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Thanks! That's what I was hoping! I'll do my best one song at a time, and hopefully, will begin to develop a deeper understanding, all while being able to at least begin participating soon.
Originally Posted by rlrhett
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05-10-2017 09:24 PM
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My essentials are: chord tones as arpeggios and chords, reading music and transcription. And tunes!!!!
I like the Mick Goodrick exercise where he has you take a random note and finger, and play happy birthday... I do think that exercise with many different melodies, licks, whatever
And playing slow, focused and deliberate at first...
Then I try to play like Yngwie!!!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Jamey Aebersold's "Maiden Voyage" book / CD takes several standards at a moderate tempo (Summertime, Impressions, Satin Doll, Watermelon Man, Autumn Leaves, Doxy, Blues in F and in Bb, Blue Bossa---called Solar Flair nowadays but it's Blue Bossa---and a few others.) You can learn the melodies, experiment with chord voicings, play some simple solos. (Heck, just play the arpeggio of each chord until you know them in several places on the guitar) Practice your comping, sing (hum, scat, whatever) over the tracks and then try to play what you just sang.
jazzbooks.com: Product Details
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Another suggestion to throw into the mix: Check out Garrison Fewell's book, Jazz Improvisation: A Melodic Approach.
He focuses on few flexible shapes to help you get around the fretboard and make nice melodies (hence the title). He also teaches a simple and effective comping approach, based on 3rds and 7ths + a tension note or two.
I think it's a great way to get your foot in the door and start making some jazz noises.
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There's been a few threads on here recently about why do some people never get Jazz improv or does everyone have what it takes etc.
I think a large part of what holds people back is still thinking of scales running from the root of the chord of the moment and hoping that at some point they will instinctively gain sufficient rhythmic control to automatically place "chord tones on down beats, passing tones on weak beats etc). This will not produce a result which sounds anything like Jazz.
What a lot of people don't understand is that if they have the ability to play the basic chord shapes to a tune in one position, they already have the resources of swing and bebop improvisation.
Assuming you can already play basic chords to standards, try thinking of building an arpeggio based on the third of each of the basic chord types. So over any major chord, you think of a root position minor 7th arpeggio. This automatically places you on the 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th. Likewise over a minor chord, play a root position Maj7 arp, based on the b3 of your original chord. (Actually, you've already been looking at these shapes when you originally learned the voicing)
Applying the same principle to a dominant chord, you either have the option to use a m7b5 arp (gives a natural 9th) or a dim 7 arp (gives you a b9).
On a very basic level, these chord tones are THE IMPORTANT NOTES. All you need to do is connect one to the next. There are a number of ways to do this but checking out the concepts of scalar motion (both diatonic and chromatic), neighbour tones, enclosure, and skips will give you most of it.
And think in small pockets of time.
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Yes - right. Garrison Fewell teaches that way in the book mentioned above. Also I do remember someone (maybe Matt Warnock) saying: "See one chord and play another"...
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I think for the 1st 20 hours is about enough time to show how a the common 1st position chords can be made to sound jazzy (using just 1 or 2 scale notes to replace a double 3rd or 5th there) and how to make a fav pop tune sound smooth. Leaves enough time to learn "Pink panther" comp with those comfy 9th chords and walking bass. Thats about it
edit: this was just a response to the Ted talk thing. The problem is that 20h is not enough for essentials in jazz at all. But it's surely possible to learn some tunes in a way it sounds like jazz. I've seen this talk but its just a "10 easy steps to..." vid. This guy there learned to be entertaining for 5 minutes in those 20 hours
Last edited by emanresu; 05-11-2017 at 08:47 AM.
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Hey markesquire: I think you are getting real good feedback so far in this thread, especially Truthhertz's comment that the 20 hour idea doesnt apply very well in this context. Here are a few thoughts on your question that I didn't quite see expressed in the other answers, but I make no claim to actually knowing what I'm talking about, these are just points that I've stumbled across in my time trying to become a jazz guitarist. Originally Posted by markesquire
1. How about listening to Miles' "kind of blue" with headphones in a quiet room for 20 hours? (or maybe 100 hours). listen to each tune over and over, each time focusing on a different instrument, pairs of instruments, how they interact, how each player is entirely himself while also being a perfect cog in the entire piece, how they swing etc. then play along with it, trying to cop what you can. I guess what I'm suggesting is that the answer to "how to play jazz" is in in the music, not in books or theory.
