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Hello!
My name is Noah and I'm a jazz educator. I'd like to hear straight from you guys what you think are the top 3 most challenging things about starting jazz guitar and also what you think are the top 3 things you've found that are missing from online materials that are out there.
I have my own ideas about what's most difficult but it's been a long time since I was first starting out and I want to make sure I'm as in-touch with my audience as possible! I'm also going to be starting up a youtube channel so in the end, this is for you guys out there!
Thanks for taking the time!
Best,
Noah D'Innocenzo
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01-25-2017 12:27 PM
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In no particular order:
1. Theory...Although I enjoy it.
2. Improvising
3. Comping - I don't mean Freddie Green style comping.
Missing(I can only thing of one)
1. Comping
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1. Learn Songs
2. Learn simple improvisations
3. Learn to comp
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1 - All the chords
2 - Even more chords, even faster.
3 - Sh@t, now I have to solo over all these chords???
Learning to play the cycle is helpful to get over this stage.
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Freddie Green style comping is not that easy, and it's a must learn first.
Originally Posted by edh
To the OP, please don't produce another 'contemporary' jazz neophyte who can't play driving swing rhythm to save their lives.
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I don't think freddie green style is a must learn "first." I'd argue you could spend a lifetime on that.
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I think it varies from one person to the next. For me, it was ear training. I played for years before I'd ever heard it could be studied.
But, looking back after decades of playing, I would say the biggest hurdle, which took many years to even begin to surmount, was to understand what it really takes to play jazz in a combo.
With hindsight, I understand that chops is the easy part. Learning theory is classroom stuff and can be taught in a programmatic fashion. That will allow you to get through changes without clams.
The hard part is when the pianist starts reharmonizing on the fly and you have to figure out what he's doing so that you can contribute something. Or somebody suddenly changes key and you have to comp in a song you've never played in any key but the one you just left. Or, the band isn't grooving and you can't figure out what's wrong, or if it even has anything to do with you. And, how to complement a soloist by hearing the harmony in the solo and figuring out if you want to go with it or against it (to create tension). Or, simply how to comp depending on what the other instruments are doing. Or, figuring out where the beat is when some advanced players start playing with the time. Stuff like that.
This may not answer your question, but this is what tends to be missing from on line materials.
There is a book called something like Baseball, Pitch by Pitch. The book spends pages on a single at bat, explaining the strategy on each pitch, including defensive positioning and so forth. I've never seen anything like it for jazz. Like a DVD of a band playing a song -- and then a truly detailed explanation of every note each musician played and what that player was reacting to.
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No, I don't think... maybe a lifetime perfecting it? It's a physical thing, you can get the right feel if you put your mind to it, and then it's just a stamina to built on. You have to do it though, like really practice, not just 'Oh ok, I got an idea, now let's move on to 'the real comping' bebop and beyond' Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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"Jazz" is a very diverse realm of music. Even asking on here what is the most simple basic nature of jazz will get an extended and at times heated discussion. Early, bop, bebop, swing/standards, gypsy, or move into fusion. Originally Posted by Noah D'Innocenzo
Does a guitar need "thunk" to be a usable jazz box? Does a jazz player HAVE to be capable of extended improv solo work varying the scale/mode with every chord change to BE a jazzer? Can you truly be a serious jazzer if you primarily comp in a group gigging or play carefully crafted pieces in a solo gig or just at home?
A few things mentioned already come up in any thread about the music and performing or learning it: there are senses of tonality native to each form of jazz; rhythm in any form of jazz is central to that form, in all its various subtleties, and ain't easy to master; and being able to vary the tonality of a chord change with taste and in a way that improves the tonal progressions to the ear is the sign of an advanced player.
In the end, it takes incredible development of the tools of the craft, not to serve Craftsmanship by itself, but to give feeling and life to sound.
Jazz ... is sound that creates a feeling. In a very unique and individual way.
Stumbling fingers still need love ...
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One major stumbling block I struggled with was that the "standards" were not standard to me. I love the sound of jazz guitar and was blown away by the technical proficiency, but I didn't have a reference to the underlying songs. "On Blue Dolphin Street"? "All the Things You Are"? "Misty"? Those aren't tunes that I know in my sleep. I'm trying to learn how to re-harmonize and improvise over songs I had only the vaguest familiarity with. I've never known what "the kids" are listening to. When I was a "kid" I was supposed to be listening to Nirvana and Stone Temple Pilots. I listened to Beatles instead. You can take most any Beatles tune and you wouldn't have to teach me the melody, feel, or rhythm of the tune. I know it in my bones. I think learning to re-harmonize a Beatles tune and play arpeggio based improvised lines would be much more natural if the tune were "Lady Madonna" than "Autumn Leaves". Whatever music the beginning student knows, I think it is easier to learn when they are playing something they really know.
