Bebop Technique

[pamosmusic]

So I've been working on some technical exercises for some students with the general theory being that a lot of very idiomatic bebop stuff was developed in a bit of a guitar vacuum, and consequently is not guitaristic at all. They aren't meant to be substitutes for transcribing, but rather to gather up some technical chops that will make some of the classic bebop stuff a little more playable.

Clifford Brown is my general inspiration for this. A good friend of mine used to say he'd hear entire passages in Clifford solos that were ripped out of, or at least obviously adapted from, the Arban or Clarke studies. So there's this way in which the fundamental technique of a trumpet player has been absorbed into the vocabulary in an organic way. Guitar doesn't really work that way. There is some stuff that guitarists work on that is extremely useful––triads and intervals and the like––but there are other things that are pretty foreign. So I've been trying to come up with some things that can be incorporated into existing practice that can start bridging some of those gaps.

Some things I've got going:

1. short sweeps, like the little triplet swoops a saxophone will make up an arpeggio. I'm using mostly adapted lines for this purpose because I think the thing we don't work on as much is the mixed picking. We work on sweeps a lot, but short sweeps with a definite rhythm, mixed in with scalar passages and stuff, not so much.

2. accent patterns.

3. turns––pulling some turns from pianists (Oscar Peterson, mostly) and from Clifford, in particular.

4. Staccato, legato. Like real legato, not slurs. Horns work more on this and have a lot more flexibility with it than guitarists.

5. Rhythmic placement of slurs, using mostly bebop heads for this. Coordinating slurs with downbeats.

6. A few other guitar-specific things like picking patterns and stuff.

The goal here isn't to imitate a saxophone or trumpet, but more to try and find some ways to work on a comparable breadth of articulation and expression, and to prepare some of those things that decorate bebop vocabulary in very natural ways but which are very unnatural on guitar.

Curious if anyone has other things they can think of that they'd work on like this. Currently accepting ideas.

[dasein]

Something I've been practicing quite a bit lately is playing very simple scales up and down -- with added half steps ala Barry, or bebop scales, whatever you want to call them -- and really trying to only pick on the off-beats and slur into the on-beats. This means you cannot change strings on an on-beat. And I'm forcing myself not to "cheat" by picking the note but very unaccented, or using a hammer on from nowhere.

This is actually surprisingly difficult. It requires you to shift positions a lot AND use different fingerings ascending and descending. Your standard guitar fingerings (CAGED, 3NPS, middle finger on root, etc) all don't work.

I don't think your goal should be to play like that 100% of the time. But I'm already finding that I have a better awareness of how lines are supposed to sound, and using a lot of the "correct" movements automatically. Your ears start to guide you.

[David B]

Some great ideas and exercises in videos on MyMusicMasterclass from Bruce Forman (bebop guitar), Pasquale Grasso's series and Mike Moreno (sound, technique and articulation).

Bruce Forman - Bebop Guitar Lesson - My Music Masterclass

Pasquale Grasso - Artist Profile - My Music Masterclass

Mike Moreno - Jazz Guitar Lesson (1) - My Music Masterclass

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

Try building lines above a barre. You can hammer, pick, and slur 5 or more notes up from it or down to it on each string for lines and phrases of any length and structure. Picking only the first note on each string makes the line mostly legato, and you can go up and / or down through more than 2 octaves in the same position.

By jumping the barre up or down a few frets at a time, you can extend a line from one end of the board to the other.

After I discovered this, it took me months to learn to keep my index finger across the fingerboard while playing single string lines. I still forget to do this because it’s not as natural a movement to me as fingering each note. But I’m trying hard to make it second nature, since it also helps in playing chord melody and in adding walking bass lines.

[Christian Miller]

So I've been working on some technical exercises for some students with the general theory being that a lot of very idiomatic bebop stuff was developed in a bit of a guitar vacuum, and consequently is not guitaristic at all. They aren't meant to be substitutes for transcribing, but rather to gather up some technical chops that will make some of the classic bebop stuff a little more playable.

Clifford Brown is my general inspiration for this. A good friend of mine used to say he'd hear entire passages in Clifford solos that were ripped out of, or at least obviously adapted from, the Arban or Clarke studies. So there's this way in which the fundamental technique of a trumpet player has been absorbed into the vocabulary in an organic way. Guitar doesn't really work that way. There is some stuff that guitarists work on that is extremely useful––triads and intervals and the like––but there are other things that are pretty foreign. So I've been trying to come up with some things that can be incorporated into existing practice that can start bridging some of those gaps.

