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There is quite a bit more to it than "merely being exposed" to scales on other instruments when the players of these other instruments are accomplished. They are already adept at improvisation on their native instruments, most likely. And it's an easy enough process translating ones favorite licks and patterns over from one instrument to another. I mentioned piano and sax specifically in my above post because I have known people who were accomplished on these instruments and who decided to pick up guitar, and in very short order were playing at high levels of ability, including improvisations. They probably didn't linger at all on the major scales and immediately employed the improvisational patterns they were familiar with, which most likely included much more than just straight Ionian.
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02-13-2014 04:38 PM
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Do you actually play another instrument?
Originally Posted by cooltouch
Translating one's licks and patterns from saxophone to guitar isn't as easy as it sounds. I speak from personal experience. My "day job" is playing woodwinds professionally.
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I've known over the years, two saxophonists who are/were excellent at the sax and who took to guitar like it was made for them. I envied how quickly they grasped the instrument. And of course, the both play/played jazz on the guitar.
As for other instruments I play, well, any guitarist can play a ukelele -- they're tuned to the same intervals as the D-E strings are on a guitar, except the 4th string is an octave higher. So, I can play a uke, no problem. I dink around some on the mandolin and violin. They're tuned the same and I can read music with them, but I don't connsider myself to be a player of either instrument -- although I could be if I chose to. I'm self-taught on the recorder, and I can read for it as well. The only other instrument I'll admit to actually playing is piano/keyboards. I was a music major for my first two years in college and every music student was required to play two instruments: piano and something else. I actually was pretty good at it by the conclusion of my second year, but I have never had a piano at home until quite recently so I'm beginning to study up on it again.
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I'll throw in my 2 cents, since I'm in a posting mode today (as I listen to solos on repeat). This is my personal experience as someone who came to jazz from blues.
Straight up Chicago blues was the first stuff I got good enough to play on gigs. From my mid teens through mid twenties, I definitely spent some time saturating myself in blues. In addition to Chicago stuff from the 50s, I listened to all kinds of other styles, from T-Bone Walker to Blind Willie McTell, from Charley Patton to Louis Jordan and many more obscure characters. I was a blues fanatic. Mostly what I played was the electric stuff though.
I copped licks from and played along with T-Bone, Albert and Freddy King, Earl Hooker, Hubert Sumlin, Robert Lockwood Jr., Buddy Guy, Magic Sam, Eddie Taylor, Guitar Slim, Otis Rush and lots of other guys. I loved the harp players Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson and all the guitarists that played behind them. By my twenties I was sitting in and gigging with various blues players, many a lot older than me. At some point I learned how to play a major scale, and I started copping "prettier" little bits of things, stuff like Jimmy Reed's Honest I Do.
By about 25 I began messing around with jazz a little, learned about chords, arpeggios, scales, etc. Played some gigs that included blues and a few of the easier standards. Didn't really know what I was doing, but got by. I then went back to college at 27, studied classical guitar and all the stuff you study in music school.
So anyway, I agree with all the stuff about how learning blues gets you quickly to the place where you can play intuitively, which is a really important experience to have. I strongly disagree that "noodling" has anything to do with a particular style. Noodling can occur in any style, or not. The blues greats I mentioned above certainly did not noodle-they invented an amazing language just as did the jazz greats.
Back to the OP though-interestingly enough when I got to music school and was doing my first formal ear training, I did have a little more problem with major and minor thirds than I did with other intervals. So there you go-years of hearing that "third ambiguity" did affect my ear. But it only took about a week or two of study to work it out, so also no big deal. I mean, everybody has heard major and minor thirds their whole life, they just have to learn how to identify them as such. It's not like playing blues made me forget the sound of the Sesame Street theme song. I also remember in that same aural skills class having some difficulty performing straight 8th notes since I was so used to playing swing feel. But again, that was all the first semester.
So my opinion. I would start students with a major scale regardless, for the reasons others have stated-it's the mothership. But on the other hand, blues is one of the key foundational elements of jazz AFAIC. And blues (good blues, not the supposed noodle-fest down at your local gin mill) is just really great music in it's own right anyway. Listen to some mid-late 50s Howlin' Wolf. If you don't hear something there, see your doctor about your ears.Last edited by MattC; 02-15-2014 at 04:54 PM.
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Originally Posted by mattc
hear!!!! Hear!!!
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If they are a beginner at jazz but not to guitar, they likely already play rock and blues. Otherwise it's unlikely they would be interested in taking the next step. In that case a teacher would be refining their insight, not starting from scratch.
If they are a beginner on guitar the best way to get them to quit early is to make it boring and approach the instrument with a purist and pedantic view of music and the instrument. What to teach them early on depends on what the student needs to learn and grow. Not how the the teacher feels music should be in a perfect world.
