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Mmmm. Not sure if i agree with that.
Originally Posted by ragman1
A lot of bluesplayers i came across just copied the licks from others, without giving it much thought. Hitting the right notes in a blues is not that complicated and i think in a lot of situations some lazyness is involved. In jazz you don't get away with lazyness that easy. It takes more of an effort in my experience.
Once i listened to Metheny's take on a more or less traditional blues. Didn't sound anything like what i was familiair with.
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06-09-2020 01:10 PM
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No I was annoyed with the forum before lockdown. I was a bit grumpy yesterday, but the point stands. And graham bop knows what I am saying :-)
So I'll try and be as clear as I can:
You can't start to play music with theory. It doesn't work.
You can use theory to describe what you can hear.
So usually at this point Rag will say that he doesn't disagree. Problem is, his posts often read this way - 'players apply theory x and that's why they sound the way they do.' How those posts read is the important thing if someone is - god forbid - trying to learn anything from this forum. Intention doesn't matter.
(Something I have to bear in mind when I put something poorly and then blame the reader for misunderstanding which I often do.)
---real world example-----
One student was trying to use the diminished scale (otherwise a blues player) because he heard Robben Ford talk about it and just could never get it sounding musical. He knew the fingerings and the theory - so that was clearly not the problem.
The problem was - obviously - he couldn't hear any diminished scale phrases.
So he'd be better off listening to Robben Ford that he liked. He might not pick up any dim phrases, but that's not important. Maybe he would. As long as he liked them.
So anyone who wants to put 'jazz concepts' in their playing is going to have to start with the way these concepts sound. For most learners, that means listening to solos and learning phrases.
To give you an idea; this is the number one problem I have to deal with in my teaching practice. People trying to play music with theory. There are a few people on this forum with the exact same problem. Once students are using their ears, my job is basically money for old rope.
Somehow, through the massive clusterfuck we can call commercial music educational materials, people have reached the conclusion that the way you play jazz is through applying music theory in books. This is the only thing that makes learning jazz actually difficult, as opposed to simply a lot of honest, but uncomplicated hard work. And it is rife.
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By the way, I think playing blues well is harder than people think. It seems simple i.e. learn some blues guitar licks and pentatonic scale, away you go.
But getting the feel, sound, time and phrasing that really good blues players get is deceptively difficult. And in any case, most of the great blues guitarists were also singers and entertainers, the guitar was just one part of the package.
I actually find playing jazz easier.
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As for learning jazz, yes, primarily learn it from the recordings. As Joe Henderson said, the answer to all your questions is on the records.
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I'm reading a lot of papers and so on on jazz education and the one thing that is often brought up - and rightly so - is how jazz education minimises the importance of phrasing, rhythm and timbre. The things that are of central importance to good blues playing. Originally Posted by grahambop
This also has the effect of minimising the importance of certain schools of jazz playing within education.Last edited by christianm77; 06-10-2020 at 06:59 AM.
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Well, you're probably right :-) Originally Posted by Marcel_A
That I believe. Can't remember which one, can you?Once i listened to Metheny's take on a more or less traditional blues. Didn't sound anything like what i was familiair with.
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Not sure, but i guess it was this one:
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Correct, I do not :-) Originally Posted by christianm77
Not sure what you mean. I don't think I've ever said players apply theory x, etc. If I have, and then said 'and that's why they sound the way they do' I might have said it disparagingly - except I probably wouldn't; it's not that kind.Problem is, his posts often read this way - 'players apply theory x and that's why they sound the way they do.'
I think there's some misreading going on there.
Absolutely. I do try to be clear, often to the point of over-simplification probably.How those posts read is the important thing if someone is - god forbid - trying to learn anything from this forum
I've seen that one, I think. The dim phrases are used as a transition from the I7 to IV7 usually. It's a question of getting the right one (dim chord) and making it fit. Therefore listen to how he, or other players do it. I tend not to use them myself, I prefer the alt sound.One student was trying to use the diminished scale (otherwise a blues player) because he heard Robben Ford talk about it and just could never get it sounding musical. He knew the fingerings and the theory - so that was clearly not the problem.
