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Apologies if this has been asked somewhere else on the forum. I'm sure it must have been, but a bit of searching didn't pull anything up.
Most jazz guitar methods introduce various fingerings for major (and, later, minor etc.) scales early on in the process, usually involving several positions that cover the fretboard. I can see the utility in this for various reasons:
- getting used to the sound of a major scale is important
- it helps one develop an overview of the fretboard, helps with learning notes etc.
- it's a good first step to learning about how to build voicings for triads, seventh chords, etc.
- it is helpful when it comes to learning how to sight-read musical notation
I am fairly early on in the process and know a few fingerings for a major scale. I can play various patterns (thirds, triads, arpeggios) through these positions. I can, as an exercise, play a related related modal scale by starting from a particular degree and (albeit a bit more slowly and with a bit more care) build triads or arpeggios from this mode. I have plenty more work to do but, again, as an aid to understanding I don't think this is wasted effort. I'm comfortable enough with the sound of a major scale that if you picked somewhere and asked me to play a major scale with that note as a root I can do it without thinking about a specific fingering or position.
However, when I was younger as a self-taught teenaged guitarist I seem to have accidentally internalised the sound of the minor pentatonic scale and this is still what mostly comes out when I improvise. I'm not really thinking about the pentatonic scale (nor was I when I was a kid) but, nevertheless... These days, there are a lot more chromatic passing notes, a few more arpeggios played as triplets and I'm a little better at outlining the chord progression than I once was, but still...
I appreciate that one way to remedy a situation like this is to transcribe and I freely admit that I haven't done much of that, but, this is not what I'm asking about here. What I'm interested in at the moment is to what extent more experience jazz players use these positional scale fingerings in the context of improvisation.
That is, do you find yourself thinking something like "the next chord is a Cmaj7 and I'm currently in the vicinity of the 8th fret, so I'm going to play using such-and-such a fingering of the C major scale"? If so, what's the best way to practice this? A year or so of playing major scales in various ways doesn't seem to have done the trick (although I'm sure it has helped me in other ways).
Here's hoping my question makes sense!
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06-13-2020 07:29 AM
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Hi, Bob -
First, I don't think the answer is to start transcribing stuff. Transcribing is extremely difficult and takes a long time. Not that you shouldn't do it but I don't think it'll help. It's not really applicable to the problem here.
I suspect the issue is that running through the sort of exercises you describe is a bit of a chore. At least it would be for me. But when you were younger you found a fairly simple way of actually playing music, which is really the main issue anyway, surely?
So the pentatonic sound is etched into your long-term memory as being familiar, easy, and musical. So when you put on a backing what you really want to do is launch into some decent improv without too much sweat. So out comes the pentatonic.
One way out of this is to put on a simple jazz-chord progression. Get a simple tune and use that. You need to get away from the tedium of exercises. Don't make it too fast. Listen to the sounds of those chords. You'll know immediately that the pentatonic sound isn't going to work, it's a different style altogether.
Then comes what to play over them. If the whole thing's in one key you'll probably think you could just use one major scale over it and go through all the permutations.
You'll undoubtedly get somewhere but most people here would call that 'noodling'. You need to get into the spirit of the tune you're playing and play what you hear and feel, no matter how simple.
There's not just scale runs, there's also arpeggios. You need a combination of both. So find how to arpeggiate the chords you need as well as using the applicable scale notes. The whole thing together should sound musical, melodic, and flow.
So start with music, don't practice to 'eventually' play music in the future sometime. That's absolutely the best advice I can give you.
When you play tunes you're forced to use your ear and feelings. Doing endless exercises doesn't need any of that, it's just mechanical.
So find a tune right now that's not too difficult. Satin Doll, Fly Me To The Moon, all that sort of thing. Start slow, listen to it and play accordingly.
That way you'll never just reach immediately for a pentatonic again :-)
Best of luck.
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Originally Posted by bobheff
You need to continue what you were doing with the tune at the start. The arpeggio of CM7 is more important, then the other notes. But you have the next chord coming up too, and the one after that.
Take, for instance, the ending of any tune. Let's say the chords go Dm7 - G7 - CM7. Do you take one chord at a time or do you play an ending phrase that fits the tune nicely? If you understand that, it doesn't matter what the chords are, the point is to resolve the tune.
