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It is not fair to compare jazz solo to rock solo. Again, the cult of soloist who can improvise their asses off is what jazz is build on, not rocknroll. It's your ultimate goal is a musician or thats what you looking for in jazz as a listener.
Originally Posted by grahambop
Solo in rock doesn't have and never meant to have the same status. It's normally just an icing on top of the cake, the cake being a tune itself. And there great bands with great songs that don't even have solos.
Of course there are exceptions like Jimi, Eddie etc., but Rock is still an art of the song, not art of improvisation. It's also an art of the band. Get the right people together and magic happens. And they don't need to be virtuosos either.
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02-25-2019 12:21 PM
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I was just replying to ggomez, he made that comparison. But I understand your point. Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
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"Music is hard" Miles Davis
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You might want to be careful with the labels "rock" and "rocknroll." There is someone on TDPRI that will chew on your backside if you equate the two as one. They have a point, but to hear them get into it is tedious to say the least. Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
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"Life is hard, wear a cup." Originally Posted by christianm77
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"Why is this chair so damn hard?" -my grandpa everyday
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I can have plenty pints and still rip blues/rock. I give up on jazz after half a pint. The beer doesn't drown my musicality that fast, but the brain support, focus and precision required for jazz goes out the window
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Yea, sure, I can see that. Sometimes there's a thin line. But if we are being pedantic, there are even less people today who can play rocknroll than rock proper. "Roll" in music terms is just a sub word for swing. Those who know swing are in the jazz field, usually can't rock. Rock guitar is all shred today, those guys can't swing to save their lives. Originally Posted by lammie200
It's complicated
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"......learning a Hendrix solo is not going to be an easy task as learning a beach boys solo........"
I wonder what Barney Kessel would make of that?
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Thank you for saying this! Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
Funny how comparing apples to oranges reveals one’s biases. Both are fruits, both have their place. Some prefer one over the other. But ultimately they’re both meant to be consumed and enjoyed. Rock and jazz are both forms of music, like apples and oranges are both fruits. This is a jazz forum, so the biases show pretty easy. This discussion has migrated from comparing LEARNING (chords/progressions vs scales/progressions) to a popularity contest where jazz has no chance of being dethroned because THIS IS a jazz forum.
Jazz is so much more complex, where rock is so much more simpler. Even most rock players will agree with this, and those who don’t are revealing their own biases. But complexity and difficulty are not always the same thing. It’s DIFFICULT to be a SUCCESSFUL musician in either field. Jazz is neurosurgery compared to rock & blues being general physicians or dentists. But they all are challenging to get to the point where you get paid well for doing them.
There are complex rock musicians, like Beck, Vai, Malmstein, etc. They are considered virtuosos by other rock musicians. But, they aren’t as popular as some bigger names because their music doesn’t move the general public the same way. I prefer older, swing jazz, like Armstrong, Bechet, Django, Gershwin, Nina Simone, etc. I prefer the simpler, catchy melodies. The chords and progressions are STILL more difficult than the blues and rock I cut my teeth on, but I like them and that’s why I’m just now getting to learn jazz guitar. I don’t get into the modal stuff as much like Miles Davis, just my own preferences. But I resent anyone who looks down on someone else as INFERIOR because they’re DIFFERENT. That’s a revelation that your biases have more control over you than you think. And I see a lot of that in this thread.Last edited by zcostilla; 02-26-2019 at 02:23 PM.
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I suppose the Cream (live) was the jazz cult of the soloist applied to blues/rock. Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
Not sure if it worked quite so well. I like the records better, the live stuff I find goes on a bit.
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It will be a few years before you have that HONEST talk with yourself to decide if you can make decent sounding jazz music or not. Don't be like that player who focuses on theory and hormony while ignoring the most important part of jazz... the feeling/soul
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You have no valid intrinsic reference points for this unfortunately. Originally Posted by eh6794-2.0
Remember an interview with Sco saying 'I can never listen to myself and work out whether it's any good or not.'
He probably worked out he didn't totally suck when Mingus and Miles hired him... but that's extrinsic, right?
Holdsworth famously hated his own playing.
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I stand by my statement and I believe it is valid. Originally Posted by christianm77
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Oh I agree about the soul/feel thing 100% - I just think you overestimate one's ability to evaluate your own playing from an audience perspective. Originally Posted by eh6794-2.0
The main thing is always for me - do you enjoy it?
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Sick playing. Rarely heard someone using wholetone scale so innovative.
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There are aspects of learning rock playing that I never grasped. When I was a teenager in the 70's I learned bar chords, pentatonic scales, box patterns, etc. My teacher would write out chords & melody lines for Clapton (Layla), Frampton, etc, and I learned Black Sabbath, Rolling Stones, BTO riffs & such from books and records,playing in garage bands. But somehow I never figured out how to get the sound and feel that sounded like the records.
But I kept on learning guitar, moved on to Mickey Baker, jazz chords, Bird solos. It wasn't easier, but it made sense, it was more musical.
