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

[55bar]

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...

My fav album is the live one with Wes, were he plays chorus after chorus on a blues and the band drop out.

Can't remember the name of the album?

[gggomez]

Learning the entire fretboard and in 12 keys puzzles me. Is this a path to obscurity? Does this delay and confuse the art, the ability to hear and sing?

What if the guitar just had 12 notes?

There are plent of solos that are within 1.5 octaves and there are thousands of jazz blues in Bb, Eb and Cminor. I have almost finished transcribing Clifford Brown's Sandu after having transcribed Green's Greenery Grant Green and Chet Baker's Summertime these are within 1.5 octaves and you can limit yourself to 2 fingerings.

As a beginner I ask, should a beginner learn to hear and sing the changes in one octave in one position in one key first. By this I mean be able to sing the the changes, sing the chromatic approach notes, the flat 5 etc and only after this is accomplished branch out into other keys other positions?

I have thought this over the last 24 months of approaching jazz and then I stumbled on the Joseph Alexander books.
That is exactly what he teaches. My playing advanced, to my ears, very quickly. I have spent around 4 months concentrating on Bb jazz blues. Now if I hear a nice (simple) line on a song I can walk over to my guitar and play it either immediately or pretty quickly work it out without having to hear it more than once. I am now also starting to hear and recognise without guitar in hand if a blues is not in Bb and starting to be able to hear what key it is in, no guitar in hand.

I do not think I could have advanced like this if I was trying to re learn different fingerings all over the neck (12 months wasted time right there in a popular on line school) and trying to play the head of Satin Doll in all 12 keys.

Of course I will keep learning and slowly branch out to all keys and all positions. I have now branched out to 3 positions for the blues. That gives me almost 4 octaves and I think a couple of years if not a liftime of learning lines, rhythms, scales, arpeggios and chords but a personal emphasis on lines rythms and chords.

Happy for a critique of the approach from my more learned colleagues.

[matt.guitarteacher]

Learning the entire fretboard and in 12 keys puzzles me. Is this a path to obscurity? Does this delay and confuse the art, the ability to hear and sing?

What if the guitar just had 12 notes?

Thought about that a lot over the last few years myself.

I have thought this over the last 24 months of approaching jazz and then I stumbled on the Joseph Alexander books.

Which ones in particular are you talking about? Looks like he's got a lot of books out there.

[gggomez]

The 3 ebooks I have the approach is the same:

- Jazz Blues
- Fundamental Changes for Guitar (which is major ii v i)
- Minor ii V

I am keen to try his chord mastery one but don't feel I am ready for that yet I want to right some of my own heads for jazz blues first and some other things I am working on.

[christianm77]

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.


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!

Every time I think on stage the music goes wrong.

I do think there is place for thinking. Keep it indoors, son. In the practice room.

Just my personal experience - but I lot of people I admire and have the utmost respect for identify the same issues in performance of music. It's not about being anti-thinking at all. Most jazz musicians are smart people.

This surprises some people because I am from a pretty cerebral background. I certain have that mentality when away from performance. Analyse everything etc...

Music taught me that you can't think your way out of everything. Sometimes you have to do the grunt work. Sometimes you have to switch the brain off. For me that's in performance. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Anyway, I'm not hanging out it any anti-intellectual mobs. ;-)

[Jonzo]

Start performing when you are young and everything you do is adorable. Then continue to practice and improve as you inevitably become less cute. Hopefully, by the time all of the cuteness has been sucked out of you, the audience will tolerate your ugly mug because you play so damn good.

This is not completely a joke, as there are few opportunities for adults to go out, play badly, and still get a lot of love. Just getting out and doing it seems to help kids develop rapidly.

[princeplanet]

Learning the entire fretboard and in 12 keys puzzles me. Is this a path to obscurity? Does this delay and confuse the art, the ability to hear and sing?

What if the guitar just had 12 notes?

