Guitar Practice = Play Tunes

[mr. beaumont]

I hear you...and I do think the advice to "practice tunes," assumes that other stuff is not an issue, or you know well enough that if it is, you need to get it in order however works best.

[coolvinny]

I think it's a matter of perspective based on one's current playing level. Practicing arps by running through a tune's changes might be "too hard to be good practice" for a beginner, just right for an intermediate, just right if at a bright tempo for a more advanced intermediate especially if they are mixing up the arp pattern, and probably "not hard enough to be good practice" for a pro unless maybe they're working on subtle aspects of phrasing. But really, anything can be practice if you make it hard enough. Example: put the metronome at 50 with the click being beat 2 and play any head you think you know well...and then just comp the changes. (For more advanced players, I guess put it at 60 or 80?)

Internalizing changes to a tune is very important though, and so anything that takes you through the changes is at least somewhat beneficial IMHO, and more so for beginners who are still working on feeling their way through the song form.

[Jonzo]

Generally, I can't run through arpeggios over an entire tune, so I break the tune down into arpeggio pairs and drill them. When I have all of the pairs down, I drill lines. And so on.

Same with chords.

You can break any tune down into discreet skills.

[cosmic gumbo]

I am amazed by the number of guys I run into who can only noodle around on the guitar because they haven't mastered any tunes.

[pushkar000]

Yeah always practice on tunes but make sure to practice tunes separately as well. Practicing XY and Z over tunes is like killing two birds with one stone. Except the second bird managed to survive so you have to kill it again. A rather strange metaphor but it applies. Tunes should be practiced separately(and listened to all the time!) as well as things should be practiced on tunes.

[MarkRhodes]

I am amazed by the number of guys I run into who can only noodle around on the guitar because they haven't mastered any tunes.

And I thought I was the last guy out of that rathole.... It is disturbingly common.

[Reg]

Whatever works... but it's pretty easy to check if what your doing works, right. Can you play any jazz tune, without having it memorized. I mean if you have a practice routine together... and have worked in that style for some time, Can you play, again not play some memorized tunes etc...I mean play in jazz styles.

Pick some tunes, not the basic standards, tunes that have something going on, anyway can you perform the tunes in a few different styles, different meters, different feels. How about different harmonic styles, your arpeggio applications could reflect the different harmonic references.

So can you cover... do you even have a check system to see if your improving.

Again whatever works is cool, but it's easy to check what your doing. Personally... how can you master technique when practicing small aspects and then hope that the practice will work in other situations without organization. If your working on arpeggios, the technical aspects of arpeggios are very different from applying them to tunes. Long story short... technical practice is just that, performance is different.

But maybe you have different goals... so does what your doing work for those goals. At least check it out.

[sgcim]

Bucky Pizzarelli firmly believes in just practicing tunes- no scales, no arps- nothing except tunes.
And he says that you have to know the original changes that the songwriter used, not the hip subs.
On his first lesson, one of his students played him a hip arrangement of a tune he'd worked out.
Bucky stopped him, and asked him to play the original changes- he couldn't.

I saw Bucky play a duo with another guitarist, and on his single string solos, he sounded like he followed his belief.

[christianm77]

Interesting debate.

I think melody is under appreciated. A lot of guys sound like they are playing scales and arpeggios over changes. And then you hear people who sound like they are playing music.

Learning a ton of standards by ear will teach you a lot about melody even you forget half of them. Learning bebop heads will teach you bebop language, as will 'transcribing' (i.e. learning by ear, not writing down) solos on tunes. I always like guys who can drop quotes in effortlessly - I tend to think that kind of ability comes from just learning melodies.

There are so many cats who know say, cluster voicings in the Harmonic Major who don't know the changes to All of Me, yet alone transpose to all 12 keys. I mean, sure, you might have your own tunes, but I think learning the skills to do that teaches you something beyond just being able to play with singers - functional harmony. If you can play the melody in any key in a designated position, or on a couple of strings, you are getting there in terms of making the ear instrument link. Hmm... must try that :-)

(Needless to say, these skills are things I aspire to... moreso than knowing loads of voicings, say.)

So yeah, I think you can get what you need from tunes. If you really feel the need to work on scales/modes/voicings etc you can do so within the context of whatever tune it is you are working on.