2. At the other intellectual extreme: learn some jazz blues licks for 20 hours. Jazz isn't a "follow the theory recipe" art, and in particular since the use of blues in jazz is more idiomatic than the "paint-by-numbers" approach of scales/arpeggios etc, the use of blues both moves you forward and disabuses you of the notion that improvising is just a matter of understanding and following some rules.
3. Playing with others is how you progress the quickest. And as a guitarist, to do that you need to know how to comp on tunes more than you need to be a good soloist. You'll be forgiven if your solos are not gems, but not if you can't provide some basic harmonic foundation (and you won't solo well until after you can comp decently anyway). So spend 20 hours learning to be able to comp from a lead sheet over "standard" tunes. There are millions of books that outline this. To get the feel right you should listen to pianists and guitarists comping.
4. Groove before note choice. every hour of your 20 (or 200) first hours should keep time/rhythm at the forefront.
5. Finally: "jazz theory" isn't that hard. Even if you go and read the most crazy advanced stuff it's not that hard to understand if you put in a little effort. what you need to improvise decently over standards is not that much. What *is* hard is being able to use even the simplest theory ideas *musically*. So don't believe the "jazz is cool because the theory is like rocket science" suggestion. Read the first 10 pages of any "jazz theory" book in one hour and spend the next 19 at the guitar or piano listening to what you learned. You'll know enough, even for a lifetime's worth of playing.
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I've thought about this, and what I've learned here and there, a bit more.
If someone wanted to take a 20-hour crack at jazz guitar, I think the best way to go would be Carol Kaye's little yellow book (pamphlet, really, about 15 pages) called Jazz Guitar. Originally came with a cassette. Now it comes with a CD. No backing tracks, just Carol playing the examples, giving some fingerings, adding some details. It's like a private lesson.
>>>Triads and the "chordal scale": F Gm Am Bb C7 Dm Em7b5 F.
>>>The Cycle (C F Bb Eb Ab Db Gb B E A D G)
>>> ii-V-I and iii - vi -ii V
>>>Blues changes (including "Bird Blues" changes, which are easier when you know the cycle)
>>>Stacking triads over the I, ii, and V chords. (For example, for G7: G Bmb5 Dm F / Am C Em G<<<< These are the roots of each tried)
>>>Diminished lines over Dominant 7 chords ("Dims for Doms")
>>>Augmented lines ("Are you sleeping?")
>>>Moving things up or down three frets to cover changes. (Going from C major to C minor, you can move what you plaved over C up 3 frets. You can play the same phase over the ii the V and the I by moving it up or down. That sort of thing.)
>>>Common substitutions.
That's a lot of ground to cover in that few pages. But she does it. Not in depth, but it's a good start. And a handy review.
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For sure, playing jazz for real, with any sort of depth is a multi-year endeavor involving many hours per week of practice and regular ineraction with other musicians. However, getting someone who already has some basic skill on the instrument and can improvise to some degree in a "simpler" genre up to a level of being able to comp with more than just barre/cowboy chords and improvise a bit on a handful of standards? That strikes me as finite and repeatable. It wouldn't be "jazz", but the TED talk isn't about playing guitar in the fullest sense, either; it's about strumming simple chord accompaniments to a handful of songs. Originally Posted by TruthHertz
This finite/repeatable not-quite-jazz could not be learned in 20 hours IMO. But it's do-able in, say, the equivalent of a semester of once per week 1/2-hour lessons plus an hour-ish a day practice for a person of decent underlying musical aptitude. So, to the OP, I'd say if you toss out the 20-hour benchmark and accept a longer and more open-ended period of time as the minium necessary, yes there are curricula for this. Anybody here who has been at it for a while could probably come up with one, and most of ours would I suspect be pretty similar.
