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I have recently read and studied a book called 'Forward Motion' by Hal Galper. The concepts that he 'puts
forth' are characterized by him as being the only right way, and anything that deviates from the described method is wrong. The 'Reader's Digest' version of the Gospel according to Galper is that:
1. improved lines should always start on an upbeat.
2. The line should always cross the bar line and end on a down beat; one or three preferably. (that's ok with me)
3. All the down beats should should contain all the 'working' chord tones; 1st 3rd 5th 7th. (super imposed sub-chords are ok)
When I jam or perform I don't think about concepts or much at all - I simply try to 'hear'. I read such books as a guide when practicing just as I work on building my vocabulary. I did find some value in Galper's book because it is another way to approach and apply a discipline to my improv during practice. It is the dogmatism of Galper that causes me pause. For example, listening to and reading transcriptions of my jazz icons doesn't seem to bare out Galper's formula. Certainly not consistently as Galper requires.
Please share your opinion on this especially if you are familiar with Galper's book 'Forward Motion'.
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02-16-2014 05:27 PM
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Thanks Richb! It is really good to hear that I'm not the only one that is dubious, to say the least, about the Galper mythology. Earl
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Slag Mike Longo, slag Dizzy Gillespie. He's only putting the paper what his mentor taught him
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Yeah, it's terrible that someone should put on a book on the primacy of rhythm. . What we need is another which scale, which chord book. There simply not enough of those it seems
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I think that what we may need are less method books about playing jazz and more listening to jazz being played. An hour listening attentively to jazz played by masters- especially live- is worth at least 10 hours of practicing out of a book. You've got to get the music into your bones before you can play it. Books and rules don't do that.
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Agreed, nothing compares with listening.
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Galper said that all music is aural - if you can't hear it you can't play it . does that contradict what you are saying ? No I think not.
Originally Posted by Cunamara
There's many ways to study and different aspects and elements in studying
I hardly think his book is a how to cook book but a basic analysis on the fundamental concepts of tension and release.
Ed Bryne also is an excellent writer who has written along the same lines. All methods have specific ideas that are posited the help elucidate them. That in no way makes them dogmatic .Last edited by NSJ; 02-16-2014 at 07:37 PM.
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Troll shit. Even a ten minute glance at Galper's YouTube videos will show he's all about practicality and there's nary a dogmatic word spoken.
Waste of time thread. Move on, nothing to see here.
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I am am sorry that you feel that my opinion is 'troll shit' and my post a waste of time, but the opinion of the forum members was something that I was interested in. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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Your post was actually fine, it was your title, which was intended to get a gut reaction--that was cheap and trollish. A guy as devoted to jazz education as Galper's deserves better.
Sorry for being harsh, But we have a history here of having members chase away pros with anonymous Internet bullshit "sage" posts and critiques...we should be so lucky to have an educator of Galper's ability on this site.
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Is Galper a member here?
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Here's the most no-nonsense, seemingly so simple, ridiculously straightforward and yet most musically profound piece of musical advice I had encountered in quite some time. N.B., what Mr. Gillespie is alleged to have said around the 4:15 mark. It's called "the Illusion of the Instrument"
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The following forward to FM, written by Mr. Galper (following Dave Liebman's introduction) is somehow apparently perceived to be presenting a "dogmatic" "My Way or the Highway" perspective?
"The general tendency of jazz education towards a united pedagogy is not in jazz's best interests. One would be hard put to argue against a general philosophy that the more ways one looks at a subject, the more one achieves a fuller enhancement of understanding and perspective on it. One of the historically basic tents of jazz has been the development of each musician's individual voice. This tendency towards uniformity has created generations of musicians who sound alike. We teach the same scales, the same chords and the process of combining the two in the same general manner. Students should have the luxury of choice about the way they want to personalize their playing, which a uniform approach stifles....Every student should be exposed to multiple approaches to the theory and practice of playing jazz, making their own choices of what concepts fit their individual ways of playing. The process of learning to play is..a process of self discovery and trial and error, trying out different ideas, theories and concepts to discover our own individual voices.....FM may not answer the question 'how do I want to play?'. But it will, at least , give you another point of view to consider. Take from it what works for you and throw out the rest" (Introduction, pp 8-9)
Does this sound like a dogmatic teacher? "My Way or the Highway"? Does this exemplify, from the OP, that "The concepts that he 'puts forth' are characterized by him as being the only right way, and anything that deviates from the described method is wrong".