It was years later, watching a friend of mine who was a good rock/blues player, that I figured out it was technique (picking, bends, etc.) and gear setups that gave him that "sound". I still remember my old Guild Starfire and rattle-trap Ampeg Gemini setup- wasn't so great for the jazz I was trying to play, but when he picked it up he totally ripped it up with sounds I didn't know it could make. But he would watch me play changes to "Au Privave" and wondered what I was playing!
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Youtube rock/blues wanker algorithm (That Pedal Show, Anderton's etc)
Algorithm 1
begin
10 Get a new pedal/amp, max out overdrive
20 Play G, A, D chords in any order in open position
30 Be blown away by the amazing sounds etc.
40 IF (bored yet) then GO TO 10 else GO TO 20
end
Algorithm 2
begin
10 Doodle around pentatonic while staying in comfort zone focusing on licks learned when you were 13
20 IF (it's a good time to bend) THEN bend one of those notes on easy to bend strings
30 Doodle some more on pentatonic
40 GetRandomNumber(i)
50 IF (i is odd) GO TO 10 ELSE GO TO 20
end
All the while thousands of internet beginners think these guys must be gods.
A mediocre jazz player is like Chopin compared to a mediocre rock/blues wanker in all aspects of musicianship.Last edited by Tal_175; 03-28-2019 at 07:05 AM.
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yea... I tend to look at aspects of playing any style of music.... you need technical skills, both on the instrument and technical understandings of the music... the forms, the characteristic, both musical and non musical.
And then you need the performance skills. Most tend to just combine the two and try and get lucky by playing the music over and over etc...
I played rock, R&B and Jazz when I was kid... played gigs. I had a music teacher that taught me musical concepts while I was in elementary school. I also was made aware of the notation... I tried to transcribe jazz from the radio... (had a memory back then) I'm probably not the norm... that's what I hear from my kids all the time.... But
It's pretty simple.... when one plays jazz they need to crunch more information in real time than rock. You need skills to perform any music. If you don't understand the information you need to crunch.... all you can do is memorize etc... I tend to talk and text more theory and harmonic BS... because I put in the time to understand the language.... that doesn't mean I didn't put in the time playing or getting my feel and soul part together.
You want to play Jazz in a jazz style.... you need skills, technical skills.... before you can even develop your performance skills.
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But 'do you enjoy it'; who is 'you' here? Audience members or the player (as in ME). Originally Posted by christianm77
Anyhow, I can relate to the misguided over-focus on theory and knowledge instead of soul/feel. This is because I went form classical violin in an orchestra setting to jazz in a small group setting, while most of the guys I jam with went from Rock\Blues to jazz. I learned a lot about 'playing over the changes' and very nice jazz chord voicing etc... but my feel and tone weren't very good. It took my wife to be the one to tell me this! (honey, your friend's playing is very limited,,, but he sounds better!).
So I joined a weekly blues jam session. This improved my feel and tone and that magical 'soul' thing.
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The amount of into on swing and feel are very small compared to the mountain of information on note choice... This is really, how you say - ah yes - shit - because it wires you up wrong to play jazz. You end up thinking notes are most important so they get prioritised in the brain when you play. Originally Posted by jameslovestal
Took a lesson with a good player to tell me I was out of time. And another, and another haha. I got the message, still working on it though, 12 years later...
But the actual truth is not just - fix your time - but rhythm *is* jazz. Otherwise, how could a drummer take a solo and it be meaningful jazz?
It's the most important thing. It's the language. Everything else is sugar and spice... Even the note choices in authentic jazz language are governed to a large extent by their place within the rhythmic phrase.
Also rhythm is kind of more intuitive, like speaking somehow. More natural, fun, right? Obv. you have to know how to express the changes but that's less intellectual that people make out.
I would say I think the feel of blues and jazz solos are very different. Scott Henderson said when he first encountered REAL blues playing it sounded out of time to him, because he was used to locked in jazz and fusion players who play in strict subdivision and so on, then he learned that that was the thing that made it blues, the vocality and speech like quality of the phrasing!
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BTW, it's all about 'ME' - but what I enjoy is being relaxed, in the pocket and well prepared in the music. Self indulgence is not fun to me. Things that involve the ego usually aren't.
Takes a while to realise how that feels, and how to put your house in order so you can get in that space more easily.
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you need "feed back" ..from other musicians..from non musicians..casual listeners..and some recording of yourself..
OMG what would you do to play/ sound like jeff beck..Scofield said in an interview..when other musicians were "sounding" like him playing..."...I sound like THAT !?...)
being confident in the sound of your own playing takes time ..one of the most confident players was Michael Bloomfield..he knew what he was playing and what it would sound like when he played it..and he liked it..
The line many players say after a performance/recording.." I could be better.." well yes we all can be better than where we are at any given point..and with new material and practice we will be..
Is it easier to learn one style over another...all need drive dedication and practice Beck Benson and all did not start out sounding the way they do today..
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Sometimes originality comes from trying to copy something and getting it wrong.
It was easier to do when you didn’t have digital audio and Transcribe. Now everyone can get everything perfect.
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Christian... yea.... It's almost too easy now. Putting in the time is work, but I had to put in the time just finding what to work on... had to go watch other musicians, talk to them etc... there wasn't always lots of choices of what to work on, I had to make choices and figure out ... couldn't just copy. Who knows...
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