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Hey Mark--I always appreciate your carefully considered comments, but I don't want to bog down the thread with further deconstruction of my posts. Please send me a PM if you want to continue the discussion.
Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
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04-10-2014 06:05 PM
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Thanks for sharing that clip. Some of your comments there really validate the way I've been working on stuff. I completely get what your talking about regarding all of sudden being less comfortable in one spot verses another. I've been noticing this a lot in my playing and trying to focus on those sort of gaps in "my" fretboard. Originally Posted by jzucker
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HA! You're so damned old . . . you forgot you posted the first one! Originally Posted by angelpa
52 years old?? I'd give a whole lot to be 52 again. You're just a spring chicken . . . or, should I say . . chick?
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Excellent! Originally Posted by Patrick2
That's MR Chicken to you!
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Angel.?.?.? OMG!! Egg on my face. I've been reading your screen name as Angela. Never even noticed the "p" in your screen name. Apologies. Originally Posted by angelpa
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And because you made that mistake, you must now teach me all that you know about the secrets of improvisation !!! Originally Posted by Patrick2
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The secrets of improvisation? Ahhhh . . . glad you asked! In no specific order; Originally Posted by angelpa
* As it relates to forum discourse . . "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!"
* Play fast and hard . . some where in the tonal zone. If . . (when) . . you hit a note that just doesn't seem to fit . . hit it two more times . . then look up at the audience, smile and nod your head like you planned it.
* When things seem to go wrong . . ALWAYS look at your bass player with a stern and seriously pissed off look on your face.
* Then, when all else fails . . "Play the melody, man . . just play the f*****g melody!!"
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Genius! Originally Posted by Patrick2
I will need to share this with the bass player in our band!
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After over 300 posts on this thread, Patrick2 finally lets out the secret.....
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that's not true for me. The truth is there is no single methodology. Any good teacher improvises the methodology based on what the student needs and what their goals are . Originally Posted by Patrick2
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I'm sure that's true. It would be idiotic to take a one size fits all approach. But, even after you've assessed the needs and the wants of each individual student . . you seem to have developed and would employ a systematic approach for progress. An approach that's your own . . . and and as such unique to you and your way of teaching. Do you really want to share that . . at this stage? Or, do you want to capitalize on it as something that you've developed based upon years of paying the dues . . financially and in sacrifice of your time? Originally Posted by jzucker
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That's why I'm here, man. To provide sage and unsolicited advice based upon lunacy and humor. "Anything less . . would be . . uncivilized!" Originally Posted by angelpa
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One of my greatest joys when I practice is coming up with new licks by combining other licks. To me, it's like playing with Legos : you take several Lego constructions (licks), you deconstruct them, and then try to come up with new constructions using the bricks you got from deconstructing. This is what allows you to be creative : you realize that the possibilities are endless, and it's a great feeling. If you have no bricks, you can't create, it's as simple as that... yet it took me a long time (and some excellent advice) to understand it.
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I'd buy that in a heartbeat...a somewhat erratic heartbeat, granted, which is the reason for the medication. Originally Posted by angelpa
For the record, I (the OP) will be 52 next month
Now maybe there's a market for you more experienced improvisers out there:
How about writing a book, "Beginning Jazz Guitar Improvisation for the Quinquagenarian."
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Yes I have no issue with sharing my methodology. Jazz for me has never been about competition or financial success. It's more about paying it forward. Do I like to be compensated? Sure. But carrying the tradition forward is more important to the art. Originally Posted by Patrick2
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^^^^ Originally Posted by professor jones
this!
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That's very commendable Jack. Originally Posted by jzucker
I guess I'll always be more of a business man than an artist. That fact is also resulted in the slow and sometimes lack of any progress in my playing. My business life has always taken a priority of any music related studies or playing. I tried to do both for a while . . didn't work out.
My work life is now starting to slow down, considerably. So . . who knows? Maybe I'll still be able to progress to some degree of proficiency as a jazz guitarist while my fingers still work. :-)
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I posted that Miles quote about cliches to my friend Thomas, who posted the following lengthy response:
"In mid fifties at about 18 years of age, I had the great experience of seeing the Miles Davis "first super quintet" and the even greater experience of meeting Miles Davis a few times over the period of two weeks that the group was playing at Jazz City in Los Angeles. That was a time when jazz was king and had an enourmous audience of young people. Every high school in the city had a swing band and a lot of small groups were born out of those big bands. Lots of kids were playing jazz like they later did with rock.
Miles talked about cliches then but in a more detailed fashion. Like he says these cliches are bits of a player's signature that young people would "cop" of records and then learn them in all keys. They could be inserted in your solos and served multipule purposes. As filler between original ideas or change runnings or when a younster was stuck for an idea. They were also a source of pride for the young player because they exemplified a players influences. For me I combined those cliches that were typical of my influences like Sonny Stitt and Wardell Gray. They also served as exercise material. They inject some excitment into a solo.
