The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #101

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    Quote Originally Posted by princeplanet
    You mention you like to think about the chord of the moment, do you find yourself also thinking of the chord of the next moment? (just trying to get back to the original premise...)
    yes. That's what I understand "playing changes" to mean. If you are just going chord by chord you can't set up any melodic tension or resolution.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #102

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    Quote Originally Posted by princeplanet
    Yeah, that's cool too, and double yeah re associating a PC with a chord. I never did think Ab MM against G7, just the "altered" scale, much easier and faster to deal with.
    For me, I thought early on about 4 chord subs
    1. Amin subs for D7
    2. A min subs for Cmaj
    3. Amin subs for F maj
    4. Db7 subs for G7 (as a V)

    (and all their transpositions, and their converses, eg D7 subs for Ami) This is for both solo and comping.

    and as a corollary

    5. Abmi subs for G7 as a V

    and I learned both to solo and comp simultaneously using this.

    whatever I', woodshedding tends to plug into this when I'm focusing on playing changes. eg. for scales, if I'm working out ideas using the melodic minor scale, I'll think of it in one of these contexts: It works well for 1. and 5. but its a little out on 2. because of the #5 and more out on 3 because of the #9. For comping, I went through a long period (Still trying to get out of it) where I loved the Cmaj7#5 sound, so Am(#7) is just part of that sound to me.

  4. #103

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    Rather than think ahead how about being in the moment? Howard Roberts said to play at the speed of thought so how did he play so fast? Thinking is part of Jazz improvisation, but over intellectualizing can dominate the other parts; spirit, emotional, physical.

    How about practicing improv on Autumn Leaves at a slower tempo so you'll have time to think. How about not playing anything until you hear something that you'd like to play? Have you mapped out the best scales to use for each chord in advance?

    I agree that learning tunes is very important. I discovered a different chord just by learning a Frank Sinatra tune. But the context of how chords are used with melody opens the ears to different possiblilites.
    Last edited by bobby d; 12-01-2013 at 12:28 PM.

  5. #104

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    Quote Originally Posted by bobby d
    Rather than think ahead how about being in the moment? Howard Roberts said to play at the speed of thought so how did you play so fast? Thinking is part of Jazz improvisation, but over intellectualizing can dominate the other parts; spirit, emotional, physical.
    This is also Henry's main point above. Of course it is right: I dont know of any musicians who are doing a whole lot of "thinking" in the sense of calculating, when on the bandstand.

    But the issue is how do you prepare yourself to be able to do this, in a jazz context, which has a history and standards and cliches. Beginners sometimes excuse their lame non-idiomatic noodling by saying "I'm an ear/emotional player", while others get so caught up in the micro "rules" that they can never get anywhere with their playing. In between you have players who can blow harmonically correctly, but whose solos are missing other important ingredients. You have to think about this stuff when you practice, IMHO

  6. #105

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    You must learn your basics. You must know you scales, modes, arpeggios comprehensively across the fretboard. Then learn and apply them to a bunch of tunes. You will find that one standard tune is very similar to other standard tunes, so you can work across them without too much effort after a time. ii - V - I's are all very similar, so thinking ahead is not a problem. If I'm playing Darn That Dream, I know the bridge is in Eb, so I SEE ii - V I in Eb then vi. You have think ahead, or SEE ahead to the next sections. I like to use the word SEE rather than think, because thinking doesn't describe it. There's no analysis or calculation, but I am looking or seeing the changes or chord symbols, or fretboard outlining the changes.

    BUT as soon as you start thinking about this, you're THINKING about it and have lost the zone and probably start making mistakes and hitting clams. To me this is like answering questions like "How do you eat? Do you think ahead of time before taking the next bite? How many chews do you do before thinking about taking another bite?" It's not even relevant to anything. You start eating. You start playing. You will know how to think ahead. And I'm sure everyone thinks ahead differently. Some players might think of pillows ahead or giraffes. I just don't get this minutiae. PLAY THE FRIGGING GUITAR.

