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^this, but you need to accept that it takes time. Pretty sure I played over a thousand bad jazz solos before I played one that didn't completely and totally suck. Also, checking out live jazz is very helpful...even more so once you "know" some tunes i.e. you know the vanilla changes by heart and can follow the changes while the pros are taking their solos.
Originally Posted by Alter
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03-26-2019 07:44 PM
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Work on your ears!
Sing, sing, sing!
As JCat said, internalize the SOUND of the tune you are improvising on.
And, play with other people.
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Playing alone is OK. You have to put in the time to get to where you have the reserve capacity to play with others.
Playing with others is good. A lot of things are learned doing this preparing being able to perform.
Performing with others is better. This is the real threshold. Playing live is emergent, magic, and special.
Having performed as the guitarist of a house band that hosted over a decade of weekly four hour shows, playing countless songs on stage live hearing them for the first time, playing them with guest musicians to whom having been introduced just moments before; because improvisation comes from public experience and private confidence encountering the unknown... I have to call that best. The closer and sooner you can get to doing something like that, the best opportunity you have of really learning how to get better at improvising.
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It's two things.
1. Being able to think of a good melody over the chord changes of a tune.
2. Being able to play that melody as you think of it.
For the first one, you need to be able to scat sing, or at least think of, a cool melody. I think you get that by listening, training your ear and doing a lot of scat singing.
For the second one, you practice playing everything you hear and think. So, for example, if you're watching tv, play along with the background music.
Eventually you get bored with your own scat singing, or you can't do it fast enough. At that point, a thousand things that get discussed on here regularly may help.
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I consider myself to be a late intermediate early advanced level. I play rock blues, and classical style guitar, so figuring and such don't give me any problems. I guess the thing im trying to connect is theoretical ideas and apply, for example using certain scale and lines over the different changes. Originally Posted by John A.
Like you said, I will play more jazz music and apply the ideas that I know of and future ideas that I learn to the standards I love.
Plus too im super excited, because I know what I want to go for when it comes to playing jazz and improvising, its just trying to get to the sound I want to achieve. Lol sorry if I sound all over the place.
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Right now my routine is that I will learn the chord changes and work on the melody. After or even during, I like to analyze the piece and try to figure out what scales can work with each chord. Then I try to find a backing track that's slow to medium and play along with it. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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I would say im late intermediate,iediate to early advanced level. I have a band thats more in line with soul/r&b and we practice and play out often. I guess I would I am trying to take my playing to another level. I have always loved jazz, especially bebop, but kinda feared going all in because I didn't know much theory, but now I know a good amount of classical theory, which I know can apply to jazz, so im ready to go all in for it. Originally Posted by John A.
Like you said, I just need to play more jazz music, and study up on a bit of the jazz theory ideas to get better. I don't know of any local jazz groups looking for a guitar player, but I do know of a weekly jazz jam session that I probably should get involved in.
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Have you spent time with arpeggios? In general, when you learn a tune, how many different places on the neck are you playing the chords? Are you adding extensions/alterations or playing "by the chart?" Originally Posted by Patriot81
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I've actually have been working on arpeggios but only in a isolated manner. What would be the best way to practice them in a way that is beneficial to the songs I'm learning? Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
And I'm only learning one position for the chords, how many places would you recommend to learn the songs?
And I'm playing strictly by the chart, but have been aware that on recording my favorite players will embellish melodies
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Going to a weekly jam is a great idea. As to theory -- there's really not that much to know, at least not to get started. If you already know a good amount of classical theory, you probably know enough (theory is theory; I vi ii V means the same thing in classical and jazz). Learn tunes, go play. Originally Posted by Patriot81
John
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In my view this is backwards. First, you learn the melody...and you do it by ear, by lifting it from a recording. Invest in Amazing Slow Downer and/or Transcribe software so you can slow down and loop stuff. Always learn melodies by ear. Then play them in different keys. Originally Posted by Patriot81
Then try to figure out the chord changes the same way but, at your level (and often at mine!!), it's I think OK to refer to chord charts, but you want to get away from the sheet music ASAP.
If you can do this - learn melodies by ear and then play them in different keys - and memorize chord changes so that you build an internal repertoire of tunes, and then pick up like one jazz lick a month by ear and really work it, then you will make real progress which is very roughly proportional to the number of tunes you learn in this manner. Disregard this advice at your own peril!
