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I’ve found one only needs a 3x5 index card of theory. So you can talk to other musicians.
The bass player and trumpet I player can talk like proper musicians. I’m functionally illiterate with all the terms. Especially in face to face conversation. But we get along fine once the intro vamp starts.
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12-23-2025 09:59 PM
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I feel like a right proper Charlie.
Originally Posted by pamosmusic
Edit: If you can't learn from recordings, then getting a good Jazz teacher is probably the best solution for learning Jazz guitar.
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It’s more useful to follow sport if you want to talk to other musicians Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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I agree, and probably will try and start that up again in the new year. I still think the topic here is something I will spend time on, though first to see if it bears fruit. I mean it is pretty similar to what Howard Roberts wrote in "Praxis" that Mick sighted. I think that play a phrase for the month is also valuable but takes more discipline than I seem to have. Originally Posted by GuyBoden
I feel like a right proper Charlie.
Edit: If you can't learn from recordings, then getting a good Jazz teacher is probably the best solution for learning Jazz guitar.
Where I struggle is taking solos and breaking them down to bits I can apply. I expect things to seep in by osmosis.
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It’s not an either/or. Originally Posted by GuyBoden
I feel like a right proper Charlie.
Edit: If you can't learn from recordings, then getting a good Jazz teacher is probably the best solution for learning Jazz guitar.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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You ever try taking a simple idea and sequencing it through a scale? Originally Posted by charlieparker
Like maybe take the Cry Me a River lick (2 1 5 b3 2 1, in C that’s descending D C G Eb D C) and transposing it through a scale.
So, since you’re using the numbers like this. You’d take each chord in the scale, and play the diatonic 2 1 5 3 2 1 from each.
Bb major scale:
C Bb F D C Bb
D C G Eb D C
Eb D A F Eb D
F Eb Bb G F Eb
G F C A G F
A G D Bb A G
Bb A Eb C Bb A
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Yeah, even in jazz I can't escape 'da Bears. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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Reading through the back and forth in this thread, I think I do get your point, which seems to be: you find it easier to think of notes as scale-steps in the key of the moment than as absolutes (note names) or chord tones, and you want to somehow organize your improvisation around identifying notes this way. I think that thinking of notes in relation to the key of the moment can have some value as far as either analyzing a melody or writing down a list of pitches that work over a relatively vanilla chord progression goes. But whether this can spawn an improvisation method? If it somehow jives with your particular way of thinking and turns out to be productive, give it a shot and see what happens? But it seems kind of idiosyncratic and incomplete to me. Originally Posted by charlieparker
If your core issue is that you feel like you don't really know how to improvise, I think you need to interrogate that a bit more directly and diagnostically. E.g., do you hear stuff in your head that you can't execute on the instrument for reasons of chops/fretboard knowledge? Do you simply not know what notes to play without mapping them out first? Are you able to execute ideas spontaneously, but do they sound bad and/or idiomatically off? Do you get lost in forms when you play in real time with other people? Etc. Identify the symptom and target the treatment to that, rather than concoct a treatment and apply it to undiagnosed problems.
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Yes..melodic patterns! Originally Posted by pamosmusic
I started with a 4 note pattern on all scale degrees-in all positions-in all keys
Then--every other scale degree .. until you can play any intervals in any key any position
yes alot of work..but its worth it when you begin to add more notes to the pattern - add scale/melody fragments a half step higher/lower - back to pattern
and not get lost.
There are hundreds of patterns
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Yes. After transcribing a whole bunch of licks, one comes to the conclusion that licks are just patterns, scales and arpeggios with passing notes. Getting these in your ears and under your fingers and then practicing building longer lines with them is well worth the effort. Originally Posted by wolflen
Yes..melodic patterns!
I started with a 4 note pattern on all scale degrees-in all positions-in all keys
Then--every other scale degree .. until you can play any intervals in any key any position
yes alot of work..but its worth it when you begin to add more notes to the pattern - add scale/melody fragments a half step higher/lower - back to pattern
and not get lost.
There are hundreds of patterns
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"I struggle with Improv and I am trying to construct a system for me that is optimized around using the ear to improv."
Practice transcribing music by ear directly from listening to playing it on the instrument. No scale degrees, no numbers, no note names, no interval names, no solfège names; don't construct a system, don't name or label anything.
"The part that I find hard and somewhat boring is taking a small phrase from a solo or something I have transcribed and practicing/using that bit in solos."
I find this incomprehensible; I love doing this for countless hours, second only to performance.
"...what I am proposing is the opposite of a theory based approach but just to use your ear."
Me too, but you don't seem to grasp what it means.
