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Is such a thing possible?
I have not been a jazz guitarist for most of my life (though I’ve been listening to and enjoying jazz my whole life) so I have picked up a lot of bad habits that don’t translate to jazz. My brain is hardwired to find a phrasing does not skew toward the jazz side of things.
I’m wondering if anyone has overcome this and what was their regimen?
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12-29-2023 03:52 PM
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How much jazz do you listen to?
Originally Posted by jeremiahzellers
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At least a few hours per day… basically, if there is music on, it’s jazz. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
though my listening is not strategic.. it’s basically either “Alexa, play music by “jazz artist”” or “Alexa, open The Jazz Groove”.
before that is was copious amounts of big band/swing cd’s…
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What’s the actual problem?
“I have bad habits, how do I fix them” isn’t much to go on. Address the habit and stop doing it.
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Rewiring a brain taught by a lifetime of non-jazz phrasing and techniques to automatically skew towards jazz. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
Most things I see are for beginners with no musical experience.. so a blank slate. But what if you’ve been playing different style for the last 30 years? That’s a LOT of synapses to reconfigure.
just asking if anyone has had success and what sorts of things they did/practiced.
Most probably the answer is “listen listen listen, play play play”.
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How many tunes do you know? It’s not a matter of synapses, it’s a matter of learning jazz tunes, technical chops (chords, scales & arpeggio fluency) and transcribing solos.
Easy to describe, lots and lots of work.
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I guess I was thinking more creating my own jazz music.. not much banging out established standards. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
But I guess one thing leads to another.
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I played saxophone and flute by ear for a very long time, but eventually felt that I'd hit my limit in terms of what my ears were picking up. I began to study saxophone with an amazing jazz player, and also began to study flute with an amazing classical player. In reverse order: Originally Posted by jeremiahzellers
The classical player taught me how to read, and was also great about giving me a regimen, e.g., 10 minutes on tone exercises, 10 minutes of scales, 10 minutes of reading through a piece. I was amazed at how quickly I went from sounding like a jazzy improviser to sounding like a legit classical player.
The jazz player spent some time listening to me and identifying gaps. He filled the gaps with a combination of theory and exercises, and then cemented everything by contextualizing. We spent a big hunk of time playing together, so I could demonstrate the ability to apply what he taught me, and so he could listen for any hiccups. My homework was usually to learn a new tune and spend a ton of time improvising over it, focusing on what he'd most recently taught me.
TL;DR anything can become a habit if you work on it. I became glued to a metronome for a very long time, despite having a good sense of timing. I also forced myself to read lots of things that I could typically pick out by ear, and that opened up a large amount of vocabulary, harmony, etc., that previously seemed like voodoo. If I were you, I'd try to identify one or two specific goals and then work on them. Record yourself soloing over a tune, listen carefully, and pick something to work on, e.g., phrasing, vocabulary, etc.
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“became glued to a metronome for a very long time, despite having a good sense of timing”
yes, this is definitely something I’ve been contemplating getting. I have played classical trumpet since way back in ancient times, and have a great sense of timing for that, but so far jazz has been a whole other beast…
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Could you post some of your playing over a form we can share come commonality with (Standard or something with a harmonic structure that will let us see how you play melody or your abilities?).
There's a lot that goes into playing, and structuring music in a jazz idiom that's a LOT more than trying to fit in some impression of licks onto a space of a solo.
Playing convincing jazz does take awareness of changes, tonal areas, resolutions of phrases, rhythmic awareness and ordering, a melodic sense that is more subtle and imaginative than rock requires. In short, you can get away with being able to play rock with a leaner skill set. It's not as easy to pull that off without an awareness of how it's done in jazz; you need to assimilate a way of playing and hearing. This takes time.
I can go on, but it'd be a lot more effective if we could hear what you're actually doing, and not just hearing about your disappointment with yourself.
It might be something essential that you're not aware of. It might be something you just haven't put the time into yet. It might be that your concept of what you're doing is strictly lick based rather than harmonic phrase based... who knows?
Let's hear what you've got and let's all have a constructive discussion.
That's the way jazz has worked since the earliest big bands. That's why we're here.
Looking forward to it.
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Ok, that's good, on the right track. Now, next, is it a head or hands problem? Can you sing jazz lines in your head and then they just don't translate to your fingers, or can you not yet hear jazz lines away from the instrument? Originally Posted by jeremiahzellers
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“is it a head or hands problem”
that’s interesting. I’ve never thought about it in those terms before.
I can hum lines that I like over tunes, so I guess it’s just retraining my muscle memory in my fingers.
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Ok, how much transcribing/lifting of licks off records have you done?
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I’ve done precisely zero transcriptions. Will start there with some of my favorite tunes in order to visualize them on the fretboard.
N a side note, does anyone know a good resource for jazz guitar versions of some classic tunes (les brown/lucy and Polk, Freddie Slack, etc..)?