Bear in mind, the goal should not be to learn "jazz guitar" in the abstract, but to learn a few songs (I'd say 4), and over these songs be able to comp as part of a rhythm section and solo for 2-3 choruses in an approximation of jazz-ish playing. I'd pick a mid-tempo blues tune in Bb (the easiest one I can think of is "Blues for Pat" by Joshua Redman) and Autumn Leaves; then a couple of slightly harder ones, like maybe St. Thomas, I Got Rhythm (or another song based on rhythm changes), Satin Doll, Blue Bossa, or Days of Wine and Roses.
I don't have time right now (nor have I actually thought it through in detail) to spell the voicings I'd use for all of these. But as an example, you could start with comping the blues -- Use these two-note voicings:
Bb7: xx67xx
Eb7: xx56xx
G7: xx9_10_xx
C7: xx89xx
F7: xx78xx
Start with Freddie Green style 4 to the bar, working on a swingtime feel. Someone with the OP's stated skills should be able to get this down in an hour or so and then move on to imitating rhythmically sparser comping playing along with a recording. You'd then move on to a couple of 3-4 note "shapes" of ninth chords. Then get down a couple of dimished shapes and how to use them as a sub for the IV7, and with that, you've basically got all you need to comp the blues with a fair amount of variety.
John
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Hey Marksquire - It's a harsh truth. There are no shortcuts. The pentatonic scale over rock/blues was so easy to learn that I thought if I just learned the magical Bebop Scale (in one position) I could just wail over any jazz standard. That bright idea died quickly.
So then I learned Autumn Leaves and a few other standards using just the major scale and a handful of static grips. I'd play the exact same chord voicings through each chorus of every song and my solos were two choruses max - all up and down the major scale.
I thought myself proficient and so I formed a jazz trio. After two rehearsals, the other two guys kicked me out of my own group. True story.
I am much improved since then, thanks to a bunch of ensemble classes, a private teacher and whole lot of focused practice. I can also play chord-melody through a bunch of jazz standards, which thrills the in-laws and landed me an gig last month at a small wedding reception.
The good news is all the effort to learn jazz will make you a much better musician overall.
My buddies who play rock/blues ask me to jam because they know I'll add some nifty sounds and l
can learn a song in one go. They also beg me to play bass, because I can walk it and my timing is pretty solid, thanks to all my jazz practice.
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I know a few people have said this 20 hours thing cannot be applied to jazz guitar, but I've found it interesting to think about the very basic syllabus I would use. I could probably cover it in less than 20 1 hour lessons... it's an interesting question.
The way I think about teaching and practicing now is that you have to find ways to break down things you would like to fix into small chunks.
If you spent 20 hours over the space of a few months on one activity - say reading, playing triads through standards, running scales through chords, mastering the basic rhythmic structures for me in jazz, ear training or something, I think you would make significant progress in that area.
In fact if you have spent more than 20 hours working in any specific area it's probably time to change to a different activity .The dream is to constantly be in the sharp learning curve for something very specific.
A good teacher can be very helpful for this.Last edited by christianm77; 05-11-2017 at 12:20 PM.
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Dude do it! I would buy the Christian course , 19.95 plus shipping and handling , or is it five easy payments of 19.95? :-) Originally Posted by christianm77
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Originally Posted by christianm77
Yes... ^^^^ that, Christian.
I think we're falling into the same trap we as jazz guitar players often do. We jump right into overcomplicating and putting the brilliance and genius of the best among us on a pedestal and forget that there's a lot of musical sounding stuff we could all do that's not on that level. I doubt the guy in the TED video is claiming he's plays on the level of a Hendrix or a Angus Young or a David Gilmour. He simply knows like 6 or 8 chords and a couple of scales... enough to fake a few tunes.
You can't compare that to having perfected all of music theory, mastered the fretboard, memorized 100 standards, and played on the level of Wes or anyone else.
The question is simply, what are the most important and basic principles at play in jazz... and is it possible to go directly to them and begin the journey from that point rather than memorizing every tid bit of info before we're allowed to just play music.
I would argue there are simplistic principles and fundamentals that can absolutely be worked on. I've made (and I've seen Christian do so as well) youtube videos showing how to improvise over the blues just using triads... or to get more advanced maybe adding an extra note... maybe. How long does it really take to memorize the shape of one position of a triad? Or how about 4 strings inside of one position. If I'm not mistaken, didn't Wes learn to play on a 4 string guitar before he eventually stepped up to 6? That means he was able to play music before he was concerned with knowing the full 6 string fretboard layout.
