Have you been struggling to get to a basic performance level?

[cosmic gumbo]

I practice loads but just don't get the opportunity to play out because of my theatre gig. For this reason I think my playing will only ever be at bedroom level.

The reality for many will be no bandstand opportunities to be had when they feel ready, due to location.

I worked alongside a Berklee grad at a blue collar job, and he could find no local jazz gigs, and the closest weekly jazz jam was a 2hr 20min round trip...he saw his chops going down the tubes quickly.

I hate to add a negative slant to this thread, but having the opportunity to participate in a traditional local nurturing jazz community environment is basically non-existent these days, and is why so many seek the academic scene as a substitute. So many of us want to jump into the fire and jam, gig, like warriors seeking battle when there are no wars to be fought.

For those that feel born to be a jazz musician, the decision to live in an area with an very active jazz scene is a life decision you have to make. For those living in an area with a scene, and not taking advantage of it, shame on you!

[55bar]

Thanks, man. Confidence. "Be still and know..."

Ah thanks man, I'd still NEVER do a jazz gig!

[55bar]

The reality for many will be no bandstand opportunities to be had when they feel ready, due to location.

I worked alongside a Berklee grad at a blue collar job, and he could find no local jazz gigs, and the closest weekly jazz jam was a 2hr 20min round trip...he saw his chops going down the tubes quickly.

I hate to add a negative slant to this thread, but having the opportunity to participate in a traditional local nurturing jazz community environment is basically non-existent these days, and is why so many seek the academic scene as a substitute. So many of us want to jump into the fire and jam, gig, like warriors seeking battle when there are no wars to be fought.

For those that feel born to be a jazz musician, the decision to live in an area with an very active jazz scene is a life decision you have to make. For those living in an area with a scene, and not taking advantage of it, shame on you!

I live and frequently work in London there is plenty of opportunity to play, I just don't have

1. Enough tunes learned
2. Cloth ears
3. Any gigging chops

[dingusmingus]

He also always said functional fingerboard competence and proficiency was at least a five year process. Minimum. No kidding.

That makes sense to me. I've got maybe three years of serious regular practice now. Way more comfortable on the fretboard than I used to be, but still not where I need to be.

[JakeAcci]

Mike,

with all due respect, I think you're not entitled to raise your hand in response to the question "Have you been struggling to get to a basic performance level?" *. In some other thread you posted this:

This is very nice! But I believe Mike was talking about soloing (or hinting towards it) and I don't believe there's a guitar solo in that clip.

[JakeAcci]

Mostly arpeggio across octaves and ear. I know how I intend/expect the note to sound, and I use my ear for a reference.

I can name the notes quite quickly - a bit like the way people can recite the alphabet or count without being able to spell or simple mental arithmetic - but I hear melody. I know my ears are pretty quick, and I have a lot to say on guitar if only I could get my lines out.

Thank you for calling me to account.

Since starting this I've arranged - as of Sunday - to use a magnetic whiteboard on a stand, draw a fretboard with a marker, use sets of coloured magnets (representing note positions), place a fretboard next to the keyboard, have manuscript paper and pencil + eraser at the ready, and making connections.

I'm also going to follow the process mrcee describes.

Personally I believe you need to have a system of internalization.

The three octave scales mentioned are good but just one thing.

What is hinted at though is the concept of knowing the fretboard vertically and I think that is essential.

For what it's worth, here was an arduous process that did get me quite far: When I was starting with jazz lines I would learn a charlie parker line or head, then go through, measure by measure, while playing, and say out loud how the note related to the chord of the harmony. Then I'd do it again and say how the note related to the key of the moment. I would do it in some different positions and keys.

This is a huge pain in the ass and takes a lot of time but I felt it did wonders for learning jazz vocabulary and how it works on the fretboard. I didn't just learn the solos/heads then forget about them, and I didn't just practice scales up and down the fretboard. I learned how the music related to the scale and what that looked like on the fretboard.

If I had to give a soundbyte piece of advice it would be that. You could do it with lines from someone else's solo, or a head to a standard, etc.