From my own perspective, I could practice purely what I need to learn for gigs and not have time to do anything else. I'm starting to wonder if there's any point practicing anything else....

[gnatola]

I am amazed by the number of guys I run into who can only noodle around on the guitar because they haven't mastered any tunes.

I'm one of those guys. I know bits and pieces of tunes. But, I noodle too much. Advice, please.

[docbop]

Bucky Pizzarelli firmly believes in just practicing tunes- no scales, no arps- nothing except tunes.
And he says that you have to know the original changes that the songwriter used, not the hip subs.
On his first lesson, one of his students played him a hip arrangement of a tune he'd worked out.
Bucky stopped him, and asked him to play the original changes- he couldn't.

I saw Bucky play a duo with another guitarist, and on his single string solos, he sounded like he followed his belief.

Depends on what you call the original changes. To many today that's fake book changes, but to a Bucky it's probably the original changes to the musical or pop radio of the song's day were. Then from my reading of biographies of Jazz legends they mentioned how you better have good ears because different bands played different changes to same song. Jazz guys will say songs are all chord cycles and learning a tune is about learning which cycles a song uses.

Comes back to know the melody and have good ears. Study enough melodies you start seeing common chords used on melody notes, so you have a starting point for guessing the changes. Theory came from people studying songs and seeing common things done.

Most things in life we do we learn by doing it. Going back to my computer days and doing programming support and later working in development. It was easy to spot the guys fresh out of college, full of all sorts of theory could tell you the theoretical way to do anything, but wrote the buggiest code. They had no practical experience to know that things in the real world don't work like theory explains. How an actual computer, with some operating system works is different. Same with music there is theory, but get on a band stand playing with a bunch of musicians and things are different. You learn by doing and to learn music you need to play music. In classical they play recitals in rock and Jazz you go to jams and get a fake ID and play clubs. Even in music school, I was listening to an interview the other day and made me think about my time working and going in music school. Most the guys who came out great musicians most were also guys who skipped classes to play with other good musicians or to go to open counseling and sit and play with a great teacher. Back to the point they are learning and playing tunes.

[christianm77]

I'm one of those guys. I know bits and pieces of tunes. But, I noodle too much. Advice, please.

Learn songs. In the jazz world, our common repertoire is standards, songs with lyrics that are sung by singers.

Try to learn the melodies by ear, by singing them along with the records (in the privacy of your own practice room) - a common approach is to learn songs from Ella or Frank.

Once you are confident you know how it goes, try and work out how to play it on the guitar - just the melody. Try a few different places on the neck, different positions and so on. Once you can do this, perhaps you can choose a different key. You'll find different vocalists will sing the same tunes in different keys anyway.

You don't need to do more than a bit of this everyday to improve. You might not be able to get through a whole song on the guitar, but if you learn the tune and words by ear, you can't go wrong. You will eventually get it out on the guitar.

Solos - learn to sing a solo (you can slow it down to learn it.) Just one chorus will do. Choose something not too hard! Lester Young is good. Focus on rhythms before pitches.

Chords - listen to the bass. See if you can pick out the changes from that at first. Hard at first, and you can use the changes in the book to check your work.

When learning changes, aim to learn them as degrees of the key - so don't learn just Bb G7 Cm F7, say, learn I VI7 IIm V7. Learn how to play these numbers in different keys.

A lot of this work can be done away from the guitar. If you are a noodler, put the guitar away, and do some of this stuff instead. Then pick up the guitar when you are ready to play something you hear.

It will get easier! Hope that's some help.

[sgcim]

Interesting debate.

I think melody is under appreciated. A lot of guys sound like they are playing scales and arpeggios over changes. And then you hear people who sound like they are playing music.

Learning a ton of standards by ear will teach you a lot about melody even you forget half of them. Learning bebop heads will teach you bebop language, as will 'transcribing' (i.e. learning by ear, not writing down) solos on tunes. I always like guys who can drop quotes in effortlessly - I tend to think that kind of ability comes from just learning melodies.