We could play over a basic blues progression with 4 triads... probably less if we wanted. It we gave ourselves 2-3 hours of SOLID FOCUSED practice per triad... there's no reason we shouldn't be able to memorize 4 shapes on a 3-4 string set within one position. These aren't riffs... just maps for finding "right" sounding notes. That would take up about 8-12 hours. Then let's spend an hour voice leading between triads for each set of 4 bars (1-4, 5-8, 9-12). Now we're up to 11-15 hours. Then spend a few hours putting it all together, and there'd still be several hours left over at the end to patch over issues and possibly working on learning to tie together triad tones with a passing note or chromatic tones.
I don't see why that's impossible. It wouldn't make for a complete, advanced level, well-rounded player. But my guess is, if this person had the balls to go to a jam session and call a blues in the one key they knew, they'd be able to take a half-way decent solo, have a little fun doing it, and nobody would believe they'd only been at it for 20 hours. Put them in a solo gig or call giant steps at 250 and they'd be screwed, sure... but again... then we're back to comparing entry level beginner rock with advanced level jazz fluency.
I always remember what Bill Evans said. The problem with most jazz students is they try and take in the entire picture in one moment, and they attempt to learn by approximating... which only teaches the student to continue approximating and leaves them spending an enormous amount of time but always left feeling frustrated as they can never seem to close the gap between the thing they want and the approximation they attempt to create it with. Instead, he recommends to start with the most basic elements and to learn to be creative and music with it. I played in an early teen big band once when I was working as a guitar teacher at an art camp. I was blown away by how talented the kids were. Over time I figured out it was because of the teachers approach. He would give a solo to a kid over let's say an F blues and he would say "Okay little Timmy, you can ONLY use the F note... now go! 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4
He forced the kids to deal with rhythm, silence, repetition, dynamics, etc. Once they could do that, he'd give them a 2nd note and let them play. Then eventually a 3rd. I think asking a beginner to start with spending months to years memorizing scales and then expecting them to just know how to turn those scales into music is sort of putting the cart before the horse... and probably just setting people up for failure.
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Christian and Jordan -- you both articulate what I've been trying to get at. If somebody wants to learn to read books, you don't hand them a 1,200-page Proust novel and watch them struggle through the first paragraphs before giving up (with a smug, self-accomplished look on your face). You give them "See Spot Run," then with that accomplishment, you give them something that builds on that, and work up from there.
You all would know far better than me, but I would anticipate it could be something like this:
Assignment #1: Know the major scale cold (Ionian shape?), including the number of each tone (1-2 hours).
Assignment #2: Memorize a handful of basic chord shapes for both 6th-string and 5th string roots, knowing the major-scale number of each note (major 7, dominant 7, minor 7, minor 7 flat 5, etc.) (2-4 hours).
Assignment #3: Learn a very simple standard using the chords from Assignment #2. Play the chords over and over, then loop the chords and play some simple melodies, maybe introducing a 2nd-most-usable scale/mode shape. (2 hours)
[Yay, I can do something and am motivated to keep going!!!]
Assignment #4: Introduce a new chord/scale concept that will help equip me for another simple standard. Repeat, making each new concept (work) only a short distance from its next payoff (fun).
If everyone is just going to hand me the jazz equivalent of a 1,200 page Proust novel when I can't even read yet, then I quit! I certainly don't want to dumb down jazz; I just want to take the first step in an obviously complicated process.
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Also, craigoslo sent me a link to his very helpful website: Jazz-Hack | Learn to solo in weeks not years.
To be clear, the purpose of my question (and apparently the Jazz Hack website, too) is not to find a "short cut" to arriving at professional jazz musicianship, but rather, to identify the first and most time-efficient steps that will move beginners the furthest along in the least amount of time.Last edited by markesquire; 05-11-2017 at 01:50 PM.
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Maiden Voyage is the book that I used to move me from folk\blues\rock guitar player to a jazz guitar player. It is the same book I'm now using with the classical piano player I'm teaching to play jazz. (as well as the supplemental book that has as complete transcription of the piano backing track). As you know one can learn and finger the 'cowboy' chords fairly quickly for all the songs in the book and play simple pentatonic major or minor scales and blues scales over most of the changes. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
To me this is a good place to start. Ok, using the Dm scales over the Fmaj change in Summertime will sound out of place but since that is such a quick change, one can fake it by playing by ear until their skills improve.
