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Just to clarify... this is a post for someone who claims to be a novice. Can't we keep it simple? The post title will end up being altered to "quitting novice" if we keep going.
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08-08-2022 03:07 PM
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Here’s my favorite. It’s generally easy to read his fingers on most of his tunes.
Originally Posted by vintagelove
My suggestion, first plat tunes at a slower tempo first, in order to get chords under your fingers.
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"I've been playing guitar 60+ years, professionally, semi-professionally... I've played by ear 99% of the time." Originally Posted by fleaaaaaa
Looks like an excellent position to learn jazz and music theory. I suggested including music notation to enable making sense of the theory.
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To suggest learning 224 notes though?
Most people would be taught 12 and the enharmonics would be treated as different names for the same note.
I'm not against him learning to read but one step at a time.
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Step one's knowing that notes and pitches are not the same. Originally Posted by fleaaaaaa
Enharmonics are not the same note, they are different notes;
those different notes are different names for the same pitch.
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Hey @Jumpn, Originally Posted by jumpnblues
Glad you're still itchin' to learn!!
If you haven't already, check out some of Bob Conti's DVDs/books on chord melody stuff, since that's what you're mostly interested in! He likes approaching things from a "You don't have to know everything in order to play!" standpoint, so you can be up and playing nice arrangements quickly (and then coming up with your own)!
Fortunately/unfortunately, music is a several-lifetimes endeavor, so keep pushing, and have fun!
Marc
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If you want to dissuade novices, that's the way to do it. The experience of playing is nothing like that, fortunately. Originally Posted by pauln
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Learn songs. Every thing you need tp know is in the songs. Ear training is a natural outgrowth of repertoire building.
H/t vintagelove, Mr Beaumont.
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2nd what the others have said. Get a teacher. You'll progress much faster than teaching yourself. A teacher can show you exactly what you need to do and immediately, something that could take you years to learn on your own or that you would never discover. The bonus is that since you're so experienced with music, you'll be able to connect quickly with what your teacher shows you and understand well.
A lot of learning voicings is just slowly working through standards and choosing the appropriate notes given the melody note on top and what is available to play below that. However, academically going thru chord inversions is helpful as well. I use them in my Hammond playing.
Definitely learn the notes on the fretboard, that won't be too hard.
Should take up learning music notation. Don't have to get it immediately but you should get to the point where you can see a lead sheet or simple score and be able to figure out how to play it. Sight reading isn't necessary.Last edited by Jimmy Smith; 08-09-2022 at 02:51 AM.
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Playing is based on music, reading is optional. Originally Posted by Litterick
Theory is based on notation, reading required.
All I said, and notes and pitch aren't the same.
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I taught myself the fretboard by writing the notes on sheets of music paper. Finding the frets where all the notes are naturals gave me anchor points. Accidentals came later. Realising that between every whole note was a space, except for B/C and E/F, gave me an understanding of the patterns of the fretboard. Knowing that the sequence started again at the twelfth fret made it easer. Gradually, I learned to think horizontally and vertically: that I could play sequences along one string or across several.
The fretboard looks daunting at first, but within it are many repetitions. On Internet you can find many helpful pages, like this guide to middle C.
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Best answer, of course, but in his case it has to be online, unfortunately... The important thing when considering instruction, no matter what age or level you're at, is to select a Teacher that not only can play the style you wish to play, but can successfully teach it efficiently, and in a pleasant way. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
Not easy to get all 3. Most Jazz guitar students probably have the "wrong" teacher, without even realising it...
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Just get a competent teacher online or in person. Ime local teachers can suck at jazz. Just find someone who is actually working semi pro or pro at jazz and you'll make hella progress.
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Wes Montgomery knew theory but didn't read, same goes for George Benson Originally Posted by pauln
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You are confounding knowing theory (shared verbal external representation) with knowing how to play (private aural internal representation). Originally Posted by fleaaaaaa
What part of "theory" was Wes indicating when he was asked the name of the first chord of the song he had just performed - first question while being interviewed by the host of the show? Wes answered, "I dunno, I just chill". Playing based on music, not music theory.
Don't know much about George, but when Joe Pass was asked in a video the name of the chord he was playing, he stared at his hand holding a G13th rooted on the third fret for a very long 5 full seconds before being able to reply "G13". Clearly, he was not needing to know the names of the chords to play music. Again, playing based on music, not music theory.
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well online’s easier if anything. Get some recommendations. Famous players are not necessarily better teachers, but my experience is that most professional jazz guitarists are also good teachers. You get a few who can’t teach but as most have a lot of experience of education from both sides (and experience is terribly important in teaching) I think the odds are pretty good. But choose someone who can play jazz well. Originally Posted by princeplanet
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So those older jazz guys didn't know what notes were in their chords? Originally Posted by pauln
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Pianists obviously know right away. It’s literally in black and white. But if we are talking about horn players, for some … no, I don’t think they did. Originally Posted by fleaaaaaa
i think the ones that played a bit of piano did. Dizzy is a good example. Diz recommended it as an important part of a horn players education.
But the recommendation would have been unnecessary if that’s how everyone was doing it. We know from interviews that quite a lot of horn players - Stan Getz, Art Pepper, Prez, Chet Baker - were much more melodic/linear in their improvisation. Prez even famously said ‘never tell me the changes!’
Otoh a lot of guitarists - Charlie Christian, Herb Ellis etc - worked primarily from chord shapes.
Jazz education has been so dominated with one model - basically a form of keyboard harmony - it’s sometimes a wrench to realise there are other ways of doing things.