  7. #106

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    I think about the chords. Then maybe the melody. Beyond that anything goes.

    I say embrace the chaos.

  8. #107

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    Quote Originally Posted by AlsoRan
    Alright, folks.

    I am going to be the sacrificial lamb, but it won't be the first time I have set myself out there for ridicule and I probably have a hell of a lot more coming before my time is up on this earth. I was not planning to post this but thought I would share it anyway.

    Below is a sample of my first try using a principle from Joe Elliot's book Introduction to Jazz Guitar Soloing. It is a iim7-V7-Imaj7 in E major at the third position or so. I used F#minor 7 arpeggio, B Dom 7 arpeggio (with some B Altered Scale mixed in), and the E Major 7 arpeggio.
    Good job! You're getting there! All the elements seem to be there. You just need to do it a lot more. There's still a lot of necessary thinking going on. After awhile the thinking and effort will lesson as you just KNOW the notes and flow with it.

  9. #108

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    "Don’t play what you know. Play what you hear."
    Miles Davis didn't use the word "prehear" did he? It isn't even a word! I think the point is knowing the melody in your head and knowing how you can improvise around it in real time. Any thinking ahead should be a few milliseconds before executing what is heard in your mind's ear. That's spontaneity not preplanning, thinking ahead or pre-hearing.

  10. #109

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    Being aware of where the tune goes doesn't mean you're pre planning licks.

    You have to be aware of structure, form, movement. Otherwise you're painting by numbers.

    I can prove this to you, if you'd like. I'll blow over a tune I really know the form of, and one I read off a sheet...Which solo do you think will be better?

  11. #110
    "Between thought and expression ...... lies a lifetime" The source of that little diamond is none other than Lou Reed (maybe he stole it from somewhere). But that very same gap, between thought and expression, is what has always fascinated me. We think way faster than we speak, in fact, speaking forces us to slow down our communication to the speed of speech, which is pretty slow when you think about it. That "knowing what I'm gonna say" directive in my mind is infinitely small, and millions of these neuron explosions could be going off in my mind while I speak (or even type), hence the randomness of the thought/speech dance...

    But the "thought / play jazz" dance isn't as easily developed - not in my mind anyhow! Learning a jazz phrase is harder than learning a new word. Not losing your place in a set form against the ticking metronome or band is harder than free form speech. If I'm talking, I can quite often be thinking of something else, even if I'm "improvising" my speech. Women are even better at this, apparently... But if I'm playing something I am learning, I find it very difficult to think about anything else at the same time. I can't even speak! And it's this very thing that moved me to start this thread, I suppose I wanted to see if I'm retarded in some way, maybe not equipped with the same wiring required to improvise from a large pool of concepts a a high level (complicated ideas, fast tempos and all the other hallmarks of elite improv).

    The best I can hope for is to sublimate ingrained concepts to the point where they can be accessed with very little effort - "auto pilot". The simple game from post #71, I've been doing that daily for a few days as a kind of test, and am happy to report progress! I'm talking about 2-3 hours a night of nothing but, and sure enough, the more automatic the phrases become, the more of my mind's resources are freed up to, yes, "think ahead"... Now at the point where I leave it til the very last moment to decide which idea to "plug in", yes, I have enough time to choose from available options! Interestingly, there are hiccups, sometimes, I forget all the options and repeat the current idea until it comes to me, but I can stay on the rails and not fall off until it comes. Other times the idea I thought I chose doesn't come out, but another correct one does! Before this started happening, the mistakes were worse, I'd play a 2-5 over the I, or vice versa, but now the "mistakes" are usually other correct options...

    Please, I KNOW, this is not improvisation, but for me, it feels like the training wheels for improvisation because it's dealing with the (my) problem of learning to combine concepts. Moving beyond this is of course the aim, to the point of control where all the ideas are cut up, shuffled and uniquely recombined as to constitute what effectively could be seen as real time composition.

