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Think about Joe Pass. Listening to him, you can clearly hear arpeggios, scales and (signature J.P.) licks.
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10-05-2013 05:42 PM
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There's a video on YouTube in which Scott Henderson says his playing is 50% licks & 50% improvising between them. He also says he keeps notebooks full of licks he's written that he reviews and practices regularly.
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I just play this one over everything => "The Lick" - The Most Famous Jazz Cliche Ever (Video & Tabs)
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Exactly. Joe is a great example. He has many licks of his own, as well as historical licks like the Honeysuckle Rose lick which he used a lot on dominants.
Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles
Pat Martino too is a good example. He basically explains his playing as a bunch of patterns that he strings together, he just words himself in a different way. What he calls an "activity" in the book "linear expressions" refers to a set of patterns, muscle memory in a certain area or position of the neck.
Accomplished players who say they don't play "licks" are full of it. It doesn't matter if you think of it as licks or not. It's all muscle memory, and the most rehearsed muscle memory is going to come out most often.
You can be sure even Holdsworth has pet phrases, or fragments, that come out regularly.
IMO it boils down to this:
1) The players who sound good and don't sound like they're playing licks, sounding like "real" improv just know so many licks and so much vocab that they are able to create endless variations by taking microscopical parts of many different licks and stringing them together, varying the rhythms. They hear EVERYTHING they know, and it's in their reflexes. Because they play by reflexes, no thinking involved, they will sound completely natural. Like Martino and Pass who both are typical "lick" players.
versus
2) The players who sound bad and don't sound like they're playing licks. They know scales intuitively, but don't have the neurological to ear connection. They see a visual pattern on the neck and just rattle off of that pattern haphazardly. Those are whom Sonny Rollins(I think it was him, don't quote me on it) referred to as "cookie cutter jazz players". They will play very linearly OR very vertically out of rote. Basically, they are hit or miss players because they are so obsessed with sounding original that they neglect vocabulary completely, which ultimately becomes their downfall. Even those who start to hear the scales will sound bland and anonymous for the most part. They will sound out of place because they never spent time adapting to the musical situation they find themselves in by practicing vocab.
IMO a player has to learn vocabulary in order to be able to hang. I don't care how it happens. If they have the ears to soak it up passively, then that's just as good.
In short: know the context, learn the appropriate dialect.
My 2 cents.
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Amund,
Out of curiosity I tried to find a Sonny Rollins quote similar to what you reference in your post.
I found these 2 instances of his use of the expression "cookie cutter" and neither is using it in the way that you describe.
Sonny has always been very honest, open and modest, one of the true patron saints of this music.
From an NPR interview
Mr. ROLLINS: The corporate culture is anathema to jazz. We don't like cookie-cutter everything exactly the same way. We're about grace(ph) and thinking things at the moment like life is. Life changes every minute. I mean, a different sunset every night. I mean, that's what jazz is about.
From a SFGate Article/Interview
"You're always reaching for something," says Rollins, a warm, forthright guy who laughs a lot. "If everything you did was just like you wanted it to be, if you could turn it out like a cookie cutter, the music wouldn't be alive. It's real and spontaneous; it can't always come out the way you like it. I always have my standards, which hopefully are beyond what I can reach."
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I use all of the above...in no particular order...IMO
Some progressions will fall better into riff oriented improvisation
Some fall better in scales and scale pattern improvisation...
But the use of rhythmic variety will steer you away from the.."sounds like playing scales only" or "sounds like a bunch of riffs to me"...
Or the old "through composed (improvised)" method...play straight through the first eight bars and repeat nothing...
then the next eight...you know sections A & B....
time on the instrument...
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Sorry to take an opposing stance, but I disagree with the notion that every skilled improviser is just spinning out 'canned licks' when playing live. I know I don't for several reasons, not the least of which is that I play in the moment. I always get a kick out of the discussion when someone makes a distinction between playing at a tempo of 60 versus 200, as if that made a difference - like you can leisurely cycle through your brain's memory trust of "my fav 100 licks for every chord progression imaginable". Ahhh...here it is - no. 77!
Of course, there is such a skill as voice leading, which does limit the potential choices of melodic avenues to follow when you are navigating certain chord changes. But the choices are still exponential. Nonetheless the "harmonic cliché" cited by jster - " (min-minmaj7-min7-min6)" - is actually the only one I could think of. I don't think of that as a cliché, so much as harmonious voice leading. Perhaps the usage of the infamous "iim7 - V7" pattern is a cliché, yet one does not limit oneself in terms of the melodic phrase played over it.
