Fretboard mastery?

[Peng1026]

Do you play with other people? Don’t try and master everything before you even start.

Yes, I play in jam sessions occasionally and played in several bands when I was younger. But you know, Frankfurt city is not the most famous city for the jazz scene....

[Peng1026]

Here are some things I give all my students with all their scales. Even with pentatonics, they usually trip people up.

1. All keys (duh).

2. All positions (duh).

3. Starting and ending on every note. This one almost invariably trips people up. So instead of starting on the low note of the scale (say on the A in that G shape, fifth position C major scale fingering), you try starting on B in the same position, playing to the top, playing back to the bottom, then back to B. Then do the same with C in the same position, then D, and E, and F, etc.

Its useful for several reasons but almost always trips people up.

4. Fragments. Play in small fragments, so maybe a fifth, and repeat each a few times. Like C D E F G F E D C, repeat a few times, D E F G A G F E D, etc. The fragments can be any length, but 5 is nice rhythmically.

5. Sequences — 123 234 345 etc. Three and four note ones are both good.

6. Intervals. Thirds and sixths for a while before anything else.

Thanks for the advices. When I do the 3rd practice on the major scale (or melodic minor, or harmonic minor scales), I would feel like doing the modes practices. Should I force myself not to think the modes? Or the method should be applied to scales apart from the 3 scales i mentioned?

[CliffR]

Thanks for the advices. When I do the 3rd practice on the major scale (or melodic minor, or harmonic minor scales), I would feel like doing the modes practices. Should I force myself not to think the modes? Or the method should be applied to scales apart from the 3 scales i mentioned?

I'm in no way qualified to speak on behalf of Peter, so hopefully he'll correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the advice is not really about modes. Instead, it's about knowing the scale no matter where you begin it from. It's common I think to learn and practice a scale going up from the root. If you're suddenly asked to playing it descending or from, for example, the 3rd, you may find it much more difficult to execute without thought, because what you learnt was grounded in playing from the root. So practicing as Peter suggested counters this and gives you much more freedom.

[AllanAllen]

Yes, I play in jam sessions occasionally and played in several bands when I was younger. But you know, Frankfurt city is not the most famous city for the jazz scene....

Funny enough, Frankfurt Illinois is where the monthly jazz jam is around here. It's about 30 miles from me.

Let me try again to put this into perspective

Frankfurt City 700,000 people
Frankfurt Illinois, 20,000 people
My village: 1,274 people

If I can find a group, so can you.

[pamosmusic]

I'm in no way qualified to speak on behalf of Peter, so hopefully he'll correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the advice is not really about modes. Instead, it's about knowing the scale no matter where you begin it from. It's common I think to learn and practice a scale going up from the root. If you're suddenly asked to playing it descending or from, for example, the 3rd, you may find it much more difficult to execute without thought, because what you learnt was grounded in playing from the root. So practicing as Peter suggested counters this and gives you much more freedom.

You got it.

Its nice that the center of gravity shifts and you sort of hear the “mode sounds” of the scale, but that’s incidental.

Big thing is really firming up the muscle memory. When you play a scale from the same place every time, then you’ll sometimes be surprised by how awkward it can be to try starting it from somewhere else.

Also, if you alternate pick, then every note you start on, if you start on a downstroke, then the picking flips and the string crossings change.

[Tal_175]

Here is a fretboard mastery exercise. Pick a chord. Say A7#5 or tonic Dminor.

Now start from the lowest position on the fretboard, build 100 playable chord voicings for the chosen chord. Use all string sets throughout the fretboard as necessary. Use extensions that sound good as well, not just inversions and open voicings.

One method is to pick a voicing that you know and move each voice up and down to deliberately chose different extensions. You should always be aware of the intervallic relationships of each voice and also see them as imbedded in the chord scale. Alternate playing the imbedding scale with each voicing. Now move a middle voicing to an outer string and open the voicing etc.