    It's too late for me to approach this another way, I've already invested years developing concepts in isolation, and will easily admit it was probably the most inefficient approach, but I have to make the best of a bad situation, and am at least encouraged that this approach probably has been done before with some success, probably by playing full tunes with other people on a stage! .... still a bit scary, but getting closer.....
    Last edited by princeplanet; 12-02-2013 at 12:12 AM.

  12. #111

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    Princeplanet how about trying a lesson with a local pro? The first thing they'll do is have you play a tune with them. After that, explain to them what your practice approach has been, and seek their feedback. The internet is always a scary place from which to seek advice.

    Having said that, my two cents: you have to work on everything. Scales, arps, scales in intervals, motifs (1235 etc), applying licks, pure technique, changing licks, ear training, playing with a defined structure (first 8 this way, next 8 another way), reviewing tunes, mentally reviewing tunes, transposing tunes, mentally transposing tunes, quoting the melody, comping while singing the melody, "just blowing", sight-reading, listening to records. Maybe the "scales" are done without tunes (and even then, you could just as easily do them over scales - personally I like practicing scales to a sequence of "random roots" as kind of a warm-up), but rest is all done over tunes (tunes I've memorized). Because, at the end of the day, learning to play over tunes and getting better at playing over tunes is the name of the game.

    Personally I spent way too long (a few years) only practicing "practicing" - what do you think my playing sounded like? It sounded like practicing. So about 8 months ago I really started practicing "playing" as well (to varying degrees...but the fundamental basis is to do almost everything over tunes) and it really helps. It's essential. Yes, sometimes that involves plugging a specific lick into sorta pre-defined places, but most of the time it doesn't. That might be on one of the spectrum. On the other end is having no plan at all but just blowing over a tune you know. In the middle there are tons of quasi-playing exercises you could do...

  13. #112

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    PP - It really isn't about "plugging in ideas" so much as following a musical path. In my opinion you are overthinking which may impede your playing.

  14. #113

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    This is probably the best thread I've read on this forum. The two statements I agree with most are: don't over-think improvisations (the zen idea), and rhythm (and I'd add dynamics) is perhaps the most important part of an improvisation. I think the point is that technique is secondary (and is learned as a means to an end), and appeal and feel are everything. I like the Miles' quote used by mr. beaumont and the one where he says that he'll play it first and tell you what it is later.
    Last edited by zigzag; 12-02-2013 at 10:26 PM.

  15. #114
    Quote Originally Posted by coolvinny
    Princeplanet how about trying a lesson with a local pro? The first thing they'll do is have you play a tune with them. After that, explain to them what your practice approach has been, and seek their feedback. The internet is always a scary place from which to seek advice.

    Having said that, my two cents: you have to work on everything. Scales, arps, scales in intervals, motifs (1235 etc), applying licks, pure technique, changing licks, ear training, playing with a defined structure (first 8 this way, next 8 another way), reviewing tunes, mentally reviewing tunes, transposing tunes, mentally transposing tunes, quoting the melody, comping while singing the melody, "just blowing", sight-reading, listening to records. Maybe the "scales" are done without tunes (and even then, you could just as easily do them over scales - personally I like practicing scales to a sequence of "random roots" as kind of a warm-up), but rest is all done over tunes (tunes I've memorized). Because, at the end of the day, learning to play over tunes and getting better at playing over tunes is the name of the game.

    Personally I spent way too long (a few years) only practicing "practicing" - what do you think my playing sounded like? It sounded like practicing. So about 8 months ago I really started practicing "playing" as well (to varying degrees...but the fundamental basis is to do almost everything over tunes) and it really helps. It's essential. Yes, sometimes that involves plugging a specific lick into sorta pre-defined places, but most of the time it doesn't. That might be on one of the spectrum. On the other end is having no plan at all but just blowing over a tune you know. In the middle there are tons of quasi-playing exercises you could do...
    Don't like any of the teacher options in my town.... but hear ya. I'm going through that practicing "practicing" phase, no doubt about it, but just as you moved past it, so could I, right? Surely you got good value from your years of that kinda practice? It is Jazz after all, it's gonna take some discipline, right? Can't all be beer and skilttles!