Try that out and you'll get the point straight away.
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My modest journey with jazz improvisation suggests to me that I need to; (1) internalize the jazz language for common patterns (chord progressions) in one area of the fretboard, (2) apply that capability to tunes taken one at a time - because they go beyond the common progressions in many/most cases, and are the point of all this anyway, (3) expand to all areas of the fretboard and keys, (4) be able to improvise up and down the range of the fretboard per the above.
A lot of methods have one start with the Blues, then Rhythm Changes, Dominant cycles, Turnaounds, then on to Coltrane Changes, etc.
For example - learn to play a 3 chord 12-bar blues in C around the 7th and 9th positions making use of Mixolydian, Dominant Bebop, Minor Blues, a few chromatics, and 7th and 9th arpeggios. Take those one at a time if it helps and keep adding. Set your tempo to slow, and loop it. After you can improvise reasonably comfortably there, take it to the 2nd position, then the 5th. Then add 2-3 more chords for the more typical "jazz/blues" progression and repeat.
I'm not certain if the above is helpful or not.
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Although hearing the blues might kick him right back into the pentatonic ideas. He needs to get away from that right now.
And would he know how to use the Mixolydian, Dominant Bebop, Minor Blues, a few chromatics, and 7th and 9th arpeggios? I think we're on major scales at the moment, or something similar.
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No jazzer, aspiring or otherwise, ever needs to "get away from the blues".
And "right now"? I'm not sure how long that lasts.
So, a lesson plan approach. Relative to post #4 above:
1. 3-chord blues, one fretboard area, mixolydian and 7th chord arpeggios - slow tempo:2-4 weeks
2. Maintenance plus add Dominant Bebop: - 2-4 weeks
3. Maintenance plus add a few chromatics (don't worry about target this and approach that right now - just use your ears and rhythmic sense: 2-4 weeks
Keep going...
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ragman1's advice is the way to go (and unfortunately, this is rarely provided to those early in their development), so you are lucky to be getting it now when it can make a huge difference. The long term goal is:
Hear outside music around you - hear your music inside you - play your inside music out into the outside music
There are two things at work here, the ears and the hands, and it is important to let them work independently and autonomously, respectively.
You want to strive to let your ears independently lead the way, letting your ears make the musical judgement of what they want to hear played out of the instrument without regard to the hands.
You want your hands to play what the ears call for, letting the hands make the mechanical judgement of how to play what they are asked autonomously.
Listening to songs is how you develop your ears to hear things, and learn to hear your own things from your mind's ear. Working on songs, the hands will figure out mechanical strategies for solving the logistics of how to play; you don't have to teach them positions and fingerings, they figure these things and many other things out on their own. Trust your hands; you use them all day long to do very complex things naturally and automatically without you ever giving it a thought. Let them discover how to play so you can really lead with your ears.
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I appreciate the responses so far.
While I have been learning standards and trying to improvise over them, I think one problem might be that my go-to noodling form is a (jazz) blues. That is to say, if I just pick up my guitar and play for 20 minutes (as opposed to more focused practice) I'm probably going to play the chords/head to something like Tenor Madness and then play over that form for a while. It might be an idea to avoid the blues for a bit.
I can play reasonably well over a standard, like say "There will never be another you", once I've learned the form and the head. That is to say, my problem is not being *unable* to play anything (or even that I'm too often playing wrong notes). However, it doesn't often sound particularly like jazz to me and I am still often (accidentally) falling back on my rock-influenced habits. I think I'm more often playing in a given key rather than over a given chord, if that makes sense. I never really did learn licks and don't really think in terms of playing licks but you can get by pretty well with the pentatonic-infused reflexes I mentioned earlier.
As to GTRMan's suggestion: would the idea here be to force myself to improvise only using notes from the mixolydian scale / 7th chord arpeggios for the first 2-4 weeks?
Edit: It's worth pointing out that when I'm playing I'm never actually thinking "I'm playing Bb-minor pentatonic now". It's just that, if I pay close attention, I realise that much of what I'm playing fits with pentatonic.