There are plent of solos that are within 1.5 octaves and there are thousands of jazz blues in Bb, Eb and Cminor. I have almost finished transcribing Clifford Brown's Sandu after having transcribed Green's Greenery Grant Green and Chet Baker's Summertime these are within 1.5 octaves and you can limit yourself to 2 fingerings.

As a beginner I ask, should a beginner learn to hear and sing the changes in one octave in one position in one key first. By this I mean be able to sing the the changes, sing the chromatic approach notes, the flat 5 etc and only after this is accomplished branch out into other keys other positions?

I have thought this over the last 24 months of approaching jazz and then I stumbled on the Joseph Alexander books.
That is exactly what he teaches. My playing advanced, to my ears, very quickly. I have spent around 4 months concentrating on Bb jazz blues. Now if I hear a nice (simple) line on a song I can walk over to my guitar and play it either immediately or pretty quickly work it out without having to hear it more than once. I am now also starting to hear and recognise without guitar in hand if a blues is not in Bb and starting to be able to hear what key it is in, no guitar in hand.

I do not think I could have advanced like this if I was trying to re learn different fingerings all over the neck (12 months wasted time right there in a popular on line school) and trying to play the head of Satin Doll in all 12 keys.

Of course I will keep learning and slowly branch out to all keys and all positions. I have now branched out to 3 positions for the blues. That gives me almost 4 octaves and I think a couple of years if not a liftime of learning lines, rhythms, scales, arpeggios and chords but a personal emphasis on lines rythms and chords.

Happy for a critique of the approach from my more learned colleagues.

This is a critical question: Do we do the "grunt" work first or later?

As someone who has chosen to do much of the grunt work first, I can certainly vouch for it's downside- it's all work and no play! I seldom allow myself the "luxury" of just playing a whole tune! Of course this has a lot of you up in arms about how deleterious this approach is to one's musical growth - I'm just learning how to learn, I'm not making any music etc etc.. But I know what it's like to learn and perform songs, did that for years in other kinds of bands (non jazz) and I'm pretty patient.....

I really do want to be thorough and know how to play what I want in every position in every key at any tempo, so I'm happy to do years of grunt work, besides, I kid myself there may be an upside or 2 to this approach, like:

- At least all the grunt work gets done this way, If I leave it for "later", it may never happen..

- If I start playing and performing whole tunes with a limited vocab, that may be habit forming...

- The more I practice parts of tunes (certain cadences etc), the more dexterity I get and the more my ear improves, so that when I allow myself to play through greater parts of the tune, I have more to "say"...


Anyway, I'm quite confident that we all get there in the end if we do the required work, regardless of the order we do it in. And I say that knowing full well that most of the greats came up NOT using this approach (although some MAY have, Bird, Clifford, Shorter?). I see it as developing a modular approach, having hundreds of "modules" available under the fingers at any time, but then spending some years learning how to stitch them together, hopefully seamlessly so the listener can't tell!

[destinytot]

What if the guitar just had 12 notes?

I can play lines within about an octave and a half on trumpet & flugel. (Trumpet and flute are my models for single-note lines on guitar.)

[matt.guitarteacher]

This is a critical question: Do we do the "grunt" work first or later?

I think it's a great question. Been doing more of the grunt work lately than in years previous. it's interesting how it's seemingly easier along the way to addfingerings or whatever.Guess your brain makes connections that you can't quite comprehend, as seemingly unrelated elements help you with the next component. For whatever reason, I feel like, in some ways, I know some of the newer in-between position melodic minor fingerings better than some of the basic major/minors I learned when I first started playing.

At the same time, I always think about the fact that saxophone players don't learn five different fingerings for Ab. I wonder if it wouldn't have been easier, from the start, to learn to play the crap out of one position, in different keys. Just pretend like it's a two octave instrument.

Then, when you're ready for it, the repeating pattern element of the guitar, which is somewhat of a curse, actually makes everything simpler. You're learning to play it in a new place and a new key, but you've already got a lot of vocabulary and playing under your fingers .