  16. #115

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    Comment re: speed chess, information "chunking", and musical knowledge

    Interesting citation about learning music/jazz and comparing it to chess. I am an OK recreational chess player (now USCF 1740 which is like 83-85th percentile of national chess organization tmt participants..)

    Several years ago, I started working with Russian based chess software which was context rich and essentially consisted of working though problems from given positions...sometimes clues were given and sometimes they were not...essentially working through, over and over, various themes and motifs....after time the well-known ones became obvious...maybe like the minor;mimaj7; min7;min6 chromatic run in My Funny Valentine and others (Michelle, I think, and Stairway to Heaven, I guess).

    I cannot tell you how often I would look initially at a problem position, and say..."Nah....nothing there..." But this was wrong...the problem was given...there was a demonstrated solution I could look up if I finally threw in the towel....I learned to dismiss the initial superficial evaluation and keep looking....to really penetrate into the "depth and truth" of a position...

    When it came to playing,if I was playing well, I could easily come home, recall the exact movements of the game without consulting the written notational scoresheet, and play over different alternatives...when I saw everything, given my present level of understanding, then I was pleased and elated, and it felt really great...also tiring after 3 hrs. of intense mental effort/concentration...BTW some players "calculate/visualize" almost continuously when they play---others save it for crucial times in a game only...and the difference is surprisingly small in terms of playing strength...in general lots of classic psychology experiments with chess have established that strong players have "contextual" understanding---their ability to recall chess positions is no better, in general, than the general population if they are given positions unlikely to have occurred in real games or exercises they have been exposed to...interestingly when it comes to move alternatives, strong players also cannot always explain why a given alternative is not looked at---they'll say..."not the kind of move that works in this type of position"...or "doesn't look good, somehow"

    Anyway, back to the problem tasks...after a while I could "sense" something in positions...often without being able to articulate why, exactly...the problem was that I KNEW more than I could explain...the same is true all the time with music...Django Reinhardt never learned to read music--just finished a good biography of him--but his musical understanding was off the scale--as it was neurologically programmed into him from the age of 4...his musical brain was uber-advanced beyond those who learned music from little black dots off of a page...s

    Back to chess, short and long---after about a year of working with the chess problems--my playing strength increased from high 1400's to mid 1700's...big difference...the 1750 player beats the avg. club player 8 out of 10 games, versus splitting the games...context-rich study of common themes/motifs, etc. had increased my playing strength significantly..to clarify, "context rich" here means...real life positions...with lots of "noise" in them---not stripped down to abstracted essentials...I guess musically the equivalent would be working through the Real Book, to study tune construction and chord progressions, rather than just abstracted etude-like exercises...of course listening to a lot of great players also does this

    Anyway, back to music....I've seen the posts of some who say "go with the flow"...don't think consciously...really the problem is the disjunct between what we know and what we can articulate....great musicians have a whole host of stuff they know and sometimes they can't even remember where it came from...I'm far from great but I've been looking at "Stella by Starlight"...the part in the second phrase where it goes d;e;f;g;f where in the preceding phrase the e was flatted...keeps reminding me of something from classical music...just can't put my finger on it but I know I've heard something similar....Jimmy Raney said the same thing about learning bop phrasing for the guitar---the ear knows more than we can consciously articulate...think about learning sport techniques...if anyone plays golf--how much easier it is to play with good players whereas if you play with hacks, I make a conscious effort to watch their ball as they hit--not how they swing---with good players you can watch them swing--absorb their rhythm, extension, timing, etc . and I will often start hitting the ball better myself...you find yourself playing up to their level--not down the level of a hack...definitely the case with jam and practice partners in music as well, I think

    Finally, one final comment about speed chess---it rewards accuracy in thinking, but the quality of games is definitely inferior to that of "slow" chess---it is good for quick, "once over" learning of common openings, etc....some world champions would get beaten game after game by inferior contemporaries in 5 minute games...but on the whole, a fun and sometimes useful training device

  17. #116
    Interesting take, cheers. So would you agree that jazz improv is a little like "speed chess"?

