What do you think is most difficult for beginning jazz guitarists?

[snailspace]

I don't think freddie green style is a must learn "first." I'd argue you could spend a lifetime on that.

Freddie Green sure spent his lifetime on it, but maybe he wasn't as good as the rest of us.

[mr. beaumont]

Lol, I'm sure that's it.

[rpjazzguitar]

My best advice for improving time, feel and groove:

Play as often as you can with the best musicians you can.

Record everything and critique it later.

What you're trying to create is the irresistible impulse on the part of the listener (including you) to tap his foot to the music.

You should be able to do that playing alone or with others. If the music doesn't make the listener want to do that (with the exception of some styles that aren't intended to groove) then there's something wrong and it's your job to figure out what that is.

And, not that anybody asked but here is my take on practicing with a metronome.

I know great players who swear by it.

And I know one player who uses the metronome constantly and whose time is the worst of anybody I know.

Apparently, some people are able to internalize the pulse and others may use it as a kind of substitute for playing in time.

A great drummer, just the other day, demonstrated the difference between metronomic time and what he called pulse. One is math the other is naturalistic. The latter feels better.

I have worked some with a metronome and more with drum machines. I'm not convinced that either helped my time. What did help was recording myself and hearing, starkly, how far my time was off. I tracked a lot of the problem to lack of fluency on the fingerboard. It led me to cut way down on stuff I could almost, but not quite, play in time. Another thing that helped was playing with better musicians. If any of your rhythm section colleagues is wavering, it can be hard to tell who is the culprit. I realized that with some players I would feel like I couldn't play a single note in good time and with better players I would often feel like I could play anything and the time would be perfect.

[christianm77]

Agreed 100%

[R Neil]

My best advice for improving time, feel and groove:

Play as often as you can with the best musicians you can.

Record everything and critique it later.

What you're trying to create is the irresistible impulse on the part of the listener (including you) to tap his foot to the music.

You should be able to do that playing alone or with others. If the music doesn't make the listener want to do that (with the exception of some styles that aren't intended to groove) then there's something wrong and it's your job to figure out what that is.

And, not that anybody asked but here is my take on practicing with a metronome.

I know great players who swear by it.

And I know one player who uses the metronome constantly and whose time is the worst of anybody I know.

Apparently, some people are able to internalize the pulse and others may use it as a kind of substitute for playing in time.

A great drummer, just the other day, demonstrated the difference between metronomic time and what he called pulse. One is math the other is naturalistic. The latter feels better.

I have worked some with a metronome and more with drum machines. I'm not convinced that either helped my time. What did help was recording myself and hearing, starkly, how far my time was off. I tracked a lot of the problem to lack of fluency on the fingerboard. It led me to cut way down on stuff I could almost, but not quite, play in time. Another thing that helped was playing with better musicians. If any of your rhythm section colleagues is wavering, it can be hard to tell who is the culprit. I realized that with some players I would feel like I couldn't play a single note in good time and with better players I would often feel like I could play anything and the time would be perfect.

So true. You need as a performer to be <capable> of metronomic precision ... but aware that playing like a machine lacks anything worth hearing.

So often the difference between a great soloist and a very talented and capable craftsman lies in the subtleties of nuanced tempo, the ... hint of a pause, the exact amount of over-tempo... the touch and feel that makes it human. Approachable. Beautiful.

As a 38-year career portrait photographer flawless "beauty" is only ... pretty.

To really achieve Beauty in a subject there must be interesting features .. but with the "small flaws" that give <character> to the face ... and the person. Same thing really.

Stumbling fingers still need love ...

[Hep To The Jive]

Freddie Green sure spent his lifetime on it, but maybe he wasn't as good as the rest of us.

Freddie Green was doing just fine doing Freddie Green style. He got the gig after all. If you feel like spending lifetime on that... you totally should.

[pants]

I'm going to say the "path" thing is kind of huge. Material comes as you play. Theory can be worked into anything. Same with time/feel/groove. (Incidentally, I would swear by my start in old school style big band comping as a huge part of the development of my internal rhythm/groove. Keeping that beat so physically and really hearing how melody lines and shout choruses interact with the down beats is a hugely helpful thing to internalize.) Comping and soloing take a bit more methodical approach to get basics, but also can be done effectively in a variety of ways.
However, if you don't have a picture of what you want to accomplish and aren't enjoying yourself along the way, then it's not going to stick. Don't learn all your standards just because some old jazzer told you you need to know all your standards. Unless you're starting out with a 5 year plan to become a professionally gigging jazz musician, the goal should just be to have fun and explore the things that interest you the most. As you learn some things, you'll recognize other areas that you want to explore. This is part of the reason that a good teacher can be so valuable, as opposed to web resources or a method book. A good teacher will steer you based on your natural inclinations instead of trying to fit you into a mold or just giving you an encyclopedia and saying "here you go, learn stuff."
As another poster said, jazz is huge. It's not like getting through the curriculum and then you're there, you're a jazzer. You explore it your whole life.

