Unlearning bad habits

[AllanAllen]

Sure but that’s not really the question. It was how to start sounding like jazz … he plays things and doesn’t sound like jazz. And transcribing doesn’t have to be a solo. Maybe he could learn Bye Bye Blackbird from Miles, or All of Me from Sinatra. Playing along with that is good as sort of transcription lite.

In my head you learn a head by ear, and transcribe a solo. As if learning by ear and transcribing are different. Which they aren't.

[jameslovestal]

I unlearned my bad habits by learning new bad habits.

Oh, well. As I do this I am becoming more of my own person with less habits of any kind.

[Peter C]

Regarding sounding like Eric Clapton, good luck trying to cop the intensity of his soloing on the album From The Cradle, and I'm not even a fan. I also don't agree that you can "get away with" playing rock without the skills; a lack of flair or vocation sucks just like in any other genre. Listen to any one of the army of YouTube guitar gear testers du jour, then to Chris Buck, for example.

By the way OP, if you're not interested in playing standards but you're a player, check out Mike Stern (there was still a lot of rock blues in his playing the last I heard), though you'll still have to put in the hours. Jens Larsen has a vid on him on YouTube

[Christian Miller]

Let me plug my new video. Maybe it will help?

I do think it’s related to what you are talking about.

[Jimmy Smith]

Yes, you can unlearn bad habits. You just need to figure out how to do what you want to do and practice a crap load of it. That's it.

In 2021, I decided to focus on jazz Hammond exclusively after years of some jazz piano and other styles and instruments. I realized I had to unlearn not ever working any technique and I had to unlearn having shoddy time feel. I'd play Monkish on piano and get by that way, but there is little touch on Hammond so rhythm and time feel really propels it. I had to do a 180 and build up my weaknesses.

Just figure out what you have to do to accomplish your goal and practice a shit ton of it. You'll eventually build new good habits and unlearn the old bad habits.

You're gonna want to work tunes if you actually want to learn jazz. What the others said. Although creating original material is great.

[pauln]

Habits are only bad with reference to something, and bad to the extent they impair progress toward that something (habits may be fine for other somethings). The first thing is to identify that reference something. That may be tricky because one might say they want to learn to play Jazz when what they really mean is they want to play Jazz - that is a difference with a distinction. The clearest way to identify that something is to start at the end, which means imagining what it is you want to be able to do. Imagining learning to play Jazz is not the same as playing Jazz.

Jazz players, even those that read music and lead sheets and have a foundation in formal theory, ultimately perform predominantly playing by ear - using their musical judgement based on how it sounds.

Hopefully, when you said you have never transcribed, what you meant was you never wrote anything down but did listen and figure stuff out. Learning songs and improvising solos are very reliant on having developed the ability to listen and figure things out (sometimes slowly for learning songs but faster for decisions performing, quite fast for improvising).

Immersion in listening to Jazz may do little if you are reading, surfing the internet, working, cooking, exercising, etc. because some part of your mind may be teaching itself how to ignore or screen out the music. Jazz listening needs to be a single focus session. Similarly, relying on a metronome may be training yourself not to find your internal sense of time. Using lead sheet chords may be teaching you to not to internalize the form and progression harmony. Playing with backing tracks may be teaching how to expect the expected rather than the unexpected... the danger potential is when active internal processes are delegated to passive external objects.

I should say that this is my opinion and others will disagree, but lots of the usual ways of learning incorporate what I would call bad habits with reference to playing, especially Jazz. I would suggest figuring tunes out by ear, practicing by ear, and playing with others by ear.

[princeplanet]

We've all been using the term "bad habits" to unlearn, obviously by that we mean "inappropriate" habits for Jazz playing. Regardless, they are indeed habits that need reforming if wishing to cross from blues-rock to jazz. I've had this conversation with way too many rock players over the years that claim they have good enough technique to play jazz if they wanted to, "all I'd need to do is learn the right scales" ! Think about it, how many rock players have managed to turn themselves into good Jazz players? I'm sure many have tried and given up....