Note this will not only give you more voicings per each chord that can be found in Ted Greene chord chemistry book but also it'd be a much more useful exercise than memorizing random dot patterns from a chord dictionary. It'll also unify the 'solo view' and 'comping view' of the fretboard. They are one and the same.

Can you build 100 voicings in 10mins? You can also apply this exercise to tunes. One chord voicing per beat but change chords as required by the progression. Alternate playing the imbedding scales with the chord voicings you create etc. Obviously tempo is not crucial for this exercise.

[John A.]

Hi folks, I would like to hear your thoughts about the topic fretboard.

I played guitar for like 20 years, learning jazz guitar by myself for about 10 years as a hobby. I know quite much theories, I know all the important chords, scales, arpeggios, voicings and how to play them on the guitar. But while improvising, I still make mistakes to play the right things in the right time.

For example I could play any chord arpeggio in all position when i was practicing, but while improvising I still couldn't play them freely and naturally. In the moment I try to play it, my thoughts are always
1. where is the root of the arpeggio
2. in which position i am now, can i play that arpeggio near this position?
3. and with which fingering should i play (should i start the first note with the little finger or the middle finger or the index finger? I practiced all...)
And mostly the chords are then over, or I played it wrongly, unnaturally, sounded badly.

The thing is, I think I have the musical ideas in my mind, but couldn't play them in time.

I thought I knew the fretboard, because I know all the notes on the fretboard, I could play anything on the fretboard, but not without thinking. At the beginning I thought I might get to the point that I could freely play anything without thinking when I practice more, but after 10 years I'm still not quite there. My playing is mostly just random stuffs and some licks I was always playing, and sometimes I have the melody in mind but I couldn't play it in time.

I'm thinking that I had a wrong understanding of mastering the fretboard? What are your thoughts?

After 10 years of isolation and frustration, I think it's time to stop trying to "master the fretboard", and just play some music with other people. Focus on learning tunes (melody and comping in time) in order to have repertoire, and focus on finding people to play with (even if it's just lessons, or jamming with one other person). My experience has been that the ONLY times I've made real progress have been times when I've had at least some regular sessions with other people. Jazz is ensemble improvisation over mostly standard repertoire, and most of what makes jazz sound like jazz is rhythm and phrasing (not right or wrong notes). Practicing arps and chord shapes on your own to the exclusion of actually playing the music is a recipe for stagnation and frustration.

[rpjazzguitar]

After 10 years of isolation and frustration, I think it's time to stop trying to "master the fretboard", and just play some music with other people. Focus on learning tunes (melody and comping in time) in order to have repertoire, and focus on finding people to play with (even if it's just lessons, or jamming with one other person). My experience has been that the ONLY times I've made real progress have been times when I've had at least some regular sessions with other people. Jazz is ensemble improvisation over mostly standard repertoire, and most of what makes jazz sound like jazz is rhythm and phrasing (not right or wrong notes). Practicing arps and chord shapes on your own to the exclusion of actually playing the music is a recipe for stagnation and frustration.

That! Clicking "Like" isn't strong enough.

I also suffered from practicing things from the root. You end up playing what you practice, so that didn't work out so great.

Not so easy to learn, say, a two octave arp, and then be equally facile with it no matter what note you start on.

I couldn't do it very well. I also found it very difficult to incorporate anything (for soloing) that started with a diagram of dots on a grid.

Eventually, I noticed that if the chord was Cmaj7 I could play all the chord tones anywhere on the neck starting with any finger. From reading, I knew where C E G and B were all over the neck -- and I knew that those were the chord tones, instantly. That is, I had reached the ultimate goal, as long as the chord was Cmaj7.

At that point, I decided to learn the notes in all the scales and chords I use, as well as I knew the Cmaj7. It's a lot of work, and I still drill it. If the chart says D#m9b5 maybe it will take me too long to think of the notes and I may have to switch approaches (e.g. to thinking about a grip). But, most of the time it works.

