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That's amazing and somehow, strangely encouraging to hear. Neither of those guys ever seems to me to be unable to "execute."
Originally Posted by John A.
It's always nice when a broad generalization bites the dust in front of facts.
Thanks!
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01-24-2017 09:40 AM
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Horn players don't always play fast.
In this famous solo by Lester Young ("Fine and mellow" with Billie Holiday in the "Sounds of Jazz" TV show from 1958) there are not many notes played and they are not loud - it's so much about shading and flexing the notes and the rhythm. Lester only plays 12 bars of blues but manages to say it all anyway - and Holiday seems to think the same judging from her facial expression.
Last edited by oldane; 01-24-2017 at 10:16 AM.
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I do not think it's exactly like this. I just... I just think would have been extremly boring to adapt your ideas to what you can execute, to be hionest I think it's a dead end (even they said it personally, words do not mean much in this case, they are people too and possible not always formulate well (or just do not want to formulate) clearly these things)...Metheny and Hall would probably disagree with you about having complete freedom to play whatever they hear. They both have said that their styles (Metheny's e.g., Metheny's extensive use of slides, slurs, hammer-ons, etc.; Hall's emphasis on space and motion in 2-3 voices) grew out of their inability to play fast and clean, and pick every note. These guys hear tons of stuff that they can't play, and developed distinct voices and methods of adapting their ideas to what they can execute. Sco is another who often says stuff like this.
You know lately I began to think that technique is really connected with personality: I mean character, nature, personal psycology... the fact that we cannot play fast is not so much in out hands but mostly in our minds.
Joe Pass or Bird play that fast because it's where their nature leads them..
Often we try to play what we should not play...
it's very difficult to explain because we (including me) often do not see this line... often we just cannot understand our nature ourselves (again including me).. trying to borrow from outside...
It's normal way of learning and trying... but the real talent usually more or less feels what he wants from the very beginning (again not telling but just feeling)
You have to train your hands too of course but I am sure that there's no limit if what you intend to play is really something coming from you
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Lester Young was not an ordinary horn player. I find it difficult to listen to many sax players, because it seems they're just wanking, playing as many notes as they can. I can listen to Prez all day.
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[QUOTE=Jonah;734349] I just... I just think would have been extremely boring to adapt your ideas to what you can execute, to be honest I think it's a dead end (even they said it personally, words do not mean much in this case, they are people too and possible not always formulate well (or just do not want to formulate) clearly these things)...
I don't think it's a question of boring or not, which is, really, beside the point. If you can't execute something, you can't, and wishful thinking is not going to change that. There are passages that Johnny Smith plays that I don't think Wes M. could ever play. I think Wes M. took some stylistic peculiarities and created something different, and at times very beautiful, out of it. But when you listen to him, there's no doubt who's playing. It's like watching Rafael Nadal...on clay--unbeatable, on a grass ct. he can play well, but his style is not as well suited, frankly.
Why do we revere Charlie C.? It's because he was the first to show the way. But he was the first to exploit a new technology in a way that was widely known, and featured, and if he had never come along, almost assuredly someone else would have...and given the dearth of great guitar soloists, it was natural for him to turn to horn players...much easier than emulating piano players...I mean who else would you look to?
You know lately I began to think that technique is really connected with personality: I mean character, nature, personal psycology... the fact that we cannot play fast is not so much in out hands but mostly in our minds.
Joe Pass or Bird play that fast because it's where their nature leads them..
I don't know about "nature" either. In golf, there are instructors who tell you...your natural swing tempo is dictated by your personality, and that's how you should play. This is partly true, but misleading. If someone is wiry and a twitchy personality, they probably have a lot of fast-twitch muscle fibers...probably could be an outstanding concert pianist, for e.g. Given that makeup, they may end up swinging that way. But there could also be laconic low-key personalities who might be great sprinters, and intense, distance runners.
In music, by sustained effort and training, we can enhance our technical capability...By working on some purely technical stuff, there are bebop heads I can now play fairly convincingly, whereas before it sounded lame...moreover, if you can play some stuff fast, can execute...you can actually hear things more easily...But this is not "nature" but an acquired, "nurture" element.
I think in music if we train our CNS at certain tempos, we'll develop our minds, and bodies to be able to react and think and respond that way.