[smokinguit]

The most difficult thing for beginners: having the discipline to listen to the music carefully every single day as much as possible, more so than playing it, not because you are obligated too, but because you love it the same way you love your family or significant other. You must have two feet in jazz not one if you want to really be good.

[snailspace]

Freddie Green was doing just fine doing Freddie Green style. He got the gig after all. If you feel like spending lifetime on that... you totally should.

I'll spend my lifetime doing as I please, with or without your permission.

[princeplanet]

Hardest thing for me was and continues to be decoding my favourite soloists. Coming from, as many here, from Rock and Blues many years ago, it was easy to differentiate, and even imitate the basic styles of Jimmy Page, Jimmy Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Santana, SRV etc. But then hearing George Benson, Wes, Martino, Charlie Parker, Cannonball Adderley, Sonny Rollins, Coltrane, Herbie Hancock etc etc makes one realise that there is so much going on that no one can really imitate all these players well enough to improvise in their style.

Learning scales and arps, patterns or theory won't get you there, nor will transcriptions which only allow you to replicate note for note solos as opposed to replicating a given style of playing. Yes, one's aim may be to create one's own style, but if you wish to imitate, and assimilate before you innovate, then the "imitate" part is hard enough! Imagine you were a sax player in the late 40's and you felt you had to catch up to Parker - my god, what a challenge! Yet, many players did just that, so, how did they do that? My guess is that they picked up ways of conceptualising things on the street. Bird may have said to Jackie McLean something like: "It's easy, just think of these as being the main notes and weave in and out using these other notes this way..." and once hearing it demonstrated, the penny drops...

But for us learning, not from the street, but from online forums, nothing is ever as direct, the penny doesn't drop. No one on this forum will tell you how Wes conceived his approach to note choices because we just don't know, yet many people come to Jazz guitar with the very real expectation that it can and will be explained fully, and that all he needs to do is to simply put in the hours of practicing certain "known" things! .

One example of where novice Jazz guitarists seem confused is why their lines don't sound "Jazzy". It's not just because of their time or sense of swing, or even their technique, but simply because they haven't been shown how to get from one chord tone to another in the way that every jazz player from the 30's on seemed to know. This very basic aspect of Jazz, which made Jazz different to the other kinds of music in the world, is often the last thing the modern Jazz guitar student will learn- if he's lucky! So, I would say that this is one important thing that is not imparted well from books or forums.

If we all had an experienced player (who seemed to know all the "tricks") show us how to get around such things when we were first learning, then how different would our learning paths have been?

[diminix]

One example of where novice Jazz guitarists seem confused is why their lines don't sound "Jazzy".

Me, e.g.

It's not just because of their time or sense of swing, or even their technique, but simply because they haven't been shown how to get from one chord tone to another in the way that every jazz player from the 30's on seemed to know.

Now then, can you show me?

Robert

[christianm77]

Me, e.g.



Now then, can you show me?

Robert

Try this - take a song chord progression

Play 1 on every chord, in the same sort of part of the neck, in the same sort of register
Do the same with 3
Do the same with 5

Mix it up.

Now, once you are comfortable with this in all positions, add in 7 9 and 13.

[dingusmingus]

I'm gonna flip this and say the 2 easiest things:

Fretboard familiarity makes everything much easier.

Ear training makes everything much easier.

This really resonated with me. Both take quite a while, at least for me. I've been at it five years, and the fretboard is still getting clearer to me. It could easily take five more before I can move around without barriers.

Ear training is huge, and also take a long time, at least to those of us who start out somewhat tin-eared.

[mr. beaumont]

This really resonated with me. Both take quite a while, at least for me. I've been at it five years, and the fretboard is still getting clearer to me. It could easily take five more before I can move around without barriers.

Ear training is huge, and also take a long time, at least to those of us who start out somewhat tin-eared.

Yeah, JazzinNY has it, I think. Those two things make everything else 100 times easier. Removes the "fishing."

[goldenwave77]

Need to clarify the question. When you say a "beginning jazz guitarist", what do you really mean?



- A person who has some musical training, and has played some guitar? (Some music; some guitar)

- A person who has no musical training, and has never played guitar? (No music; no guitar)

- A person who has played some guitar, but not much formal training? (Little music; some guitar)

- A oerson who has some musical training, but no guitar, and no jazz. (Some music; no guitar; no jazz)


There are probably other possibilities too. Anyway, you can see what I'm getting at. These are all vastly different students in terms of "prior knowledge base", and will require vastly different approaches.

[dingusmingus]

This really resonated with me. Both take quite a while, at least for me. I've been at it five years, and the fretboard is still getting clearer to me. It could easily take five more before I can move around without barriers.
Ear training is huge, and also take a long time, at least to those of us who start out somewhat tin-eared.

Yeah, JazzinNY has it, I think. Those two things make everything else 100 times easier. Removes the "fishing."