Scales are great, scale fingerings are nice, but nothing beats playing the actual music, although I know some disagree. It seems that if time is limited it makes the most sense to spend time on things that are most directly related to the music.

[JakeAcci]

After more than adequate time in the woodshed, if you don't progress to the bandstand to take it to the next level, it's almost impossible to find enough hours in the week to practice at a level that will be a substitute for the bandstand experience.

Firefighters can train extensively for fighting fires, but there is absolutely no substitute for what you learn from fighting real fires....

I get what you're driving at here CG but I think I should clarify my post a bit.

When i say basic performance level I'm setting the bar a little lower than you might think.

I guess I could be more specific. Maybe something as simple as being able to improvise lines that represent the harmony of the song - even if they aren't super swingin' or interesting - and to be able to do for most common standards, and not get too lost. And being able to comp and keep the changes, not clash with the melody or soloist too much.

Not really talking about high level interaction or anything like that, or a great performance that keeps em coming back.

[JakeAcci]

And in response to the title of this thread, it's all about developing confidence. I watch great old school Country singers who also strum cowboy chords, and marvel at how smooth and musical their guitar playing is. They are using a limited palette but they absolutely Own what they're playing. It's better to play something simple with complete confidence and musicality than to struggle playing something more complicated.

Unfortunately, I think it isn't all about confidence. There are basic skills needed to take a solo over Stella By Starlight. It's true you could play Bb major scale over the whole thing and somehow make it passable (to some listeners) with good phrasing and time feel but I'm setting the bar for "basic performance level" at least a little higher than that - you do need to know how to hit chord tones on stella in time, that kind of thing.

I suppose I could have been more specific about this "level" because I am trying to set an objective bar that we can more or less agree when somebody has passed that bar or not.

So once somebody does reach a certain minimum of technical ability and knowledge then, yeah, confidence takes you pretty far.

[JakeAcci]

So many of us want to jump into the fire and jam, gig, like warriors seeking battle when there are no wars to be fought.

Wow yeah this was exactly my experience. I was taking everything SO SERIOUSLY and I learned a lot but eventually it was just like you say, where can I go to battle, oh wait, 99% of the population (and only a slightly smaller percentage of jazz fans) doesn't even get the difference between my playing today and how I sounded before the last 5,000 hours of practice.

(and now I make a living teaching, so all the technique and knowledge truly is useful, though admittedly not essential.)

[wzpgsr]

I've been playing guitar for a long time, but 18 months ago I started focusing on jazz after a 10 year hiatus of not really playing much at all. I play in a jazz duo with another guitarist now—mainly the kinds of gigs where people are eating burgers and maybe only half paying attention to the music, so the bar is set pretty low! At any rate, it's difficult to balance learning tunes along with the more fundamental aspects of music and playing guitar, like...knowing the fretboard really, really well, etc. I could seriously spend forever just farting around with cool sounding voicings on ii-V-I for eternity. Yet, when learning tunes I tend to just straight up forget stuff or get lost, even on tunes I've played a million times. Brain farts are a major issue for me. For awhile I was focusing on a new tune every month, but since we've started gigging, I've had to increase that pace. I can't say that I internalize changes as well as I'd like to, and find myself more often than not lost, staring at the Real Book (ick), or both. I recently signed up for Richie Zellon's bebop guitar course, which is helping provide some much needed structure to my practice time. I've been playing his exercises in quarter notes at 60 BPM, singing the intervals, etc. to try to ingrain some of this.

[JakeAcci]

I've been playing guitar for a long time, but 18 months ago I started focusing on jazz after a 10 year hiatus of not really playing much at all. I play in a jazz duo with another guitarist now—mainly the kinds of gigs where people are eating burgers and maybe only half paying attention to the music, so the bar is set pretty low! At any rate, it's difficult to balance learning tunes along with the more fundamental aspects of music and playing guitar, like...knowing the fretboard really, really well, etc. I could seriously spend forever just farting around with cool sounding voicings on ii-V-I for eternity. Yet, when learning tunes I tend to just straight up forget stuff or get lost, even on tunes I've played a million times. Brain farts are a major issue for me. For awhile I was focusing on a new tune every month, but since we've started gigging, I've had to increase that pace. I can't say that I internalize changes as well as I'd like to, and find myself more often than not lost, staring at the Real Book (ick), or both. I recently signed up for Richie Zellon's bebop guitar course, which is helping provide some much needed structure to my practice time. I've been playing his exercises in quarter notes at 60 BPM, singing the intervals, etc. to try to ingrain some of this.

