so corny.
The last line of melodies are often over ii V7 I changes and can be thus turned into licks.
Do you guys take a lick around the cycle of 4ths?
-
My bassplayer will find a way to get "Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside" into a bass solo at EVERY gig, no matter what the format or context. Still makes me laugh, no matter how much I'm waiting for it...... Originally Posted by kofblz
-
Improvisation=re-aranging something you already know.
No one pulls improvisation out of thin air. You might not play it the same way every time but it comes from a previously know foundation.
-
I love that! Sonny Rollins has a flair for it. On one of his solo live recordings, he is playing outside and a car horn honks and a honks back on his horn. Funny. (That's not a musical quote, but Sonny has a wicked sense of musical humor and has worked "Pop Goes The Weasel" into a few solos.) Kenny Burrell used the "Lullaby of Birdland" lick a lot. (It's in his solo on "Freight Trane" with Coltrane, for example.) Originally Posted by kofblz
A couple licks are known by the tunes they came from---the "Topsy" lick, the "Cry Me A River" lick.
Willie Thomas, a trumpet player, has an 'educational' solo over the rhythm changes in the "Approaching the Standards" series and in one chorus quotes from the Symphony Sid theme, "Twisted" (-the Annie Ross tune that Joni Mitchell covered on "Court And Spark"), and a lick I can't place beyond thinking, "that's a Miles lick." It all works well and I admire that ability to have fun with the jazz language, keep swinging, and make everybody smile.
-
I think that just like Mr. B. said, if you try to stick too rigidly to a lick then you are on shaky ground and it's very hard to recover if you misplay even slightly. Better to play the 'idea' of the lick but to let your ear guide you.
A brilliant quote appears courtesy of Miles Davis on his Prestige recording with Sonny Rollins - the tune is Serpent's Tooth. I don't even know what melody Miles is dropping into it, but everybody would recognize it. Worth checking out.
Finally, similar to the story about Rollins honking back at the car horn, I was at a performance by the great Canadian guitarist Lorne Lofsky at a hotel's restaurant. I guess the phone system was off but at some point late in the set the phone rang with some sort of obnoxious beeping tone. Without missing a beat, Lorne replayed the beeping melody and then took it through the cycle of fourths for a few measures. Very cool.
-
I went against the grain and never learned licks. I just never did. Too stubborn. This definitely has it's drawbacks. But I allays thought improvisation was supposed to be improvisation, so learning a vocabulary was lame to me.
Now I teach jazz at the college level and I DO tell students to learn vocab. But I also give a caveat. It's much harder to not have a memory bank of licks, patterns to fall back on. But it can be done.
-
Henry, I'm listening to your stuff on Soundcloud now and it sounds great. I always felt that way about improv as well -- it's almost an honesty issue -- although I also agree with others that any improvisation is made in the woodshed, not created on stage from nothing... I'm conflicted and this thread is giving me a lot to think about. Originally Posted by henryrobinett
-
There are great players who claimed to not have learned licks. But what I don't get is the honesty argument. Even if you don't work on it consciously, your subconscious will make you play stuff you've heard. No way around that. It's hard to come up with licks in 8th notes that you're sure nobody played before. In fact, pretty much impossible. You will play something that someone played before. It is when you add rhythm that things become interesting.
This is also what a lot of people forget when considering the lick thing. Learning a lick isn't about cut and paste. If you're not turning that lick inside out and disfiguring it in every way possible, you're not getting the most out of it. Rhythmically altering it, or keeping the rhythm and changing the notes are ways to practice that makes the lick serve its purpose: inspiring you. Instead of just being a quick fix solution.
When you work like that, you'll never play a lick the same way twice either! Because if you practice it differently each time, one idea becomes many.
So whether you choose to practice licks or not, what you've listened to will come out as you master your instrument. It's like speech. Being around a group people for a long time, your subconscious will pick up inflections and subtle ways of speaking.