This is all very hard at the beginning but then gets much easier over times. Once you get to around 30 tunes, things really start opening up.
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I'm sorry, but not only are you a Jazz beginner, but time spent in Rock and Blues has made you entrenched in certain habits that will make earning Jazz improvisation much, much harder. Seriously, and I welcome anyone on the forum to disagree, but you are better off learning Jazz improv from scratch than from a blues/rock background. Originally Posted by Patriot81
The bebop way is to learn lines against every chord type, in every position. Dozens of lines and devices of varying lengths (years of work). Then getting good at stitching them together so that your solos come out differently every time (many more years). Bebop is NOT working out which scale to play for each chord, that's a totally different sound that doesn't really sound like "Jazz" - try it and you'll soon see!
These "lines" are the Jazz vocabulary, and there is no one source. Sure, there are books (Baker, Bergonzi, Coker etc) but to be a real Jazz player you'll want to learn it like all the greats did. Think again about what cosmic gumbo meant when he posted that link earlier on, "Nights at the turntable". It's not just a play on words "Knights of the round table", but an allusion to how people used to learn Jazz back in the day, by spending hours every week lifting lines off records. Sounds unnecessary and archaic right? Until you realise that all the players who learned that way are still considered the gold standard examples.
So lift your own lines of choice, that way you will gather your own hand picked vocabulary, and that's the fun bit.
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I still can't get over Sonny Rollins talking in an interview about how he, Jackie McLean, Miles, and all his peer NYC cats were bebop experts at 19, 20 years old, and these guys were 8-10 younger than Bird, Monk and Bud Powell, whom he referred to as the bebop professors....
It's true, these guys had the vocab and chops at 20. Even Sonny refers to listening and copying Colman Hawkins records ad nauseam. But he had an environment where he could apply it with other musicians on a daily basis. Nowadays, academia is a 4th rate substitute for the original tradition.
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I think we all want to 'keep getting better at soloing over jazz changes', it's a lifelong process that never stops. Even Pat Metheny said he is an eternal student of the guitar. You've already started that process by learning some Parker phrases and thinking about writing your own solos. Keep doing stuff like that. Personally I always found this process to be interesting enough, even 'fun', to keep doing it, despite any frustration along the way.
In my case, I suppose I followed princeplanet's approach i.e. mainly copying stuff off jazz records until I could make up my own lines. I also learned enough theory and technical stuff (scales, arps etc) to support that process, however that was not my primary focus.
But I was able to play some decent lines over a simple tune like Autumn Leaves after a year or so, I don't think it needs to take years to get to a point like that.
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Compare and contrast.
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Mimi Fox interview
Mimi Fox Expands Jazz Guitar from the Inside Out - GuitarPlayer.com
'As an educator, what is the most prevalent problem with jazz guitar students?
For one thing, they don’t practice enough. They want it overnight, and they don’t work on essentials such as arpeggios. Also, I typically encounter two types of students: those that are devoted and put in the hours, but don’t have a good time feel or don’t swing or have some other serious issues musically; and those that have a lot of innate musical talent, but are lazy. The study of any art form requires tremendous discipline, and jazz is paradoxical in that all this discipline is so that when you get up on stage you can play freely.
Another thing is that students don’t do enough transcribing. They think that somehow they’ll get their own sound by osmosis. And, although it is actually by osmosis—it’s an osmosis that has to happen from listening and working to acquire important harmonic and melodic data by really digging into the music. I can play dozens of solos note-for-note that are still in my head from the first transcriptions that I did, and that’s because I spent so much time listening and then writing those solos down and tapping out the rhythms. So, again, paradoxically you get your own sound by listening to other people. But you don’t get it by saying you are going to get it—you have to work at it.'
I fall into a third category, talentless and lazy.
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So right now I'm going through the Mickey baker as my main course of study, and to implement those ideas, I have the CP onimibook and a book of Charlie Christian solo, I figure analyzing what that did and try to incorporate their ideas into my playing would help.
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I’ve found that singing along with your soloing — like George Benson, for example — instantly makes it more musical and interesting. The act of vocalizing triggers something magical in the brain that translates to the fingers.