Do you sing solfege?

[55bar]

I've been playing guitar for a long time, but 18 months ago I started focusing on jazz after a 10 year hiatus of not really playing much at all. I play in a jazz duo with another guitarist now—mainly the kinds of gigs where people are eating burgers and maybe only half paying attention to the music, so the bar is set pretty low! At any rate, it's difficult to balance learning tunes along with the more fundamental aspects of music and playing guitar, like...knowing the fretboard really, really well, etc. I could seriously spend forever just farting around with cool sounding voicings on ii-V-I for eternity. Yet, when learning tunes I tend to just straight up forget stuff or get lost, even on tunes I've played a million times. Brain farts are a major issue for me. For awhile I was focusing on a new tune every month, but since we've started gigging, I've had to increase that pace. I can't say that I internalize changes as well as I'd like to, and find myself more often than not lost, staring at the Real Book (ick), or both. I recently signed up for Richie Zellon's bebop guitar course, which is helping provide some much needed structure to my practice time. I've been playing his exercises in quarter notes at 60 BPM, singing the intervals, etc. to try to ingrain some of this.

The real book is one of the best/worse things I bought.

[destinytot]

This is very nice! But I believe Mike was talking about soloing (or hinting towards it) and I don't believe there's a guitar solo in that clip.

One thing worth mentioning about that clip is that the guitar is in Marty Grosz's tuning. Whole new fretboard challenge.

[christianm77]

I live and frequently work in London there is plenty of opportunity to play, I just don't have

1. Enough tunes learned
2. Cloth ears
3. Any gigging chops

Haha! I used to love having none of those things apart from 2! Ah the days of innocence.

Now, by my estimation I feel I have none of these things. So that's progress? Have I got worse....

No that's perception. My ear is always going to be more critical than my playing (it should be!). The day I go 'nothing more to work on' - well that's something I'd rather not think about.

So the flip side is - don't let it hold you back.

I do think that playing a lot is really important. I think it's a good idea not to give too much of a crap what you sound like on stage. Just do it.

Record, listen back to it a few days later, sigh heavily and resume work.

Rinse and repeat.

I've never met a good player who isn't horribly self critical. The trick is to switch it off in company (and on stage).... And to not let it stop you being happy. Real trick, that....

[JakeAcci]

Haha! I used to love having none of those things apart from 2! Ah the days of innocence.

Now, by my estimation I feel I have none of these things. So that's progress? Have I got worse....

No that's perception. My ear is always going to be more critical than my playing (it should be!). The day I go 'nothing more to work on' - well that's something I'd rather not think about.

So the flip side is - don't let it hold you back.

I do think that playing a lot is really important. I think it's a good idea not to give too much of a crap what you sound like on stage. Just do it.

Record, listen back to it a few days later, sigh heavily and resume work.

Rinse and repeat.

I've never met a good player who isn't horribly self critical. The trick is to switch it off in company (and on stage).... And to not let it stop you being happy. Real trick, that....

Damn there's some great Mick Goodrick line in the advancing guitarist, something like:

"If you can't play stuff you like, try to like what play."

[destinytot]

I recently signed up for Richie Zellon's bebop guitar course, which is helping provide some much needed structure to my practice time.

I'm signing up in a couple of weeks.

[wzpgsr]

Do you sing solfege?

Certainly not in any formal way. But, the Richie Zellon materials include ear training work. For example, in the first module we are instructed to be able to sing each note of a dominant 7 chord with an arbitrarily chosen root note. I've taken to singing interval names at pitch while running approach note exercises at 60 BPM. I've also just started trying to sing heads over my comping practice. Tough!

[destinytot]

I have a request. I'd like to learn about modal interchange - what it is, why it's useful, how to apply it, please. Thanks in advance!

