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I'm not laughing at it either. I think that we are getting so estranged from actual hands on learning sometimes with jazz people do come out with all kinds of stuff about how you can't learn this music without theory.
@matt - no, this beast exists. But none of them can actually play, so you won't find them among professional musicians.
I see theory as emergent from music, not prescriptive. What is the purpose of theory? Well it
1) allows us to conveniently label musical objects
2) allows us to abstract an element of music which allows us to extend and develop and idea we hear in other music.
The latter example - 'concepts' if you like - is certainly not limited to players with a formal background. I think it is simply a function of being a musician checking out music. If you see a player do a certain thing over a certain chord and you see them do it a few times, you notice a pattern.
Actually in this interview with Jimmy Bruno and Bruce Forman, for instance, they really get into some of the interesting names the old players gave to chord progressions... Don't tell me that Django, for instance, didn't have some private label for the m6 over dominant sound...
https://www.guitarwank.com/podcast (Epi 185)
Now most of us have had exposure to jazz books at least, we tend to use similar terminology, so a lot of that is lost. But the process can remain the same. Take for instance Reg's very personal approach to CST. He uses the familiar terminology in some ways, but in other ways his concept is totally idiosyncratic and can be challenging to understand at first.
There's also a very important capacity for 'misunderstanding' the second category. For instance, I think it was probably a misunderstanding of Parker's music to emphasise upper partials and thereby develop CST... But it was also an important plank in the development of modern jazz. In fact in Bird's own time the 'reinterpretation' of his music was already underway. For instance the famous quote:
"I'd been getting bored with the stereotyped changes (harmonies) that were being used all the time. ... I found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes I could play the thing I'd been hearing. I came alive."
Is not actually a quotation of Bird's but originally an interpretation written by a Downbeat copywriter, at least according to Conrad Cork in his book Harmony with LEGO Bricks. But that single statement can be related to much of what came after, and was no doubt read voraciously by young musicians desperate to understand what was going on in Parker's music (and Parker's music does of course contain notes that can be interpreted this way - although the same can be said of '30s improvisors.)
In fact we even hear this essential narrative (that Conrad Cork would characterise as skewed by Western European perceptions of music) by no less than Dexter Gordon, or at least his character in the movie Round Midnight. (Later Wynton Marsalis would debunk the same historic narrative, essentially agreeing with Cork's narrative.)
But the distinction I would make is that Parkers music might have been misinterpreted, but that's not just OK - that's actually necessary for the evolution of music. 'The words of a dead man are modified in the guts of the living.'
I think one thing theory books do is shut down people's own explorations by appearing overly definitive. Many things will be repeated from player to player, but some players will hear something different in the same players, and that's where a lot of the creativity comes from. The music itself has a way of teaching you about yourself.
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10-09-2019 04:37 AM
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Apologies for the typos, I can't seem to edit posts... .
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Originally Posted by christianm77
It's presented as if it's a binary choice: either you're an ear player or a theory thinker. This is simply false . The fact that there are people who understand more theory and can actually play is beside the point. There are plenty of great players who can do both at a very high level.
And these written out fantasies , imagining players having to think certain way to play while not being able to play anything by ear.... Ignores the fact that a great many players we can apply some Theorie also have fantastic years and can play things that they understand "by ear" as well.
A lot of condescension and PITY on people who "HAVE to think that way" and elaborate imaginings of how they think, to the point of being insulting.
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'The words of a dead man are modified in the guts of the living.'
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Originally Posted by ragman1
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I have heard that ancestor worship is only a way for your family to control you even after they're dead
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Tried to post, but new site update rendered division of paragraph ineligible. See PDF, sorry.
Last edited by bako; 10-09-2019 at 08:55 AM.