There are so many cats who know say, cluster voicings in the Harmonic Major who don't know the changes to All of Me, yet alone transpose to all 12 keys. I mean, sure, you might have your own tunes, but I think learning the skills to do that teaches you something beyond just being able to play with singers - functional harmony. If you can play the melody in any key in a designated position, or on a couple of strings, you are getting there in terms of making the ear instrument link. Hmm... must try that :-)

(Needless to say, these skills are things I aspire to... moreso than knowing loads of voicings, say.)

So yeah, I think you can get what you need from tunes. If you really feel the need to work on scales/modes/voicings etc you can do so within the context of whatever tune it is you are working on.

From my own perspective, I could practice purely what I need to learn for gigs and not have time to do anything else. I'm starting to wonder if there's any point practicing anything else....

Quoting can be done superficially, or it can be an intense musical experience.
I heard a performance by Jim Mullen once where he sounded like he was just trying to throw in as many quotes as possible, and IMHO it sounded forced and trite.
I know this is part of his style, and I'm not saying he always sounds trite, and his fans say that it's part of his style, sense of humor, etc..., but if you do it too much, it can sound trite.

OTOH, I heard a live performance by Phil Woods where he quoted a certain tune, but changed it in various ways and it sounded like the stand exploded!
Ed Bickert was another one whose use of quotes is done in a very profound way.

[sgcim]

Depends on what you call the original changes. To many today that's fake book changes, but to a Bucky it's probably the original changes to the musical or pop radio of the song's day were. Then from my reading of biographies of Jazz legends they mentioned how you better have good ears because different bands played different changes to same song. Jazz guys will say songs are all chord cycles and learning a tune is about learning which cycles a song uses.

Comes back to know the melody and have good ears. Study enough melodies you start seeing common chords used on melody notes, so you have a starting point for guessing the changes. Theory came from people studying songs and seeing common things done.

Most things in life we do we learn by doing it. Going back to my computer days and doing programming support and later working in development. It was easy to spot the guys fresh out of college, full of all sorts of theory could tell you the theoretical way to do anything, but wrote the buggiest code. They had no practical experience to know that things in the real world don't work like theory explains. How an actual computer, with some operating system works is different. Same with music there is theory, but get on a band stand playing with a bunch of musicians and things are different. You learn by doing and to learn music you need to play music. In classical they play recitals in rock and Jazz you go to jams and get a fake ID and play clubs. Even in music school, I was listening to an interview the other day and made me think about my time working and going in music school. Most the guys who came out great musicians most were also guys who skipped classes to play with other good musicians or to go to open counseling and sit and play with a great teacher. Back to the point they are learning and playing tunes.

Bucky is one of those cats who believes that you must perform a tune how the original composer/songwriter intended it to be performed.
After you know it exactly how the songwriter wrote it, then you can make little changes to it.
It comes down to two things:
1) BP's belief that songwriters such as Gershwin, Porter, Kern (who hated all jazz performances of his songs), Rodgers, etc... were great composers, and changing what they intended to be played would be like changing the melodies or harmonies of Bach, Beethoven or Mozart.
2) BP's belief that you have to play what people want to hear, and can recognize.

I'm not saying that I agree with BP's approach to jazz (if you read betwixt the lines, I'm not exactly complimentary on his single-line playing), just that he is in opposition to practicing scales and arps, and that he thinks it is more important to learn new tunes.

[Dexma]

My practicing is changing time to time.

Right now I have some Django tune what i practice. Have noticed that the best way to me to build lick vocabulary is to just play some guitarist songs over and over. It will come in to my brain after that. If I work just with one lick i get bored and usually then i dont keep it practicing over and over again. So example if I take Djangos note book and try to go through the songs i hope that i will get something in to my head.

Then I have lick and tempo, picking practises. Right now I practice flatpicking, because its a good way to keep memorizing fretboard and scales. Playing scales faster and faster is always cool to me.

Then theory practicing. New scales are not my thing right now, but different kind of chord changes and arpeggios on those are important. Also kind of "philosophy" under different licks and solos. How to construct a good solo etc.

Today my practice time was like
30 minutes of playing tune Limehous blues
30 minutes of flatpicking exercise with basic scales
Some new lick and creating my own style of them
then 10 minutes of playing limehouse blues again...