There's a little more to it, but I'll leave it there for this post

I drilled it with Irealpro in 12 keys. If I got hung up on a chord I'd slow it down until I could do it.

When this works, which it usually does, the scales and arps become pools of notes without any particular order.

[Peng1026]

After 10 years of isolation and frustration, I think it's time to stop trying to "master the fretboard", and just play some music with other people. Focus on learning tunes (melody and comping in time) in order to have repertoire, and focus on finding people to play with (even if it's just lessons, or jamming with one other person). My experience has been that the ONLY times I've made real progress have been times when I've had at least some regular sessions with other people. Jazz is ensemble improvisation over mostly standard repertoire, and most of what makes jazz sound like jazz is rhythm and phrasing (not right or wrong notes). Practicing arps and chord shapes on your own to the exclusion of actually playing the music is a recipe for stagnation and frustration.

Oh wait, "10 years of isolation and frustration"?

Like I said above, I play in sessions too. What I meant about Frankfurt is, Frankfurt is not a city in which you entered a random jazz club and finding Jonathan Kreisberg is playing there. I also didn't mean I just want to play with the world class jazz musicians (in case you would say that). Here are many lovely people to play with, and I'm in the group. And I got compliments from them about my playing too.

Yes I have sometimes frustration during the self-taught jazz learning, but who dosen't ? However I am in the most time happy enough with the progress i made in the past ten years, I see every year a better me, maybe I am not talented enough to get a quicker progress, and I have to spend time and energy to deal with the other side of the life, but I still enjoy these progresses.

I made this post just hoping to know more approaches of "mastering the fretboard", not to get again the cliche of "playing with people" (this is true but you thought I didn't know that?). If making people thinking they are losers makes you feel you are winning, my pleasure.

[Peng1026]

Funny enough, Frankfurt Illinois is where the monthly jazz jam is around here. It's about 30 miles from me.

Let me try again to put this into perspective

Frankfurt City 700,000 people
Frankfurt Illinois, 20,000 people
My village: 1,274 people

If I can find a group, so can you.

Actually I did say I play in sessions and yes I found my group here too..... Still, thank you for the advices you posted earlier.

[John A.]

Oh wait, "10 years of isolation and frustration"?

Like I said above, I play in sessions too. What I meant about Frankfurt is, Frankfurt is not a city in which you entered a random jazz club and finding Jonathan Kreisberg is playing there. I also didn't mean I just want to play with the world class jazz musicians (in case you would say that). Here are many lovely people to play with, and I'm in the group. And I got compliments from them about my playing too.

Yes I have sometimes frustration during the self-taught jazz learning, but who dosen't ? However I am in the most time happy enough with the progress i made in the past ten years, I see every year a better me, maybe I am not talented enough to get a quicker progress, and I have to spend time and energy to deal with the other side of the life, but I still enjoy these progresses.

I made this post just hoping to know more approaches of "mastering the fretboard", not to get again the cliche of "playing with people" (this is true but you thought I didn't know that?). If making people thinking they are losers makes you feel you are winning, my pleasure.

I don’t know what you know, only what you say, so I can only react to that. Your post seemed to express frustration at not being able to improvise well, and it seemed to equate improvising with executing the arpeggios and chords you’ve been practicing for 10 years. So I reacted to that. I have no interest in “winning” or “losing” discussions. If you took that from my comment, that’s your misinterpretation, not my intent.

Also, perhaps keep in mind that there is a steady stream of posters here who don’t play with other people and are not aware of how important that is. They typically start out by saying something very similar to what you said initially. If I inferred this applied to you, my mistake. If you’re happy with your progress, good for you.

[Tal_175]

Playing with others puts you in situations that's hard to simulate when you play alone. It helps you learn about the weaknesses you didn't even know that you had. In fact, every playing situation has a different set of challenges. Playing in a big band or orchestral setting will expose different weaknesses than playing in a small combo. Likewise loud bands are different than quiet bands. Playing with stronger players is different than playing with weaker players. Playing sitting down is different than playing standing etc.

