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So What is a good tune for working out ideas, but I think you need something with more functionally oriented changes. You need to learn how to navigate a set of changes in a way that outlines the chords before you start mucking around with modal stuff.
Originally Posted by Roscoe T. Claude
This is very important. Rock players tend to use one scale to play over a tune or a section of a tune. That's not too different from what you'd do on a tune like So What, so it wouldn't really be a new skill for you (which is why you say you "do well" with it.) A tune with functional changes, like, say, Blue Bossa or All the Things You Are will teach you how to orient your playing to the chord rather than to the general key of the tune or the section, and to learn to make resolutions which are the heart of playing jazz.
Once you've got this stuff under your belt, you'll be better able to understand what guys like Coltrane are doing when they superimpose changes over modal stuff.
What I'm saying (in all my posts, not just here), is that learning to play jazz is fundamentally different from learning to play rock. The techniques you've gained for learning rock will not serve you the way you think they will. I wasted a LONG TIME trying to learn jazz the rock way.Last edited by Boston Joe; 04-18-2016 at 10:09 AM.
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04-18-2016 10:05 AM
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They absolutely cannot be separated in jazz. Jazz is different.
Even jazz guys who play instruments that can't play chords can spell chords.
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I'm wondering what you mean by "finishing" a tune? If you mean getting it to the point where you have the changes memorized, and can play it in all keys, and improvise over it, I would agree that that's a point where you can start thinking about something else, but I'm wary of the word "finished". In my experience, tunes are never finished. You can always find more possibilities in them. Even something dead simple like Autumn Leaves. Originally Posted by Roscoe T. Claude
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You're never finished with a tune in jazz, really.
Ain't that beautiful?
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pkirk: To quote an Alice in Chains song, "As of now I, think you've got me wrong..." It's not a big rock player ego, or whatever you want to call it, that keeps my posts being what they are...it is an obsessive nature that can be used for good or ill. I recognize the accomplished members of this forum: I'm 33 years old and I have a pretty keen sense and radar even though I am admittedly disorganized and impatient...I have my strengths and weaknesses, like everyone else. I have said before that i am not able to post a clip and I meant what I said. I sincerely thank the experienced members of this forum for their advice, I am not in denial, I realize I know very little about jazz but I love the music, esp. the horn players. Not interested in scales unless they profit me: the only reason I started in on the scale thing is I didn't know jazz from rock, and most of what I got out of rock came from scales. In theory I know arpeggios: I can tell you the notes I can make the shapes---am I proficient with them in a jazz context? No. Sorry about talking about myself so much, must be that big rock star ego---my short term goal is to start learning by listening to the masters and I think the veterans in this forum would concur that that is a valid goal. I've been told to work on Autumn Leaves for 3-6 months: that would not have occurred to me had it not been pointed out, but I'm going to do the best I can to make it happen.
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Never finished? That's fine with me---I've found that life can be full of open ended questions, why not a bottomless jazz tune? Seriously I love the idea and I never thought of playing it in different keys...such a simple idea, right? Maybe I'm not as keen as I thought I was...I remember someone asked me if I had five, or fifty tunes memorized before I started on Holdsworth's music? I've got all of Holdsworth's books and was going to learn his songs by reading the tab, but mr.beaumont says it doesn't really exist or is crap, and at this point in my experience I'm inclined to agree...I mean, I was printing out Ozzy and Pantera tabs in high school and that was nearly 20 years ago! Time to move on? I think so.
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Memorized is not "done," it's "memorized."
And yeah, get the basics before tackling Holdsworth.
As for tabs, I mean they don't exist, for the most part, for standards and such.
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I'll take you at face value then, and give you my views on what you should do if you want to learn to play jazz. Originally Posted by Roscoe T. Claude
First, get a hold of the following recordings and listen to them non-stop for a month, several hours a day, and listen to
each individual instrument, focusing on drums on one listen, piano the next, etc. This is a thousand times more important than the time you spend on your instrument.