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Perhaps stop thinking of the downbeat and concentrate on the upbeat.
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There you go. Start stealing as much as you can right now. Originally Posted by jeremiahzellers
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If you're asking "How can I undo 30 years of sounding like Eric Clapton so I can sound like Charlie Parker?", then I've been down that road and the bad news is it ain't easy. Thinking entirely differently goes without saying, and you realise how lazy your mind is when noodling away in a single key for a whole tune. Training yourself to actually meet temporary key shifts every bar or 2 should give you literal headaches for years, all the while you'd be wanting to develop your bop vocabulary (cliches, lines, devices, enclosures, embellishments etc).
Hands wise, yeah, again, it's a vastly different animal. Even if you were very skilled at speed blues playing, those skills are, in my opinion, not only useless, but actually harmful in that they do indeed need to be UNLEARNED. Best way for me was to just go cold turkey and never play a rock/blues lick again, ever! Lose the bends, lose the heavy vibrato, lose the distortion etc etc... Get ready for the left hand to learn new fingering positions for various scales and arps, but more importantly, ways to finger standard bop vocab which will involve temporary stretches and/or shifts either side of any position you're in, or smooth ways of moving up or down to different positions to facilitate the line you're wishing to play (hopefully that you're hearing in your mind).
The real bitch, for most people, believe it or not is the right hand (for right handers). The demands on the right hand to play authentic sounding Bop lines are ridiculous. For someone not accustomed to playing even something as simple as going from a downstroke on a B string to an upstroke on a D string as part of a line of 16th notes, you find the need to completely re orient the way you hold the pick, the type of pick to use, as well as a whole new set of muscles, joints and tendons from finger tip to shoulder that you never knew you had.
The time it takes to undo the old habits, physical and mental? Well in my case I'll say 12 years. Under ideal conditions with the careful guidance of the right teacher getting you to do a minimum of 10 hours per week of Jazz training, I highly doubt you'd get there in less than 5 years. I naïvely thought it would take a year or 2!
Anyway, that's the devil's advocacy, the good news is that smaller victories can be had in a year or 2. I think that's where some of the kinder members of the Forum are coming from
. Learning basic comping for a handful of standards, some basic soloing skills employing chunks of transcribed lines and some embellished arps in a couple of positions etc. But you'd still be just a rock/blues player "faking" at Jazz. And hey, nothing wrong with that! 
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Lots of good advice here already.
Learning tunes is a good way to go. As has been said here often everything you need to know is in the tunes. So pick a tune, get the head and changes under the fingers and listen to 10 versions.
Once you learn a few, go to jam sessions, preferably those that might attract some serious jazz amateurs or which are open to but not limited to amateurs, and listen, play, and watch among others. Playing out can help to get the feel in a practical setting.
For bad habits, examine before abandoning them; sometimes stylistic traits may emerge from one’s such habits. Not everyone needs to play in the same way.
But maybe start off by asking oneself what you want to do with this amazing thing called jazz? Be a pro? Have others pay you to play with or teach them? Play with others? If so, who? Just have some fun? Be part of a social scene based around jazz? Perfect skills and feel the joy of copping iconic lines? Record at home? Join a band? Gig? Etc. Only you know the answers to such questions, and clarifying them can inspire what to do next; you don’t have to do everything all at once.
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Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think the brain works like that. What you are seeking is to be born again. I doubt that will happen. Perhaps you should accept you have a musical history that some in this forum would denounce as sinful, but is part of your making as a guitarist. Originally Posted by jeremiahzellers
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Yeah there are some technical things that will help. Lightly accenting the upbeats and/or slurring into downbeats. Originally Posted by A. Kingstone
It’s not a substitute for listening. The big thing is what Mr B has been saying here … listening and starting to transcribe … but bringing that upbeat emphasis into practicing when you’re working on scales and technical things can sort of prepare your hands to execute what you’re hearing.
Another is playing along with recordings and not backing tracks. Take some basic chord things and just chunk along with a Charlie Parker blues, then a Hank Mobley blues, then a Blakey blues. Whatever. Just be part of the rhythm section. When I was learning guitar and was super into Jimmy Page and BB King, there weren’t backing tracks for that kind of thing so I was just noodling along with BB or whatever and I think that was hugely helpful.
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Post a quick video of where you're at right now and maybe some references of where you want to go and we'll see about digging up some advice, not that I know anything. Originally Posted by jeremiahzellers
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Should probably learn a tune before he starts transcribing a solo, right? Am I doing this the right way?
Head, Chords, solo?
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It's way to late to trial and error or casually change habits. The only way is to put organized time into becoming aware, technically aware of jazz musical understandings.
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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. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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jeremiahzellers -
Ultimately you'll play what you want to play. If you want to sound like jazz you will. Obviously you can't just launch into a tune as you would with the stuff you're used to, you have to stop and think about it, do it carefully.
Gradually the new will take over from the old. You are, in effect, rewiring your brain. It can't be rushed so be patient.
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