I should definetely play more with my ear practice and reading notes, which could help me to be more "musical" in some situations. But nowdays I play for fun, and I have real hard concentrate without guitar in my hand. So I just play.

[christianm77]

Quoting can be done superficially, or it can be an intense musical experience.
I heard a performance by Jim Mullen once where he sounded like he was just trying to throw in as many quotes as possible, and IMHO it sounded forced and trite.

Might have been a bad night. Artful quoting is an inherent part of Jim's line and often so seamlessly done that it just sounds like soloing if you aren't paying attention.... Actually it was Jim I was specifically thinking of when I mentioned quotes.

I think we can all agree what bad quoting is - when you have a short gap, and then, the quote is shoehorned in... Owww....

Quoting does seem to be out of fashion with the young'uns, possibly because we are used to soloing with our brains rather than our ears.

[christianm77]

My practicing is changing time to time.

Right now I have some Django tune what i practice. Have noticed that the best way to me to build lick vocabulary is to just play some guitarist songs over and over. It will come in to my brain after that. If I work just with one lick i get bored and usually then i dont keep it practicing over and over again. So example if I take Djangos note book and try to go through the songs i hope that i will get something in to my head.

Then I have lick and tempo, picking practises. Right now I practice flatpicking, because its a good way to keep memorizing fretboard and scales. Playing scales faster and faster is always cool to me.

Then theory practicing. New scales are not my thing right now, but different kind of chord changes and arpeggios on those are important. Also kind of "philosophy" under different licks and solos. How to construct a good solo etc.

Today my practice time was like
30 minutes of playing tune Limehous blues
30 minutes of flatpicking exercise with basic scales
Some new lick and creating my own style of them
then 10 minutes of playing limehouse blues again...

I should definetely play more with my ear practice and reading notes, which could help me to be more "musical" in some situations. But nowdays I play for fun, and I have real hard concentrate without guitar in my hand. So I just play.

Sure, but your point stands. Limehouse blues has enough to it that it can form the basis of your whole practice session, for example:

Sing the melody
Warm up playing scales and arpeggios through the progression
Spend a little time learning a Django solo on the tune
Practice transposing chord progression into all 12 keys
Play the melody in different positions, perhaps transpose if time
Play a bassline to the song
Compose a bebop head over the changes

I'm sure we could all think of a million other things to do with just one tune.... The trouble I have is prioritising. I can't do all of that stuff in fact, it's too much. Now there's a thread I need to start...

[christianm77]

Bucky is one of those cats who believes that you must perform a tune how the original composer/songwriter intended it to be performed.
After you know it exactly how the songwriter wrote it, then you can make little changes to it.
It comes down to two things:
1) BP's belief that songwriters such as Gershwin, Porter, Kern (who hated all jazz performances of his songs), Rodgers, etc... were great composers, and changing what they intended to be played would be like changing the melodies or harmonies of Bach, Beethoven or Mozart.
2) BP's belief that you have to play what people want to hear, and can recognize.

I'm not saying that I agree with BP's approach to jazz (if you read betwixt the lines, I'm not exactly complimentary on his single-line playing), just that he is in opposition to practicing scales and arps, and that he thinks it is more important to learn new tunes.

He's not wrong.

I wouldn't say he's necessarily right either.

Me, I tend to see value in the old songs, and I do think people like to hear them. In general I learn them by ear from a classic jazz vocal version (usually Ella or Nat Cole) and tend not worry too much about the original changes as specified by the composer. That said, I can see his point. If you wanted to do a jazz version of Bach, you would learn to play it straight first, surely.

In practice, I have to make music with the people around me. If you go to a jam session and demand that people play the 'correct' changes to Stella, they probably won't give you any gigs. On the other hand, if you do your research and politely suggest that people give the original changes a try (that you have written out), they would probably be up for it. I'm always up for learning stuff for gigs as well if someone gives me a heads up.

So yeah BP has a point, but there's nothing more annoying a changes lawyer.

[Jonzo]

I'm not saying that I agree with BP's approach to jazz (if you read betwixt the lines, I'm not exactly complimentary on his single-line playing), just that he is in opposition to practicing scales and arps, and that he thinks it is more important to learn new tunes.

But are there really any pros who have not mastered their scales and arpeggios?