Charlie Parker on Dial
Louis armstrong: best of hot five/seven
Wes Montgomery Smoking at the half note
Coltrane A love supreme
Art Blakey-A night at birdland
Sonny Rollins-Freedom suite
Ornette The shape of jazz to come
Miles Kind of blue
Next, forget about Autumn leaves for now. It is the default tune suggested to beginners, but unfortunately it has the defect that it can be played without paying any attention to changes: hence can be played with all the "right notes" and still sound like crap. I'd recommend instead tunes with less subtle changes: Out of nowhere, I remember you. Oleo. I'd add a Bb blues (jazz changes) and practice jazz blues cliches (not rock blues).
So what, like autumn leaves, is similarly not good to start with. the main reason to learn them is so you can participate in a jam session (a very valuable thing to do), but they don't teach you much about playing jazz.
Finally, the elephant in the room that's being ignored is that Jazz is about rhythm nearly more than about melody and harmony. Maybe that is an exaggeration, but the most correct melodic/harmonic material will have zero jazz content if not played with the correct feel. Nothing worse than listening to a rock or classical musician play jazz without the correct groove. That's why Id recommend memorizing solos and playing along with the original. It may take you six months to memorize and play along with one chorus of a medium tempo Grant green solo, but you'll make more progress that way that in a year of working out what scales and arpeggios work over autumn leaves.
My 2cents.
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Good advice above.
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pkirk: I've been wrong before, but this time I believe I'm right--I will follow your advice because I believe you and mr.beaumont know what you're talking about. You've been critical of me from the start, but I still believe you're a gentleman who carries himself with confidence and is an experienced jazz musician. I don't want to be just a 'jazz guitarist,' I want to be a jazz musician who adds something to the genre, like some of the horn and piano players do. The fact is I've been dealt some hard hands and have several disabling conditions--the upside is I have all my upper body faculties, my head injury has healed almost completely, and I have plenty of time to devote to jazz. I've been experimenting with jazz chords and progressions and I note that some II-V-I's sound good and some progressions of different intervals sound good and if i had to name an unwritten law of music is that if it sounds good it's good, and I think that may be more true in jazz than anywhere due to the experimental nature of the rhythm and improv Speaking of rhythm, I need to try to get it and try again---melodic creativity is a strength, rhythm is a weakness, but someone told me that in jazz if you nail the rhythm you can get away with almost anything melodically...I don't think that has to be the Literal truth but I certainly get the point. I'll be honest, I'm too itchy to keep my hands off my guitar too long but I can surely listen to a tune a couple of times before I start picking away at it---I go for the melody first, then the rest follows after that, but don't worry, it will take me more than three times to get it: I will get plenty of practice with what you've listed on the thread...thank you for taking the time to help me, I hope that I too can offer help one day.
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Good luck. I'll comment on one thing you said:
To *add* to to the genre, you first have to have it under control. 99.99% of people who start out with the goal of adding to jazz fail, typically because they don't do their homework, but also because they miscalculate how compelling their personal voice is. Those who succeed typically have a solid control of the music and its history, in addition to some genius and deep work ethic. Even players like Ornette who seemed to come completely out of left field when they "emerged" in fact had a solid grasp of the style long before they blazed their own path. Originally Posted by Roscoe T. Claude
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pkirk: I'm in the bed with my computer and won't be getting up till later today, but I'm using a mnemonic technique to remember some of your recommendations like Parker, Davis, Green, etc. Just wanted you to know I'm being proactive and you're not wasting your time: 13 years ago I was able bodied and at guitar school in Atlanta. We started with the blues and I started shredding the blues and they said 'no that's not right,' and I tried to "get it" I went and saw some jazz played at a club, think bebop not fusion then I had to leave school but I believe I will stick with jazz because I love the music and it feels like I've got unfinished business...