For example, if you went with a 7th fret position, and take 7 fingerings, like Leavitt's fingerings 4 through 1C. Just work the cycle in that position, and that gives you the keys of D, G, C, F, Bb, Eb, and Ab. Working tunes, basic patterns, chords etc.

You're reinforcing a sense of absolute pitch more so than patterns because you're really getting to know one area, as a byproduct of arbitrarily assigning a key to a fingering pattern. Once you know a lot of material with one given position , I would think it would be a lot easier to transfer the fingering elsewhere.

The problem with the way we usually do things, is we do ALL of it, get overwhelmed, frustrated, and progress slowly. Alternatively, we learn to play ALL tunes, patterns, scales, exercises using only two or three more solid positions but in multiple keys.

It's all the same. Just a different sequence. In the time it takes you to really work out playing one key in five positions, your fingers could be doing the same but playing in five keys, and more substantially solidifying fretboard knowledge in that area. Trumpet, Sax and piano players do it.

Not going to do this. It's just something I think about.

[Munk]

When I started playing my reasons for not doing a fast progress were, that I was almost tone deaf, over 50 y.o. and doc said, I needed a hand operation to get rid of year long tendonitis.


A year later my resaons increased, because I didn't have patience to learn a tune well. It was boring to play the same over and over. Besides I had never listened to jazz and just picked the genre, because I wanted learn to improvise and had the idea jazz could be a teacher. Otherwise funk would have been the choice.


After two years it added with reasons and excuses. It had only had been possible for me to have a teacher for short period, I didn't know much theory and had not had the opportunity to play with others. Today, when I have played for almost 4 years and still trying to learn to improvise, my reasons, besides all the above are, that I think too much while playing and don't concentrate enough. So I just began to record what I play. I think it sharpens my awareness. Another thing, that I believe would work, is meditation. But after all, apart from slow progress I enjoy it, and thats the main purpose.

[christianm77]

I think it's a great question. Been doing more of the grunt work lately than in years previous. it's interesting how it's seemingly easier along the way to addfingerings or whatever.Guess your brain makes connections that you can't quite comprehend, as seemingly unrelated elements help you with the next component. For whatever reason, I feel like, in some ways, I know some of the newer in-between position melodic minor fingerings better than some of the basic major/minors I learned when I first started playing.

At the same time, I always think about the fact that saxophone players don't learn five different fingerings for Ab. I wonder if it wouldn't have been easier, from the start, to learn to play the crap out of one position, in different keys. Just pretend like it's a two octave instrument.

Then, when you're ready for it, the repeating pattern element of the guitar, which is somewhat of a curse, actually makes everything simpler. You're learning to play it in a new place and a new key, but you've already got a lot of vocabulary and playing under your fingers .

For example, if you went with a 7th fret position, and take 7 fingerings, like Leavitt's fingerings 4 through 1C. Just work the cycle in that position, and that gives you the keys of D, G, C, F, Bb, Eb, and Ab. Working tunes, basic patterns, chords etc.

You're reinforcing a sense of absolute pitch more so than patterns because you're really getting to know one area, as a byproduct of arbitrarily assigning a key to a fingering pattern. Once you know a lot of material with one given position , I would think it would be a lot easier to transfer the fingering elsewhere.

The problem with the way we usually do things, is we do ALL of it, get overwhelmed, frustrated, and progress slowly. Alternatively, we learn to play ALL tunes, patterns, scales, exercises using only two or three more solid positions but in multiple keys.

It's all the same. Just a different sequence. In the time it takes you to really work out playing one key in five positions, your fingers could be doing the same but playing in five keys, and more substantially solidifying fretboard knowledge in that area. Trumpet, Sax and piano players do it.

Not going to do this. It's just something I think about.

From my experience - as I recall about 10 years I knew the A and E positions for stuff, nothing more.

When I got a teacher (a fantastic solo jazz guitarist among other things) he didn't say 'learn the neck' - he said 'work on your time.' He actually said I had 'good scalic knowledge' and 'great lines' because I could run things together convincingly. The general consensus from other players was the same. They liked my lines but wanted me to work on my time.