Well, I'm not actually sure that's even possible. It ought to be but, as you say, it's playing brain music not music music.To give you an idea; this is the number one problem I have to deal with in my teaching practice. People trying to play music with theory
I had a good friend (and a good player) who announced one day: 'I think there are two kinds of player - reading players and listening players. One likes bits of paper and the other prefers using his ears and feelings'.
I think he's right, although I said I thought ideally the two should go together. Which one predominates probably depends on the personality. I don't think you can make someone be one or the other if they're not made that way.
I think they're encouraged to think that way. A lot of newbies here start by saying 'I've got such and such a book' or 'In such and such a book it says play x over y' and so on. The same applies to lots of You Tube vids as well.people have reached the conclusion that the way you play jazz is through applying music theory in books
It's always difficult for a teacher to get over what he wants to without reducing it sooner or later to words, symbols, writing stuff out... what do you do?
So is the idea that someone who knows their stuff can give you their experience or magically turn you into a good player. Personally I never went to a teacher. I sat there and worked it out by experimentation, listening, using the odd book, and all that. But I don't think enough people have that kind of drive, they want to be given things on a plate.This is the only thing that makes learning jazz actually difficult, as opposed to simply a lot of honest, but uncomplicated hard work. And it is rife
Once I said to someone 'You want the success without the work' and they got very angry.
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Ain't that the truth. The blue-notes live between and near the notes of both major and minor, and there are modal flavors that get me from Point A to Point B and beyond in any blues. Because it's about following the mood and flow of the chords, and playing with the tensions between major and minor tonalities. Originally Posted by christianm77
If you're just using pent minor over any ole blues, it's kinda like what Capote said of Kerouac's On the Road: "That isn't writing, that's typing." It's paint-by-numbers.
To the OP's question, I took up jazz studies to inform my (at the time) heavy-metal playing; I wanted something to make me stand out from all the other shredders. Whole-tone and half-whole scales found their way into my playing as I got more adept at hearing and playing modally against what were and are often boring harmonies, as a means of implying extensions and alterations of said harmonies to introduce tension and release.
I'm no jazzer, and couldn't hold a candle to you guys here in that realm. But incorporating the jazz vocabulary into my own playing (which is far afield from metal nowadays, generally) means that I can look at a progression and figure out some strategies for getting from Chord A to Chord B without playing hackneyed crap -- no matter the style I'm working in at the moment.
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Marcel -
You might be interested in this. It's a different tune but it is a blues. Or so we're told :-)
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I think I should clarify this:
What I meant was this: there's blues-blues and there's jazz-blues. Not the same. Most blues-blues sounds are produced by using pentatonic-based licks, like flipping the b5 or hammering the minor to major 3rd, and so on. Usually a really strong and authentic blues sound that leaps out is pentatonic based, major or minor. Can't help it, it's how those sounds are produced. No other way to do it because of the notes involved and their sequence and juxtaposition.I think it's quite simple. Blues players use pentatonics because they produce exactly the right sound for a blues. It's not ignorant or lazy playing, it's the right sound.
But I don't mean to imply that all blues players only use pentatonics in a mechanical sort of way like someone who's just discovered the Am pentatonic shape! Of course they don't. As grahambop said, blues playing can get pretty complex and needs a ton of work. It's not very simple at even intermediate level.
But jazz-blues is quite different, as listening to it will tell you. BUT the same applies when it comes to a strong blues sound that leaps out. It's pentatonic-based for the reasons given above. In jazz it tends to occur less often than blues-blues but it's there. Nor are they restricted to blues songs either, they're used in every sort of tune, including standards.
Those sorts of sounds aren't the only thing that can identify a blues, though. Just having a 12-bar is sometimes good enough; the IV chord arriving in bar 5, chromatic chord sequences, turnarounds, etc, etc. So it can also be a general feel as well as just the notes used.