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I think my "assignments" would be something far more simple than any of this. Not that I would recommend against learning a major scale with the number of each tone... that's cool. Always good to know that stuff... but I would start with less. Originally Posted by markesquire
Normally I would start with a major sound, but since we're trying to get as quickly as possible to the moment of "Oh cool, I can play something that sounds neat! I'm inspired! Let's keep going!" I might switch this over the the minor key since it has a "cooler" more immediate neatness factor to it.
Here's a position of an Eminor triad
XX545X
This can be played over an open 6E string and as long as you're in tune, it should sound perfect.
Now here's a basic position of a B major triad
XX444X
Notice that the middle note stays the same and the other two notes move one fret??? Keep that in mind.
First just play the triad as a chord a few times and say the name outlaid. Now try the next one. Once you can see them and remember where your fingers are, try to "arpeggiate" one and then the next. In other words, hold your left hand down on the E minor triad and pluck each note one at a time. If you can do this with both ascending, then try it descending. How about ascending the E minor and then descending the B? If you can do that then just attempt "improvising" within the E minor triad by plucking any of the notes in whatever order you want. Think of them like your 3 primary colors, and you have to paint a small picture only with them. Then on whichever note you land on, "voice lead" it (move it to the next patter with a small a movement as possible). You're now creating a very simple idea over a basic V -> i chord progression. No riffs. Just basic voice leading. In this very state we could apply this right into Autumn Leaves as, if we're in one of the keys it's commonly played in, this is the exact cadence that take place several times during a single chorus.
Have you owned the fretboard? Nope, not in the slightest. But you should be able to hear the V -> i cadence in your ear by now... which is arguably one of the most important chord movements in jazz. And you have a foot in the door that we can then grow from. We could add more notes to open up these triads...
Eminor
(0-3)2(2-5)45(3-7)
B major
22(1-4)44(2-7)
***parenthesis shows two notes on the same string
We could open up more range this way... and it's a good next step... but not of the utmost importance to just simply getting started. Or we could add an extra note or 2 to each triad.. like the b7 over the B triad. Or add chromaticism somewhere. Or we could try a new position. Or we could move to a new key. Or whatever. These are all secondary steps in my opinion to just the basic ability to see two simple triads and to voice lead between them.
If you did just that in front of a laymen, they would probably think you were pretty slick. It's just a trick... but it gets right into music making and allows a starting point that we can grow out from... a musical starting point where we begin inside the music and grow outward into scales... rather than memorizing scales and trying to find a way to burrow down into music.
There's probably 1000 ways to approach any of this stuff. But if I were able to teach a 30 minute lesson to a total newbie who was interested in jazz, I'd probably spend 20 minutes just on that, and then maybe write out some basic theory 101 and show them a bit about ii V I's and how to identify them in a few keys to keep them moving forward.
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Wisdom there Jordan , start with the musicbut it gets right into music making and allows a starting point that we can grow out from... a musical starting point where we begin inside the music and grow outward into scales... rather than memorizing scales and trying to find a way to burrow down into music.
Music is simple (both simple and complex)
learn tunes straight away ...
Get some gratification ...
Then you naturally want to do more of it
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Here's a quick video I just shot of an example of how this could then be applied to a tune. It's certainly not the craziest solo I've ever taken... but it works. If I heard someone play something like this at a session I personally wouldn't have anything to complain about. I might not rave about how advanced they were in terms of adding fancier stuff. But aside from I think 1 or 2 flubs where I played a note not inside the triad, this is essentially 100% 1-3-5 of whatever chord is happening. Autumn Leaves, as simple as it is, is probably not the easiest tune to do this with. For playing with scales, I'd probably say it's easier. But with triads, there's actually a lot happening. I'd be more likely to recommend a basic blues - which would yield far more results for less work since there are tons of tunes that use that chord progression. So if you did this with one blues tune, you'd just have to learn new melodies and you could play a handful of tunes. Or maybe something like Blue Bossa if we wanted a non-blues standard. It wouldn't necessarily be the exact same for other tunes, but it's actually pretty easy as there is not much going on in it... unless you're thinking about scales, then you have to worry about a key change.