Another piece of the puzzle for me, also mentioned in this thread, is basic chord spelling/familiarity with keys. Knowing instantly that G is the 3rd of Eb7, and where every G is the neck, has made moving around easier for me.

I've heard the image in other contexts of learning a complex subject being like watching a photograph develop in a darkroom. Rather than mastering one part and moving on to the next, all the inter-related parts emerge into view simultaneously. That also means that it is an inherently messy process!

(I'm still not competent--I couldn't sit in with a new group on a new tune and really hang--but I'm getting there and I can kind of see what the path ahead looks like.)

[Hep To The Jive]

But of course! I'm not very worried.

I'll spend my lifetime doing as I please, with or without your permission.

[oldwoodak]

being a beginning jazz player with 30 years of blues playing experience I struggle the most with filling two measures of of the same chord with something interesting while comping standards. The more experienced players i jam with always have cool several chord lines that they use.

[Hep To The Jive]

I'm gonna flip this and say the 2 easiest things:

Fretboard familiarity makes everything much easier.

Ear training makes everything much easier.

Ear training, yes! If you just take the lessons privately that part might be missing a lot, because how many private jazz guitar instructors really spend time on that with students? In fact, it's not even their job, that's a separate discipline and should be taken separately from guitar instructions per se. IMO. That's why college is important in a way, whether we hate it or not, but the classes would cover all the territory.

I'm very very grateful for my instructors in colleges that I attended to emphasize the ear training a lot, and all the hours I had to spend on it. Tbh, I'd never have self discipline to do it on my own, because, let's face it, it's not the most fun part of music education.

[christianm77]

Ear training, yes! If you just take the lessons privately that part might be missing a lot, because how many private jazz guitar instructors really spend time on that with students?

I try to.

In fact, it's not even their job, that's a separate discipline and should be taken separately from guitar instructions per se. IMO. That's why college is important in a way, whether we hate it or not, but the classes would cover all the territory.

I think you might be a little reductionist. Transcription (or working stuff out from records), for example, is terrific ear training, although personally I like to mix it up. This would be recommended by most good jazz teachers AFAIK, although they wouldn't perhaps always show you how. But sometimes you just have to do it.

I'm very very grateful for my instructors in colleges that I attended to emphasize the ear training a lot, and all the hours I had to spend on it. Tbh, I'd never have self discipline to do it on my own, because, let's face it, it's not the most fun part of music education.

I dunno I rather enjoy it, but then I am more than a little bit weird.

[Hep To The Jive]

I try to.



I think you might be a little reductionist. Transcription (or working stuff out from records), for example, is terrific ear training, although personally I like to mix it up. This would be recommended by most good jazz teachers AFAIK, although they wouldn't perhaps always show you how. But sometimes you just have to do it.



I dunno I rather enjoy it, but then I am more than a little bit weird.

Transcriptions are great, but it's very small part of it. Unless you can do it without an instrument at hand...

Melodic and harmonic dictations, solfege, sight singing- would you cover that in a guitar lesson? Possible, but IMO it has to be a separate class. Of course you can encourage a student to study it, as a teacher, that's understood.

I was ok, rather average at all this as a student, my main problem even to this day connecting the sounds to the notes names quick enough. There is always a disconnect. I blame it on being self taught and not knowing any music theory for the first crucial 5 years of playing, only playing by ear.

[christianm77]

Transcriptions are great, but it's very small part of it. Unless you can do it without an instrument at hand...

I've been practicing just that. I would recommend. Functional ear training helps with that, but hey we have an app for that now :-)

Melodic and harmonic dictations, solfege, sight singing- would you cover that in a guitar lesson? Possible, but IMO it has to be a separate class. Of course you can encourage a student to study it, as a teacher, that's understood.

I don't see myself as a guitar teacher, more as a jazz teacher. But that might have to cover aspects of the guitar, of course.

I was ok, rather average at all this as a student, my main problem even to this day connecting the sounds to the notes names quick enough. There is always a disconnect. I blame it on being self taught and not knowing any music theory for the first crucial 5 years of playing, only playing by ear.

I recommend functional ear training for this (Bruce Arnold, solfege etc.) If you think it's important. But a jazz guitarist you should be able to play phrases on your instrument by ear. More than that is kind of going into 'general musicianship' I agree.

[Hep To The Jive]

I've been practicing just that. I would recommend. Functional ear training helps with that, but hey we have an app for that now :-)

Respect! Did you try transcribing a Charlie Parker solo, putting it straight to paper? How long does it take? I never did, but maybe one day I'll be brave.

[christianm77]

Respect! Did you try transcribing a Charlie Parker solo, putting it straight to paper? How long does it take? I never did, but maybe one day I'll be brave.

No Adam Rogers

I average 8 bars in around 15-30 minutes, before my brain gets tired.

I know people who can transcribe almost at real time.

[christianm77]

BTW the most difficult thing I find with it is actually really being able to hear what the line is, being able to sing it etc. Transferring it to the page - or to the fretboard I find much easier on this whole.

There's a lesson in there I think...