Here's a Joe Pass transcription. Listen for the 'blues licks' sounds and see how they originate. There's a ton of them, straight from a blues players lick book.
Same here:
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I shouldn't think anyone's interested But I once wrote a blues - straight jazz 12-bar chords - without any blues scales in it. There's a tinge only in the first chorus, the rest is just using different notes over the chords. It sounds bluesy but it's an illusion. Only the very end phrase is anything like a pentatonic blues lick, which was deliberate.
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The minor pentatonic is what your high school buddy shows you so you can fake it on blues. Since a pentatonic has no half steps a room full of people playing random notes from the same pentatonic will never sound dissonant. And yes, you’ll find a lot of pentatonic notes in blues, but you’ll find a bunch of other notes too: b5s, 6ths, 9ths, etc. How those notes are used is partly what defines each musician’s unique signature. That’s not just a jazz thing.
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My opinion is, if you want to play blues, you'd better be able to dance on the line between happy and sad, and go which way you want when the mood demands. Resolution will come on its own if your ears and your fingers are working together. Originally Posted by KirkP
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thanks. Originally Posted by KirkP
(by the same token if you know what you are doing you can play a jazz solo using the minor pentatonic notes. It’s all it how you play things.)
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What is wrong with you people? The major third! The major third! That and the b7! Lots of roots. There you go....And yes, you’ll find a lot of pentatonic notes in blues, but you’ll find a bunch of other notes too: b5s, 6ths, 9ths, etc.
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I’m kinda in a similar spot as OP... I’m attracted to neo soul type of sounds, mainly so I can spice up those Beyonce songs my daughter sings, when she suddenly says “dad, can you comp ...” and also be able to do that on the fly because the requirements change daily :-)
Anyway I have read a ton of theory books, and taken some lessons. But an epiphany that came surprisingly late is that blues licks, just like neo soul licks, are really vocal lines from songs. In the case of the blues, it just so happens that the minor pentatonic has a lot of the same notes as those vocal lines.
No guitar teaching material so far has mentioned this, it always starts with the blues box.Last edited by frankhond; 06-13-2020 at 11:52 AM.
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Well, it's understood that the use of 'blue notes' (or sounds somewhere between two 'ordinary' notes) originated in the indigenous music of Africa, carried to America. After all, the human voice and expression of feeling isn't confined to any particular set musical scale so it's to be expected.blues licks, just like neo soul licks, are really vocal lines from songs
The vocal bending of notes was also imitated by instruments. This bending or slurring of notes exists in many cultures, especially in the Orient, India, the Middle East, and so on. It's also there in British and Irish folk music, for example.
But the Blues itself came from the Deep South of America, as we know, in work songs, spirituals, ballads. The blues itself, as a genre, didn't start till after slavery. So the whole thing goes way, way back in time.
Incidentally, talking about pentatonics, I don't know who first thought of it, but I've no doubt one of the cleverest things is the use of minor pentatonic notes over major or dominant chords. I mean, that is unbelievably smart.
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I thought mentioning the major 3rd and b7 would be too obvious, but yes. Originally Posted by Hugo Gainly
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... especially when you bend into or out of one of the several blue notes which hover between the major and minor. Originally Posted by ragman1
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If you know what you are doing you can play a jazz solo using no notes at all. Good percussionists do it all the time. ;-) I’m not being contrary. You just gave me an opportunity to point out that rhythm, phrasing, dynamics, etc. are at least as important to a good solo as what notes are played. Actually, I think that point was implied in your post. Originally Posted by christianm77
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It don't mean a thing ... Originally Posted by KirkP
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Factgasm Originally Posted by KirkP
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I can't remember if he actually said as much, but the main thing I got from Steve Khan's book Pentatonic Khancepts was to play VII minor pentatonics over IMaj7 (e.g. B min pentatonic over Cmaj7). I love that angular sound, and there's the Lydian note to boot.I've no doubt one of the cleverest things is the use of minor pentatonic notes over major or dominant chords. I mean, that is unbelievably smart.
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