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Originally Posted by bako
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Originally Posted by ragman1
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To quote Yogi Berra, "A lot of the things I said, I never said". Somewhere in there I acknowledged that there are multiple paths which lead to the mountaintop, or, if not, I meant to. I was reacting to the various posts I've read over the years talking about large groups of scales, modes and fingerings in a kind of isolation. Some have explicitly suggested practicing multiple fingerings for each - to cover the entire fingerboard. The idea is that eventually it becomes all one big fingering for each and fluency is attained. I'm not clear how all this gets applied to songs, but, somehow, it does. And yes, there are players who learned, think and play that way. Not just on guitar, btw. I'm not putting that down. I'm just saying that it never worked well for me. And, I described the approach worked better. To sum it up: I found it more effective to learn one sound at a time, and, once I had the sound fully incorporated in my mind's ear, I could play it without ever thinking about fingerings. I gave examples using modes of melodic minor. I also pointed out that, if you have the basic skill of being able to play what's in your mind, you don't have to think about fingerings.Aside: how often do we see posts about how to improve your ability to immediately play a line that pops into your mind? In other posts I've acknowledged that practiced fingerings are useful at high tempo. It comes down to what will get sounds into your playing most efficiently. That isn't the same for everybody, apparently. There's nothing here that excludes anything else. However you go about this, there's a great player who did it some other way. But, I'd add one point. There are great players who don't know any theory. Andres Varady (read his GP interview) comes to mind. Are there great players who can't hear the sounds nor find the notes without thinking about theory? I doubt it -- even if they used theory to get to where they are. I wonder if a lot of players focus on theory because it's easier.Edit: still no paragraph breaks.
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Yea... back around. I know I've already said this a million times... If you can't play, by that I'm implying, you don't have the physical skills.
Lousy rhythm.... haven't figured out the TIME thing yet.
Don't have the technical skills on your instrument together yes... walk and chew gum
Don't understand Music... or at least have a system where you can Perform music with other musicians and actually hear what they're playing...
These are very basic skills required to play Jazz, If you don't have them. Modes or any other physical or mental understandings aren't really going to make any difference.
It's not that complicated... you need chops to play Jazz. It actually doesn't get in the way when you actually understand what your playing. You can actually look, hear and be aware of many possibilities of what to play. You can still play heartfelt beautiful music... even without memorizing, live with feeling and still be ahead and behind the Moment. I've never heard a Pro say his chops, knowledge or skills got in the way.
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There’s no Theory. There’s theories.
A lot of the differences are simply nomenclature. Not all.
Varady will have his own way of looking at music. A theory.
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Originally Posted by ragman1
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... I don't get that...
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Originally Posted by ragman1
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Oh, well...!
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Knowing modes, at least as most guitarist think of them... is simply playing scales starting on each scale degree. Which really isn't a theory or theories thing, right. It's a very physical skill which requires basic technical skills on your instrument.
Simple technical skill, you can use any fingering etc... I mean... the notes don't change. There are only 7 notes. 7 scales degrees to start on. If you can't do that anywhere on the fretboard, you don't need theory lessons.... you need beginner lesson on the instrument.
Same thing can be said of getting into the rest of the scales, then arpeggios. This is all very physical guitar skills. Not theory, theory is the part where relationships between note and chords are labeled and guidelines of how those notes and chords react to each other and which notes and chords have control of the relationships. Obviously very simplified, but My point is Learning how to play your instrument is not theory.
What seems to be the problem for most guitarist... they don't know how their instrument is designed and don't know the basic mechanics of how to play it.... If you have your guitar skills together... you can use the guitar to help see and hear what music theory is. But if you try to use the guitar to understand music harmony/theory and can't really even play the instrument.... your going to hit the same walls...
Basic Tonal and Modal Theory/ Harmony.... isn't that complicated. Tonal music has a few basic guidelines for how notes and chords react to each other. Melodic guidelines are just accepted common practice usage with harmonic guidelines... Functional Harmony.
Modal music just changes the guidelines, the tonal harmonic guidelines... from Ionian to different modes. You can expands the guidelines of what notes control harmonic movement or rest... and what the notes are that have what level of control.
Now we're talking about theory and harmony. You can apply theory and harmonic guidelines to your playing.... I do all the time.
It's not complicated because I did all the guitar basics when I was a kid.... same with other instruments. Piano is the easiest, because it is the instrument most musicians learned and worked from. Basic technique is simple, 12 notes and only one way to play each one. Easy to play melody and chords...etc...