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Why not label anything? You seem to be insistent on this point without providing any justification. The person with perfect pitch hears the note names and then plays it. If you hear something and play it directly on your guitar without identifying it verbally you have still made a visual identification with a pattern on guitar and a sound which is essentially the same thing although maybe more efficient if you are a guitar player. Originally Posted by pauln
I don't find this type of comment productive. Originally Posted by pauln
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but you proved his point with that comment: "The person with perfect pitch hears the note names" Originally Posted by charlieparker
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How so? I am too dense to get what y'all are talking about. Originally Posted by djg
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the name/label of the thing is not the thing. Originally Posted by charlieparker
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And you are a guitar player aren't you? So do it the more efficient way. Originally Posted by charlieparker
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Incrementally we're moving towards the eradication of this obfuscation.
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Well, Howard Roberts in his Praxis book, as Mick pointed out, essentially recommends doing something similar to what I proposed. The eventual goal is to able to immediately go from a sound to a shape on the guitar but he recommends starting with translating sounds to scale degrees then to fingerings. If it is good enough for HR I will spend some time with it. Maybe some here skipped that intermediate step or didn't need it, but I personally feel it will be valuable for me. Originally Posted by James W
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Meanwhile this thread is going on a week old, which should be enough time for the OP to put in some serious woodshed time with this system and report back on the benefits.
Well? How’s it going?
I have no system I just play tunes. I played a lot of tunes this past week.
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Been on vacation for Christmas but did use it the week before to learn the melody for "In a Mellow Tone". It wasn't something revolutionary, but I did feel it helped me learn it a bit faster. Originally Posted by John A.
When I get back I plan to work through some vocabulary, (licks), i.e. sing them as solfege or numbers in the key of the tune as opposed to the chord of the moment.
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charlieparker, I think, I understand what you are at here as I've been trying to do something similar too.
I had a moderate success of devising a "solfege" system for rhythms -- assign a syllable for each subdivision and naming rhythms when doing drills. The result is that after a quite a while I have a "word" associated with common rhythmic figures. I hear these "words" in music and recognize them on paper, some sort of speech/chunking pair which helps to memorize.
However I've been trying to find a similar approach for melodies and it is more difficult.
The issue is the increased number of combinations in pitch relationships compared to rhythms (each chunk has to be drilled to the point of association automatically popping up to become truly useful). The "character" of a given scale degree is more context dependent than of a rhythm subdivision - what is preceding it, where it goes to. In music we hear note groupings, phrases, not individual scale degrees. To hear each note as a scale degree of current key inside of a phrase seems to me some as something nearing absolute pitch ability.
And as of about how much help is to encode a particular phrase as a sequence of scale degrees see my speculations below.
Originally Posted by charlieparker
The above looks like a straightforward solfege application and it is hard to argue it is not beneficial for musicianship.
The principle behind it is that you don't have to name a thing to know it, but to label something correctly means you indeed know it.
When drilling it both ways (recognizing scale degree from sound and pre-hearing/singing by scale degree) you are exercising your recognition and also building an additional support in speech structures of the brain.
However, if it helps to memorize melody, it likely does so indirectly, for instance due to increased awareness needed to label the notes of the line.
Sequences of numbers are generally difficult to memorize for most people, they are too abstract. Various techniques exist to help memorizing numbers - associations with words, spatial mapping, etc, essentially converting numbers to a more natural domain for a brain.
Regarding music, the way how the melody itself moves up and down seems to be a direct analogy to a spatial mapping, that is to say that it should be easier to remember melody directly than a corresponding sequence of scale degrees expressed as numbers. When you are prehearing playing a melody on a fretboard - again this a spatial aid in memorizing.
For now I have an assumption that I just don't hear or audiate clearly enough. Recognizing scale degrees and other forms of ear training are helpful, but trying to memorize melody as numbers doesn't seem to be working well. If your arrive to a different conclusion please let me know (this things take time to be meaningfully explored)
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It will be interesting to see how you relate this to improvisation (which is the area you say is a problem). Learning heads and memorizing licks is something else. Originally Posted by charlieparker
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I am not expecting this to turn me from Joe can't play to Wes Montgomery overnight. I think it will be a gradual process if it yields anything at all. Originally Posted by John A.
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Better to try it than to type about it. Originally Posted by charlieparker
Last edited by John A.; 12-29-2025 at 06:37 PM.
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Quite a thesis you wrote there, but the simple fact is, if you learn to recognize intervals, you won't need a mneumonic system - hear a perfect 5th and play it, hear a minor 6th and play it, etc. Originally Posted by Danil
And you can do the reverse, use song melodies as an aid to develop your aural memory of intervals -- How to Use Jazz Standards to Hear Intervals
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