I was playing Giant Steps and stuff at that point.

Later on I had a lesson with the great Dave Cliff who said he basically tracks everything through chord shapes with scales over the top - the approach I had always used. He said that for him this was position playing. I believe this the tradition coming out of Charlie Christian - play on the shapes. Position playing in the classical sense is different, and responds to different needs IMO.

Anyway I still heavily favour shape based playing. I just know more shapes, but I think you can fill this in as you go... I think you can combine with position playing once you know enough - I practice positional fretboard exercises etc, so I don;t end up going - ooh next chord is F#m7b5 where do I find that? But I don't see these as the be all and end all..

Anyway, my favourite players of all time - Django, Wes, Charlie Christian, Grant Green, Peter Bernstein, Jim Mullen, Jimi etc - these weren't position players. Jim Hall was a position player more, but his sound is quite different. The sliding about, the shifting is part of the sound.

Anyway, for me the grunt work comes as you play gig and hit obstacles. Things like - I can't get through thee changes, I always have trouble at this spot, I wish my reading was better, I lost the beat there in the drum solo, I lost the form for a moment, and so on and so forth.

IMO You can't prioritise your practice effectively unless you do some playing in performance situations, because that kind of thing strips away all the BS.

You have to be to some extent vulnerable. It's a rite of passage. How else do you learn?

[Reg]

I like Christian's point about prioritizing your practice... which would reflect where you want to take your playing, right. Do you even really want to play gigs. Jazz does involve improv and live performance, it's not really a notated tradition or memorized performance thing.... but who cares. If one gets enjoyment out of some aspect of playing, that's still a good thing. Just don't expect to really get jazz, or develop a somewhat higher level of musicianship. Your just not going to be able to play many jazz tunes or in a jazz style... who cares... I wouldn't expect to be able to race a big fast bike on a track with pros and make it... and I've been on bikes all my life and still enjoy riding.

[Reg]

That live recording of Wes... might be Full House Live at Tsubo's in Berkeley... Blues n boogie is one of Griffins great solos etc.. The coffee shop on Telegraph ave was typical 60's cool hang. I think it only stayed open for a year or so... was cool hang. I'm pretty sure Kelly, Chambers and Cobb were in SF to play a gig with Miles at the Blackhawk and they hooked up with Wes and Griffin at Tsubo's on a Monday night. Wes's brother lived somewhere in Berkeley or Oakland area. I was kid, didn't go but remember older friends talking about the night... the coffee shop was one of many regular music hangs...
Of course... I went on to play way too many of the typical west coast 60's gigs as I grew up... did also play jazz gigs, but the other music scene was too much fun for stupid young musician.

[christianm77]

I like Christian's point about prioritizing your practice... which would reflect where you want to take your playing, right. Do you even really want to play gigs. Jazz does involve improv and live performance, it's not really a notated tradition or memorized performance thing.... but who cares. If one gets enjoyment out of some aspect of playing, that's still a good thing. Just don't expect to really get jazz, or develop a somewhat higher level of musicianship. Your just not going to be able to play many jazz tunes or in a jazz style... who cares... I wouldn't expect to be able to race a big fast bike on a track with pros and make it... and I've been on bikes all my life and still enjoy riding.

You could just be up for the odd play with other musicians for fun... Doesn't have to be in front of an audience so much, perhaps...

[Jonzo]

This is a critical question: Do we do the "grunt" work first or later?

Do the grunt work to learn a new concept or technique, and then immediately apply it to tunes. This makes the concept or technique stronger while giving you tunes to play.