Back to the guitar... if you can't play any scale starting on any scale degree, or arpeggio from any degree again anywhere on the fretboard. What do you expect.... your going to magically be able to develop great improve using both techniques .... live in real time. Then try and incorporate theory and harmonic concepts into developing that improv.... Come on, and you wonder why you get mixed up, hit mental and technical walls....are always in slow motion.
So practice needs to be organized.... 1) the technical BS. or whatever you want to call actually learning how the instrument works and how to play it.
2) the performance skills.... where you learn tunes, try all the different approaches, bring in theory and harmonic concepts.
The discussion of how to learn... RP's post above was really good. He pretty much laid it out... there many ways to learn how to play, and he broke down what worked for him.... His approach is pretty standard. learn tunes, the different sounds, be able to play what you hear. My point is the theory/ harmony aspect aren't required... but basic guitar skills... should be. You tend to become good at what your able to play. Your performance skills tend to reflect your technical skills. You can memorize and eventually get up to speed and maybe even be able to perform new music live.
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Originally Posted by Reg
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Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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Originally Posted by Reg
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I think we can all agree that the player should reach an end point of instrumental competence where all this stuff is known, both on the instrument and by ear. (and while there are differences from player to player, school to school and in terms of the nomenclature, but most of the stuff is common)
If I sing you the notes of the Dorian mode, you don’t need to know the theory to repeat it... it’s just a set of notes, a melody... BUT - the big problem with such approaches is always getting the motor memory involved which requires physically consistent practice. Same fingers etc.
That’s where a fretboard label such as ‘D Dorian position V’ can help the guitarist organise their learning. And yes we can presumably all agree with this basic truth - you can’t develop technical skills without this type of chunking.
There’s no way Birelli and Varady etc didn’t do this. I don’t believe it. They may not have called it ‘D Dorian position V’ but they must have practiced constituent positions and fingering patterns.
Personally I (at least currently) see modes as a concept and a sound independent of fretboard mapping. For instance if I play an F triad on an A7 chord, that’s an application of a modal concept without using scalic fretboard mapping.
But I am aware Reg deals with it in a different way and it seems from what I understand that the modal fingerings and sounds are more integrated in the way he thinks about it.
There’s many ways to systematically map the fretboard, I think there’s some value to investigating a few approaches. I’ve had fun
- CAGED for instance suits plays who start by mapping chord tones using basic grip/shapes but want to expand out into scales.
- A 7 position system might suit players who see scales first and want to expand into playing them in arpeggios, intervals and triads.
- A one octave cell system could suit players who are preoccupied with language and how it relates to scales and arpeggios.
Ultimately you need to be able to play without thinking all the scales from the bottom of your instrument to the top and back again in all intervals. So the above options can be seen as ways up the mountain.... ultimately the distinction should be pedagogical.
Anyway.
How long it takes to get there, how this information is introduced and how a teacher introduces it alongside other material, including actual music, is a much more interesting and difficult question to answer IMO.
One thing I think Reg and I have in common I think is that we see the live experience as the focus of the learning, and this stuff as preparation.Last edited by christianm77; 10-10-2019 at 06:58 AM.
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Hey Christian... most of my comments are not directed at anyone, more general. My comments you quoted were part of my rant about the difference between 1) technical skills on your instrument and 2) performance skills. And how it is crazy to expect to be able perform jazz when you don't get your technical skills together.
There are no right or wrong approaches for learning how to play jazz guitar. It would depend on what your goals are, how well you want to be able to perform, where and what you want to perform.
The mode fingering comments are not what or how I think, they are what many Guitar teachers and students use as labels for playing scales starting on each degree. I personally can think, be aware of sounds and possible musical relationships while performing, I don't need to think or choose fingerings unless I want to, there are mechanical relationships. Example... I use functional relationships all the time to help create musically organized movement when soloing or comping.