The other things we used, because there were few formal, instructional methods for playing jazz, were, the "quote". Miles also told us about quoting from standards like say, injecting a phrase from "Surrey With the Fringe On Top" or another standard, over the changes you were playing. Dexter Gordon was a master of the quote. A well placed quote, for example, can inject a little humor into a solo and give some relief from the tension created by playing patterns or simply running changes "ad nauseum". Today the practice of quoting is frowned upon my many. Why I don't know. A totally intellectual solo has its place but too many of them make for lifeless playing. Kenny Barron is right when he says that today too much improvised music in from the head and not the heart. IMO your solo should show who you are and not what methods you've studied or scales you've learned."
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I love it! Every word of it . . . but most specifically the last paragraph. I also love the concept of quoting. Many of my favorite players use quoting quite tastefully and I do agree that it add a personalized touch and element to an improv. I also respect it and those who do it. Knowing how, when and where to interject a quote is a skill in and of itself. I loved the way Oscar Peterson . . (probably my all time favorite jazz pianist) . . did it. Joshua Breakstone does it quite often and usually quotes Bird. He's got a nicely placed quote from Scrapple in his solo in the Grant Green tune Grand Stand. Miles was a master at it in his earlier days. Tal used to do it just to have fun with whom ever he was playing with. Tal would use it excessively in live settings. I also agree with and love the Kenny Barron quote that I highlighted. Originally Posted by NSJ
Thanks for posting that Nav . . .
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Okay, I'll step into this even though I'm still in the learning process myself. I doubt there's one magic thing, but to me the single most important thing is transcribing.
If you ask "What is jazz?", to me the answer is in the recorded solos. That's the universe there. Everything is contained within the collected works of Miles, Clifford Brown, Wes, etc."
Yesterday I was doing some Clifford. He was just playing with a C Dorian, but his ideas were really musical because of his phrasing. I picked up 2 "takeaways" which will find their way into my playing.
But I believe you have to do many things:
* transcribe
* focused ear training
* fretboard knowledge -- not just knowing the notes, but being able to be in any position and "see" the fretboard in your mind's eye.
* playing and memorizing lots of tunes and their changes.
* developing a methodology for playing over changes -- teacher, book, etc. I like the Joseph Alexander book "Fundamental Changes ...", and the Elliott book gets a lot of respect around here.
* practicing improv
* singing what you play
And, eventually, playing with others. But for me this doesn't fit until I have my act together better.
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For me this is the most challenging and I rarely practice, also because, after a while, I start feeling pain in my throat. Originally Posted by JazzinNY
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@ JazzinNY: if you can keep your place most of the time in a solo, at least ending it at the right time, and if you can comp for other people, then probably the best thing you can do is to start playing with other people. It will help focus your practice efforts and, as I like to say, we all have to work those bad notes out somewhere. You will sound worse jamming with others than in the practice room, at least at first (nerves will trump inspiriration for a while!), but it's all part of the process. I'm still learning too but I've made lots of progress by putting my playing out there with other people. It's like a video game - you start by playing with terrible players and you work your way up...
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Singing is very much like playing guitar . . just different musical voices. To become a good jazz guitarist, you need a good jazz guitar instructor. To become a good vocalist, you need a good vocal coach . . at least to start you off on the right (correct) foot. There are obviously exceptions to both of those rules. Some people can be self taught, to a certain degree with both the guitar and vocalizing song . . or singing. Originally Posted by Jazz_175
Early in my life, during my first freshman year in high school . . (there were actually 3 freshman years for me in high school . . but, that another story for another time) . . I somehow wound up in a voice class. Thought I was going to hate it. But then, before I knew it Mrs. Freedman had me sight singing and eventually a feature vocalist in her chorus. From there, it was street corner accapella doo-wop. I've been fronting bands as the lead vocalist ever since and even did backing vocals in a couple of jingles. So, you don't [just start] singing . . unless you're in your shower.
If you're feeling pain in your throat after singing for a short while . . then you're not warming up and opening up correctly . . and you're not using the correct muscles. It's a process. What I used to do, in my car on my way to a gig . . was to sing The Star Spangled Banner several times. Started off singing it very low . . but making sure to hit all the notes. Then a 2 or 3 minute rest and kick it off again at a slightly louder volume with a bit more projection . . making sure to bring it up from the diaphram . . rather than just from the lungs and throat. You'd be very surprised at how well that will open you up due to the range of the song at both the high and the low end . . . and the duration needed to hold some of the notes. The last go around usually wound up projecting at volumes like the infamous Whitney Houston version at a Super Bowl. Some of the people in the cars next to me made some pretty hilarious faces as they drove by . . but, I loved every minute of it. By the time I hit the gig . . I was ready.