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This sounds like the problem everyone faces when they start tackling jazz, i.e. how do I play lines that sound like ‘proper’ jazz and reflect the chord changes, rather than just sounding like pentatonic noodling (which I learned when I played rock)?
The answer (in my opinion) is to start learning some jazz vocabulary. Who are your favourite jazz musicians? Learn from what they do/did.
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Originally Posted by bobheff
Can you play only chord tones for 1 chorus and sound musical?
If yes then add a few scale notes to form more of a "chord outline"
Then add a few chromatics.
You should be able to play steady eighth notes. Then add some triplets. Then use some rests here and there to be more motivic/melodic.
If we can't do that over a dominant 7 chord we're not going anywhere.
Once you have the hang of that, voice lead your ideas between the I7 and IV7 chords (play the nearest note on the new chord). Pay special attention to the transitions between bars 1-2, 2-3,4-5, 6-7 | I7 | IV7 | I7 | I7 | IV7 | IV7 | I7 | I7 | V7 | IV7 | I7 | V7 |
Now you're cooking with grease.
EDIT: I second Graham's point. There are many books out there too with Blues etudes made up of the jazz langauge. Joe Pass Guitar Style is one great example. Jens Larsen has materials (and mentions Joe's book). Many improv courses include the blues and some have nice etudes. Joe was a master so using him as a source is about as pure as it gets, even if it's just to start the process of learning the jazz language. IMO
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Originally Posted by bobheff
it doesn't often sound particularly like jazz to me
I think I'm more often playing in a given key rather than over a given chord
In other words, for a tune in C, if you find A7-Dm in the middle, play in Dm (usually D harmonic minor) for the A7. Or at least remember the B's are Bb.
would the idea here be to force myself
It's worth pointing out that when I'm playing I'm never actually thinking "I'm playing Bb-minor pentatonic now". It's just that, if I pay close attention, I realise that much of what I'm playing fits with pentatonic.
It's just muscle-memory, that's all. As I said, it's so easy just to launch into the familiar, gutsy sound. It's partly the reason we play guitar at all, it's very visceral. Not by chance is the electric guitar so popular the world over.
But jazz can be equally exciting in a different way but it unfortunately comes a bit later when one has got the basics under the belt.
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This is pretty gutsy stuff, jazz-wise. It's got a lot to do with all those 'right notes in the wrong places'. All he's got behind him is bass and drums. Listen to how he makes the chords sound with runs. Masterful. Plus he uses the odd pentatonic too.
Don't worry, it speeds up later :-)
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If you don't have the fretboard mapped out well enough to move around and play all the straight melodies to all the songs you know, how can one begin to improvise or invent stuff??
Learn to play the melodies you know, and find how they lay on the neck or in positions. Then you go from there. Some folks can't even play the melody to Happy Birthday and think they're gonna play jazz...
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Originally Posted by bobheff
So FWIW I teach and play music for a living, including jazz guitar. I find it helpful to make some distinctions.
When you learn to play jazz guitar you are learning
1) to hear and play jazz
2) to improvise
3) to understand the guitar and map it
And other things besides, such as technique and sight reading.
OK, so it might seem funny that I separated 1) and 2). There's a reason for this; you can be a great improviser and not play a note of jazz... many rock players, Middle Eastern musicians, Indian musicians and so on would fit into this category.
So jazz is a style of music, a sound, a rhythm and so on. You have to learn the music and this needs to be done with the ears because there's only so much we info can get on the page. (That's true of any music actually, even classical.) The knowledge this represents is 'tacit knowledge' meaning that we can't completely communicate it in words or musical notation even. Teaching this is actually very hard. It is best learned by the student under their own steam via listening closely to their favourite musicians, with some guidance from the teacher.
Mapping the guitar is a separate thing. This involves, music theory, note naming and so on. People get this confused with improvisation and jazz. It overlaps of course but is something to distinct. This is obvious, quantifiable knowledge. It is a lot of work to learn but straightforward to teach and study. Learn scales, arpeggios, voicings and so on. Do these scales all positions by next lesson, that sort of thing. Very useful, but not music itself.
Plenty of students turn up to lessons having mastered 3) and say they can't play anything. That's an important lesson.
I hope this distinction helps you work out what needs your attention in particular.