(Otoh you can’t easily play things like Giant Steps or Inner Urge using the old approaches … so here we are. Mind you there’s a guy in London - Brian Edwards, one of the best here - that plays that way, and he plays Wayne tunes and stuff…. Completely an ear player… So…)
Whatever map you use, the ears are the important thing.
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I definitely think you can learn harmony without notation. As well as other things.
I don't know what Pauln classifies as theory.
However I class knowing your notes on the guitar as step 1 towards theory. No notation needed.
Same goes for learning triad construction 1 3 5 major or 1 b3 5 for minor. I also learnt all of the extended note harmony without notation.
I definitely think those things are theory and I learnt them without notation.
I'm still not saying learning music is anything but a benefit but my theory teacher who I had the most revelations with did not use it while teaching theory.
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I wouldn’t Take these interview clips to heart. Humor is lost in time. I remember a thread here advising we shouldn’t practice because Wes said in an interview he didn’t practice he just threw raw meat in the case. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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His case must have stunk Originally Posted by AllanAllen
I wouldn’t Take these interview clips to heart. Humor is lost in time. I remember a thread here advising we shouldn’t practice because Wes said in an interview he didn’t practice he just threw raw meat in the case.
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If they wanted to know I'm sure a moment of examination would allow them to know. However, in actual playing, the names of all the things (external verbal theory representation) are generally unnecessary and usually way too slow. Think about naming the pitches one plays in a melody; now think of naming them at playing speed of only 4 pitches per second... you can't speak 4 note names of pitches in one second nor even verbalize silently to yourself that fast. Originally Posted by fleaaaaaa
Some may use a reduced verbal naming, for example just the roots of the chords of a song as a general moving reference, or the recognition of a part of a line as a named scale, or they may maintain a sense of moving "local key" as an orientation for some changes. Those may be slow enough to verbalize, but perhaps some are using verbal names for "chunks" of substance within lines, chords, and progressions as a further shorthand for verbal tracking.
So maybe many hold internal compressed verbal internal abstract representations that are fast enough for the hands to execute. I don't know for sure how others do it, I play by ear and have never needed to know the names of anything (except my band mates, the venues, and the songs).
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No, that’s not it. I mean sometimes they are joking no doubt, but there’s a lot of good reasons to take this at face value. I can’t think of a better one than simply transcribing some of their solos, it’s all in there. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
I wouldn’t Take these interview clips to heart. Humor is lost in time. I remember a thread here advising we shouldn’t practice because Wes said in an interview he didn’t practice he just threw raw meat in the case.
Major sevenths on dominants? Major thirds on minor chords? Sure, why not? It all sounds great and the jazz police never come calling. Why? Melody and swing.
But you wouldn’t play those notes if you were thinking about the chords…
Before about 1960 most of the repertoire was based directly or indirectly on Tin Pan Alley songs anyway. I don’t have any trouble with the idea that someone can improvise a melody on an AABA tune without thinking about the chords. It’s not that hard. (Hard to do as well as those guys of course.) Improvise in Db in the A of Body and Soul and D and C in the B for example. Probably you don’t even need to think in keys if your melodic sense and ear are well developed enough. It’s not Mozart stuff.
(Actually doesn’t Mick Goodrick talk about a student developing the ability to do this fluently over unknown random chords in the Advancing Guitarist and suggests it as an exercise? That would be much more impressive.)
Also as I say I know some people who learned to play this way; invariably horn players. More common in the trad/swing scene, but occasionally modern guys too.
Obviously back then there weren’t any schools for jazz. But neither were working musicians very eager to share their knowledge. So aspiring players had to work it out as best they could. This led to a diversity of approaches.
Some players like Coleman Hawkins (classically trained of course) and Diz liked harmony of course: but others were more melody and blues guys. I think Bird had aspects of both actually.Last edited by Christian Miller; 08-09-2022 at 06:14 PM.
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I used to play with a reed player from the Midwest. He'd be about 80-85 now, just to provide some context.
He said that when he was learning jazz as a teen it was taught entirely by ear. If he didn't know the tune, you could hear him wait until he heard the next chord and then continue his solo. He could read too. But, he did not know the notes in a Cmaj triad.
He said that this was the way everybody he knew back then learned.
I'm not clear if or how he used internal language. The only hint I recall was once, when I played a whole tone line in a solo, I heard him say "whole tone". So, he knew some language.
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Hi OP, I am also a novice. Reading this forum has not done much for my chops. Getting out into the world and playing at jam sessions, however, has greatly accelerated my development (or at least my motivation in preparation for future development).
As rlrhett alludes to, people have different goals or mean different things when they say "learn jazz guitar". Hence you get different advice. Some people think solo chord melody a la Joe Pass "Virtuoso" is the acme of jazz guitar. Others may be inspired most by Wes Montgomery's quartet work, or Pat Metheny's fusion lines, etc. For me personally it was helpful to know that I do not love bebop (gasp, shock). Rather I prefer to listen to (and ideally someday to play) lines that are more out of the hard bop or modal eras / styles. Until I clarified that in my own mind I was really struggling with where to go and how to get there. If you are interested in building and performing rubato solo guitar arrangements of jazz standards (which seems to be what people mean when they say chord melody) then that might narrow down the skills you need to learn - X technical skills, Y arranging skills, Z understanding of harmonic/melodic jazz vocabulary... etc. And it may lead to discoveries that simplify the task.
One thing is that you should consider video lessons. I take Zoom lessons from Christian Miller who posted in this thread, for example.
Regarding intuitive fretboard knowledge, I'm having some success following this approach:
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