Some things I've got going:

1. short sweeps, like the little triplet swoops a saxophone will make up an arpeggio. I'm using mostly adapted lines for this purpose because I think the thing we don't work on as much is the mixed picking. We work on sweeps a lot, but short sweeps with a definite rhythm, mixed in with scalar passages and stuff, not so much.

2. accent patterns.

3. turns––pulling some turns from pianists (Oscar Peterson, mostly) and from Clifford, in particular.

4. Staccato, legato. Like real legato, not slurs. Horns work more on this and have a lot more flexibility with it than guitarists.

5. Rhythmic placement of slurs, using mostly bebop heads for this. Coordinating slurs with downbeats.

6. A few other guitar-specific things like picking patterns and stuff.

The goal here isn't to imitate a saxophone or trumpet, but more to try and find some ways to work on a comparable breadth of articulation and expression, and to prepare some of those things that decorate bebop vocabulary in very natural ways but which are very unnatural on guitar.

Curious if anyone has other things they can think of that they'd work on like this. Currently accepting ideas.

I’ve always found 1) very hard to lock in rhythmically. Thanks for reminding me to practice that


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[AllanAllen]

You know who loves those short sweeps on guitar... Oscar Moore.

[Cunamara]

Learn bebop heads, especially Charlie Parker tunes. They force you out of position playing and into awkward fingerings. I have not done enough of this myself; whenever I do, however, it always reveals something new about how jazz lines are put together. Every musician on every instrument is limited by the convenient mechanics of that particular device; to develop as a musician, we have to transcend the instrument. Now, if I could only put those hifalutin' words into practice!

[pamosmusic]

Something I've been practicing quite a bit lately is playing very simple scales up and down -- with added half steps ala Barry, or bebop scales, whatever you want to call them -- and really trying to only pick on the off-beats and slur into the on-beats. This means you cannot change strings on an on-beat. And I'm forcing myself not to "cheat" by picking the note but very unaccented, or using a hammer on from nowhere.

This is actually surprisingly difficult. It requires you to shift positions a lot AND use different fingerings ascending and descending. Your standard guitar fingerings (CAGED, 3NPS, middle finger on root, etc) all don't work.

I don't think your goal should be to play like that 100% of the time. But I'm already finding that I have a better awareness of how lines are supposed to sound, and using a lot of the "correct" movements automatically. Your ears start to guide you.

Yeah super tricky. This is sort of what I use the bop heads for. I don't slur into every downbeat and I sort of think an efficient left hand fingering might kind of preempt that when I have to make a choice, but I slur into every downbeat I can, given the fingering. So the interesting thing becomes how the picking and slurring changes on a single bebop head when you switch positions. It changes where the string crossings occur and you can slur different notes. So that's really good training for sort of "hearing" the downbeats in a phrase and slurring accordingly when it's possible.

I like to learn them more or less in all the CAGED positions, but I have students learn them in two octaves, and try to make them start on different fingers. Start the lower octave fingering on the first finger and start the high octave fingering on the third finger and you'll end up with different string crossings.

[pamosmusic]

Learn bebop heads, especially Charlie Parker tunes. They force you out of position playing and into awkward fingerings. I have not done enough of this myself; whenever I do, however, it always reveals something new about how jazz lines are put together. Every musician on every instrument is limited by the convenient mechanics of that particular device; to develop as a musician, we have to transcend the instrument. Now, if I could only put those hifalutin' words into practice!

Yeah see above. Lots of bebop tunes, but there are also some things that turn up in bebop tunes (turns and those swept arpeggios) that I think took me a really long time to start using naturally, and I feel like I could've incorporated them into some practice a bit earlier and made them useful to me.

[pamosmusic]

I’ve always found 1) very hard to lock in rhythmically. Thanks for reminding me to practice that


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No lie.

[princeplanet]

For me, I found learning Parker heads or solos didn't really help to make me think like Parker. Sure, you break down the lines into modular units, but you don't really need Bird for that. Most of the greats on any instrument had ways of getting from one chord tone to another and it's always a combo of chromatic embellishment, encircling, pivoting etc.
If you don't like the way Bird did it, then try Clifford, or Dexter, Rollins, or Pat Martino etc. Or roll your own...

I've always said that Bop started something that never really got exhausted, even since Hard and Post Bop, there are still plenty of fresh ways to figure out how to Bop without needing to borrow someone else's approach. Inventing your own "system" is always far more rewarding than appropriating others, after all, it's what the greats did.