Someone mentioned horn players. Schuller in his Swing Era book talks about this. Louis A. played a high F, and then Eldridge came along and topped him, with high G, and then started playing wide-ranging runs, and then Diz came along and outdid Roy E, to the point where Eldridge quit playing for a while. Then Dizzy started 16th note runs at tempos that had never been played before. Probably Clifford B. could play anything Dizzy played, and with better tone to boot, IMO.
This is why I think it's important to push technical boundaries...you may surprise yourself....and you may actually hear things in a different way. So, I think, Jonah, perhaps we are in agreement, and I think this is what you mean.
It's like Tal, the chess player, maybe the greatest attacking player of all time, who literally struck fear into his opponents. When asked how to pick a move, he half-facetiously said "I look to see if a Queen sacrifice is possible..." Now 98 times out of 100, the Queen sacrifice loses instantly...but sometimes it won't....and in looking at it, one sees "Aha, if only I controlled that square, or could get rid of that defender, etc., etc." so by "cultivating the outrageous", we end up with something that is strong (or musically special).Last edited by goldenwave77; 01-24-2017 at 02:03 PM.
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Speed is learnable. Personality isn't.
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+1. Originally Posted by sgosnell
According to a Coltrane biography, this is a true story:
Miles: "How come your solos are so long?"
Coltrane: "When I get started, I find it hard to stop."
Miles: "Have you tried taking the horn out of your mouth?"Last edited by oldane; 01-24-2017 at 12:36 PM.
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Yeah, and this is another subtle Miles D. putdown. He's got a habit of doing this. He also runs down Bill Evans, Lucky Thompson, Jackie McClean, Kenny Dorham, and a lot of others....even Charlie Parker. He doesn't dare do it to do Dizzy, because he can't go there: In a trumpet gunfight, he's gonna be lying on the ground. And Dizzy is an equally great ballad player, when he wants to be.
He went through more sidemen than anyone else I know....the list is really, really long.
On the other hand, when he wrote his book, he practically is down on his knees crying out "Prince, Prince....come ...collaborate with me...you are so great, and I (who used to be great) can become great again---with you..." To me, it's fairly obvious, what he was trying to bring about, and it went unanswered.
Miles D. knew, at least from the early 50's on, how to pitch himself, and to present himself in a favorable light, and he does this in a million ways.
It is misleading to take anything he says at face value.Last edited by goldenwave77; 01-24-2017 at 01:46 PM.
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Thing is who can play with what is a very limited way of looking at music. Nadal is nothing if not a winner. Music does not work that way.
I revere Charlie christian because he sounds awesome and I love his feel
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Would you rather play like Dizzy or Miles ?
(answer , either would do me !)
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I do too, but part of this is the fact that he is plowing on virgin ground, guitar-wise. The electric guitar is just a different beast...more sustain...different tone...etc. He was the first to do this, but someone would have, is my argument. We mistake a fortuitous technological change, and a consequent breakthrough in technique, for something otherworldly when it is not. Originally Posted by christianm77
Most people think the baseball got juiced up after 1919 (the Black Sox Scandal), when the World Series was fixed by gamblers. National scandal....Babe Ruth comes along, starts playing full time and starts hitting more home runs than entire other teams !!! This guy must be Superman. Ah no...he was just the first to swing for the fences all the time, and was really good at doing it, but within 10-15 years, other players were coming close to doing what he did over the course of a season--hitting 40, or 50 or 60 home runs.
Same thing with Wayne Gretzky in hockey...he destroys scoring records with productivity that is off the charts. Other players have now matched him.Last edited by goldenwave77; 01-24-2017 at 03:16 PM.
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I think that some of it is your nervous system. Not everybody can play at light speed.
But, otoh, some of it is personality and desire.
I'm often frustrated that I can't burn through bop solos like some of the horn players I jam with. But, the fact is, I can play the head to Donna Lee because I decided it was important and I worked on it. I experimented with different fingerings until I found one I could execute at speed.
But, I don't like practicing licks very much -- and since I don't practice stuff like that, I struggle when the tempo is faster than I can mentally create melody and physically get the notes out.
I end up like Rosanne Barr's line about weight -- "I'd do anything to lose weight, except diet or exercise".
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[QUOTE=rpjazzguitar;734486]I think that some of it is your nervous system. Not everybody can play at light speed...
But, I don't like practicing licks very much -- and since I don't practice stuff like that, I struggle when the tempo is faster than I can mentally create melody and physically get the notes out.