Anyways... I think the idea comes through in the video. By focusing just on triads it frees us up to think about form, rhythm, phrasing, themes, stuff like that that's super difficult to grapple with while trying to get through memorizing scales.
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Thank you all for your comments -- keep them coming! This is very encouraging for me. It seems that everybody plays guitar; maybe more people would enjoy jazz (and buy records and show tickets) if there were better ways for them to be introduced -- teaching them just enough to be dangerous, but enough to inspire them to learn more and to appreciate what more advanced players are doing.
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I think the first 20 hours of my 'jazz life' were spent learning a few Wes Montgomery phrases on a blues. I didn't really understand why he used certain notes (much later I realised they were chromatic approaches, or altered notes on a dominant, etc.) but I had a lot of fun doing it. And after 20 hours I could probably string a few ideas together on a blues, which sounded a bit like a jazz solo. After that I just carried on doing more of the same, and learning some of the tunes in the process, and still having fun with it (which motivated me to keep going).
I didn't bother with books or theory until later on.
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I find the best thing, for me at least, is to pick a song (preferably a simple one) that I like. It should have a catchy melody that I can hum easily. Then, learn it. After I get a basic handle on the progression and melody, I find another version of the same tune (often by a different artist and in a different key) and learn that version.
When doing that, I always try to figure out the chords and melody by ear as much as possible, but will also use charts. In fact, it can be pretty interesting to compare the basic charts I make up with those I find online or in a Real Book.
There's a lot less pressure for me to learn a jazz song than there is to "learn jazz". My guess is that after I've learned a few more songs this way that I'll begin to recognize some similarities and start to grasp a concept or two along the way. But I don't rush this.
Prior to this understanding, I saw "learning jazz" as like trying to understand how the workings of the internal-combustion engine work as a prerequisite to learning to drive a car. You don't have to be a mechanic to enjoy a drive.Last edited by dallasblues; 05-18-2017 at 12:52 PM.
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Mmm, I've just seen this. Quite interesting. Originally Posted by markesquire
I think a lot depends on how far you've gone on guitar up to now. You said you've been at it for several years now. That's quite a long time.
Then you said you knew the basic chords and the major/pentatonic scales. That's a good start.
Well, I'd say you needed to be able to play the so-called 'jazz' chords - M7, M6, m7, m6, m9, m7b5, and the dominants - 7, 9, 13 etc. And then 7b9, 7b5, 7b13, and so on.
I don't know how long that would take you but you do need to be able to read a chord chart. You can always look up what you don't know.
Then you need the major scales and harmonic and melodic minors. Also arpeggios, because improv is about using both of them.
You also, without question, need the blues scales too. Maybe you've already got that, I don't know.
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I'm really not sure you can do all that in 20 hours so you may have set yourself a hard goal!
However, despair not...
What you could do is find some fairly simple tunes and get together what's necessary to play them. For example 'Fly Me To The Moon', Autumn Leaves', 'Satin Doll', tunes like that. They're all pretty basic.
Learn the chords and tunes for them (rather than all the stuff at once, obviously). Then see if you can't improvise a bit over them. If it's in C, play C. If it's in something else, play that. A good trick is simply play the tune with a bit of embellishment, basically. If you get stuck google it. Really!
You'll learn jazz much, much quicker if you learn to play something definite rather than just do endless exercises. This I promise you. And the more you do the better you'll get. But I'm afraid it does take time, there's no point in pretending otherwise.
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Comparing those 20 hours with some major exam in college now - if the topic is new and unrelated to the things you really need and use, you spend those 20 hours, get an "A+" and a year later you remember only a few useless things about it. I see this a lot when learning jazz things. 1st time learning "Stella", you can get an "A+" but its nowhere near ready - drop it for 6 months and it still kills you and it feels like starting from 0. Recalling it plenty of times after a long while will make it matured enough. That 20 hours 1st run is good but in the end, what matters is how many times it has been recalled. Uh.. I think that's where one beginners frustration problem is buried. We don't know that when we start. Takes quite a few years to figure this out.
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