The bad news for guitarists is that many are taught position playing and are always uncomfortable with the idea of stretching or sliding in and out of positions (were you ever taught the "finger per fret rule"?), which is mandatory if you wish to add chromaticism and embellishments to your lines. For me, this is a great part of the Bop style, so any serious study of this style by guitarists must involve a systematic approach in achieving this, even before all the other important aspects as outlined in the OP. And achieving this for all chord types in all keys for all positions on the guitar is a lot of work. A simple idea like chromatic encircling of, say, the 3,5,7 and 9 chord tones is straight forward for the piano player, once they know their scales. The can "see" it easily - if they close their eyes they can easily imagine playing around these chord tones. This is true, I think, for many other instruments (not sure about trumpet!).

However, for our instrument, it's a lot harder, for reasons we all know. But it doesn't have to be if we change our conceptual approach to the fingerboard. For example, learning a simple Bop device along one string, to really "see" it, and then convert to playing across the strings where the string change is then seen as an offset continuation of the beginning string. The fact that I had to work this out for myself means that I didn't get this idea from any book or forum or youtube, so I know there's a giant hole in the pedagogy for Jazz guitar.

Which is why I applaud the idea for this thread!

[pamosmusic]

For me, I found learning Parker heads or solos didn't really help to make me think like Parker. Sure, you break down the lines into modular units, but you don't really need Bird for that. Most of the greats on any instrument had ways of getting from one chord tone to another and it's always a combo of chromatic embellishment, encircling, pivoting etc.

Yeah I think solos and bebop tunes are the best way in, I just think there are things in that vocabulary that are really unintuitive on guitar.

If you don't like the way Bird did it, then try Clifford, or Dexter, Rollins, or Pat Martino etc. Or roll your own...

Yeah baby

The bad news for guitarists is that many are taught position playing and are always uncomfortable with the idea of stretching or sliding in and out of positions (were you ever taught the "finger per fret rule"?), which is mandatory if you wish to add chromaticism and embellishments to your lines. For me, this is a great part of the Bop style, so any serious study of this style by guitarists must involve a systematic approach in achieving this, even before all the other important aspects as outlined in the OP.

I think and practice in positions a lot, but I think it’s important to have some realistic picture of its usefulness. It’s not the best way to play stuff, but you will end up with a wide variety of fingerings and it forces you to practice fingerings in a mixed way rather than parallel. But yeah … I plan to do some videos and post a bunch of the (many many) PDFs I’ve been working on, and starting with single fingerings on string sets and then working up toward more positional ish things.

And achieving this for all chord types in all keys for all positions on the guitar is a lot of work. A simple idea like chromatic encircling of, say, the 3,5,7 and 9 chord tones is straight forward for the piano player, once they know their scales. The can "see" it easily - if they close their eyes they can easily imagine playing around these chord tones. This is true, I think, for many other instruments (not sure about trumpet!).

I should add this … though actually I kind of love positions for this because it makes you find those encirclements that you can’t “see.” Still probably the move to start on single or pairs of strings and move in parallel up and down. Then work the way up to more positional things.

Wicked. Thanks for the thoughts.

[dasein]

The bad news for guitarists is that many are taught position playing and are always uncomfortable with the idea of stretching or sliding in and out of positions (were you ever taught the "finger per fret rule"?), which is mandatory if you wish to add chromaticism and embellishments to your lines. For me, this is a great part of the Bop style, so any serious study of this style by guitarists must involve a systematic approach in achieving this, even before all the other important aspects as outlined in the OP.

In my experience, there are certain fingerings that are better suited to certain kinds of styles, lines, or concepts.

Both "three note per string" and "one finger per fret" fingerings are good for certain kinds of music. The latter can be really good when you're trying to sight read pieces. The former can be really good for heavy scalar playing, so it works for a lot of Coltrane-like lines and fusion stuff.

But those fingerings can be really awkward for bebop because, as you said, the chromaticism is really tough.

Honestly, the single best base fingerings for bebop I have found? Your basic major and minor triad inversions, on the top four strings -- I would even go so far as to learn them from the high E string down, instead of the usual low E string up.

[GuyBoden]

Chromatic Enclosures, using one finger per fret and lots of slurs is what I'm practicing.

This type of practice lick.

