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Yeah I imagine that must drive real, committed blues players up the wall. It’s perhaps easier to approximate blues, but in terms of the kind of careful, attentive immersion in the recordings and tradition of the music I can’t see it’s that different from learning jazz thoroughly as opposed to approximating it with chord scales etc
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07-25-2023 03:10 AM
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Originally Posted by DawgBone
See, it just proves the point. They head straight for the easy option* but unfortunately you can't play standards with pentatonics. Well, not those kind of standards, anyway.
* I know it's not the easy option done properly. Don't start again.
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Jazz would have been as easy to approximate as blues by "intermediate guitarists" had the entire history of nearly all jazz recordings and performances were based on the Summertime changes (with minor variations).
Last edited by Tal_175; 07-25-2023 at 09:46 AM.
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In any case, jazz uses pentatonics differently. As we all know... I think.
The green man will be totally lost.
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Originally Posted by Tal_175
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Originally Posted by Tal_175
That's where I'd start.
Not sure what the equivalent is on piano
I think it's a cultural thing... progheads get into jazz and think it's necessarily about fancy stuff
*once you get them out of bending and playing massive vibrato of course, which is easier said than done. I suppose you could make them play heavy flat wounds haha.
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Originally Posted by ragman1
Remember, we are talking about jamming with a friend, not what he should study at home. He should be practicing standards at home. Practice is different than jamming with a friend which is different from a gig.
Which brings me to a side question, do you play with other people Ragman? If you aren't you should know, you're good enough to go to a jam.
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It's their decision.
jams
I've played with other people most of my life but I don't miss it now. I lost the lust for the limelight a long time ago. Anyway, I'm not performance fit any more. There is such a thing, you know :-)
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Well the op is long gone but fortunately we have the thread held down with some rousing discussion.
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Originally Posted by ragman1
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Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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You could play the A section of So What for a couple of hours.
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Guy is mid 40s and has an extremely high mental capacity. Straight A student at school. I am perplexed.
It’s super common for very smart people to think they can *learn* how to play music. And knowledge is very helpful, but you also have to *practice what you learn.* Meaning that smart folks who pick up theory really quickly, then don’t hear the results they want, move on to more knowledge, rather than sitting with what they know and really working out what it means in practice. Muscle memory and workable technique is just as important as understanding the theory and all that good stuff.
This problem tends to be a little more prevalent among book-smart folks who did well in school and grew accustomed to catching onto things quickly (**glances around room, slowly raises hand**)
So your friend just needs to sit with the easy stuff and listen to a lot of music and copy people he likes and play along with you until it starts sounding a bit more like music. Then on to some (small) new bit of knowledge. Then again, you say you’re perplexed, but I think you’ve arrived at the same conclusion intuitively, or you wouldn’t be hear looking for simple tunes to keep things fun.
Blue bossa might need transposing to A minor to make it white keys only........ yes there will be a black key for the what will be an E7th chord for any pedants. The major 2 5 1 bit is the plan for a first excursion into going out of the main key.
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Also … when I suggest he copy people he likes, I’m not necessarily talking about transcribing.
Do y’all ever play along with recordings? Like — not backing tracks?
Pick a tune where he knows the melody and try playing along with a good recording of it. Sinatra’s Fly Me to the Moon or Chet Bakers Autumn Leaves or something. Don’t make it an exercise, but you’ll both start trying to copy the phrasing of the melody and (thus) copy the vibe. That’ll make him start sounding like jazz more than any theory ever could.
And back when I was learning how to play guitar, there weren’t readily accessible backing tracks for The Thrill Is Gone, so I just played along with the real thing and stepped all over BBs toes. Probably one of the smarter things I ever did, and he didn’t seem to mind.
EDIT: to be clear I’m a huge theory nerd and am not knocking theory. Super important. It just doesn’t do much good if you can’t use it too.
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Ricky -
Thanks. Well, it sounds like your buddy is more of a muso than you. He has 2 instruments. He's on piano and you're on guitar.
One comps (plays the chords) and the other solos. Please don't both bang on chords together.
Googling your question about easy standards always brings up the same list of suspects, most of which have already been mentioned. Jazz isn't easy. I know it's for Xmas but are you sure you want to play jazz tunes? There's the thing about half the secret of success being about aiming your pitch at the right audience. Are simple jazz standards what they want to hear? I assume we're talking parents, so 60 or 70 year-olds.
Don't underestimate them. They might want to hear some rock n roll. I'm serious.
And, if you're in your 40's then by 'kids' I suppose you mean 20-somethings. I wouldn't know what they're listening to these days, something ghastly! Or do you mean their kids? Lord help us.
It's almost impossible to answer your question, you know. I'm amazed the two of you can't just use your brains and get something together. There are sites about songs with 'easy chords' on them. I mean, look around. It's not too late to order a book or two, either. They definitely exist.
By the way, if you do get something together, I really meant what I said about rhythm. Swing's got to swing, rock's got to rock, etc. If it doesn't it's dead, believe me.
But I wish you luck. And I'm not poo-pooing blues, by the way. A bluesy number always goes down a treat. Keep it simple. You might need to get an Xmas song or two together too. They're usually pretty easy to play. Silent Night is always popular. Dead simple in C.
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Originally Posted by RickyHolden
I see your pedantry, and accept it.
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Originally Posted by RickyHolden
- bass and drum backing track goes on, he has to to what 2 stabs of a 7th chord per bar whist I do the tune and bust out a few smooth solos, then I do the chords for a bit whilst he does some right hand only piano solos.
Crowd aren't gonna know what's hit them!
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Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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I got lost on the diatonic vs tonal part of the discussion.
Diatonic="of the key". I understand that much.
Tonal means what though?
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Originally Posted by DawgBone
Giant Steps is tonal in its round about way.
But a better example might be something like All the Things You Are … starts in Ab, goes to Eb, remote key modulation to G, goes back to Ab with some unusual harmonies, but finally ends in Ab.
Or something like Corcovado with a lot of round about chord changes and implied key changes and whatnot but it ends on a big old C major and is more or less in that key in a weird way.
So you could have unusual tunes like that that are pretty chromatic and tricky, but are also functional and have a key center.
So What on the other hand is perfectly diatonic, but not tonal. The harmony isn’t functional in that way.
EDIT: you could also draw a distinction between tonal and functional. In which case you could probably say something like Maiden Voyage, is tonal but not functional. A lot of the time you’ll hear jazz dudes talk about “non functional” tunes to distinguish between functional harmony like All the Things, a modal or otherwise non traditionally tonal tune like Maiden Voyage, and free or atonal music like Ayler and late Coltrane.
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Actually Blues is a great example. Blues music is often tonal but not diatonic. A blues in A has a clear tonal center and the chords function as you might expect, and the form cycles back repeatedly to the tonic. Substitutions in jazz and bird blueses can serve to make the tonal functions more explicit.
But improvisations are often very deliberately not diatonic. Mixing of minor and major and blue notes and stuff like that. Tonal, but not diatonic.
EDIT: theoretically blues is a great example; in practice it’s a little reductive probably to call it “tonal.” Little different, I suppose.
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Christian will be around shortly to correct any major mistakes I’ve made in this summary.
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Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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Originally Posted by DawgBone
So What is not really a tonal tune because the chords don’t “function” … D minor just exists for a while, then it goes to Eb minor which just exists for a while.
Jazz Ballads by Jeff Arnold
Today, 05:41 AM in Chord-Melody