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I'm learning to improvise also but my case there's a catch when trying to improve with practicing a lot.
After a some days of all sorts of routines, the rhythm gets snappy, more confidence, you know all the technical shape gets better. But it tends to get automatic. "Better" but it's a little numb, a little predictable. Not fully satisfying. Recording my solo, seeing that it IS actually better now but not pleasing in the right way.. that's quite frustrating. And on top of that, I know bloody sure that I've done better with way less knowledge, skill etc.
Now I'm after getting "emotionally" connected to the guitar, so that just about any note would make me feel good.. even the funky wrong ones
*mini-compositions. Just pick a short chord progression and try create a good passage over it. "good" meaning a "lightbulb" moment.
*playing lots of simple hit tunes by ear, connecting them always to my scale patterns that I use.
*listen how a single long note FEELS against another(bass) note, or a chord.
*listen before playing a thing. If doing that, I can start hearing the new note or chord in my mind. It's a real thing, this really happens
Well, those are my mind games. Seems to be working, sometimes surprisingly well.
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Also when learning solos, what are somethings I should be doing to while learning the solos in order to be useful for my own playing outside of what im learning. I have heard things like find lines that I like and transpose them to every key and to make variations of those licks.
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Mimi is an encyclopedia of jazz vocabulary. You can hear it when she solos. But, to me, the unique thing about her playing is her intense sense of time. She was a drummer first, and attributes it to that. The word crisp doesn't do her justice. Also, she has massive chops. Originally Posted by dot75
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Here a clip of me improvising on How High the Moon, I tried several things
I tried to improvise based on the melody
then I tried to solo on the big strings with a kind of figure I made up
I was learning ornithology by Charlie Parker and found they are the same changes, so I used some ideas from the start of his solo on there.
Feel free to destroy me on this solo lol. Im trying!
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Patriot -
Well done. It's so refreshing to find an enquirer on here who doesn't just ask a question and then disappears. Not only have you stuck at it but you've had the BALLS to show us a clip. Brilliant.
Okay, here's my reaction. First, too fast for a starter. HHTM isn't a beginner's tune. So, slow it down a tad and take it easy with an easier tune and chord progression. Autumn Leaves sounds a good idea.
Then notes. It's not bad but, as I say, at that speed you're going to sacrifice note choices. I think it was Joe Pass who said if the backing is removed you should be able to make out the chords by the notes. I don't know if I'm making that clear.
I can hear what you're doing. On what basis are you playing those lines? I know you said Charlie Parker but he's an expert and you have to know why you're playing what you're playing. Is it basically scales or playing around the chord shapes? Those are the two main approaches before it gets far more advanced.
That's enough destruction (!). What do you say?
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Yeah, im liking this site lots of resource, but more importantly a good community, so I get to actually have feedback from more experienced player, I love to learn! Originally Posted by ragman1
I love that observation about playing too fast, I was listening to a Charlie Christian soloing on blues song last night and the was he developed without playing fast was crazy.
Autumn Leaves is one song I need to learn, I should make a list of easier standards to learn.
For this I was thinking in terms of scales, and trying to hit chord tones, mainly the roots to start for now, but since I know the song's melody, I think I may be hitting other tones without thinking of it too much.
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Yes, arpeggios are lines, especially when they connect with each other. But don't rely on them too much, times have changed since Charlie Christian. Originally Posted by Patriot81
As a matter of fact the CP Omnibook would probably have good ideas for lines. I haven't seen that book but one problem could be that some bebop lines aren't at all obvious. Simple scale lines and arpeggios are usually simple to understand but bebop language isn't always. Like I said, it's essential that one knows why one is playing what one plays. Otherwise it becomes mere imitation.
Another point is the thing about solo ideas. I feel it's a real mistake (in fact I know it is) to try to hold an idea in one's head and then try to approximate it musically. It stifles playing. It's far, far better to know the chords and what one's basically supposed to be playing over them and then just let rip. Improvisation is walking a high wire without a safety net. It won't always be brilliant but it's better than trying to copy something preconceived. Experiment with it and see.
I suppose you've been on to YouTube and found the vids of Rose Room. There's a transcription if you read music but there are also versions by cover players that'll show you where to put the fingers. All good stuff.
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