  18. #117

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    PP, if I can jump in as a newcomer here: It seems to me that you are overly attached to your approach, but at the same time, unsatisfied with the results. You know what they say about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

    The problem that you're having is that you're drowning in information, but you're not making music.

    If I were in your shoes, I'd take several weeks off from the guitar. Don't pick the thing up. Keep your practice time, though. For half your practice time, listen to recordings. Listen deep and with as much focus as you can manage. Then, set up band in a box or whatever you use to practice tunes and sing some solos. Don't think about theory or licks or anything. Just listen to yourself and sing. (I read somewhere that in some Indian musical traditions, they won't even let students touch an instrument until they've learned to sing everything first.) The point of doing this is to reconnect with your inner voice. Start with simple songs like Autumn Leaves, and work your way up to more complicated songs. Don't do anything very fast - the point is to hear, not to perform - and stay away from your own compositions for a while. Do not think about your memorized licks. If they're inside you - really inside - they'll come out in your singing without your thinking about them. Go through each song only once in any given session.

    Do this for maybe three weeks. At the end of that time, start re-integrating the guitar back into your practice, but do it gradually. Make 75% of your practice time singing, and 25% guitar to start, then slowly increase the percentage of guitar.

    So, you're maybe looking at a 6 week project here, and I'd be willing to be that by the end of it, you'll be feeling more "improv oriented," and hearing a lot better.

    One very important thing: During this period, don't put any pressure on yourself to sound good. When you're singing, just have fun.

    Through your practice, you have acquired knowledge and skill. These are important, but they are not music. What I've described above is a way to bring music to the foreground of your attention. It's worked for me in the past when I've gotten bogged down with technical stuff. It may or may not work for you, but I think it's worth a shot.

    Also, as a general thing, play with people more. Jazz is not a music that can be learned in isolation. You have to spend time in "the heat of battle," so to speak.

  19. #118
    Didn't play much these past few days, but did a lot of listening, to McCoy Tyner. It gets in my head alright, I can sorta hear ideas in my head, but they're too fast and complicated to actually sing. Ever hear Bud Powell singing along with his playing (seems he couldn't sing what he heard in his head either!) - my point is that to play even vaguely like that I gotta spend months sussing out his quartal thing, which is just not that easy on guitar, not the fast complicated stuff.

    I can play slowly by ear OK, just making melodies against tunes, last week I tried just "feeling" my way through ATTYA. I sound more musical than what I do when I'm consciously thinking about chord tones. Of course, that's what I'm hearing from y'all, and yes I get this, and yes, I get that If I do much more of this there will be progress in that direction. But that is the problem, (that no-one seems to want to hear), I don't really care for that direction! If I got really good at it I could play like Jimmy Raney in 20 years, but that's not what I "hear" in my head. I explained all this earlier so I won't again.
    I'm working on "modules" of ideas and figuring out how to blend them and mutate them. I don't understand that it seems such a weird approach to some people here, it's obvious that many of the titans of Jazz have done something similar..... I mean FFS, Bird, there's a formula there! Check out Thomas Owens, there's a system!! He practiced linking his own modules for years to the point he could do it in his sleep (literally!).....

    I just wanna create my own (vastly inferior) system and trying to find thinking exercises in improv to expediate that, just for the practice room, mind..... Is that so insane? If so, I'm 100% fine with that - always been happy to go down a different street....