QUOTE]
This is what I was saying before...it's a bit chicken and the egg. If one has the technique to play faster, you'll start to hear faster, but if you don't, then you are asking your mind to do something (create an improvised line) that it has no preparation for.
So let me ask....after you figured out how to finger Donna Lee, at tempo, did you find yourself able to improvise faster lines at a similar tempo?
Hal Galper talks about bringing back a stack of Art Tatum records from a trip overseas, and then sitting down to listen to them for about 12 hrs., and then getting up to play....and finding he could rip off lines faster (and better)than he was able to do before.
I notice a similar kind of thing when I listen to the Hank Garland double-CD I have. Maybe even listening to enough stuff, is enough to get started.
Jimmy Raney talks about a similar thing in that Masterclass clip at Louisville Univ., where he said, just listen to Bird, and let your fingers go, almost unconsciously....if you have some facility on the instrument, you may surprise yourself with what you can come up with....intuitively (?!)
What about the people doing the Jimmy Raney study group? Are you noticing good things creeping into your playing from working through lines at a tempo, which was challenging initially, but which you now have under your fingers (ie. in your CNS)?!Last edited by goldenwave77; 01-24-2017 at 03:27 PM.
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Why compare? Miles is great in a totally different way to dizzy... Originally Posted by goldenwave77
I find sports analogies a bit suspect, tbh. Sports is quantifiable to some degree, music imo is not.Last edited by christianm77; 01-24-2017 at 03:33 PM.
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Well I guess the question is, was Charlie Christian really so unique and different, or was he in the right place at the right time?
I think the latter.
Nothing turns on it, but the discussion started out with technique, and I guess I'm maintaining that Charlie Christian was kind of the Bing Crosby of guitar.
Plenty of people later did what Crosby did, and his voice is good, though many others are just as good. His phrasing is good, but others are better (Sinatra, Torme) but both he and Christian are the beneficiaries of an equipment breakthrough (the microphone and the guitar pu) that allowed BIG changes in technique (crooning and single, line horn-like playing).
Maybe Christian would have gone on to do greater things. His work is important obviously, but I don't think it represents the last word in jazz guitar playing.
A bit of perspective.
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I'm in that group and getting to the end of my 4th Jimmy Raney solo. I started out challenged even to play at 130 bpm but now I'm working on a solo JR plays at 232 and I'm up, so far, to 200. Of course, a memorized solo can be played fast because I'm not thinking "what do I play next." Originally Posted by goldenwave77
But actually, that's been good. I don't think about what to play next because I've internalized the solo and I can focus on playing it well, articulating, etc.
I don't know if specific chunks of JR's musical vocabulary have shown up in my other playing yet, but a lot of feeling things, rhythmic figures, are, I think beginning to soak into my playing.
Learning these Raney solos has been the greatest learning experience of my life in music. My amp thinks I have sold it to a real bebop player...
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So this looks like a really long thread already with a lot of view points... just wanted to throw my hat in and say that in general I disagree with the premise that playing fast on guitar is necessary for ANY reason. Whether it's due to a lack of this or that, or because so and so does it, etc. Ultimately, the only thing that's necessary for any instrument is to find the sounds and aesthetic preferences available for the person playing music with that instrument. Everything else is peripheral and white noise to that fundamental, artistic truth. Originally Posted by Jonah
Also... big ole +1 to Jonah's point here. About 10 years ago, in an effort to make lines with better phrasing, I started singing along with my lines while practicing. The point being to learn what it feels like to run out of air. When I ran out of air, I forced myself to stop, inhale, and then move to the next phrase. This eventually and slowly led to a more "horn-like" approach to phrasing. But this stuff never REALLY hit until my masters program. Partially because I was surrounded by horn players and playing with them a bunch, but also because I was just in a mental state to learn this important lesson... a place that I was not yet in during my undergrad years. Playing in big bands, nonets, and smaller ensembles that had great piano players and essentially put me in the roll of being in the horn section often (but not always), I realized that phrasing and silence was just as important as the notes I was playing were. If I read all the notes correctly but didn't cut off at the right moment, or didn't follow the dynamics of the horn section, it still sounded wrong. I noticed that the horn players would have little pow-wows to discuss when to swell, how fast or how slow, and when to cut the notes off. And they would get super specific about it. Seeing that, and being a part of those sections really opened me up to how important that stuff is. I started noticing when musicians were and weren't listening to clearly.
