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I feel the same way, the part about not being born gifted. On the other hand, that can be a double edged sword. The two most gifted guitarists that I went to high school with... They were good enough that they were clearly pointed to making a living at music. The way things all turned out way down the road, I'm glad I didn't take the same path they took.
Originally Posted by smokinguit
That's really pretty amazing, to have that much attention/intention to every note! Most of my playing is in a non-purposeful relaxed state. I'm almost always playing over a tune, but I'm pretty much just enjoying myself. Originally Posted by smokinguit
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06-03-2015 02:49 PM
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Joe Pass did some playing with the TV on. I don't think it was "mindless" though. I think playing while watching something can be good, especially if it's something you know how to play but need to play over and over to get it down cold. ( Originally Posted by Bluedawg
I tend to stick with mindless noodling myself ... often while watching TV
I never practice with the TV on in the morning, but some of my before-bedtime playing is done while watching a TV show. The fingers need the work but what I'm playing doesn't require much thought. Going over some ii-V lines, for example, or running a diminished pattern around the neck. And sometimes I will play along with what's being played on the show----it's something I didn't plan, didn't expect, but just fall in with---or fail to.
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The most efficient way to learn is
to be specific about the subject, not too broad one,
and find someone to show you how to do it.
Then you translate that thing all over the place.
While doing it options will emerge so you will end up learning much much more than that one specific thing.
Further, it will be more of discovering than leaarning, which, IMO, is much better thing to do anyway.
Then you pose another question ...
Since OP is about being pro, above does not apply only to playing instrument, but to whole set of skills a true pro should possess with a goal to enable you survive musical demands as they come, in real time, every and any time, every and any place. Like someone said above, to paraphrase,
if you don't know to read, you have to know to lie and keep it going, and so on.
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I think there is a reason for great players may seem like not so good teachers. It's because they'd to teach you what makes them great and that's hard and heavy stuff to explain. Impossible, IMO. There's no point in asking Joe Pas, or George Benson, or Pat Metheny about fingerings and 3tone substitutions, every average player can explain that, even I could to a degree. Could I explain what made Joe Pas so great. No. I can not. Could he? Not likely, because he did all the same things, scales, chords and arpeggios we all do. The only difference being ... it was him doing it. How possibly could he explain him self?
Must say, I followed links from various threads to various classes and schools ... none of them not unusefull, but the most striking ones were Joe Pas and George Benson.
One could say they did not show a thing, GB even less than JP, but I was like, "wow, yes, that's it ...". Problem is, nobody can learn what JP did, or what GB does that makes "the difference". One can only "understand" what it was and try to find own version of it, in own self. Sinatra comes to mind, My Way, but so do Sex Pistols and Sid Vicious.
On the other hand, there is a reason why some people are so great teachers. If you don't believe me, ask RichB. Question is, what makes them great? Is the criteria the feeling they provoke in their students, "I like this guy", or it is the number of trully accomplished players they've produced? Or is it the number of players acknowleged as "Great" they've produced?
Former 2 criteria are meaningless, because many methods and many teacher can produce accomplished player, regardles of student's feelings, while being "trully accomplished player" means nothing, because there are so maanyy of them out there. I'd say it is inflated situation and we need some shift of criteria. It is impossible for so many players to be so accomplished. Something is wrong there. The point must have been completely missed.
The later criteria is also meaningless becaause player won't become great due method, or teacher. He will become great due talent, own (a.m.) unexplaainable self.
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I still don't buy it. Great players have practiced A LOT. They may not CALL IT practicing, but believe me, one way or another, they've put in TIME in their instrument. They may not be spending that time going over scales but they've woodsheded. I've never known a great player who hasn't. There are gifted players. Of course. They may have had to put in LESS TIME than the average Joe, but don't let anyone deceive you. I'm with Brecker on this.
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The reason why some great players make bad teachers or good teachers has to do with their ability to articulate what it is they do. Some players just aren't articulate in that way. They forgot how they learned, or they never really knew. They just put it together. Others are very articulate. They have thought about it. And maybe they've been teaching for a very long time.