If I was teaching a jazz beginner (and I don't, so take that with a grain of salt), I would try to find out what music was already there in the student. What could they hum instantly without thought? I would then take that melody and begin to teach jazz improvisation (melodic AND harmonic) with those tunes that already resided deep in the psyche.Last edited by rlrhett; 01-26-2017 at 02:43 AM.
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That one's new to me too. Originally Posted by rlrhett
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Yes, yes. "Green" not "Blue". But that's exactly my point. These are not songs I am deeply acquainted with. I think it is hard to teach a beginner how to improvise a melody they don't even know in its original form. Originally Posted by grahambop
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#1 most difficult thing for beginning jazz guitarist is not being informed that jazz is one of the least important things is the world. Know that before spending thousands of hours of your life pursuing it..learning to do tricks on a skateboard or mastering a video game are way more impressive to the general population.
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#1 most difficult thing is to find the right path. So many teaches book publishers etc ready to take your time and money down the wrong path. Tok me 48 years to find what I think is the right path in no small thanks to the people of this forum.
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Originally Posted by edh
To me that is the easy thing ... The hard thing is making it sound like music, still haven't figured that one out
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Educational mess...
lack of live practice together with incoherent messy theory.
(I personally think that jazz theory should be messy... because when organized it looks no more jazz.. but nobody explains that at the beginning)
In early days they learnt from live performance, the bandstand life was very intensive... today it is not really that intensive just to dive in it (you have a risk to fall into the shallow waters)...
And formal educational methods are often so controversal that it may take years to get through it...
In general I think nothing changed from 30's - 40's you still have to figure out what you take or what you leave... but there are no obvious leaders on the bandstand those days... intensive progressive development... it was full of events and discoveries... it was like being captured in teh stream - either you pick it up and swim, or you just go down...
That makes the introductory process tough but quick... you could not sit on your sofa watching youtube for years or go deligiently to university for the classes... you're either in or our - right now.. not so many atempts.
Nothing like that today...
That's the 1st problem that might be there...
The 2nd is connected with the 1st.... the academical stuff became so developed that there's a risk that a player may turn into kind of indeneer or researcher... I once visited classes a the jazz school... it looked like it was something in high math or astrophysics..
I am not against theory and complexity (quite on the contrary I love good analytical stuff) but I got worried that it seemed that these guys enjoyed the process per se... like their idea is not playing music but investigating scales possibilities or something...
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From somebody who started guitar and jazz at the same time, at the age of almost 50, not teacher, no other musicians around. Originally Posted by Noah D'Innocenzo
Challenging things
1., 2. & 3. -- The impenetrable, chaotic complexity of learning materials (books, web, DVDs), and obviously no essential and cohesive model in existence for the learning process of jazz guitar. I have learned a lot of complex things in my life, but never before I was confronted with such a huge mess of disinformation.
Missing things
1., 2. & 3. -- A starting point. A pedagogic framework. Something that will set the beginner into an environment not too complex, where he can grow in baby steps.
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It took me about four years until I realized how much I was overwhelmed by the cacophony of voices telling me how to learn jazz. Countless erratic attempts of going in any direction randomly, always ending in frustration. By far the most ridiculous concept of getting into jazz guitar I stumbled over again and again seems to be a basic blueprint for book authors:
1. Confront the student with two dozen scales and modes, printed in all keys using standard notation to fill most of the book, tell him to learn these inside out.
2. In the next chapter tell the student to use the stuff form #1 to improvise. How? You'll never know, although that is the the book's raison d'être...
3. Add some pages of random transcriptions of anything played on guitar.
Only after I reduced complexity by concentrating on basic blues for some months now, things start to develop, to clear up. Just three different dominant chords, three fingerings for the respective chord tones. Endless work to get these into muscle memory. Approach tones and enclosures around these chord tones. Feel into the structure of the blues, call and response. Try to find small motifs by using chord tones and approaches, build your own little lines. Get away from playing these motifs in plain eighth notes by applying rhythmic variations. Take these rhytmic patterns from music you love to listen to. Sing them. Write it down in standard notation. Make your own blues backing tracks and use the developed stuff to improvise over it. Expose your brain to the learning stuff in every conceivable way. Take all the time needed--for me that might be years--to ingrain that basic stuff, to play it without thinking.
That's the framework I am in now, and it is still very complex. I fear the day when I am adding minor seventh chords to my blues comping, then complexity will surge again. But until then, I am feeling to be on a good way to crack jazz improv, and for the first time I am beginning to have fun in my jazz guitar endeavors, and I am beginning to loose that cringing feeling of not being able to bear what my hands are producing on guitar...
RobertLast edited by diminix; 01-26-2017 at 08:29 AM.