I think most students should focus on 1) provided they have a decent command of their instruments - not perfect or total, just decent is OK. improvisation can come later, especially if you are used to improvising in other genres... so by this I mean there's nothing wrong with regurgitating licks or composing your solos when you are starting out. Aim to make music.
Ear learning is intimidating at first, so make small goals at first - learn a Grant Green or a Jim Hall lick, not a John Coltrane solo. Practice using it over different chords and songs, and muck around with it. Ear learning gives you phrasing, tone and swing. It's the best use of your time frankly, and you'll have to do it sooner or later, if you want to play jazz decently, so get used to it ASAP. No more than 15m at first... just trying to do it is helpful. Don't be too results oriented, your skills will improve. Just put a little time into it.
BIG TIP for ear learning - at first keep your guitar on its stand until you can sing the phrase without the track playing. Noodling is the enemy, stop yourself from doing it even if you have to but the guitar down. It's easier to put the phrase on the guitar than you think once you really know how it goes. Noodling around will cause you to forget it.
I am fairly early on in the process and know a few fingerings for a major scale. I can play various patterns (thirds, triads, arpeggios) through these positions. I can, as an exercise, play a related related modal scale by starting from a particular degree and (albeit a bit more slowly and with a bit more care) build triads or arpeggios from this mode. I have plenty more work to do but, again, as an aid to understanding I don't think this is wasted effort. I'm comfortable enough with the sound of a major scale that if you picked somewhere and asked me to play a major scale with that note as a root I can do it without thinking about a specific fingering or position.
However, when I was younger as a self-taught teenaged guitarist I seem to have accidentally internalised the sound of the minor pentatonic scale and this is still what mostly comes out when I improvise. I'm not really thinking about the pentatonic scale (nor was I when I was a kid) but, nevertheless... These days, there are a lot more chromatic passing notes, a few more arpeggios played as triplets and I'm a little better at outlining the chord progression than I once was, but still...
I appreciate that one way to remedy a situation like this is to transcribe and I freely admit that I haven't done much of that, but, this is not what I'm asking about here. What I'm interested in at the moment is to what extent more experience jazz players use these positional scale fingerings in the context of improvisation.
That is, do you find yourself thinking something like "the next chord is a Cmaj7 and I'm currently in the vicinity of the 8th fret, so I'm going to play using such-and-such a fingering of the C major scale"? If so, what's the best way to practice this? A year or so of playing major scales in various ways doesn't seem to have done the trick (although I'm sure it has helped me in other ways).
Here's hoping my question makes sense!
When improvising I try to play melodies and lines, not think too much about scales and so on. It's possible to make lines and melodies from these resources, but if I'm thinking about scales when trying to make music, I haven't done enough preparation... I'll get through the song, but I won't really be playing.Last edited by christianm77; 06-14-2020 at 09:28 AM.
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Very nicely laid out Christian! You must be a very good teacher.
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bob..
"...That is, do you find yourself thinking something like "the next chord is a Cmaj7 and I'm currently in the vicinity of the 8th fret, so I'm going to play using such-and-such a fingering of the C major scale"? If so, what's the best way to practice this? A year or so of playing major scales in various ways doesn't seem to have done the trick (although I'm sure it has helped me in other ways).
Here's hoping my question makes sense!.."
yep..makes sense...
do you practice "melodic patterns" ?
this is a great way to develop a melodic sense..hearing intervals of the major/ minor scales ..note placement and increase improvisational ideas
there are lots of them (hundreds of very useful ones) check on line ..the tedgreene.com site has a great study under the lessons heading
learn them in all positions and keys..in the course of doing so you will begin to "hear" melody fragments from tunes ..
also what begins to happen in the course of learning them is being able to flow into different keys ..you will notice this after you are comfortable with the exercises
example
C Major melodic pattern...note degrees 2 3 1 5 / D E C G
String Fret Note Degree
A 5 D 2
D 2 E 3
A 3 C 1
D 5 G 5
play this pattern of every degree of the major scale..in as many positions as you can
to make this kind of thing a bit more melodic skip degrees..that is play every other degree with the pattern
so it would be C Maj E min ..GMaj..and so on
so the Eminor pattern would be 2 3 1 5 / F G E B
GMaj...2 3 1 5 / A B G D
then to increase interest switch keys to Eb
2 3 1 5 / F G Eb Bb...frets 3 5 6 3
now of course the end result is that you will begin to mix and match this stuff with some rhythmic variations and make it sound like a solo..
and at some point it will become a bedrock tool in your improvisation
hope this helps..