However let's put things in perspective. Playing with others is not a substitute for preparation or things you can do in the practice room. If one of your weaknesses is having a limited comping vocabulary, you're not gonna develop a rich vocabulary because you play with other people. When you play with other people you tend to stay within your habits and comfort zone. Practice room is where you work on expanding what you can do. Likewise, if you're struggling with playing the changes, you're not gonna start playing flowing lines that outline the changes because you play with other people. So when someone starts a thread about challenges they are having about acquiring a certain skill, I assume they are asking about how to improve their practice room strategies in order to expand on what they can do (overtime).

[pamosmusic]

However let's put things in perspective. Playing with others is not a substitute for preparation or things you can do in the practice room.

Man, this is important.

Practicing on your own is no substitute for performing, but (especially in the early and intermediate stages) performing is no substitute for practicing.

I think the big challenge is often that people think they’re practicing and aren’t. Practicing is hard.

[AllanAllen]

Actually I did say I play in sessions and yes I found my group here too..... Still, thank you for the advices you posted earlier.

I understand now, and saw the other replies you had here. If you find a method to playing compelling lines over the changes with a good time feel, please share it. It sounds like we are searching for the same thing.

[John A.]

However let's put things in perspective. Playing with others is not a substitute for preparation or things you can do in the practice room.

I don't think anyone on this thread has said it is.

If one of your weaknesses is having a limited comping vocabulary, you're not gonna develop a rich vocabulary because you play with other people. When you play with other people you tend to stay within your habits and comfort zone.

That is very much not my experience. For instance, my comping improved much more from comping for others than from practicing on my own. And playing with strong bands has broken me out of ruts. I know many people for whom this is the case.

Practice room is where you work on expanding what you can do. Likewise, if you're struggling with playing the changes, you're not gonna start playing flowing lines that outline the changes because you play with other people. So when someone starts a thread about challenges they are having about acquiring a certain skill, I assume they are asking about how to improve their practice room strategies in order to expand on what they can do (overtime).

The OP described learning and doing a great deal in the practice room over the course of a decade, but having difficulty executing what s/he knows while improvising. That suggests to me a need to do more improvising, not more/different practicing of knowledge that has already been acquired. But I haven't heard the OP play, so this is inference in a vacuum, and could be way off.

[Reg]

Hey Peng 1026...

You need to organize your practice into two parts...

1)Technical Skills
2) Performance skills

I know it's simple. But it's what you need to do....they are totally different.

Technical skills are all the BS of getting your skills and understandings of what those skills are on your instrument.

The Performance Skills are applying your technical skills playing tunes and if possible playing LIVE.

Playing Jazz or Playing in a Jazz style is not about playing memorized solos or licks over and over etc...

You need to learn how to think and hear in organized sections of space... Can you play a solo with ONE note over a 4 or 8 bar phrase. Even just a 12 bar Jazz blues.... use 2 or 3 notes.

The melodic embellishment approach is not the best approach for starting because it gets muddy harmonically. It's better after you develop your ears harmonically.

Do you know and understand CHORD PATTERNS. Simple II V's or I VI II V's are simple examples.

What you also need to practice is... playing all versions of simple Chord Patterns. (what or where those Chord Patterns imply).

Where I'm going is... learning how to play chord tones, arps, scales etc... or spelling and playing the changes.... is not the goal. That's just part of getting your technical skills together.

What it sounds like is you need to practice is ....Vamps. Simple Vamps. Vamps within organized space, 2 bars, 4 bars etc... Two chords, then expand the vamps with more chords. Eventually you'll learn about TARGET CHORDS or TONES... and the different harmonic ways to approach those Targets.... Melodically....Harmonically.... and even more important..... RHYTHMICALLY.

Playing Live is very different from rehearsed performance. I'm an average pro... but I'm a great Live player... Generally because I have really good rhythmic skills... there's obviously more, but knowing and being able to feel space... or Form is what you need develop before you try and apply your melodic skills.