[CliffR]

Honestly, the single best base fingerings for bebop I have found? Your basic major and minor triad inversions, on the top four strings -- I would even go so far as to learn them from the high E string down, instead of the usual low E string up.

This is what I've been practicing for the last month or so, based on Christian's advice. I started with the triad inversions on the top three strings then, after a couple of weeks, added the fourth string, and am now beginning to add the fifth. At the same time I've been working on closures for each of the triad chord tones. So far it feels like a really good way forward.

[Christian Miller]

Sorry to #hehasavideoforthat post, but this may be relevant to the discussion

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[pamosmusic]

Sorry to #hehasavideoforthat post, but this may be relevant to the discussion

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What you say here about these things being “as accessible as blues licks” is sort of what I’m going for. Just having immediate access to the turns and sweeps and other things that are sort of thrown into the vocabulary as an after thought (trumpet player presses two valves down and then lets one go, etc).

You mention that the twiddles (turns) are super natural on the guitar and I think that’s really interesting because I kind of think the opposite. They’re super easy and accessible as long as you’re in the right place and they’re damned near impossible if you’re not. So have as many fingerings and varieties as possible under the fingers I think would charge things up quite a lot.

Also the variety of turns and embellishments is really great.

A favorite Clifford one … starts on a scale note above the target, slur into the half step above, back through the scale note, then skips to a half step below the target, then lands. So targeting a B, you get C, Db, C, A#, and then B … all slurred probably as 16ths

[Christian Miller]

What you say here about these things being “as accessible as blues licks” is sort of what I’m going for. Just having immediate access to the turns and sweeps and other things that are sort of thrown into the vocabulary as an after thought (trumpet player presses two valves down and then lets one go, etc).

You mention that the twiddles (turns) are super natural on the guitar and I think that’s really interesting because I kind of think the opposite. They’re super easy and accessible as long as you’re in the right place and they’re damned near impossible if you’re not.

And this is why you mustn’t play in position :-) just play absolutely everything else with the index finger and you’ll be fine.

So have as many fingerings and varieties as possible under the fingers I think would charge things up quite a lot.

Also the variety of turns and embellishments is really great.

A favorite Clifford one … starts on a scale note above the target, slur into the half step above, back through the scale note, then skips to a half step below the target, then lands. So targeting a B, you get C, Db, C, A#, and then B … all slurred probably as 16ths

Nice. Good work out for my left hand legato chops lol. Coming soon -Allan the bebopper….


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[pamosmusic]

And this is why you mustn’t play in position :-)

Yeah yeah yeah

But like … if you have six or seven ways of playing a m7 arpeggio and want to play a turn off the root, that would probably limit the available fingerings to two or three. Unless you’ve worked on making the shifts in that context …

I’m very interested in the bidirectional relationship between technique and ear.

Does your technique have to accommodate your ear, or does your ear sort of settle into the things you already know how to play?

Obvs both. But interesting still.

[AllanAllen]

Coming soon -Allan the bebopper….

Soon? Are the second 5 years faster?

[pamosmusic]

Soon? Are the second 5 years faster?

My guess is he meant Holdsworth, but I like this look on you.

[Mick-7]

Sorry to #hehasavideoforthat post, but this may be relevant to the discussion

Christian, you spoke of cumbersome fingerings, and later played a clip of Adam Rogers playing. Is he not using the "cumbersome fingerings" you advised against?

P.S. - I'm not asking the question just to be contrary, I'm wondering whether his more classical technique overcame the drawbacks you mentioned?

[AllanAllen]

My guess is he meant Holdsworth, but I like this look on you.

Learning and analyzing half of Donna Lee has markedly improved my playing. I'm going to try and keep this up with the other Parker heads, especially the contrafacts to tunes I already play, like Ornithology.

I'm not good at playing Donna Lee, but I finally learned Honeysuckle Rose and that only took me about 15 minutes.

[GuyBoden]

Sorry to #hehasavideoforthat post, but this may be relevant to the discussion

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Great stuff.

[pamosmusic]

Learning and analyzing half of Donna Lee has markedly improved my playing. I'm going to try and keep this up with the other Parker heads, especially the contrafacts to tunes I already play, like Ornithology.

I'm not good at playing Donna Lee, but I finally learned Honeysuckle Rose and that only took me about 15 minutes.

Yeah man. Thats the ticket. There are so many.

Donna Lee is Indiana
Scrapple is Honeysuckle Rose
Ornithology for How High the Moon
Quasimodo is Embraceable You
all the rhythm changes and blues.

Super helpful