Personally, I like a healthy balance in my practice. Learning licks is not systematic for me. If I have difficulties outlining some chord changes in a tune, I'll listen to my favorite players renditions of that tune and if I hear something I like over those changes, I'll steal it. I won't copy and paste it though, I'll take the idea to oblivion and back until I can no longer recognize it.
At this point, the honesty issue becomes irrelevant because so much of ones own influence is added to the lick. If one were to not learn licks, the subconscious would take care of assimilating influences to the same degree as if one would learn licks in the way I talked about.
In the end, I'm not here to try to change anyones mind about anything. But you can't escape your influences even if you try. That just won't happen :P
-
That's very true amundLauritzen - Although I never LEARNED licks doesn't mean I don't have a few I play. They must be my own or somethings I heard somewhere. OK there are a couple of blues licks I can't get around when I play rock or rocky blues. It gets me in the mood or vibe. By never having learned licks does't also mean I don't have familiar patterns I play.
I went through my period of learning and working on ii-V patterns. But I never learned them to use them in improv, per se. What it did do was give me the concept.
When I work on transcriptions I'll find a phrase and practice it to get the CONCEPT and the fingering down down. Then I'll promptly forget it. I never memorize solos. I want things to emerge from the well.
It's much harder this way and a longer road. And not necessarily a successful road at that. People want to hear what is familiar to them. They don't care about your desire to play everything from this well.
On the opposite extreme are guys like the pianist I play with the most. Fantastic player. He's been playing with Bobby Hutcherson for the last 5 years or so. He learned like most learn today: by string patterns and licks together. You'd never know it. I think he still plays this ay. He sounds like Herbie or Chick or Barry Harris, or anybody. He plays things that are familiar, for the most part.
And I don't think that makes him any less of a player. On the contrary he kicks ass. It makes me think I should have done it a different way, like everyone else.
Doing it my way makes putting phrases together difficult. And if phrases aren't pre-dteremined, in some way, timing can get muddled. I don't think I could play a pre-determined phrase in an improv if you held a gun to my head. I just don't know how to do it. I've never been a pattern player, but I did work on THINKING in rhythmic groupings like a pattern player does. You know, like those Coltrane inspired tenor players do.
OK, enough! I got to practice!
-
Thanks Rich! Thank you for listening! By honesty you mean - - what? And yes, improv is definitely made in the woodshed, and not on stage from nothing, more or less. Or your nothing is full of voices, points of views, emotions, colors, opines, words, paragraphs, essays, you thought of before. Originally Posted by Rich Cochrane
Henry, I'm listening to your stuff on Soundcloud now and it sounds great. I always felt that way about improv as well -- it's almost an honesty issue -- although I also agree with others that any improvisation is made in the woodshed, not created on stage from nothing... I'm conflicted and this thread is giving me a lot to think about.
When you get up to talk in front of an audience or class or something, you aren't necessarily speaking in memorized phrases. But your conversation isn't brand new and something you've never said or thought before either. You've considered the things you're saying, more than likely. I'd just rather not learn other peoples conversation points when I get up to speak.
-
Heh... I did say almost an honesty issue :-)... I feel as if there's a continuum between trying to play as much in the moment as possible on the one hand and playing a pre-memorized solo on the other. If I present myself as an improvisor I feel as if the latter would be "cheating". Somewhere in between is what most of us do.
Amund -- you're absolutely right about the subconscious thing. Years of listening ingrains the music into your ears even if you never consciously sit down and try to cop a lick or a solo. In that light my whole thing about a continuum between spontaneous and predetermined looks too artificial.
Plus, I'm aware that Braxton was often criticised for working out too much in advance and thought the criticism was irrelevant. Since I love his playing, I guess I agree with him...
-
I usually try to avoid playing licks. I prefer to find my own way to play over chord changes by trying to find melodies based on chord tones on a song basis.
Reply With Quote
Body Dimensions for a 1920s Gibson L5?
Today, 07:47 AM in Guitar, Amps & Gizmos