I've been teaching jazz since I was in High school. That's a LONG TIME AGO. So I've always been thinking about how to explain this stuff. A lot of guys are just accosted by students at gigs to give them lessons. "I don't know man. I just play, you know?" And that's an honest answer for them.Last edited by henryrobinett; 06-03-2015 at 07:36 PM. Reason: typo
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I think the others have pretty well covered it. I did the 30-day free trial on TrueFire and pretty well blitzed through everything that I thought might interest me... and Haque's courses would be the ones I would most recommend by far. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
The one I was referring to was 'Bebop Improvisation Survival Guide', which sort of goes hand-in-hand with his 'Jazz Comping Survival Guide'. (There's also a modal one as well, but it's not really what I'm into at the moment.) I wouldn't say I actuallylearned anything new; most people who have been at this a while will be familiar with the stuff he covers (ii-V and tritone subs, anticipating changes, leading from above/below, etc.). But the biggest thing is that he does a great job of cutting through the enormous amount of chaff that can seem overwhelming when learning this style, honing in on what he sees as the essentials. He gives you a few simple principles that yield almost unlimited variation, and probably a couple of years worth of experimentation. He claims that he's been relying on these few principles for the past 25 years of his professional career. I'm sure he's got a lot more up his sleeve than he lets on, but hey.
Anyway, I think we're well off-topic here, but if you're thinking about checking it out I'd almost suggest doing the comping course first, where he goes into a bit more detail on those principles. He then applies them to single-note stuff in the improv course.
He's also a super laid-back dude, and fun to listen to. I'm a bit surprised by Henry's comment about him being a task-master in person!
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Oh bloody hell, why can't people just practice chord tones slowly through the changes of songs. It's boring but you have to do the work.
When you have the chord tones done do the extensions.
Learn scales too.
And learn lots of tunes - the melodies too and lyrics if you like. The more progressions you learn the more you will see patterns. And people will book you for gigs too. Then you will learn about how to play in a band.
Everybody I know who is any good has done this.
There are no shortcuts. A lot of time people end up creating a long way round in search for a shortcut. I have done this in the past myself.
Sorry to be grumpy, and I don't mean to denigrate any concepts or anything (like CST, the T/D thing, or Barry Harris) but that all comes later. And you could do without it as well...
It's not rocket science!Last edited by christianm77; 06-04-2015 at 10:53 AM.
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I believe the 'gift' is in fact just the ability/interest/facination to do the Originally Posted by pushkar000
hours and hours of playing needed
to become good (at something)
Henry called it obsession
for a long time i thought Mozart was the exception to this ....
playing for Kings round europe at 6 years old and such ....
turns out he'd put in the time , he just started very early
Jimi played all the time aparently
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Rather than try and make assumptions about what these guys might be doing...I just wanted to add in a point regarding strategy. I usually like to think about music using metaphors because it's too big, expansive, and subject to think literally about it.
If we want to start a business and make it successful...there are sooooo many variables at play and things to consider. The market, the size of business we want to build, where we want to start it, etc etc.
What you seem to be asking about is how to start a business with as little time and start up capital as possible while still making it successful.
I personally can't answer that for you. But strategically it seems like a good idea for you to sit and take some time writing up your business plan. What's your mission statement? What are your business goals? Etc etc. From there you can get specific with your budget and other start-up investment issues.
Here's some statistics regarding writing down goals (in reference to business and career..though to me this stuff applies to music as well)....copy and pasted from Forbes dot com:
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There was a fascinating study conducted on the 1979 Harvard MBA program where graduate students were asked “have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?” The result, only 3% had written goals and plans, 13% had goals but they weren’t in writing and 84% had no goals at all. Ten years later, the same group was interviewed again and the result was absolutely mind-blowing.
The 13% of the class who had goals, but did not write them down was earning twice the amount of the 84% who had no goals. The 3% who had written goals were earning, on average, ten times as much as the other 97% of the class combined!