So I'm soloing over Fmin and say I'm developing a G and Bb..... thing, I can mechanically create a Harmonic organization blanket using those two notes and expand that chord functionally to become F-dorian to Ab lydian then back to F- dorian then down to D-7b5 locrian. So mechanically I create three sounds from this application...and it will work within a form that creates a organized shape that help create a sense of repeat, which create forward motion. So the two notes become,
G-Bb.... (F- dorian)
Bb-D... (Ab lydian)
F-Bb....(F- dorian)
Eb-G... (D-7b5 loc.)
I can expand these simple modal relationships... there are many mechanical approaches. Musical Mechanical relationships that are organized with References. I guess it's somewhat like having sounds that I know and understand and have gone through the technical possibilities before. I have organized guideline of how single choices have effects or results, where the music can go. Organized guidelines within organized space, form. Like having fingerings and technical fretboard organization, I can think about them or not, maybe thinking about what to eat, or drink.
When you become aware of composition and arranging, you begin to become aware that there are musically organized guidelines for how and why "sounds" work together. Embellishment also has organization beyond what one's ears may hear, like or understand at any moment. You can learn these organizations from common practice (tunes) and eventually develop understandings or instincts that your able to hear or use while you perform. The same can be with fingerings, labels etc... But it can take a long time, and you might miss some things. Who cares, it's a personal choice, I guess.Last edited by Reg; 10-10-2019 at 11:33 AM.
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Of all the topics in playing Jazz, the modes is one that inevitably presents the big fundamental question that Reg is raising - how do you acquire technical skills? // It looks like there are basically two extreme answers: //- the analytical preparation - deliberately learning to "play any scale starting on any scale degree, or arpeggio from any degree again anywhere on the fretboard" kind of thing, and ultimately capturing all of melody, harmony, and rhythm in this comprehensive approach. This is the Berklee and similar music schools' method and philosophy of attempting to be able to do everything so as to be able to do anything. For the development of pros that anticipate needing to be able to do whatever comes up or is required, this is the canonical music training system. //- the prehensile ear - as in "everything you need to know may be heard within and grasp from the songs you want to perform". This is the listen, play, and learn method and philosophy of attempting to more directly be able to do everything you want to do and not attempting to potentially be able to do things that may never come up... to paraphrase Wes, "I only practice things that I would play in songs during a performance". //Of course most of us are somewhere in the middle of these extremes, so the question remains: How do we acquire technical skills (and is, or how is, learning about the modes part of that)? It's a tough question because it really depends on experience. One who has studied so that they think about keys, notes, scale degrees, other formal music structure etc. is challenged to confront a couple of methodologically different explanatory interpretations of what the modes are and how to grasp them and apply them. On the other hand, those who play by ear may intuit that in an abstract sense, especially because of the diatonic basis for Western music forms, so many series of pitches may be technically interpreted as some mode of something or a part of various modes of other somethings, one might wonder if they are ever not playing some mode!?
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Man I hope they sort the paragraph thing out soon. Lots of interesting points in your post Paul...
Of all the topics in playing Jazz, the modes is one that inevitably presents the big fundamental question that Reg is raising - how do you acquire technical skills? // It looks like there are basically two extreme answers: //- the analytical preparation - deliberately learning to "play any scale starting on any scale degree, or arpeggio from any degree again anywhere on the fretboard" kind of thing, and ultimately capturing all of melody, harmony, and rhythm in this comprehensive approach. This is the Berklee and similar music schools' method and philosophy of attempting to be able to do everything so as to be able to do anything. For the development of pros that anticipate needing to be able to do whatever comes up or is required, this is the canonical music training system.
Well, I had a laugh with my missus who is learning the ukulele for fun. She busks through a few standards like Misty and Embraceable You learning chord shapes as we go... And then she says on the ukulele forums there are people who say you need to learn all of the jazz chord voicings before you learn any songs.
So needless to say we found this hilarious.
Of course being able to busk some standards does not make you a jazz player - on the ukulele or any other instrument, but it does show an essential confusion at the heart of the way people think about this music. For instance the songs are kind of separate to jazz. We improvise and often compose jazz on standards. Standards themselves might be film themes, pop songs, musical theatre numbers, classical themes, folk tunes (and even jazz compositions.)