..
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Originally Posted by ccroft
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Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo
My original question had to do with the connection between scale patterns / positions (e.g. the 5 or 7 or 11, depending, of these you are likely to learn from a jazz method book) and improvisation. Christian's response above makes sense to me, if I'm reading it right. Learning these things helps in understanding the guitar (number 3 in his list) are not sufficient to learn jazz or learn to improvise (1 and 2 in his list). That makes sense.
The original impetus for my question came from watching , which I've seen linked elsewhere in the forum. Like many teachers, Greene begins by giving several scale fingerings that cover the fretboard and relates these to certain chords. I was left with the impression that Greene thinks in terms of these scales and fingerings when improvising. My own experience had been that, so far, playing scales has helped me a great deal in understanding the guitar and bridging the gap between music theory and the guitar but hasn't helped much when it comes to improvising.
To be fair, I am certainly a better guitarist and better improviser than I was two years ago. These things take time! I'm sure some of it is sinking in.
Thanks again to Ragman, Christian, Wolf and others for all the helpful responses. I once (a year ago, maybe) posted a similar question on the Jazz Guitar forum on Reddit and, while there were some helpful responses, there was much less generosity of spirit than there is here.
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Bob will find his way.
Anyway, there's these block things called Bloo that you put in the loo cistern... so here's my blues of the day. I still maintain it's nigh on impossible to play the blues without using pentatonics or pentatonic sounds.
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One thing I find help me as an intermediate at best, is to learn from recorded solos of whatever song I'm working on. I've tried method books, patterns, whatnot. I maybe slow but I can't get it to stick. learning language by learning it in the context of a song/tune otoh, that seem to make sense. At least my retention and later application is far greater that way round.
You mention Another You. Pick two-three recordings and see what you can learn from those. Take that lick and see if you can permute it through the changes, take it apart and see what notes/scale degrees/intervals/etc are used over a set of changes.
A couple I continue to learn/steal from
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There's a lot to be said from just copying people whose playing you like. Who are your favourite jazz musicians? Doesn't have to be guitarists. Sit down and listen to one of your favourite musicians with your guitar and copy/mimic phrases from their solos. OK, probably a good idea not to pick anything too fast or advanced - maybe not late-period John Coltrane or Charlie Parker at his most superhuman. But it doesn't matter if you don't play exactly what they play, just an approximation, the flavour might be enough to get you into novel ways of playing.
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I like Barry Greene, great player, great teacher.
I remember doing the major scales in various ways years and years ago and I know them at those positions, the CAGED thing and all that, but I have to say I don't think like that.
I'm pretty sure the epiphany came in playing tunes. I did one at a time, usually, and just grabbed whatever seemed right at the time. If I was, say, at the 5th fret (ish) and had to use, say, an Eb maj sound, I could visualise where the nearest notes were. If there was hesitation I stopped, worked it out, and that stuck in the brain.
After a while it stopped being a problem. Probably the simplest way was to use a chord shape as a guide, visually, and there were your notes. I still do that now. It might seem a crude method of finding whatever scale notes one needs but it certainly works.
I think what I'm saying is that I'm not very good at reducing playing to pre-learned scale exercises which are then applied like a plaster. I'd rather get to a point in the playing where certain pitches are necessary and, as I say, grab them. That works better for me.
What Average Joe said in his first paragraph, basically.
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Sorry if I'm a nuisance but here's something (it's very quick). The progression for Solar is very simple, just Cm then three ii-V-Is in F, Eb and Db. It's fairly easy just to find those major scales and slot them in.
It produces a perfectly decent sound, no one's going to query it. But it's not the same as finding different pitches over the chords and making it a lot more interesting to the ear.
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Originally Posted by ragman1
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Originally Posted by christianm77
Transcriber wanted
Today, 04:35 PM in Improvisation