I also dislike the term "muscle memory". When you move your fingers in a certain pattern on the fret board, that movement is not purely reflexive, but is guided by neurologic intentionality. Just as your respiratory pattern, assuming you have a normal neurologic profile. For an experienced player the intentionality does not mean that you need to "think about" the melodic phrase you are articulating. Hopefully it happens at a more subconscious level. But it is not the muscle that has the "memory" - it is the integration of your consciousness, brain, and muscles operating at a high level of skill and speedy processing. That is why I sometimes metaphorically think of playing musical phrases as "holographic" rather than a sequential processing. You imagine the phrase not as a sequence of notes executed in time, but more as a holographic image that you can walk around and perceive from different angles with dimensionality.
Of course, one could argue that simply playing the melody to Misty in a straight forward way is a "lick". I disagree - it is a melody, yes, but how you frame that melody harmonically is not set in stone.
When I play a series of jazz standards, even off my personal library of transcriptions created on my Sibelius software, I don't think I ever play the song exactly the same way each time. The only time that happens is if I'm playing classical music. One reason I find myself playing classical less over time. I prefer the creativity and openness of playing a jazz standard.
On the contested Travis Grimes thread, I heard Wes Montgomery playing a blues song I had never heard. I was playing along, essentially listening to the melody and responding in the moment. That is a form of improvisation, as I didn't know the melody. I tried to reflect on what I was doing in the moment, and essentially I play the melody or my response to it and harmonize it on the fly. That simple. No can of licks necessary or desired.
Came back to add something after reading a post on Bill Frisell playing Over the Rainbow over in chord melody land. Patrick posted a clip of a friend Vince Lewis playing a sweet CM version of this classic song in the key of C. I played along in tandem as my own arrangement of Rainbow is very similar. Again, the melody is the melody, though you can improvise off of it and the harmony can be interpreted in an individualistic way, though it has to follow some parameters or it won't be recognizable as OTR. But I don't have to search my memory banks for canned licks to improvise a bit. I hear the music, I play it. In the moment.Last edited by targuit; 10-07-2013 at 05:55 AM.
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One of the most important things that Joe ever said was something on the order of "Always have the MELODY in mind." Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles
Licks scales and arps are all part of the language, but if they don't somehow relate back to the melody, the song gets lost.
Same is true for having the lyrics in mind.
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I'm no expert but as I improve my playing through hard work, I find myself 'mixing it up' more and more. And when I listen to the pros play, that's also what I hear. I work on all three in the practice room.
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Licks are everything for learning jazz... it took me long time to understand this and trust myself completely to this grace, simple complexity...
Because licks come from the origins of style, they are highly idiomatic, learning licks take you to the very depth of jazz, though we do not have chance to invent jazz, we can live it over with those who did... and it is great fun.
The licks contain information what jazz thinking is because they have all the musical dimensions realized in practice: intoination, chords, rythms. meter - lick shows how it works together in real time, so learning licks you get th ewhole feel...
I believe that they learned arpeggios also not as an excersise but as a part of a lick in old days.
I mean scales or arpeggios can be good technical approach to build licks) -if you are already educated enough to see the fretboard this way - no need to drop iy away and to pretend ognorant like those guys of old times)))
But I think you will never learn to play jazz as a style, just learning arpeggios and scales.
Liks have it all.
And I think it is better not to learn lick from books but from records, I can freely ready notation and I noticed that reading jazz licks from scores obscures for me real jazzy thing in it, I kind of associate some classical connection with it inconciously, and when I truct my ear only I hear different logics behind it.
I would also say that it is better to get the concept not much theory-wise with detalid analysis, but mostly by ear.. "how it sounds and feels here", to try what will be if I change this and that and so on.. and probably to build even your own concept out of it.
It is just fun... of course if you do it for fun.Last edited by Jonah; 05-26-2014 at 05:25 AM.
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Hello, I would like to know what do you think about learning arpeggios before scales to build little solos over chord changes. Is this idea feasible or even advisable? Is this an approach only bebopers would take or not even them?
Excuse me if this is a dumb question, but I am beginning my jazz guitar journey and I feel I should focus on either arps or scales. Any comments?
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no way jose.
beginners and intermediates need to practice scales, chords, arpeggios - every practice session.
William Leavitt has some nice "up arpeggio, down scale", "up scale, down arpeggio" drills, others do too.
these lay the foundation for more advanced patterns and licks.
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Learn both simultaneously by studying arpeggios in a scale context.
Apply them to songs as soon as feasible.
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Arpeggios are simply notes that are taken from scales. To practice them first would probably weaken your whole concept of how and why they work, because without the scales part of the equation is missing. If you play a simple major 7 arp you might know that you're playing the notes 1-3-5-7 . But that begs the question "The 1-3-5-7 of WHAT, and what happened to the 2-4-6? Like fumblefingers said, work on both is absolutely necessary, especially at beginner and intermediate levels.