It becomes so obvious when there's two people playing a melody together whether they're listening to each other or not. And it's so important. It literally is, to me, what makes a great horn section sound great. And it's such an important thing to work on for us as guitar players... specifically because we almost never talk about it. So often I hear guitar players who either play everything super staccato where every note gets cut off immediately, or I hear players who end their phrase on a note, let it ring out, and then slur right into the next phrase. I guess I'm just a creature who likes variety. I like to hear someone play who can control these issues masterfully and who can mix and match things in different ways. It's essential when working with a full section... but it's equally as important when playing solo or in a trio, etc. To me, this ability and quality in a guitar player is MUCH more captivating and enticing to hear in a guitar player than the speed with which they execute the notes. I want to hear a musical statement. Speed is secondary to that. For me. And often times it seems we use speed as a crutch to excuse us from having to work on the nitty gritty elements and fundamentals that actually help build the foundation of musical statements.
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Charlie Christian is certainly not the last word, but he's a big one. I think it's more than just being in the right place at the right time. All these decades later, I'd still rather listen to him than to the vast majority of guitar players. There are few that even come close. There are certainly great contemporary players, but few can keep my interest like CC. I can listen to him any time, and not grow tired of hearing him. I cannot say the same about more than maybe 5 or so others, in the entire history of guitar. But I realize others have different tastes, so listen to whomever you prefer.
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To answer the question ...
Being able to play Donna Lee did not help me, as far as I can tell, play other things at bop tempo.
I can burn ("burn" by my modest standards) through scales and other written-out material too.
When I improvise, the melodies in my head are never that fast, except for the occasional passage. So, when I'm the leader calling the tunes, I avoid bop type material.
As an aside, there's a video in another thread that I found instantly helpful. Addressing players like me, who can't burn eighths at bop tempo, it suggested, instead, focusing on a rhythmic motif and recycling it through the changes. Doggone good idea. Gives the audience something to think about besides, "this poor guy can't play at this tempo". Seriously though, it gave me another approach (I'd been fumbling with eighths).
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Charlie christian was in the right place at the right time no doubt about it. John Hammond engineered it, just as he did for Basie, Benny, Billie, Dylan, Aretha and the Boss.
That's what a good a&r man does, but it doesn't alter the fact the Charlie was a supreme talent. Lennie Tristano for examples credited him with the greatest time feel of *any* jazz musician.
I feel cc is under appreciated not being a chops player.
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That said try playing along with solos and you'll develop a healthy respect for his right hand
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[QUOTE=christianm77;734591]Charlie christian was in the right place at the right time no doubt about it.
No, I'm not saying he was the product of hype. Clearly he was not. John Hammond had a decent eye for talent, and more importantly for "star quality".
What I'm saying is that if CC had come along 10 yrs. earlier, no one would have been able to hear him, just like pretty much all other guitarists (except for Django or Oscar Aleman) who were primarily chord guys.
And if he'd come along 10 yrs. later, someone else would have done what he did---played the guitar in a hornlike manner, because, again, you can't do what Hines and others are doing on the piano, on a guitar, for the most part.
Xylophone and vibes are in their infancy, as far as players. The lead players you're going to be listening to are Hawkins, Louis A., Prez, maybe Benny Goodman, Roy Eldridge, Ben Webster, all horn or reed players.
So, no electric guitar--no CC and no condenser microphone---no Bing C.
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Charlie wasn't the first to play amplified guitar.
But, he seems to have been among the first to play those kinds of lines on amplified guitar.
And, if he wasn't the first, he was certainly the best among the early crowd doing it.
So, it seems to me that Charlie was able to imagine possibilities that others missed.
Similar to Wes' description of how he came to use his thumb. All of us have played notes, at least now and then, with our thumbs. But, Wes was the one who liked it enough to develop it. Same with his use of octaves. He said, in an interview someone was kind enough to post, that it started with tuning his guitar. So, he stumbled across a sound that, no doubt, others had stumbled across similarly. But, Wes was the one who thought it was worth developing.
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Cough Eddie Durham cough
Poor fella never gets any credit. He may be more important figure historically than Charlie in some ways.
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George Barnes was meant to have been playin electric in the early thirties?
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