So a structural understanding harmony, is quite simply, best reached by learning a shit ton of songs. If you learn a few hundred mid-century tunes you will see the patterns. There is no textbook or course that will do this job better. Berklee can't do this, for instance. It can give you the tools, but ultimately it can't teach you that.
This won't make you a jazz musician, but it will teach you the basic framework, and it will (or at least used to) get you playing... to play jazz you have to learn, among other things, ways to play these changes in an improvised line.
Now for the current musician, this model is now heavily complicated by some rather obvious issues which I'll pass over.
//- the prehensile ear - as in "everything you need to know may be heard within and grasp from the songs you want to perform". This is the listen, play, and learn method and philosophy of attempting to more directly be able to do everything you want to do and not attempting to potentially be able to do things that may never come up... to paraphrase Wes, "I only practice things that I would play in songs during a performance". //
What's the point of practicing something you don't use in performance?
Perhaps the early years are a bit random. Throwing a lot of stuff at the wall, seeing what sticks, learning how you assimilate information, which methods seem to work best for you. College has a responsibility to expose you to lots of influences and information, not all of which you will find useful or interesting. Having some teacher grill you on scales and arps is certainly an important part of that... You learn who you are, develop the basic skills to at least go and do some gigs.
Of course most of us are somewhere in the middle of these extremes, so the question remains: How do we acquire technical skills (and is, or how is, learning about the modes part of that)? It's a tough question because it really depends on experience. One who has studied so that they think about keys, notes, scale degrees, other formal music structure etc. is challenged to confront a couple of methodologically different explanatory interpretations of what the modes are and how to grasp them and apply them. On the other hand, those who play by ear may intuit that in an abstract sense, especially because of the diatonic basis for Western music forms, so many series of pitches may be technically interpreted as some mode of something or a part of various modes of other somethings, one might wonder if they are ever not playing some mode!?
Why the hell do we practice scales, arpeggios and patterns?
Well, quite simply they represent fragments of musical information. No one really improvises by play individual notes. We improvise lines. Lines are built up of a - little bit of scale here, bit of arp there, bit of enclosure there, a leap, another scale fragment etc. By training our hands to learn scales and so on we prepare ourselves to execute this stuff.
If you spend any time transcribing music, you will come across scales and arpeggios.
The note re: modes. OK, so Mozart is using the notes of C major scale on a G7 chord. Is that a mode? (This relates to another point re: the purpose of analysis...)
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Yea as I posted after 1st new comment by John Tom, "I'm giving up on Modes". I commented,
"Wise choice, and I'm a pro and get modes, modal and just about anything else with music. Get your technical skills together.... your guitar technical skills.... if you can't play your instrument... all the knowledge in the world won't help you."
But we must enjoy going through the process of venting. I perform with many great musicians that don't get modes or modal and don't care about them. Some are very vanilla, some can really play and many are somewhere in the middle. But most do have their technical skills together. The results are very obvious to musicians, but not many musicians check out live music, so who cares.
Musicianship isn't that complicated, you don't need musical degrees and years of studies. I was playing gigs long before I went through the education process, I went to music schools to learn how to compose, arrange, learn terminology, theory etc.. I did learn better organizational systems for developing better musicianship. I don't believe it hurt my playing, but I could already play and sight read. All the scales, from each degree, arps, chords, etc... basic technical skill on guitar were worked by the time I was in High school.
The transcribing drills, playing by ear, and on and on were also just part of basic musicianship. I am talking 60's and 70's, if you didn't have your skills together, you didn't get a chance to play out much. I still enjoy performing live. I don't enjoy memorize and perform gigs. I love playing new music live... just as I did as a kid. Part of the Jazz performance skills thing.
Maybe it's just that most weren't performing back when modal concepts were part of performing jazz. Live jazz etc... I'm older and was playing jazz gigs and the modal sounds and styles were cool, the concepts opened tunes for incredible live improv. The interact and react thing. The music scene was still alive, jazz was on the rise. Sorry.... yea dump the mode and modal things.
I think it's interesting that most don't seem to understand modal music concepts beyond giving examples. Again who cares.
KA PAF info please
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