Get youself a good vocal coach and just spend a few bucks in a few lessons learning how to effectively warm up without over extending the vocal cords . . and how to sing without blowing out your throat. Then, do practice but pace yourself.
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I was chuckling to myself reading your post, Patrick, because as a child, I loved singing. I ended up in what we called the Glee Club at school from primary through high school. What made me laugh is that I had a great choir master in Middle School for a few years who was a wonderful teacher that loved Italy, where he had studied bel canto. Fabulously talented, he would sing all the parts from basso through tenor. Our audition for the Glee Club was to sing the Star Spangled Banner.
I was thinking about singing tonight, as I hope to record tomorrow some standards with vocals in my living room studio. Only problem is that I contracted a bad case of laryngitis and bronchitis, so my voice is lowered to the Johnny Hartmann range from my usual second tenor. So I may just record the 'backing tracks' tomorrow and hope for Sunday. I don't like to strain my voice when I have laryngitis.
I was thinking about "how to learn improvisation" as I was playing along to a backing track from Learn Jazz Standards.com off of YT over two songs I like - Body And Soul and There Will Never Be Another You. Normally I don't use commercial backing tracks for practice, as I make my own. But I do think that playing over some type of accompaniment is helpful for learning to improvise.
A case in point is There Will Never Be Another You. I was listening to and playing along with Russell Malone and Billy Taylor and his band. I'm really getting more into Russell's playing lately. But the thing that struck me about this song is that, even when pros improvise on this song, they rarely stray too far from the melody. I don't mean to imply you play just the melody notes as if you were singing the words. But the melody is so beautifully wedded to the chord progression that you don't need to go too far afield.
This thread got kind of acrimonious over whether you learn jazz by transcribing or other approaches. And I don't believe anyone is saying that they did not spend thousands of hours playing along with established artists' records or transcribing whole solos at times or fragments. I think we all did that. But I just want to suggest, not originally by no means, that an aspiring musician follow the advice of Joe Pass to learn songs. Because one very basic skill that must be acquired is the ability to play the melody in the context of the harmonic chord progression. And while we all like to create chord melody solo arrangements, I think that playing against some kind of counter melody, counterpoint, or backing bass and harmony is very helpful at developing the skill to articulate the melody you hear in your mind, which is a prerequisite to improvising over a progression in the context of a particular song. Particularly so in terms of learning to use rhythmic figures and one's sense of what I call micro-timing in playing in a groove, where you can play a little ahead, right on the beat, or a bit behind. That is getting a little more sophisticated, but it is essential to learn.
As I was playing along with Malone and Taylor, it strikes me that my mental focus is essentially and uniquely on what I call 'chasing the melody' I hear in my mind. So my advice to those aspiring to learn is to transpose and play along to the masters and even good backing tracks. Don't over intellectualize jazz. I know the theory very well, but aside from it being assimilated into my experience over nearly half a century, I just don't think about anything but the music - the melody and harmony I hear in my mind - and, if playing with other musicians virtual or real, I just listen and respond. No licks crap. No 'what scale over this chord'. None of that happens overtly when I'm playing. If anything, I am anticipating where the melody and harmony will flow.
And to tie this post back into singing, I think that singing in school as a child and adolescent helped me to learn to assimilate harmony and melody. Apart from playing along with the Masters on record and CD, I've only had a couple of flesh and blood teachers who have impacted my musical development. Hibbard Perry, who taught me classical guitar lessons for years. and Louis Davis, the formative singer and choir master of whom I spoke initially. Sadly, Mr. Davis, who was a kind, very educated and extremely talented black man left the school too soon. Over the years I have lived abroad for over a decade, and when I finally returned home to practice medicine, I often thought of what became of him. I wanted to thank these men who had such an impact on my life. Mr. Perry had passed away many years ago. But it was only a year or two ago that to my surprise I read Mr. Davis' obit in the paper only to learn that he had been living some fifteen miles away. I felt so sad because I had so wanted to visit this man to thank him for the impact he had on my life over forty years ago, never realizing that he was still living here all that time. One of my life regrets.
I realize this is a very personal post, perhaps of little interest to others. But I think as we inexorably face our own mortality, we miss those who have been instrumental in our lives and wish we could say "Thanks". And sing the Star Spangled Banner one more time.
Jay
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This reminded me of the famous meeting between Charlie Parker and Stravinsky. Legend has it that when Parker started his set the band noticed Stravinsky in the audience. The story goes that without looking at him, the band started playing I don't recall the tune but Bird launched into a solo and started quoting from the theme of Firebird suite. Pretty cool. Originally Posted by NSJ
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