[55bar]

Haha! I used to love having none of those things apart from 2! Ah the days of innocence.

Now, by my estimation I feel I have none of these things. So that's progress? Have I got worse....

No that's perception. My ear is always going to be more critical than my playing (it should be!). The day I go 'nothing more to work on' - well that's something I'd rather not think about.

So the flip side is - don't let it hold you back.

I do think that playing a lot is really important. I think it's a good idea not to give too much of a crap what you sound like on stage. Just do it.

Record, listen back to it a few days later, sigh heavily and resume work.

Rinse and repeat.

I've never met a good player who isn't horribly self critical. The trick is to switch it off in company (and on stage).... And to not let it stop you being happy. Real trick, that....

I agree Christian, I'm a very happy bedroom player, I just love to practice guitar, I'm working really hard in my ear.

Strangely I don't do half the stuff I read about on here, I don't particularly practice arpeggios, or guide tones, I don't know any of my modes, or at least I certainly don't use them in the style of playing I like.

I transcribe analyse, extrapolate practice in a FEW different keys, (man who's got the hours in the day to take everything through 12 keys?!) The rest of my time is spent playing along to my transcriptions ...... Oh and posting/reading/learning/enjoying this forum.

[pingu]

I'd like to add two things.

Firstly, that I get good vibes from everyone on this thread, which matters because I really can't stand what I think of as low-level bullying. I can give as good as I get, but that's not the point - which is that nothing of value can get learned in that kind of environment.

The other thing is, if others are struggling and I can help, I'll gladly do so.

I'll help too if I can
it's strange to think that everyone
here is at all sorts of levels ....

but lots of advise is good for all
kinds of levels so it still works

up the arp down the scale ... pretty

I'm a bit drunk .... oh well

[Reg]

Yea... you really need to separate practicing technique, which I consider fretboard skills and then performance, learning tunes... understanding tunes... eventually understanding music.

All this is with the goal of being able to be play in jazz styles.

The part about internalizing is really the end result, your instincts. But I think of them as your technique. You need basic references and layers of relationships. The fretboard becomes Cmaj Ionian, just the notes, the entire fretboard, that's your basic reference. There are lots of fingering, the end result is you can perform within that basic Cmaj reference anywhere on the neck. You should be able to move smoothly through overlapping fingerings or jump as needed. And you should be able to do this without watching. That is the basic starting point of that Cmaj fretboard. Once you have those fingerings, your almost there... the rest of the modes or starting on different notes is already there, just a different reference or starting point.
Generally Harmonic min is learned from Natural Minor fingerings for reference and melodic minor from Dorian as starting reference... or just use Natural minor for MM. it doesn't matter in the end... they become their own starting reference.

In the end your also going to find what you want to sound like... and dump many or the patterns starting on different degrees, at least with HM and MM...

Really only when you get to that point are you able to start being able to hear and understand relationships beyond Diatonic basics... on your guitar, being able to perform and practice techniques at the same time.

It's not a five year path for most, at least with organized schedule. I've seen guitarist get their fretboard together within one year. But knowing what to practice, what technique etc... seems to be the trick.

I'm off to another gig, a long one 4 hour duo with sax...ooooh lots of work. I'll check back in tomorrow

[NSJ]

Here's a serious issue that trips me up --cul-se-sacs, where I feel like I hit a dead end, wind up stumbling, because I wound thinking. Consciously thinking ( as opposed to merely concentrating, which is always needed ) seems to be the enemy of performance .

I seek out advice from my friend who is a retired sax player and flamenco guitarist. Unfortunately, his guitar playing skills are reserved for flamenco ( he actually wound up teaching flamenco to the leader of a group here called Swing Gitane, perhaps the best gypsy jazz group here ) .

He said that you gotta have a body of clichés internalized, some thing more than licks that act as connecting vocabulary that can be used as reserve lines for the moments when you have the cul-de-sacs. All the great players have them. It's not meant to be a bad thing.

And art pepper told him 50-60 years ago when Art was the chief soloist in Benny Carter's band that he didn't know anything about playing changes. Art only had one rule -play melodically.