[pamosmusic]

We've all been using the term "bad habits" to unlearn, obviously by that we mean "inappropriate" habits for Jazz playing. Regardless, they are indeed habits that need reforming if wishing to cross from blues-rock to jazz. I've had this conversation with way too many rock players over the years that claim they have good enough technique to play jazz if they wanted to, "all I'd need to do is learn the right scales" ! Think about it, how many rock players have managed to turn themselves into good Jazz players? I'm sure many have tried and given up....

I used to think I was one. Then I go back and play some rock stuff and realize I was never one of those to begin with.

[princeplanet]

I used to think I was one. Then I go back and play some rock stuff and realize I was never one of those to begin with.

Haha, could be cos you've successfully unlearned all dem "bad habits" ! . But congrats to you if you did start out as a rocker, because you now sound like a bona fide bopper to me.

[Christian Miller]

I used to think I was one. Then I go back and play some rock stuff and realize I was never one of those to begin with.

I know what you mean!

[frabarmus]

In my first 10 years of guitar playing I was self taught an learned everything I knew by ear (songs, solos, improv etc.) so I had plenty of bad habits. Then I got into Jazz and finally went to a teacher (a professional jazz guitarist) for a year (more or less).
First lesson, he had me play something (including what little Jazz I had picked up from records etc.) and his reaction was like: "Very nice! Great musicality, great potential there! But now listen to me: we're gonna start from scratch!". And so we did for the first three months or so. And the bad habits, of course, were postural and technical. How to sit properly, how to hold the guitar properly, how to hold the pick properly, strike the strings properly... there was, indeed, a lot of undoing before he got me learning Jazz Chords, scales etc. but playing became much easier and all corrections made a world of difference.

So, in my experience, the answer is: yes, unlearning bad habits is possible.

[grahambop]

I went from playing rock to jazz, I didn’t really see it as unlearning anything, more like adding something new on top, as it were. I think having some rock/blues technique is not a bad thing, it still comes into play when you need to do some bluesy jazz stuff a la Kenny Burrell etc. Also there’s the examples of Scofield and Stern, they seem to have melded rock and jazz styles together effectively.

I guess the one area that felt awkward for quite a long time was the RH picking stuff, I wasn’t used to picking those long bebop-type lines at first. As I recall I just bashed away at it, until it got easier.

I didn’t find the LH complexities too difficult, but as I’d had classical guitar training I think that really helped.

[frabarmus]

I went from playing rock to jazz, I didn’t really see it as unlearning anything, more like adding something new on top, as it were. I think having some rock/blues technique is not a bad thing, it still comes into play when you need to do some bluesy jazz stuff a la Kenny Burrell etc. Also there’s the examples of Scofield and Stern, they seem to have melded rock and jazz styles together effectively.

I guess the one area that felt awkward for quite a long time was the RH picking stuff, I wasn’t used to picking those long bebop-type lines at first. As I recall I just bashed away at it, until it got easier.

I didn’t find the LH complexities too difficult, but as I’d had classical guitar training I think that really helped.

In my case bad habits were not caused by playing rock but by being self taught ...so, for instance holding the guitar and the pick, the way I placed my left hand on the neck, how I positioned my right hand on the strings... some left hand exercises given to me by my teacher, were the same as in Classical guitar training (for beginners). So the unlearning was not "idiomatic", so to speak... it was mainly "physical", with regards to posture and hand technique, economy of movement, etc. I would not have been able to get to that by myself, as a self taught player. It really did make a difference, though the unlearning was tough...

[ccroft]

I went from playing rock to jazz, I didn’t really see it as unlearning anything, more like adding something new on top, as it were.... Also there’s the examples of Scofield and Stern, they seem to have melded rock and jazz styles together effectively.

I'm with Graham, though I didn't play any rock beyond Louie Louie at 13. I've had a thought in my head over the life of this thread: If you're a total jazz newb how do you tell good habits from bad?

There's so many great players who do it so much differently than others. Maybe in jazz all habits are at least suspect. On the other hand, some limitations make great players. In the end you just do what feels good.