Ridiculous.
Last edited by NSJ; 02-17-2014 at 12:16 AM. Reason: Added sentences
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peter westergaard had a good way of looking at music theory
instead of "this is the rule, you must do it this way" he saw it as "if you want X, then do Y"
take the rule in traditional harmony and counterpoint studies: "no parallel octaves."
it's not "you must never use parallel octaves." rather, it's "if you want your lines to sound like independent melodies, then it's best not to use parallel octaves."
so if we're thinking of it that way, i have to say that if you want to play eighth note lines in jazz, the kind that guys like Clifford Brown play where they play a steam of eighth notes for 4 whole measures and everything just effortlessly swings and fits the changes like a glove, you could do a WHOLE lot worse than look at something like "Forward Motion"
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My use of the word' dogmatic' was reflection of my frustration that I had with the book, visa vs other advise and values that I have considered over many years of studying music. I know Halper is an excellent educator; I have watched his videos also. I did not say that Galper was dogmatic - I attributed his book with that quality. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
On the other hand your comments as quoted above are aggressive in both tone and content. And although I regret not being more euphemistic in expressing my frustration with much of the book's content; I am very glad that I am not experiencing the regret that would follow had I replied to someone's post in the manner that you did. This is my first posting on the Jazz Guitar Forum, so you do not know anything about me. If you did you would know that I don't engage in, 'cheap and trollish' rhetoric, nor am I one to put forth ; '.....anonymous Internet bullshit "sage" posts and critiques...'. Respectfully, Earl.
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Earl,
Here's the deal. I sincerely hope you understand how damaging having your teaching labeled "dogmatic" can be to an educator. It's essentially the kiss of death.
From my perspective--someone who has watched every nugget of Galper's teaching available on line and who is currently reading "motion," my red flags went up as soon as I saw this thread...because unless I'm missing something or not reading between the lines correctly, I find Galper one of the least dogmatic educators out there.
Galper's firm in his tone and approach--yes...but I'm not sure how that can be confused for an unwavering belief that his way is the only way...it always seemed to me that Galper frames things more as--"if this is what you want, this will get you there." Very different than any approach that could be considered "dogmatic."
Therefore, instead of going for the quick "Let's get a gut reaction" post that I still think was intended to do just that--I would have liked to have seen some examples of your claim--because if we're talking bebop language and what notes and beats strong phrases start on--I think there's thousands of examples that support Galper's "forward motion."
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Sorry, phones acting weird...
Continuing, it also seems to me that Galper is always talking about "in practice." So in other words, if you want any of this stuff to come out naturally in play--it has to be practiced in a more prescriptive way. You can call that dogmatic I suppose, but it's a concept that's pretty hard to argue against.
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FWIW, anyone who blindly follows any set of rules, is hopelessly lost.
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Nicely quoted Navdeep. Originally Posted by NSJ
I actually don't have the book, though I've been considering getting it, so I'm following this with some interest. Navdeep's quote seems to entirely refute Early Human's characterization.
Early Human, am I missing something?
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Check out Mr. Galper's YT videos, he has a lot of them. Originally Posted by dingusmingus
In all of the research and study I have done on improvisation, there seems to be common ways of working among many distinguished writers and musicians I have read or watched their master class(es) (Galper, Ligon, Byrne, Jacobs, Matt W from this site).
The common thread seems to be a fundamental musical foundation predicated on chord tones and specifically guide tone lines, approaching them chromatic steps below and/or scale steps above.