  20. #119

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    Quote Originally Posted by princeplanet
    I can play slowly by ear OK, just making melodies against tunes, last week I tried just "feeling" my way through ATTYA. I sound more musical than what I do when I'm consciously thinking about chord tones. Of course, that's what I'm hearing from y'all, and yes I get this, and yes, I get that If I do much more of this there will be progress in that direction. But that is the problem, (that no-one seems to want to hear), I don't really care for that direction! If I got really good at it I could play like Jimmy Raney in 20 years, but that's not what I "hear" in my head.
    If you can hear it in your head, then why do you think you're having problems hearing it when you play? It sounds to me very much like you're trying to suppress your inner voice in favor of something that you've intellectualized your way into.

    EDIT: I'd also like to share something that I heard in a master class from Mark Levine (author of "The Jazz Theory Book"): "Making music more complex does not make it better. It only makes it more complex. Making music simpler doesn't make it better, either, it only makes it simpler."
    Last edited by Boston Joe; 12-10-2013 at 02:01 PM.

  21. #120

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    Good Luck, Princeplanet.

    To be honest, you kind of lost me with your last post because it sounded like you wanted someone to help you with your own system.

    I kind of had similar leanings after a couple of years of failure, I have surrendered to a methodology that has less parts. Generally, the more pieces of the puzzle you have, the harder it is to put the puzzle together.

    One last suggestion coming from someone who is not "there" yet so take it with a grain of salt. You might want to check Mel Bay's Jazz Lines and Phrases book.

    http://www.amazon.com/Bays-Complete-.../dp/0786665785

    You said, "I'm working on "modules" of ideas and figuring out how to blend them and mutate them." This book has a lot of little pieces of phrases that you can mix and match and blend to create nice long lines. You may even be able to use it as a springboard for isolating pleasing lines that you like and making them your own.

    Like I said, "Good Luck" and I hope you don't let your loyalty to your system cause you to lose months or years of progress you could have otherwise made.

  22. #121
    Quote Originally Posted by Boston Joe
    If you can hear it in your head, then why do you think you're having problems hearing it when you play? It sounds to me very much like you're trying to suppress your inner voice in favor of something that you've intellectualized your way into.

    EDIT: I'd also like to share something that I heard in a master class from Mark Levine (author of "The Jazz Theory Book"): "Making music more complex does not make it better. It only makes it more complex. Making music simpler doesn't make it better, either, it only makes it simpler."
    No, I'm trying to work out how to play what I'm hearing in my head, that's where the intellectualizing is necessary...
    I like that Levine quote, but seriously, I'm trying to find the simplest way to "play what I hear"... Years ago some good advice was to learn to hear, sing and play any interval (compound and in any direction) at will. Good start, but still doesn't give you facility to play complex fast ideas.

    "Module" is my word of the day , and I think making my own modules easy to access (auto pilot) is the key. Limiting my brain exercises to linking fewer and shorter modules to begin with is starting to show encouraging signs. They become plastic, malleable, and start to play themselves, even morph themselves into new lines on the fly.

  23. #122
    Quote Originally Posted by AlsoRan
    Good Luck, Princeplanet.

    To be honest, you kind of lost me with your last post because it sounded like you wanted someone to help you with your own system.

    I kind of had similar leanings after a couple of years of failure, I have surrendered to a methodology that has less parts. Generally, the more pieces of the puzzle you have, the harder it is to put the puzzle together.

    One last suggestion coming from someone who is not "there" yet so take it with a grain of salt. You might want to check Mel Bay's Jazz Lines and Phrases book.

    http://www.amazon.com/Bays-Complete-.../dp/0786665785

    You said, "I'm working on "modules" of ideas and figuring out how to blend them and mutate them." This book has a lot of little pieces of phrases that you can mix and match and blend to create nice long lines. You may even be able to use it as a springboard for isolating pleasing lines that you like and making them your own.