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You'll want to know it all eventually anyway. I don't see any harm in learning some arpeggios first if you want to do it that way. Your brain and fingers don't care what order you learn things. You can make connections at later points. A lot of the old guys started with chord tones and playing around them. That's what arpeggios are.
You can do arpeggios and then learn the passing tones, or learn the scales and then, later figure out where the chord tones are. Chicken /egg. All the same in the long run. Just my opinion as a fellow student....Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 12-23-2014 at 01:13 PM.
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This is a big project so take your time learning it. I would suggest that you proceed by working on your scales (Major scale first) within one of the five cage fingerings or the fingerings from Bill Leavitt's Modern Method books. I recommend you get that book and Jodie Fisher's Complete jazz guitar method...two great resources for knowing how to finger your scales. Do lots and lots of drill within one "pattern". After you get that, work on the "diatonic" arpeggios found within that scale Pattern. By diatonic I mean the arpeggio built on each scale degree. I also suggest you pick up Joe Elliot's Jazz guitar soloing book. It explains all of this in great detail. BTW there is a "sticky" discussion group dedicated to this book started by Fep.
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Scales, arpeggios, and chords are all related and to see that you want to work on them all at same time.
Arpeggios come from scales. Play an arpeggio up to the 13th you just played all the notes of the scale. Chords are combination of scales notes played simultaneously, typically the notes of the arpeggio. You see they really are one in the same and could be extended to where do melodies come from and chord progressions.
So your practice in a very generic view your day starts with working on the the scales and arpeggios and chord from a technical/technique point of view, then moves to practicing using them musically learning tunes, working on improvisation, and composing.
That's my story and I'm stilling to it.Last edited by docbop; 12-23-2014 at 01:49 PM.
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Caged or Leavitt . The Fischer book combines Unrelated fingering systems and doesn't teach all positions. Very arbitrary. Better to learn one system IMO. Originally Posted by smokinguit
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Here is a sheet I made to help me practice my drop 2 scale/chord/arpeggio patterns.
Don't mind the creases and whatnot, I use this to practice when I am away from my guitar.
Red marks are scale tones, circled marks are chord tones, blue marks are for the chord shape.Last edited by Broyale; 12-23-2014 at 02:06 PM.
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I guess ill keep working on both... Another question: two octaves arpeggio or just the high octave (as most of the soloing is gonna be on the treble strings i guess).
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If just getting going then two octaves. Later on you'll start working on scales on one or two strings, that really helps with fretboard and "seeing" theory. You will also get into doing connecting exercises play arpeggios and scale through tunes connection at nearest tone of next chord. That's when you'll be glad you drill these fundamentals in. Originally Posted by eduardosanz
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I wouldn't call it arbitrary as I see his reasoning for the fingerings, but come to think of it Fishcher's system is a bit more advance to start as it encourages one to move from one cage pattern to the next. I would still recommend it 'cause it has a lot of good info. Leavitt's book (the first book) is better to start in that you stay in position by stretching for notes with either the index finger or pinky. But after you learn your patterns you will have to learn how to move through them up and down the neck without feeling restricted to patterns. But for now if I was the OP I would focus on learning the 5 patterns one by one and Leavitt should help with that. Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
N.B. what works for one person doesn't mean it will work for you so experiment!
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It has different fingering patterns for the same positions. One caged, one 3-per-string. With the same effort, you could learn 2 positions of ONE system. for the amount of effort required to learn 2 different fingerings each for only two fretboard positions. You could learn almost the entire fretboard of said scale. Originally Posted by smokinguit
It's that way for all the scales, and the chord groupings are worse. The information is good, but the scale/chord presentation and sequencing is beyond frustrating.
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But there are times when having more than one pattern is useful. The fingerings that I normally have used for years are the ones that Jimmy Bruno teaches, which is kind of a modified CAGED I guess. However I also use 3 notes to a string and because I'm going somewhere that requires me to moved up or down the neck rather than across it and up or down the way that using a CAGED style fingering would require me to do. I first got the 3 notes per string idea from a Lee Ritenour video a long time ago, and there are few people who get around the guitar like he does. Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
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Multiple ways are cool. I've done caged and Leavitt. But beginners mixing them from the start? Took me long enough to learn my first 5 positions back in the day. 2 ways to finger 3rd position to the detriment of more fretboard? That book is a mess imo.
Sorry. I'll give it a rest on Fisher with this thread. I like him and I know he's a good teacher. I just have a beef with this book...
Mickey Baker vs Jody Fisher?Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 12-23-2014 at 10:30 PM.
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