I will quote my friend again what Johnny Griffin told him 45 years ago in Madrid : "Johnny Griffin told me the same thing....I was in a group that opened for Griffin at a then popular Madrid jazz club. Griffin came in early to hear the group and when I got off the stand he said to me "You think you hit a wrong note, didn't you." Then he said there are no wrong notes unless the player thinks its a wrong note then he gets flustered and transmits that to the listener. Theoretically every note you play of the 12 possibilities fits if you think about it. But if you think the note is wrong it becomes wrong in your mind and things can then start of fall apart. There are several ways to correct this..... Another is to stay on that note until you feel it as right. But to think while you are playing is the most difficult and poorest way to approach the situation because as Sonny Rollins mentioned the other day "You can"t think and play (improvise) at the same time." The mind cannot handle this. The theory of notes and chords has to be there long before you play if you are using a theoretical approach"

[mrcee]

Unfortunately, I think it isn't all about confidence. There are basic skills needed to take a solo over Stella By Starlight. It's true you could play Bb major scale over the whole thing and somehow make it passable (to some listeners) with good phrasing and time feel but I'm setting the bar for "basic performance level" at least a little higher than that - you do need to know how to hit chord tones on stella in time, that kind of thing.

I suppose I could have been more specific about this "level" because I am trying to set an objective bar that we can more or less agree when somebody has passed that bar or not.

So once somebody does reach a certain minimum of technical ability and knowledge then, yeah, confidence takes you pretty far.

For sure. A false sense of confidence without the basic skills isn't good.

[JakeAcci]

I will quote my friend again what Johnny Griffin told him 45 years ago in Madrid : "Johnny Griffin told me the same thing....I was in a group that opened for Griffin at a then popular Madrid jazz club. Griffin came in early to hear the group and when I got off the stand he said to me "You think you hit a wrong note, didn't you." Then he said there are no wrong notes unless the player thinks its a wrong note then he gets flustered and transmits that to the listener. Theoretically every note you play of the 12 possibilities fits if you think about it. But if you think the note is wrong it becomes wrong in your mind and things can then start of fall apart.

I think this is more or less true, and the attitude applies to more than just "wrong notes." For example, if you play a line that you just think is plain old lame or bad for whatever reason (even if harmonically adequate) and then you let it mess with you or fluster you, same thing.

But to think while you are playing is the most difficult and poorest way to approach the situation because as Sonny Rollins mentioned the other day "You can"t think and play (improvise) at the same time." The mind cannot handle this. The theory of notes and chords has to be there long before you play if you are using a theoretical approach"

I think this is a big myth, only in the sense that it's not true for everybody. I do believe that different people process information and make cognitive decisions differently. Some people reference data points more than others, some more consciously than others, some people have a very difficult time with this and really are more successful coming from a less cerebral place, etc etc.

Also, sorry if this goes off the philosophical deep end, but what is "thought" in this context? If I have the thought "I should leave more space in the next chorus" then am I screwed and it's wrong because it was a thought? If I'm reading a chart and I acknowledge something like "the next chord in the chart is a dim7, not a m7b5" and then adjust tones appropriately, is that "thinking"?

Working with a lot of different students (disclaimer: mostly not jazz) I've definitely noticed that some people are prone to taking more cerebral approaches than others, and to stifle those folks by telling them their cognitive processes are bad for music is no bueno - use their strengths to their advantage!

A perfect example of this is when talking about phrasing. I've definitely observed that with some people if I give them a lot of data-oriented structure with phrasing then their playing gets worse and worse, they slow down, they over analyze, yet with some people without some tangible data-oriented guidance they just won't play anything at all, and a mental model gets them structuring their ideas much better.

So NSJ, as a fellow over-thinker, don't let the anti-thinking lynch mob get to you!

[Reg]

Yea you need to figure out who you are etc... and then decide on your path to get somewhere, if that's even something you care about.

Navdeep... Art was cool but Man.. Johnny Griffin always had my number. He had big influence on me as a kid... loved his playing and abilities to play through hip changes and feel like everything was diatonic. Wish I could have seen him live more...