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pkirk: Learn the changes so you can forget the changes, right? I know I have a great amount of work to do but I'll never get it done if I don't do it mindfully, one step at a time. I wish I could tell you I'm going to be the jazz musician I want to be but the odds are against me and I could die tomorrow---Nothing's free, nothing's guaranteed, and if it looks to good to be true what do you know about it? I can say this however, that starting now I will do whatever is necessary to become a jazz musician, and that means grabbing the reins and controlling my Obsessive Mind so that it works for and not against me. Impossible? Almost, not quite...many a mile before I sleep.
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04-18-2016, 12:19 PM #89dortmundjazzguitar Guesti don't get it. you waste all that money on books but you can't buy a 20$ webcam? Originally Posted by Roscoe T. Claude
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I talk a good game I know---thank you for the excellent
advice, I'm heading to the woodshed with my garrulous
Gretsch!
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No web cam right now, waste not want not, gotta go---
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Roscoe, you remind me a lot of a bass player I used to jam with. He was a terrific player, but he was so keen to make some kind of big artistic statement that he was paralyzed when it came to actually playing a song.
I love your enthusiasm, but dude - you've got to take it down a notch, and settle in for a long, hard march to jazz proficiency.
I'm going to suggest something radical for you: Stop playing scales. Stop practicing scales. When you're working on tunes, don't play any scalar lines. Completely eliminate that orientation from your world view.
Why? Because first of all, 75% of the time, you don't need anything other than major scale harmony, and you've got that already. Secondly, because of your metal orientation, working on scales is dragging you away from hearing the jazz in jazz, if that makes any sense. Any time you think about a scale, you're relating it to your metal experience, and that's going to drag your ear away from jazz.
For right now, practice tunes, chords, and soloing with CHORD TONES ONLY.
Restrict yourself. Make puzzles out of your practice.
No scales.
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Doesn't have to be a video, does it? Record mp3 track and post on whatever audio file host websites, and there you go. Everyone can do this nowdays.
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I'm not everybody, no web cam or mp3, please don't discriminate I would do it if I could.
Boston Joe, you get a cup of Joe for your diagnosis: paralysis by analysis. Sometimes I just lay in the bed eyes wide open staring into the abyss, then I wallow in guilt and drink something, during this time no playing is done and no progress is made but eventually I snap out of it and when I'm on I'm on. I loved the Pearl Jam show but overall I like rock and metal less and less as they feel more and more like distractions. A few mins. ago I was working on Coltrane's A Love Supreme and I felt around for position and key notes first then I tried to work out phrases. I had some success but it is currently not possible to not see the scale that the interval of notes belongs to. I think it will be possible with time and effort. I'm going to try to work on two tunes so I don't get bogged down and spin my wheels in just one. I think I will have a better perspective working on Love Supreme for Instance, then learn/practice chords and progressions, then work on Kind of Blue. I'll check in after while to see if anyone's commented on this...
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Do. Not. Work. On. COLTRANE. Tunes. Originally Posted by Roscoe T. Claude
You are not ready.
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Yeah. Sure. Originally Posted by Roscoe T. Claude
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https://sourceforge.net/projects/audacity/ Originally Posted by Roscoe T. Claude
It's free.
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Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
You don't even need a cam, just record with a mic in your computer and post on Soundcloud.
I'd think you'd like to show us how all those scales are used over any jazz tune.
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I-got-you-Boston-Joe- What about Miles D. and I bet Charlie P. is out too.
Going to work on Miles D., know I can, will just listen to Charlie P.......
Tried my hand at Charlie P. before: kinda hit or miss...no Coltrane, I got you.
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I know all the scales don't work over any jazz tune and I'm not going
to record myself playing to suit your fancy and I don't appreciate you
taking me for a fool. I don't want to hear anymore about a cam or
a recording I'm not doing it I don't feel led to. I think I'm doing the
right thing right now. Thank you very much if you understand what
I wrote.
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