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I agree. How Wes played the blues would be an example of the above. Originally Posted by M-ster
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I believe everyone should start with blues music. Blues is the foundation of most of today's popular music. Without it we would not have "jazz". I make my living playing straight up blues and I am no way considered a "jazz" musician.
That being said I have heard top jazz players like John Scofield and John Abercrombie "try" to play traditional blues and unfortunately it would appear that they do not have the feel for the music. Blues isn't about technical ability...it's all about feel.
Sorry but this is painful to me:
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Sorry but I think scofield sounds great on this video, great feel great tone, is it in the style of Stevie Ray vaughn or Clapton etc no, is it in the Mississippi delta vein no, is it good blues... I would say yes, scofield has definitely mowed that lawn... Perhaps you could post a video of your playing ( preferably) or a video that exemplifies your definition of real blues feel? To clarify
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Originally Posted by OPherman47
It's ok to have a difference of opinion. Sorry but I don't hear great "tone" or "feel" in the Scofield video.
Now if you want to play the "lets see a video of your playing" game I'm all for it!
Not the best recording but you get the idea.
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This looks better:
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A good place to start ? I would say no, I actually think it's the best and the worst... Blues is a mud, when it's just muddy waters, you can swim and move but when that mud is dried you can't move anymore and you just stay into that mud.
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Herb Ellis started as a blues player.
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Is there anything inherent in blues that keeps people from progressing? 99% of people who take up cooking, or photography or karate never progress past a novice level. Doesn't that just have more to do with human nature, than with blues? Originally Posted by Lionelsax
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No, its all good. Just hearing an example of what you consider feel and tone lets me know better where you are coming from.
Definitely from the Stevie Ray Vaughn school of tone and ideas.
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For what its worth I hear more of a Mike Bloomfield influence in what Scofield is playing. That era of blues.
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Playing a m3 over a maj7 chord can sound extremely cool, but you really have to know know your stuff before attempting it. Not for beginners. Learning to jam out 5-note Blues can be gratifying in the short term, but ultimately frustrating when you decide you actually want to be a musician.
IMO
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I think Blues is a good place to start beginning students because...it teaches an important 3chord twelve bar chord progression that can the be expanded upon until it becoms Basie Blues and BeBop Blues all built on that simple progression,it is good for developing phrasing (playing/notplaying), call and response, repetition and development of motives/motifs, and the blues is usually something that most people have heard even if only in the Blues Rock genre so there is some familiarity there which is always helpful. As far as teaching the minor third over major sound sometimes that minor third is a #9 which works, and also that minor pentatonic "blues" scale beginning on the 6th of what ever chord you are playing eliminates the minor/major 3rd conundrum. So I vote yes Blues is a good place to start much better than YYZ.
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painful indeed. but, i'm sure if he took it too the woodshed, it would get a sort'a nasty in no time.
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ok, but don't get stuck playing only those box scales. I did for years.
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this ^^^i think blues can and should be taught without encouraging a complete reliance on the minor pentatonic scale. That doesn't define the blues.
The Blues IS essential, but the m3 pentatonic box becomes a cage if thats all you can hear
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I believe the point is... whatever or where ever you choose to start, is just that.... a starting point, if you don't have an organized path getting to where the goal or end result is, generally you don't get there.
Blues are a very simple form of music, there not complicated. Isn't that the point. There are great performances of any style of music. Great performers... can make any music great.
From reading through the posts... I'm not sure one would understand what the Blues or Jazz is. What are blue notes and what they represent from the two different styles. The concepts of application of blue notes can have a few levels of understanding, even with basic blues. Generally most learn from listening and trial and error... the feel thing in slow motion.
It obviously works great with rock or pop orientated Blues, not so well with jazz. I personally don't think it matters what you start with... as long as there is a path and an organized method to get past that beginners thing. I also would find it very difficult to call someone a jazz player who couldn't cover the blues... even if they don't want to.
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One aspect of the blues that makes it useful for those starting out is the emphasis on feel / groove and time.
A drummer once listened to me play and told me what I needed to practice. "Go home and and play a basic blues for five minutes at a time until you reach the point where when you stop playing, an audience could still feel the groove.'
He called this "projecting" time.
His belief was that if a guitarist can do that with a 12-bar blues, he can learn to do it with anything else. But if he can't do it with a 12-bar blues, well, that's his homework until he gets it done.
I took that to heart and it did me a world of good.
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I prefer I vi ii V, but that's just for starters, too.
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Yea Mark... blues are great tool for getting your ... anything performance together. Generally because the form of the music is almost 2nd nature for most musicians etc... and the harmonic aspects are somewhat the same. Most western music... goes tonic, subdominant, dominant and then start over.
There are a million versions of Blues, both with Form,(bars and structure) as well as the changes, the harmonic structure.
8 bar blues like I VI II V's as Hugh Anderson mentioned above, basically Bop tunes... anyway, blues can be an easy and well traveled road towards learning what Jazz common practice is.
But they in themselves usually won't get to the Jazz exit.
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