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In other words...what do you want to accomplish musically? And what is preventing you from being able to do those things today? Once they're written down, then you attack them. I can't tell you what the fastest way to attack them is. But I can tell you that, just like in business and in life, writing down your goals (including what's preventing you from accomplishing them and the steps you will take to accomplish them) is so helpful.
I can't tell you the fastest method, because I don't know it, and I'm not entirely convinced that 'IT' exists. But I do know that figuring out what's important to us musically and what's preventing us from being able to play that way today...and putting everything else on the sidelines...is a great first step at minimizing what we need to focus on so that we can squeeze more juice out of our practice time.
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Why isn't pursuing jazz the same as pursuing bluegrass, blues, rock, country, or most other styles of non-formal street based music?? Didn't anybody else do this as a young musician? It's not rocket science.
You listen to the records, learn the chords, changes, arrangements and solos by copying them until you had them memorized and could play them note for note. You get hooked up with other folks, make some music and learn more from them. Usually the goal is to get good enough to gig, not sit at home.
Jazz is the same shit, and most players will tell you that. It'll disapoint those that have a head full of theory but can't play tunes.
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I'm coming to this discussion a bit late, but could you elucidate just what goals you are working towards? I assume it is about learning "new" songs that you don't know, maintaining the repertoire that you already do know well, and enhancing your technical facility and creativity on the instrument. I see that some are talking about breaking down new material into segments to practice intensely and to finally unite as a whole.
This approach was the way I was taught classical guitar by the founder of the RI Classical Guitar Society back in the Sixties. As I began to work eventually with more complex pieces, the weekly lesson was to take a chunk of a work like a Sonata and practice it repeatedly, progressing in sequence till you had it down. Over the course of a month you covered the work often. Then you continued to work on the song more integrally in the months that followed. I would add that digesting a sophisticated work like Bach's Chaconne is more arduous than playing most jazz tunes, if only due to the length of the work.
In jazz terms the approach will naturally vary according to your level of playing comfort. I would also make a distinction between a song that you know (familiar with the melody, lyrics, etc.) versus a "new" tune that you never heard before. In the later case I like to listen to a few performances by good artists, particularly if it is a song with a vocal, to get the basic changes down. At this point I absorb the fundamentals of the song initially just by hearing it all the way through which gives me a chord progression and structure to the tune. Then I like to play through with a lyric sheet to annotate the chord changes by ear, assuming no sheet music is available. Finally, although I don't absolutely need this step, I like to create a transcription in Sibelius as a two stave engraving with melody on the top, relatively basic chords on the bottom as half and whole note block chords usually, to be used for rehearsal purposes. I also like to write in the lyric lines and at the end I have Sibelius make chords out of the notes (Cm7b5, for example) to write above the melody staff as a kind of shorthand info.
Currently I use my Yamaha synth keyboard for note entry. The approach there is sometimes to do a real time recording with a basic left hand bass and right hand melody pass, which I then correct as necessary and, guitar in hand, enter the harmony notes as I would like to play them provisionally in terms of position on the fret board. Finally, I sometimes refine the chordal accompaniment as a guitar 'arrangement' and/or change keys to suit vocal range or the playability on the guitar of the overall arrangement. This later point can be quite important for a chord melody solo thing.
Apart from using my extensive library of Sibelius transcriptions for rehearsing and practice, I also make a print copy of the transcription to use for recording purposes as a "lead sheet". The actual recording is always improvised but the lead sheet helps me keep the lyrics and song structure (repeats, choruses, etc) straight. Depending on the song and my familiarity with it, I may record a few times before I'm reasonably content with the results. Never perfectly, of course. But currently lacking a computer DAW software for editing and comping, my recordings are essentially "live" passes, mistakes and all.
Hopefully this post is relevant to the thread. For the majority of tunes that are the Great American Songbook style - My Romance, All the Things You Are type songs - I don't actually have too much difficulty creating a nice arrangement rather quickly and playing through them is not terribly difficult. I admit that some songs like Giant Steps I don't play, mainly because I deeply dislike it and it is not my style.
