The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #101

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Very fixed mindset statement
    No, no, it's not, it was a statement of fact.

    If I'm trying to play a solo I don't want to have to count a beat while I'm doing it! Good lord. I might hum with it but not do something entirely different at the same time.

    How can you really listen if your brain's occupied with something else? When I solo I'm listening completely, moving with it, riding on the feel... and I'm supposed to be counting out 1, 2, 3 at the same time? No way, to me that's completely unproductive.

    And, to be honest, if I had a teacher who insisted I did it and told me all I had to do was 'try harder' they wouldn't be my teacher for very long. It would mean they weren't listening to what I was telling them. It would be farewell very quickly :-)

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #102

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    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    No, no, it's not, it was a statement of fact.

    If I'm trying to play a solo I don't want to have to count a beat while I'm doing it! Good lord. I might hum with it but not do something entirely different at the same time.

    How can you really listen if your brain's occupied with something else? When I solo I'm listening completely, moving with it, riding on the feel... and I'm supposed to be counting out 1, 2, 3 at the same time? No way, to me that's completely unproductive.

    And, to be honest, if I had a teacher who insisted I did it and told me all I had to do was 'try harder' they wouldn't be my teacher for very long. It would mean they weren't listening to what I was telling them. It would be farewell very quickly :-)
    there’s a difference between practicing and making music

  4. #103

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    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    You're not picking on me, it's a misunderstanding. As I understand it, your example means you (the teacher) asks the student to try to play something with the blues scale you've just shown them and they say 'Why?'.

    Is that right? Well, I see that as rather an odd question, don't you? To see what sound it can make, to let them get a feel for it... I mean, you're supposed to be teaching them and they say 'Why should I do it?'. A bit odd, I'd have thought. But maybe you didn't mean that.

    The other example is someone not wanting to sound bad. Obviously no one does, including me. But here you're with a teacher so does it matter if you falter or get your fingers wrong? Who cares?

    If you're genuinely saying that, after being shown something - and I'm envisaging being alone in a room with them or a very small group - they won't play anything in case it 'sounds bad' then I don't know. Again, who cares? Don't you think it sounds a bit introvert, a bit neurotic? Do they expect, as someone who's just beginning something, to play like an expert? How old are they supposed to be?
    So, the student is introverted, neurotic, immature, obstreperous etc.

    (Or is that my wife lol. I’ll tell her later, she’ll find it amusing.)

    I also wasn’t aware being an introvert is a bad thing.

    Anyway, I don’t know about you but I’m not a qualified psychiatrist. I’m a guitar tutor. I’d rather not blame on the student what could be more easily attributed to inflexible, unempathetic teaching.

    which is not to say that it isn’t frustrating sometimes. But I think teaching is HARD. The actual teaching bit, that is.

    anyway your comments have kind of made my points for me rather neatly I think.

    It all sounds a bit unnecessarily problematical to me. I've taught all ages, from about eleven up to middle aged people. I can't remember a single one refusing to try something out in case they got it wrong! Of course they'll get it wrong the first few times, then they start getting it. Fall over before you can walk, right?

    Or maybe I'm misinterpreting the whole thing. If I am you'll have to explain it.



    But they may not be. If they've tried and tried, and it's just not 'them', that may be valid. There are people who just can't play lead, for example. You need a certain kind of mind to play lead, notes, scales, pentatonics, etc, rather than chords or sing Not everyone has that kind of a mind or brain. But that's not their fault. A good teacher will realise that and not force it. Their forte may be something else, and probably is. The guitar may not even be the right instrument for them.

    I can't play the piano, for example. My mother and brother could, but I can't. I can't co-ordinate the two hands. It's not my fault, I'm just not a pianist and I'll never be one. Shame, but there we are. Somebody else can play it :-)

    Fixed mindset. Passive, existential language.

    Look I don’t think you have to be a piano player, or a jazz guitar player for that matter, it’s just I don’t think of things in quite such an absolute way.

    Some things you kind of have to work at. Which one might not be up for if one have enough of that stuff elsewhere. Or maybe one enjoys the process of that.

    hey I’m not here to judge...
    Last edited by christianm77; 04-16-2020 at 02:15 PM.

  5. #104

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    Vladimir Horowitz in one if the late interviews said (I do not remember the exact words) that most difficult problem for him in performance was to combine the ability to wintness how music appears to life and lives right now with the control over instrument which is getting more and more subtle with years... and the more you listen to what you play the more control it is required... it is a very delicate balance, almost scary - some kind of feeling the moment stand still but keep going

    I am not Horowitz but I know that feeling when you are witnessing music and it is the best thing that can be but at the same moment you have that fear that in this condition you cannot play any more and you still play..

    But I believe in jazz it can be a bit easier because you can just stop after all and take a pause...

  6. #105

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    Christian -

    Forgive me, but you're completely misunderstanding, misrepresenting, and misinterpreting what I'm saying. Sorry, but that's true. The quoter won't reproduce an embedded quote but this is it:

    Naima Chord Changes-jpg

    Can you do gymnastics? Flick-flacks? Double somersaults? And if you say no that's apparently a negative, defeatist statement! Of course it's not, it's simply true.

    I'm simply stating a fact. I'd be wasting my time trying to make myself do something that's foreign to me. I can't play the piano but I can play the guitar. If you, as a teacher, are trying to convince or persuade me otherwise then I'd swap you for someone else double-quick, I assure you.

    If you don't understand this, too bad!