Part of playing guitar is not trying to be a sax player... LOL

[Tal_175]

That is very much not my experience. For instance, my comping improved much more from comping for others than from practicing on my own. And playing with strong bands has broken me out of ruts. I know many people for whom this is the case.

Yes, that's why I specifically said "comping vocabulary". It depends on which aspect of comping one is trying to improve. Playing with others improve many aspects of comping such as time feel or developing a sense of what works, what doesn't. On the other hand, what I mean by "vocabulary" are harmonic devices, movements, voicings etc that one gets into their playing in the practice room. Playing with others help you learn how to tastefully use these devices. But if a player is struggling with the basic fretboard fluency in executing them in time with a metronome, they certainly aren't ready to experiment with them in live performance. In my experience, one has to first reach a certain level of mastery and comfort with a new material before it shows up in performance. It seems to me that the OP is struggling with getting some of the elements of improvisation like arpeggios in his fingers and ears.

[AllanAllen]

What you also need to practice is... playing all versions of simple Chord Patterns. (what or where those Chord Patterns imply).
...

What it sounds like is you need to practice is ....Vamps. Simple Vamps. Vamps within organized space, 2 bars, 4 bars etc... Two chords, then expand the vamps with more chords. Eventually you'll learn about TARGET CHORDS or TONES... and the different harmonic ways to approach those Targets.... Melodically....Harmonically.... and even more important..... RHYTHMICALLY.

Yes, that's why I specifically said "comping vocabulary". It depends on which aspect of comping one is trying to improve.

Playing in the big band is helping me with vamps and chord patterns. If I read a Nestico chart for a tune I know, i.e. Satin Doll, there are all kinds of moves that I don't know, it opens my eyes not only to the possibilities, but also the standard movements I should know to comp and sound like jazz.

Like the language of jazz improvisation is in Parker heads, the language of comping (or at least where to start) may be in big band charts.

[pamosmusic]

Like the language of jazz improvisation is in Parker heads, the language of comping (or at least where to start) may be in big band charts.

Thats an interesting thought.

I’ve been getting back into a bunch of my old arranging stuff for this little band I teach, and the “ways of harmonizing non-chord tones” basically is a nice way of categorizing all the cool passing chords that go into comping.

I’ve been trying to figure out a useful way of organizing that for myself to practice lately

[John A.]

Yes, that's why I specifically said "comping vocabulary". It depends on which aspect of comping one is trying to improve. Playing with others improve many aspects of comping such as time feel or developing a sense of what works, what doesn't. On the other hand, what I mean by "vocabulary" are harmonic devices, movements, voicings etc that one gets into their playing in the practice room. Playing with others help you learn how to tastefully use these devices. But if a player is struggling with the basic fretboard fluency in executing them in time with a metronome, they certainly aren't ready to experiment with them in live performance. In my experience, one has to first reach a certain level of mastery and comfort with a new material before it shows up in performance. It seems to me that the OP is struggling with getting some of the elements of improvisation like arpeggios in his fingers and ears.

For me, playing with others (e.g., accompanying a singer, being the only chord instrument in a group), has driven improvements/expansion of comping vocabulary as you define it. So has practicing on my own. Doing both is better than doing just one.

[Reg]

Yea... so the point generally is.... what is the harmonic Reference for musically organizing the chord tones.... and the extensions for the chords in the Chord Patterns.

Generally starting off.... you have old school Maj/Min functional harmony. Or simple version.... use of Harmonic Minor.
And the Dominant/ Tonic function functional functional or Chord movement.

And then you have Dorian and Melodic Minor.... which starts with the 5th on Dom.chords. Is it flat or natural.

Then you move into expanding those references with Blue Notes and with Function or harmonic movement. The SubDom. Movement and Chords become as important or as useful as the Dominant chords or harmonic movement...

with developing relationships and developing them.... Ex. being bringing Subs. By that I mean just like using tritone subs with Dominant chords or Diatonic Subs when expanding single chords into Chord Patterns... you use Sub Dom. type of Subs for expanding Chord Patterns....