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Briefly, I do wonder just who these "gifted players" who don't practice much would be specifically. Of course, some are more innately talented than others, but guys like George Benson and Joe Pass were renowned for their work ethic. Joe Pass' father had him practicing six hours or so a day in grade school! So, talent is important, but time spent on the instrument is critical, too.
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The OP was about "efficient" players, and hopes to separate them from "gifted" players. Perhaps there are none. I have asked for examples a few times in the tread, and there haven't been many mentioned. I think perhaps those that have been mentioned started as children, as Henry said. My own kids aren't prodigies, and never practiced more than a half hour a day until they were in their teens, but it is amazing how quickly they can integrate new concepts and techniques into their playing now. I don't think of them as being especially efficient, or gifted, but starting early seems to have opened up that part of their brains.
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All the tests and interviews and self examination and friends personal experience etc.Has proved true that i have a proclivity for language and my son who is 12 has it and my wife,well shes a genius.( We are currently working on Navaho.) Music is a language.When i was very young my older sister loved to dance but struggled with it. so one day she asked me to try something in the living room.She was blown away by the natural rhythm and timing.Years later as a rebellion to the so called dance known as the twist.I was coaxed into a twist contest well i told the girl i was with lets swing dance.We won.anyway so take a person who for unknown reasons has a natural sense of rhythm, language and a musicians ear, an unclutterd mind ,a power of concentration.And a good teacher once in a while.Oh self motivated. and a love of the endevour.Even at that i have work my behind off to be proficient.Maybe i get there a little sooner but doesn.t make better or as good as the next guy and i would not know where to start in teaching that.
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Well, there you have it Mr. Jonzo.
After all that has been said, it appears that there just is not a definitive enough answer to your question. And even if someone did come up with some sort of shortcut, there is still no guarantee that it would work for you, and then you would be right back where you started asking the question.
Would you draw the same conclusion?
(By the way, it was an entertaining thread with a lot of little nuggets of insight.)
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Well...
I have taught a lot of subjects, and studied a lot of subjects. Some involved physical skills, while others were only mental. I always strove to improve my teaching and learning systems, and I believe I taught/learned more efficiently as a result. I have always been surprised by how some fairly small tweeks can make a big difference. So I suppose I believe that every subject can be taught more efficiently. But music is so complex that it is difficult to be definitive about what that would entail.
I think the question of which pros practiced the least, and how they learned, is interesting, even if we don't know who they are at this moment.
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Hey Jonzo...
If you have a few minutes, you might enjoy checking out this video interview with Metheny. He doesn't specifically address the "what's the fastest and most efficient way to get through all this stuff" question. But he does offer some insight about and around this idea. Including the notion of having a goal and knowing what we want, how hard music is, and some other ideas about inspiration, staying encouraged, the general arch that happens for most people learning jazz, etc.
It's funny...I actually saw this video like 4 years ago and wrote a blog post about a question Metheny poses to everyone.
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"My first question, which is very difficult for people to answer, is, 'What do you want to do?' And that's a good first question to kind of individually reconcile with yourself. Because if all you want to do is say, 'I want to go down to the corner and order a coke.' We can do that pretty quick. But, to keep invoking the name Miles Davis, if you want to know what happened on Four and More, well...I'm sitting here 40 some years later, and I still haven't figured it out. So, it's like that."
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I'd completely forgotten about it until this thread re-minded me of it. You guys can check it out here if anyone's interested. It's just a little personal ramblings about (again) the importance of knowing what we want out of this...specifically from the standpoint of Metheny asking us to make that decision. Again...I know it's a little bit off topic from what you're talking about...but it seems absolutely essential for each of us to answer if we want to stand a shot at 'speeding up the process'.