[Munk]

My purpose with music is different, but why shouldn't it be possible for some to become quite good without performing and standing on a scene, or follow a road other people walked 80 years ago? Today there are different technology. You can go deep in specific elements, do eartraining, practise time, use transcription or slowdown software, loop difficult frasings, play with 'virtual' musicians, study videos etc. and everything when you want. Sure it would require selfdiscipline and some of the effort is propapbly easier to gain, if you learn the old way. But to follow the comparison with pro cyclists, I'm sure that if you did 200 km on a hometrainer everyday, you wouldn't be lost of many pelotons the first many kilometres, if you decided to compete with others. Another way to think about it, can be to compare with other kinds of art, which don't have to be team work, sculptors or painters for example.


As for myself, I sometimes get a strange thought, that when I move to a bigger city, I could find some guys at my level and maybe do free gigs at retirement homes, where some people probably are happy for just any kind of entertainment. At least they could turn down for their hearing aids. But music is for me mostly a kind of therapy, and luckily not something I need to make a living out of. By the way, as an alternative to progres from standing on a scene, it could be very interesting, if there was a forum, where amateurs could share and opload less organised or alternative improvisation and get some ciritique.

[christianm77]

My purpose with music is different, but why shouldn't it be possible for some to become quite good without performing and standing on a scene, or follow a road other people walked 80 years ago? Today there are different technology. You can go deep in specific elements, do eartraining, practise time, use transcription or slowdown software, loop difficult frasings, play with 'virtual' musicians, study videos etc. and everything when you want. Sure it would require selfdiscipline and some of the effort is propapbly easier to gain, if you learn the old way. But to follow the comparison with pro cyclists, I'm sure that if you did 200 km on a hometrainer everyday, you wouldn't be lost of many pelotons the first many kilometres, if you decided to compete with others. Another way to think about it, can be to compare with other kinds of art, which don't have to be team work, sculptors or painters for example.


As for myself, I sometimes get a strange thought, that when I move to a bigger city, I could find some guys at my level and maybe do free gigs at retirement homes, where some people probably are happy for just any kind of entertainment. At least they could turn down for their hearing aids. But music is for me mostly a kind of therapy, and luckily not something I need to make a living out of. By the way, as an alternative to progres from standing on a scene, it could be very interesting, if there was a forum, where amateurs could share and opload less organised or alternative improvisation and get some ciritique.

You can get a long way with practice, but ultimately there's only so much you can do in the practice room. You can get to a very high level at playing in one small room for yourself. The skill set is not necessarily transferrable to anything else. What do you mean 'get good?' What do you want to do?

A musician, to me, is someone who uses music to communicate to others. This can be immediate friends or family, or a paying audience. You could be an amateur or a professional... I'm not sure if I see the point of anything else, but that's just me perhaps.

There is a pleasure, I suppose, in exploring music as a subject. For example, I love transcribing and working out solos just for the hell of it.

[Munk]

You can get a long way with practice, but ultimately there's only so much you can do in the practice room. You can get to a very high level at playing in one small room for yourself. The skill set is not necessarily transferrable to anything else. What do you mean 'get good?' What do you want to do?

By good I meant in a traditional way as to achieve a level some famous musicians have had. My goal is just to become better to express or explore what I feel or enjoy in the moment, which not necessarily has much to do with what others appreciate.

A musician, to me, is someone who uses music to communicate to others. This can be immediate friends or family, or a paying audience. You could be an amateur or a professional... I'm not sure if I see the point of anything else, but that's just me perhaps.

There is a pleasure, I suppose, in exploring music as a subject. For example, I love transcribing and working out solos just for the hell of it.

No, I think you have the idea of musicians as most people; someone who play for others, communicate and entertain.

I appreciate some other aspects, meditative contemplation, freedom to express myself without seeking acceptance, develope creative abilities in genereal and week parts of my nature instead of what is easy for me. I have never collected music, and I find it more fun playing than listening, even though I'll never achieve their skills. I guess it is not normal as music is something people consume everywhere all the time. But if I go to a concert, I want to sit in the dark, close my eyes and only listen and try not to think a thought for an hour. Then I'm travelling to places I can not go with my own playing. Sorry, I don't mean to sidetrack the subject.