Sid Jacobs makes a great point: There are no hard and fast rules for creating great melodies--otherwise, anyone can just follow the recipe and do it.
Thus, guide tones lines alone will not create great melodies as a matter of course, but rather, they will generate a melody line that allows one to hear the harmony (spell/make the changes).
But, as to "what" to play, all these cats are centered on the same things: guide tone lines and embellishments/approach tones.
Given that I am fixated on contrapuntal possibilities, GT lines create a great bottom line that can be melodic and also spells the changes. From this, I can construct a top line that works well with the bottom one. I think of the top line as complete freedom the bottom line as a melody that is built on GTs and spells the changes.
Galper spends the first chapter on the fallacy of playing fast and the need to build something the listener can latch on to:
Rhythmically-inactive (whole notes/half notes) chord tones (R,3,5,7) . "All active melodies (i.e., embellishments) are built around inactive GT melodies...improvising by ear is easier when you have something simple and clear around which to improvise". (Gallper, p.32). Paraphrasing King Oliver: "if you can't improvise your own 'song-like' chord-tone melodies you haven't established a firm foundation in your ears upon which to improvise more active musical ideas (embellishments)" (Ibid, p. 33). He starts out by asking if the reader can improvise a singable line using only half notes and basic chord tones. He states unequivocally: "the nature of strong melodic content, whether composed or improvised, by Bird or Bach, has historically been created by the embellishment of chord-tone lines" (Ibid). The improviser must learn to the ability to play a series of patterned melodies and chord tone lines, which is, paradoxically, the basis for learning to improvise "with discipline and freedom".
Thus, he concludes, long lines can be built on series of smaller, 4-note patterns strung and pieced together.
Discipline and freedom. Two mutually exclusive categories? On this he notes the following: "combining the discipline of knowing your chord tone melodies with the freedom of playing any approach to them shows discipline and freedom are not inconsistent. Acquiring a firm grasp of how a chord tone can go to a chord tone of the next chord is the basis of the theory of counterpoint". Ibid, p.40. The goal of a early (but apparently not Early) improviser is to "create song like chord tone melodies and then learn how to embellish them". Ibid.
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I don’t see the problem with describing Hal Galper as dogmatic. I don’t think he would mind that description at all. Personally, I found Forward Motion to be fascinating and eye-opening. I find his videos similarly enlightening. Hal Galper is clearly a supremely gifted educator and player. But he is nothing if not very sure of himself and his views on music and particularly the teaching and learning of jazz improv. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. It is what it is. I can’t say I accept everything uncritically everything Hal Galper has espoused over the years but I don’t begrudge him his strong views on things. (I don’t quite remember Forward Motion as written with a my-way-is-the-only-way attitude but it’s been a while since I read it.) If you want to see some strong views, check out his take on Western style jazz education (as opposed to the African oral tradition of hearing and imitating):
http://www.halgalper.com/articles/jazz-in-academia/
Mind you, Mr. Galper is part of that Western jazz education complex as a professor at the New School. But bravo for him for expressing his view of how theory is often overemphasized in jazz education.
This is all to say that we shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss (or accept) someone’s views based on what we know or don’t know about the author. I bet if I anonymously posted some random Hal Galper quotes, they would be quickly shot down as the ramblings of some anonymous internet jazz wannabe.
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So what if Galpern is dogmatic. Lots of great info in his teachings. Take what's useful, ignore the dogma.
Last edited by teok; 02-19-2014 at 09:50 PM.
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Navdeep, thanks much for the interesting info! I've seen the Galper videos, and poked around on his website. He's a compelling teacher, to be sure. I've been working through some Bert Ligon materials (the Connecting Chords book, and the Comprehensive Technique book), so what you say about embellishing chord tone lines makes a lot of sense. As I understand it, the Galper book puts a special emphasis on rhythm.
What a great forum!
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For "this is the only way" read Mickey Baker.
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Those who can't, teach...those who can't teach, troll Internet forums? Originally Posted by Richb
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