Advancing Guitar - Jordan Klemons-Guitarist
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I would tell Pat, I want to do it all!! Originally Posted by jordanklemons
I start getting a good Jazz song down, and then I hear a hard, driving song on the radio that I like and I start transcribing or looking for tab. Then one of you folks puts up a nice chord melody video and it captures me. Then I hear a nice R&B song in the gym, and I want to play it. Then I see a powerful concert video and I want to play the songs from that. And, I can play even the most intricate songs in a few weeks if I have the time, at least the memorized ones but I always stop short of making it second nature and move on.
Jack of no trades, master of none. But somehow, its still fun.
By the way, thanks for the post.
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No worries Ran! Thanks for yours too! Originally Posted by AlsoRan
Others might disagree, but I say do what you love man. Do what makes you smile. Who says you need to be a master? Be a master of making yourself happy. It's easy to think that music is something more than simply a means to enrich our lives and the lives of those around us.
If learning tons of different things does that for you, than who's to say it's wrong?
Which is why I love Metheny's question. It's not posed to judge the person who's answering. It's posed so that a strategy can be devised to accomplish whatever that person's goals might be.
There's so much judgment in the world. So much anger and violence and ignorance and intolerance. I say if you find something that makes you smile and gives you a sense of relief...especially when it's in music and the arts...then run with it! And if you're willing to share it with others...then all the better!
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Originally Posted by Jonzo
if you think that 3 hours a day is the way to go, great! you can start there.
why not list out a few 3-hour practice sessions with topics listed for each session?
also, please state your goal or "the goal" of a theoretical player. state how long you believe it should take a reasonably talented player/student to reach the goal using your sample practice sessions/activities.
then people will have something tangible to opine about.
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For me the most efficient practice method has been learn all my scale patterns and arpeggios. Learn all of the technical things. Learn the fretboard cold. In addition learn tunes to play and apply. And learn the occasional solo by ear. Figure out how it's put together. But for me THE MOST EFFICIENT way of learning has been to do the technical things first. That's the hardest for most people because it's not necessarily a lot of fun. But for me it was the quickest, most direct way.
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Why in the hell would you want to know what the laziest pro did? And what the hell is "pro?" That means nothing. I've heard pros play who are terrible. You're asking a general vague question referencing the least motivated, possibly lamest jazz guitarist who can yet make a living. I know that's not your intention, BUT WHY???? Too many factors and variables. Everyone is DIFFERENT. You cannot generalize, unfortunately. People have different talents, powers of attention and concentration. They hear differently and feel differently. One person can get more out of 2 hours of practice than someone else can with 16. Some can hear those lines and perceive harmonics, others have to work hard a grokking those things. One size does not fit all, nor will it ever.
Last edited by henryrobinett; 06-07-2015 at 11:23 AM.
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The question just cracks me up!! "Emulate the pros who have practiced the least." Emulate the least motivated, least ambitious guitarist. Look to the guy who cut all the corners and missed most of the steps and emulate that guy because he's probably kind of lame. But geez, he's a pro. And since I'm lazy and not very motivated and kinda lame, that guy would probably be good for me.
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As I questioned in an earlier post, I would like to know just who these accomplished "gifted" players might be specifically.
As gifted as the best players no doubt are - and there are clearly examples of such players in the classical and surely the jazz realm - I cannot really think of one in particular. I know Joe Pass practiced as much as six hours a day in grade school under the tutelage of his father. In the classical realm the name Christopher Parkening comes to mind again as someone who practiced for hours each day almost religiously.
I can of course think of child prodigies like Jascha Heifetz. But in the jazz world, I don't know. Maybe George Benson, although it seems he plays hours a day. Some of these guys just mature as musicians very quickly at a young age.
As I write this I'm listening to Earl Klugh who was also quite accomplished at a young age.
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Normally when engaging in these conversations I've either done my 2-3 hours or am in the midst of them in break. I'm taking a general break. But I've done well over 10,000 hours already. Maybe three times that much. So I'm ok.
Last edited by henryrobinett; 06-06-2015 at 03:37 PM. Reason: typhoon
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