Or at least that's how I did it. Back then there was so much less info on how my fave players did anything. Just the LP's and they weren't easy to come by. I didn't know Wes played with his thumb or that Django only used 2 fingers until several years after I started trying to learn from them.

[frabarmus]

I'm with Graham, though I didn't play any rock beyond Louie Louie at 13. I've had a thought in my head over the life of this thread: If you're a total jazz newb how do you tell good habits from bad?

There's so many great players who do it so much differently than others. Maybe in jazz all habits are at least suspect. On the other hand, some limitations make great players. In the end you just do what feels good.

Or at least that's how I did it. Back then there was so much less info on how my fave players did anything. Just the LP's and they weren't easy to come by. I didn't know Wes played with his thumb or that Django only used 2 fingers until several years after I started trying to learn from them.

Definitely, there are no rules, or, rather, rules are made for the player, not vice versa, and all players are different to start with. Whatever works in making it easier for one to play and better express oneself musically is good. For me, I remember how I struggled on the guitar (physically) before I went to my teacher and went back to square one and how much easier things became afterwards. That's just me...

Limitations can make great players (surely outstanding personalities, at least), I agree. I think of Jim Mullen, for example... I've seen a clip where he explains his thumb technique... yet, he says: (something along the lines of): "Don't do it the way I do it (unless you want to make life difficult for yourself)!" if I remember...

[ccroft]

...For me, I remember how I struggled on the guitar (physically) before I went to my teacher and went back to square one and how much easier things became afterwards. That's just me...

For sure the best way to break a habit. It's good you did that early on.

I played cello for 4 or 5 years before discovering guitar. Maybe I brought over some 'good' habits from that training: lots of emphasis on posture, how to finger a note, how to hold the cello, and all 4 fingers with thumb behind the neck.

But look how many greats do 'thumb over' and use 3 fingers! Is there bad, good, better, best?

[frabarmus]

For sure the best way to break a habit. It's good you did that early on.

I played cello for 4 or 5 years before discovering guitar. Maybe I brought over some 'good' habits from that training: lots of emphasis on posture, how to finger a note, how to hold the cello, and all 4 fingers with thumb behind the neck.

But look how many greats do 'thumb over' and use 3 fingers! Is there bad, good, better, best?

Well, relatively early on as I was already 24.

I also do thumb over (quite often infact) when playing chords to fret a bass note, with my thumb, on the 6th string (I do "break the rules" if music dictates it!)... there's no "one size fits all". I guess music dictates, along the way, what's best in a given situation... "different things for different people... although, "protocols" do exist (especially in Classical music teaching) which, I think, is not necessairily a bad thing; for instance, I really admire (and envy!) classical guitarists right hand technique! Anyway, "good", "bad" etc. are subjective concepts (to a certain extent)...

[Christian Miller]

Don’t be a nerd. Stick your thumb over the top and use three fingers if you want. It sounds better…

I mean don’t do it for chords obviously. ‘

i wish I was cool enough to do that. Early classical lessons messed up my technique. Now I’m trying to be a piano like all the other geeks.

Jim plays the guitar PROPERLY. That is all.

[frabarmus]

Jim plays the guitar PROPERLY. That is all.

"Bad habits" is whatever makes you unnecessairily struggle on your instrument, you could say (among other things)...

Jim is obviously NOT struggling! He is perfectly fluent, groovy and exquisitely expressive.

Though I'm sure you can find some positive, also, in your early classical training, Christian.

[Antoniotwu]

Can I contact Administration? It is important. Regards.

[GuyBoden]

Playing hunched over the guitar is a bad habit I've reconciled in my own playing, but I've seen many play like this.

Playing whilst hunched over the guitar is not a good position long term in my opinion.

[Christian Miller]

"Bad habits" is whatever makes you unnecessairily struggle on your instrument, you could say (among other things)...

Jim is obviously NOT struggling! He is perfectly fluent, groovy and exquisitely expressive.

Though I'm sure you can find some positive, also, in your early classical training, Christian.

im half joking :-)

I do wish I had the kind cojones to stick with three fingers though. It almost always sounds better than playing in position with four.