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In general for guitarists (assuming they are new to jazz as opposed to the guitar)
Musicianship (inc reading)
Changes playing
And above all - rhythm and feel
The challenge for the teacher is to break it down into digestible chunks.Last edited by christianm77; 01-26-2017 at 08:43 AM.
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How do you teach these? Originally Posted by pkirk
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Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
Well, I suppose if you call any "four on the floor, 3rds and 7ths comping "Freddie Green Style."
I've been dipping into his personal style a lot lately, so my reply is biased by my recent realization of how complex and nuanced it really is. It's truly an artform. But I'm getting off the OP's topic.
OP, I'd say the three areas in jazz education that are sorely lacking are:
1. Tips for learning and memorizing tunes
2. melodic rhythms common to jazz
3. How to read what a chart implies.
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Indeed. Originally Posted by pkirk
My wife thinks that the Mike Longo stuff I've practiced has improved my feel FWIW.
I am able to feel when I am out playing solo now, as I play. I think that was a step for me. Hopefully leaning less on other musicians and creating a bit more feel in my playing.
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The thing I found most difficult when I was starting out was understanding the whole idea of playing over changes. I started out playing blues and blues-based rock, music that mostly can be managed with one scale and one key and doesn't really call for things like highlighting dominants with altered 5ths or 9ths. It took a while for me to grok that saying that a song is in a particular key doesn't automatically tell you what notes to play in jazz the way it does in blues/blues-rock.
John
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Oh man. I come from a classical background, and I went deep into the waters of jams and jazz just recently. So these are the things that have proved a challenge to me so far.
1) Listening..
It took me very long to understand what "listening" meant. They say listening is the best way to learn, but unfortunately it's not that great if you don't know what you're listening for. From what I understand at the moment, now, listening is a way of practicing your feel for the music, so feeling the changes, feeling the beats, feeling the swing and the rhythm.. it's like you're practicing to play with others, except you're not playing.
2) Knowing where you are in the music..
I can certainly feel how far away I am from the 1, but it's not a clear division of how many beats.. Meaning, I could be improvising and land either a beat ahead or behind the 1-downbeat. Knowing where I am in the form was not difficult, but knowing having a clear idea of where I am in the measure is a feat for me because in classical the emphasis is on the first beat. All the beats in in between are very liquid/vague, like as if they don't exist. Also for reading music, if you are clear on what beats you are, it makes sight reading easier because you it gives you the division[beats] to envision the music as a whole picture instead of a linear idea(what a pun..).
3) Memorizing chord tones..
I knew my C key comfortably.. But only until recently, it would take my a split second to think what the 3rd is of Gbmaj7 and where it ins the position you're playing in.. Which is not fast enough.. I was under the impression that as long as I can get it in less than a second, it was good enough.. but it really has to be like the alphabet or else I'm taxing too much my thinking which is very not good when improvising and can be easily avoided. Also, knowing very comfortably the the notes that's happening makes the learning process much faster.
My instructor gave me loads of work though however.. the learning staple of "learn it in all 12 keys", is actually really bad.. I kind of ignore him when he says that now.. For example, few month ago, it was "learn your jazz blues in all 12 keys".. So I'd spend 3-4 hours that week and try to memorize the chords and play for all 12 keys.. But there's only 1 blues that I'm working on, in one key.. So knowing the perfectly the progression of a blues in another key does not help me at all in my studies. 3 of the 4 hours could have been spent on learning one key very properly instead of knowing the progression in all, and eventually forgetting it because it's not put into practice.. you know?
It's things like these that I figured on my own. So in theory and technical aspects of things, I only do it for the keys of the tunes I'm working on and I'll learn other keys when tunes of other keys happen.
ALSO, I just understood why learning jazz should not happen with the real book. It's because, being away from the real book makes you think and forces you to have to really "learn", unless you really wanna pain yourself with taking a moment to remember what the chords are every time. It'd make it easier for your students if you explain them why you approach things like you do instead of just telling them to do it. Because for me, telling me to just do do is kind of a hit or miss; I do it until I figure out myself why I'm doing it, or I never do because for whatever reasons.Last edited by augustus94; 01-26-2017 at 04:54 PM.
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I'm gonna flip this and say the 2 easiest things:
Fretboard familiarity makes everything much easier.
Ear training makes everything much easier.
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I agree. The hardest thing about getting started is knowing where to start, and where to go after that. Even if you start with the idea that the road to mastery isn't a linear path, there are so many people -- most well-intentioned (a few . . . not so much) -- who offer advice that is confusingly divergent, and often at odds with what you just heard from someone else. Originally Posted by gggomez
Generally, it seems to me that -- when it comes to the things you pay money for -- people are teaching you they way they teach, and not teaching you the way they learned.Last edited by snailspace; 01-26-2017 at 08:33 PM.
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