[christianm77]

But are there really any pros who have not mastered their scales and arpeggios?

That's really hard to say. I've met a few really good players, who, like BP are 'anti scale' but I'm sure everyone learns a scale at some point... but maybe there are.

I think the word 'mastered' is a tricky one. To me, mastering scales and arpeggios means that you have a command of the basic materials - major and minor scales in every key, triad and seventh chord arpeggios through progressions.

However, many people go much further than this, so maybe the 'anti-scale' thing is a reaction to people learning 8 million exotic modes or triad pair licks and expecting the result to be jazz without ever learning the tradition, and how to swing.

As you may guess, I tend to come out on the 'anti-scale' side but when push comes to shove I can play you an altered scale, so I don't really know TBH. I also see value in learning new scales and modes if you can make compelling music out of them, on the other hand, I think I could go without playing any new harmony and become a more creative player by focussing on other elements.

[smokinguit]

You are not a pro if you cannot play/hear the basic diatonic scales (the dominant being the most important), melodic and harmonic minor, and the blues in ALL keys. Everything else is just a slight adjustment. To me what Bucky is saying is that when you are playing a tune always try to hint at the melody as much as possible. This is what all great improvisers do. You can tell what tune they are playing even without a rhythm section, provided you've listened to the tune a lot.

[sgcim]

As far as the scales and arps thing goes, I'm just talking about keeping your chops intact, not knowing your scales and arps, which BP obviously does. But when he tried to play single string solos in a guitar duo with Jack Wilkins live, he sounded much stronger on his great chord solos.
You don't have to practice scales and arps to keep your chops up; Tal Farlow never practiced scales and arps, but he practiced fast Red Norvo tunes to be able to handle the burning tempos the RN Trio played, but listen to what happened to him after the 50s...

[christianm77]

As far as the scales and arps thing goes, I'm just talking about keeping your chops intact, not knowing your scales and arps, which BP obviously does. But when he tried to play single string solos in a guitar duo with Jack Wilkins live, he sounded much stronger on his great chord solos.
You don't have to practice scales and arps to keep your chops up; Tal Farlow never practiced scales and arps, but he practiced fast Red Norvo tunes to be able to handle the burning tempos the RN Trio played, but listen to what happened to him after the 50s...

Well that was BP's thing really, so fair enough. It's better to have a specific thing then try to be all things to all men (that said if you know you've got a weak point, it's probably best to avoid it.)

I didn't know that about Tal. Yes he was super burning on those trio things.

In the end, you end up learning how to play the things you play all the time. Gigs are very important part of developing as a player, perhaps moreso than anything you do in the practice room. Most of what you do in the practice room is so that you can play gigs, right?

[sgcim]

Since I've been playing with a pianist who spent 50 years modeling himself after Bill Evans, even studying with Andy LaVerne, one of the few guys who did actually study with Bill Evans, I've been trying to work some stuff out more than I used to when I practice.
I used to just practice technique until i could burn at 336bpm on anything, and then just play stuff i've played for many years, but BE's grasp of form is something I need to work on.
The pianist wipes the floor with me every time we play together, and makes me realize i should have some stuff worked out like he does, so i can play through the entire form like he does.

I also like to use a completely spontaneous NON technical approach that goes over bar lines and stays melodic in a simple way because the pianist is constantly playing BE subs for every tune, and if i can't hear them and react to them, I'm screwed.

[christianm77]

Since I've been playing with a pianist who spent 50 years modeling himself after Bill Evans, even studying with Andy LaVerne, one of the few guys who did actually study with Bill Evans, I've been trying to work some stuff out more than I used to when I practice.
I used to just practice technique until i could burn at 336bpm on anything, and then just play stuff i've played for many years, but BE's grasp of form is something I need to work on.
The pianist wipes the floor with me every time we play together, and makes me realize i should have some stuff worked out like he does, so i can play through the entire form like he does.

I also like to use a completely spontaneous NON technical approach that goes over bar lines and stays melodic in a simple way because the pianist is constantly playing BE subs for every tune, and if i can't hear them and react to them, I'm screwed.

That's a good way of reacting to it. I would probably be annoyed that he wasn't making way for the way I normally do things, which is very inflexible.