Simple example.... D7 to Gma7.... the Dom sub or tritone sub of D7 is Ab7. ( you invert or flip the tritone and fill in the Rt. and 5th.

The Subdom. door could be.... Using the related II-7 of D7 or A-7... and introducing Amm the D7 would now become D7#11 and it's tritone sub would be Ab7alt.

That's just simple example of the process of expanding harmony or changes with organization.... I would also need to be aware of the Big picture.... How I would or what I would use with tune. What I would use with rest of tune when expanding etc...

You also need a basic Analysis to start from.... although if you play jazz... you already know most of the analysis which can be applied to different tunes...

That's also where rhythmic skills come into play.... being aware of the organization or Targets, melodic and harmonic and then being able to rhythmically imply or set them up... I gots to go... I'll be back later and post playing examples.

[Tal_175]

For me, playing with others (e.g., accompanying a singer, being the only chord instrument in a group), has driven improvements/expansion of comping vocabulary as you define it. So has practicing on my own. Doing both is better than doing just one.

I see. It seems like we had different experiences in this regard. I remember, for example, having difficulties with the use of limited harmonic vocabulary when I played in a band. It wasn't that I didn't know more voicings, devices and ways to make improvised chordal movements. I knew them conceptually, I could play them as exercises and my conceptual understanding was keep growing. But when I played with others, I kept falling back on my habitual stuff in the moment. It wasn't until I started practicing these concepts systematically over the tunes that I know that they started becoming things that are useable in the moment and make variations with.

In my understanding one of OP's specific issues is, he can play arpeggios as exercises but when it comes to applying them to tunes, he realizes that he hasn't mastered them to the extend that he can use them without a heavy mental processing load. He is asking for practice ideas that he can use to work on it. I don't think this kind of thing can be addressed by playing with others. This is one of those things that's about how you practice. At least in my experience, if you can't play arpeggios over the changes to a tune in the practice room, it's not gonna happen when you play with others. But then maybe that's how it happened for you.

[pauln]

...Its nice that the center of gravity shifts and you sort of hear the “mode sounds” of the scale, but that’s incidental.

Big thing is really firming up the muscle memory. When you play a scale from the same place every time, then you’ll sometimes be surprised by how awkward it can be to try starting it from somewhere else...

A lot of things suddenly make sense when you break from thinking that the tonic and its octave are the beginning and end of the scale...

We've all seen this... where the names seem arbitrary

Leading tone
Submediant
Dominant
Subdominant
Mediant
Supertonic
Tonic

But look at it like this, with the tonic in the center

Dominant
Mediant
Supertonic
Tonic
Leading tone
Submediant
Subdominant

Now imagine the names were "corrected"

Superdominant
Supermediant
Supertonic
Tonic
Subtonic
Submediant
Subdominant

And clarified like this with the prefixes "connected"

.................................................. .Superdominant
............................Supermediant
..........Supertonic
Tonic
..........Subtonic
.............................Submediant
.................................................. .Subdominant

[pamosmusic]

A lot of things suddenly make sense when you break from thinking that the tonic and its octave are the beginning and end of the scale...

We've all seen this... where the names seem arbitrary

Leading tone
Submediant
Dominant
Subdominant
Mediant
Supertonic
Tonic

But look at it like this, with the tonic in the center

Dominant
Mediant
Supertonic
Tonic
Leading tone
Submediant
Subdominant

Now imagine the names were "corrected"

Superdominant
Supermediant
Supertonic
Tonic
Subtonic
Submediant
Subdominant

And clarified like this with the prefixes "connected"

.................................................. .Superdominant
............................Supermediant
..........Supertonic
Tonic
..........Subtonic
.............................Submediant
.................................................. .Subdominant

Ah yes. Clarity.

[AllanAllen]

Ah yes. Clarity.

Now that's what I call sarcasm