[Nabil B]

Oh yeah I've been struggling. My two main issues are :

- I need to have more things to say, more options (more vocab if you fancy that term -I do-).
- I need to have total command of the fingerboard : to be able hear something and play it without mistakes.

I feel that these two things, that are in fact related, are what I need to work on in order get to a satisfactory performance level. At that point I'm not trying to be original and re-invent the wheel... I just want to be able to fluently speak the jazz language on standards, keeping the tradition alive. That is a modest goal, but still quite a hard one to achieve for me. To adress those issues, here's what I'm currently doing :

- I've decided to put more work into transcribing: I work on two transcribed lines a week, try to be creative with them, and I'm transcribing a whole solo little by little (Freddie Hubbard on Birdlike : bebop heaven).

- Instead of trying to master all the different ways to finger a line, I just pick one that feels good. Then I play it in every place possible on the neck, making adjustments when the B and high E strings are involved but still using the same fingering. I got the idea from Barry Greene, and my playing is really benefeting from this. This seems like a logical idea but I guess I needed to hear an accomplished player like him telling me that I don't need to torture myself with fingerings that are hard to play and remember.

Well, the journey continues...

[SeanZ]

Reg, Would you possibly have the time to write out the components and specifics of what that 'organized schedule' you mention would contain. I feel like I'm awash with different learning approaches but getting nowhere and desperately in need of a 'structured' approach'.

Really appreciate all the knowledge you're sharing on this forum.

thanks,

QUOTE=Reg;593489]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[/QUOTE]

[SeanZ]

Reg, you wrote 'But knowing what to practice, what technique etc... seems to be the trick.' Would you have time to write out the specifics of what you mean? As I wrote in my previous reply, I feel like I've been all over the place, wasting a great deal of time & energy and very much in need of a very specific 'structured' learning path.

many thanks,

[gggomez]

The Wes Full House recording is fantastic and this should be of interest to all us at an early phase of learning. I read that this was not an impromptu session in that they did 2 days of rehearsing before the gig.

[GingerMojo]

I find my major shortfalls happen with intervals and memorizing different keys across the entire fretboard. Coming from a rock/metal background everything can be captured with a I-IV-V progression or some minor variation of that. And sticking with a minor pentatonic was the only real style I needed in my bag of tricks. Moving to jazz opened this instrument up to millions of possibilities, and endless study. I need to bring my head out of the rock world and learn a whole new instrument.

Also, while I am on this. Coming from a rock background there is always mentors and peers nearby to jam with and learn from. I am all alone in my humble little small town learning jazz, so I am left with YouTube and Matt Warnocks jazz guitar methods. I would have given up without these resources.

[EDS]

I haven't read this whole thread, but I'd like to make one simple point.

In my experience, people tend to greatly underestimate the amount of time it requires to play music decently.

I know that sounds obvious.

[mrcee]

I haven't read this whole thread, but I'd like to make one simple point.
In my experience, people tend to greatly underestimate the amount of time it requires to play music decently.

I know that sounds obvious.

Right you are. And often the obvious is overlooked.

I've played for over 55 years. I'm a good player. I play professionally when I want to, which isn't often. I can read and write and my theory's good. I'm versatile and can play in a few styles. I've gotten standing ovations. I've sat in with a big name that was on an important Coltrane album. They say I blew him off the stage which isn't true. He's a great guy and set it up so I could. That's the way the true greats are. AND I've gone out there and stepped on my junk a couple of times as well. BUT, with no sense of false humility intended, I've only started to be satisfied, overall, with my playing over the last year or so. As far as I'm concerned all of the above mentioned rinky dink rooty poot accolades I may have gotten were from unaware audiences that didn't know what was happening. They would have probably dug anybody. I see videos posted by players, well educated professionals, on this forum, unknowns for the most part I assume, that are fantastic and further humble me into keeping the bar set high. There's likely 50 guys on this forum that could kick my ass up and down B'way.

So it can take a long time. More than one lifetime if you believe in that sort of thing.