Failure and weakness

[Christian Miller]

YESSSSSS

I have students starting playing quarters with an anticipated beat one at like … 250 bpm to see how they do.

Ive been working on Jim Halls Stompin at the Savoy and it’s an absolute masterclass. You’ll be just cooking along at 230-240 and then all of a sudden he fires off some monster eighth note line and you remember that he can? do it … he just chooses not to most of the time.

Yes

One thing that i think helps is master two rhythms - the push (anticipation) that you mentioned, and the 8th-quarter-8th. Then you can play mostly quarter notes (which of course I can’t do) and then sprinkle in some of that, and it swings.

The 8th note lines can be used judiciously then, so you keep your powder dry.


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[Christian Miller]

As someone with quite a lot of raw (if unpolished) speed, I spend most of my life trying to play fewer notes. And more in time notes. Listening to someone simply operate the guitar is pretty boring after a short while.

So I end up practicing the same stuff as people who have trouble with playing at faster speeds.

A constant bit of feedback over the years is i play too many notes.

But otoh, there is Instagram….

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[djg]

i think this wes inspired hidden gem is a masterclass in playing fast and taking your time with it

[Alter]

Who is the drummer in this clip above??

[djg]

jonathan blake

[pamosmusic]

jonathan blake

Unbelievable musician.. Absolutely one of the best living drummers and an incredibly nice dude.

When I worked at the Standard he was the guy with Maria Schneider, Lonnie Smith, Kenny Barron, and a few others. He worked there almost as much as I did.

By and large, the musicians were super nice with a couple exceptions who will go nameless. But there were a few who everyone who worked there absolutely adored. Johnathan was one. Rene Marie comes to mind as another.

Absolute monster.

[RJVB]

You don’t have to play fast to play quick tempos.

Indeed. The opposite is possible too (though will get as annoying as other fast-all-the-time kinds of anything really)

Being a late starter playing fast isn't exactly a forte of mine either.

Fast tempi isn't something exclusive to jazz guitarists, I noticed classical guitarists also tend to go for them when playing transcriptions. Good example: Llobet's transcription of El Canço del Lladre, a traditional Catalan song that is usually performed much slower than the guitar piece.

[CliffR]

Since I'm in job-hunting mode, my biggest weakness is probably forgetting to tone it down some so as not to make my teammates - sorry, bandmates - look too bad. Either that or sometimes I work just too damned hard.

But realistically, 40 years of professional programming experience and I still struggle with 'moderate' difficulty online coding tests.....

[RJVB]

But realistically, 40 years of professional programming experience and I still struggle with 'moderate' difficulty online coding tests.....

I can relate... "in our time they didn't have those", right?
(I'm tempted to observe that the worse thing here is having to job-hunt with 40 years experience... and that software dev. is probably one of the very few fields that can change so utterly in just a few years time that most of that long experience you have becomes largely irrelevant...)

[AllanAllen]

But realistically, 40 years of professional programming experience and I still struggle with 'moderate' difficulty online coding tests.....

This relates directly to jazz guitar. Can I run melodic minor across the neck in 5 positons, no. Can I play a solo using the major scale with a b3? All day long. That real application of existing knowledge would fail a test I'm sure.

[CliffR]

The tests are annoying and not relevant to solving real-world problems, for sure. But I guess there are so many applicants for what are high-paying positions they are a way of weeding some folks out. Sure, they might reject some candidates who might be great in practice, but what do they care if they have many other great passing candidates to choose from?

Yeah, being 58 and looking for a job sucks. The mind is slower and more blunt, and there's a real risk of age discrimination. I've kept mostly abreast of my specialism (efficient computation of light transport in CGI scenes) but less so with advances in programming languages. The C++ standard seems to update every 2-3 years, and I must be more than a decade behind at the moment. Then there's the modern emphasis on GPU and parallel programming, with which I was current or cutting edge 10 years ago, but not so much now. And I'm largely self taught, so don't have the computer science background that many of these tests are designed to evaluate.

Sorry to derail.... as you were.

[GuyBoden]

The tests are annoying and not relevant to solving real-world problems, for sure. But I guess there are so many applicants for what are high-paying positions they are a way of weeding some folks out. Sure, they might reject some candidates who might be great in practice, but what do they care if they have many other great passing candidates to choose from?