    Anyway, we're supposed to be discussing Naima, not this.

  7. #106

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jonah
    Vladimir Horowitz in one if the late interviews said (I do not remember the exact words) that most difficult problem for him in performance was to combine the ability to wintness how music appears to life and lives right now with the control over instrument which is getting more and more subtle with years... and the more you listen to what you play the more control it is required... it is a very delicate balance, almost scary - some kind of feeling the moment stand still but keep going

    I am not Horowitz but I know that feeling when you are witnessing music and it is the best thing that can be but at the same moment you have that fear that in this condition you cannot play any more and you still play..

    But I believe in jazz it can be a bit easier because you can just stop after all and take a pause...
    I had that too when I was playing classical guitar. But then the tune was already there and one was only concerned with interpretation. I'm not saying with jazz improvisation it's not possible - I think it is - but it's much more difficult because you don't know what you're going to play next.

  8. #107

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    This is the one I like. I'd give a lot to be able to do it like this. More or less, anyway.


  9. #108

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    I did not bother to tune guitar for the first part of the clip. Second part is better in regard of tuning, but there it is not quite Naima any more.


  10. #109

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    And heres how I used chords from above in full mix



    Sent from My Blog Page

  11. #110

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    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    Christian -

    Forgive me, but you're completely misunderstanding, misrepresenting, and misinterpreting what I'm saying. Sorry, but that's true. The quoter won't reproduce an embedded quote but this is it:

    Naima Chord Changes-jpg

    Can you do gymnastics? Flick-flacks? Double somersaults? And if you say no that's apparently a negative, defeatist statement! Of course it's not, it's simply true.

    I'm simply stating a fact. I'd be wasting my time trying to make myself do something that's foreign to me. I can't play the piano but I can play the guitar. If you, as a teacher, are trying to convince or persuade me otherwise then I'd swap you for someone else double-quick, I assure you.

    If you don't understand this, too bad!

    Anyway, we're supposed to be discussing Naima, not this.
    OK I'm not going to die on that hill, but you did basically call my wife neurotic haha.

    If I was teaching you, I would work with what you were up for doing, and try to teach the person in front of me, slowly expand this. Often there's a disconnect though between what people expect of a lesson, what they think they need to learn, and what I actually address based on what I think they need to learn. (See above)

    But can you see your comments about, say, piano somewhat mirror classical player's comments about trying to learn improvisation? The ones that you said were neurotic etc?

    It's also worth saying that not all jazz education is one to one, or people in jazz/improvisation workshops are confident at taking the plunge.

    For instance a friend teaches (usually classically trained) music teachers to improvise and teach improvisation in workshop groups. I suppose you could tell them they were mentally unsound, but I doubt that would have positive learning outcomes.

    I would prefer to use my imagination, research and experience to come up with different learning activities, because there's a greater chance they might ask me to do it again, then. Also, might have a better chance of it working.

  12. #111

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    My question is, are we musicians or engineers? The engineers know exactly what I'm talking about.

  13. #112

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    Quote Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo
    My question is, are we musicians or engineers? The engineers know exactly what I'm talking about.
    I think I know what you mean.

    Have to add though, for clarity, engineering goes hand in hand with experimenting, preferably scientific in method and with learning.

    For example, you can devise and engineer experiments, apply scientific methods, then use new knowledge for consequent work. Applying, or avoiding...

  14. #113

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    Quote Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo
    My question is, are we musicians or engineers? The engineers know exactly what I'm talking about.
    I think we have to be both. Musicians for feel and engineers for the nuts and bolts.

  15. #114

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    The question I always find myself asking is - how much understanding (in scientific/analytical sense) is necessary to learn improvise idiomatically (for instance in jazz)?

    I come from that pole - the numerical one, as most jazzers do these days, so I didn't learn that way... but the question is really interesting to me.

    I suspect - I can't argue compellingly (yet) - that we do too much teaching here, and less understanding (i.e. harmony, theory etc) is required at the outset to improvise idiomatically. Idiom - is not everything - but it's mastery is a necessary stage of musical development in my view.

    I'm typing this while watching a lecture about SEN (special needs) kids, some of whom are non verbal. They just showed a video where one improvises idiomatically through melodic elaboration. That raises some interesting questions; they communicate through music ...

    Verbalisation necessary for music theory? I don't know. Anyone?

    (We don't have to look that deeply into ideas about the mind, language and music of course - think of Lester Young saying 'don't tell me the changes...')

  16. #115

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    "All musicians are subconsciously mathematicians" ~ Thelonious Monk

  17. #116

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    Quote Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo
    "All musicians are subconsciously mathematicians" ~ Thelonious Monk
    Subconsiously

  18. #117

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    did not know George B did Naima,

    dont get me wrong love Benson but dont think this is his best, .GB is a master of the blues and groove,

    Naima just does not have the harmony that is easily translated into blues, and the Harmonic Rhythm is not groove, fabulous tune,
    just really not so easily Blues-fied . Benson can and does Bluesify everything.



  19. #118

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    It seems Coltrane took "On Green Dolphin Street" and made the first chord a V7 Eb7 Sus chord instead of Eb Major 7th ... and then resolved a little later on to its tonic Ab Maj7 (bar 4).
    For the bridge he used the Bb7 V7 typical modern jazz pedal point (Bb Locrian for a bar, Bb7 b9 for a bar, repeat... then Bb7 V7 Sus to Bb V7 Phrygian back to the top.