    Like I said, "Good Luck" and I hope you don't let your loyalty to your system cause you to lose months or years of progress you could have otherwise made.
    Cheers, Have owned similar books over the years. Even learned dozens of lines from the David Baker series, but am into my own kinds of ideas these days. Many are up to 32 notes in length that can be broken into smaller units. They're a mixture of melodic cells, patterns, several types of enclosures etc. I learn them in the CAGED parts of the neck and try to find ways to link them, musically....

  24. #123

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    Quote Originally Posted by princeplanet
    Limiting my brain exercises to linking fewer and shorter modules to begin with is starting to show encouraging signs. They become plastic, malleable, and start to play themselves, even morph themselves into new lines on the fly.
    OK, this is what you're shooting for. So if this approach is bearing fruit for you, go with it.

    For what it's worth, I only really "pre hear" a rough outline of what I actually end up playing. I know there are certain tones that I want to target, and typically my fingers do the rest. Frank Zappa said that he rehearsed his bands so hard because his compositions were complex and unusual enough that the guys had to be able to play them from muscle memory.

  25. #124

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    Well a bit more like solving chess problems--if you work at them, you do get better and more proficient...how many times have you been jamming away, and played something pretty decent but not been able to analyze/articulate exactly how you played what you did...."learned intuition" or mastery in a lot of endeavors can consist of patterning behavior that is really very very intricate but not readily susceptible of definition/analysis....etc. I think one time Gunther Schuller wrote an extended article about Sonny Rollins' playing, and afterward Rollins said something like ..."I guess that is what I was doing..." but pretty surely, he did so, unconsciously.

    I suppose improv is a bit like speed chess (and slow chess) in that the level can be quite high but probably not as perfect as composed, polished musical pieces....though at its best the two can almost be indistinguishable and the excitement of creation is surely very satisfying...but maybe the truest, most passionate jazz fans will always be players themselves, who have an idea what goes into the process...on the other hand, really really great players/masters in any endeavor have the ability to "make it look easy" which can fool the uninitiated into thinking it really is not that big a deal to do what they do...watch Roger Federer play tennis....listen to Howard Roberts, Sonny Rollins do their thing...no big deal right?!....WRONG...WRONG and WRONG.

    Maybe another commonality of jazz/chess is the interaction....great great chess arises from the conflict/struggle between two great players (Fischer/Spassky; Karpov/Kasparov; Alekhine/Capablanca)....great great music arises from the interaction of a rhythm group, and soloists...etc.---the chemistry of a group really playing together and learning to understand each other over time....great small groups are great when they play together for a while--- but then they drift apart---need a new challenge...get stale...get tired of the ego struggles, etc.

    To be too conscious about ....say stringing together licks....is to run the risk of being mechanical....I mean at some level...a scale...tonality...chord progressions...arpeggios...tri-tone substitutions, etc. etc are just tools ...."To the man with a hammer in his hand, everything in the world looks like a nail..." but what he builds with only the hammer is not likely to be inspiring or something worth looking at repeatedly...on the other hand, great great art, IMHO, requires technique...Picasso was a great, great draftsman as a teenager...Monk understood harmony on a really, deep level...the trick is not to have the technique overwhelm the larger message/authenticity/truth of what you're playing...I once heard that Rosemary Clooney, who I think is a great singer, advised a young singer...."Sing however you want...just make sure to sing from the heart...because you know...the audience can always tell..." (this is a paraphrase not an exact quote).

    I sometimes think Miles Davis is a great genius...other times I think his constant attempts to re-invent himself/his groups were just a really, really profound marketing ploy...if you read his autobiography, he struggled to play to tempo on some recording sessions--knew he couldn't play with the chops that Diz had...found Gil Evans and kind of went in a different direction which made more sense for his playing abilities...I personally like his 50's stuff the best...and find his late fusion-y stuff just not something I can listen to more than once...at his best, a kind of Michael Jordan figure---a great talent and artist, but a third-rate human being

  26. #125

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    I can do it away from the guitar and hear it in my head while visualizing my fingers on the fretboard. I think that's a common skill for an improvisor to have, but guitarists too often let their fingers do the walking.