Yeah, being 58 and looking for a job sucks. The mind is slower and more blunt, and there's a real risk of age discrimination. I've kept mostly abreast of my specialism (efficient computation of light transport in CGI scenes) but less so with advances in programming languages. The C++ standard seems to update every 2-3 years, and I must be more than a decade behind at the moment. Then there's the modern emphasis on GPU and parallel programming, with which I was current or cutting edge 10 years ago, but not so much now. And I'm largely self taught, so don't have the computer science background that many of these tests are designed to evaluate.

Sorry to derail.... as you were.

As you know, we've been using C# for at least 20 years.

[CliffR]

As you know, we've been using C# for at least 20 years.

Surely that's still not a thing?

[Christian Miller]

i think this wes inspired hidden gem is a masterclass in playing fast and taking your time with it

Adam is so good at that. For all his chops, he knows how to hold back


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[Mick-7]

But the thing that really helped without even really working on up tempos was all the Grant Green I transcribed in the spring. Just copying a dude who leaves a lot of space was pretty big.

Are there Grant Green recordings in which he is improvising at a fast tempo? - I haven't heard any.

[pamosmusic]

Are there Grant Green recordings in which he is improvising at a fast tempo? - I haven't heard any.

Plenty. Just of the ones I transcribed, “What is This Thing” and “The Song Is You.” Each in the neighborhood of 250, so pretty fast. Not break-neck, but fast.

[Mick-7]

Plenty. Just of the ones I transcribed, “What is This Thing” and “The Song Is You.” Each in the neighborhood of 250, so pretty fast. Not break-neck, but fast.

Obviously I haven't listened to a lot of his work, are those two tracks on a particular album or what album(s) would you recommend?

[ccroft]

As someone with quite a lot of raw (if unpolished) speed, I spend most of my life trying to play fewer notes. And more in time notes. Listening to someone simply operate the guitar is pretty boring after a short while...

Operating the guitar. Well put! "Just another guitar operator, I'm sorry to say."

I'm a man of many weaknesses. My ability to operate the guitar isn't one of them.

[GuyBoden]

Surely that's still not a thing?

You need to brush up your Go-lang.

[djg]

Plenty. Just of the ones I transcribed, “What is This Thing” and “The Song Is You.” Each in the neighborhood of 250, so pretty fast. Not break-neck, but fast.

i think the fastest are:

i might have forgotten some obvious ones
edit: yeah, like mobleys workout

[JazzPadd]

Great topic, with a lot of places to pause for reflection. Much of what many of you’ve described applies to my limitations as well.

One weakness I’ve noticed is that my brain works faster than my hands. I can’t keep up with what I’m hearing, get ahead of myself, or behind, getting lost.

The conventional advice is to work on chops slowly with a metronome, so the hands can learn to keep up with the brain.

After reading David Sudnow’s “Ways of the Hand,” I realized that would never work for me, and what I had to do was slow down my brain—my imagination—to be in sync with my hands.

That led to a LOT more listening to what others are playing and less playing without listening.

One doesn’t always need to do everything that one cannot do. From where I’m sitting, without aspirations to be a professional musician, what matters is doing what one can do well and doing it well in the company of others.

[RJVB]

One doesn’t always need to do everything that one cannot do. From where I’m sitting, without aspirations to be a professional musician, what matters is doing what one can do well and doing it well in the company of others.

That goes maybe even more for professionals, I'd say.

[JazzPadd]

That goes maybe even more for professionals, I'd say.

I can only imagine.

[Christian Miller]

Great topic, with a lot of places to pause for reflection. Much of what many of you’ve described applies to my limitations as well.

One weakness I’ve noticed is that my brain works faster than my hands. I can’t keep up with what I’m hearing, get ahead of myself, or behind, getting lost.

The conventional advice is to work on chops slowly with a metronome, so the hands can learn to keep up with the brain.

After reading David Sudnow’s “Ways of the Hand,” I realized that would never work for me, and what I had to do was slow down my brain—my imagination—to be in sync with my hands.

That led to a LOT more listening to what others are playing and less playing without listening.

One doesn’t always need to do everything that one cannot do. From where I’m sitting, without aspirations to be a professional musician, what matters is doing what one can do well and doing it well in the company of others.

I like that!

I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on the professional/amateur distinction, btw.


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[GuyBoden]

On a practical point, my main weakness is an aversion to driving at night in the Winter cold and rain to gigs.