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You left out syntax. What sets human language apart from other languages is syntax. (Many birds have songs but not sentences.) But I would step back from that and say this. I don't buy, at all, that when you or I or anyone else takes a couple choruses over the rhythm changes, or a blues, or "All Of Me" (-a standard recently mentioned in this thread) that we are delivering some specific message to the audience the way we would be if we talked to them.
Originally Posted by Jonzo
Consider this experiment. Take five famous jazz solos. (Perhaps Miles's solo on "So What", Bird's "Now's the Time" solo, Charlie Christian's "Seven Come Eleven" solo, Coleman Hawkins's "Body And Soul" and Lester Young's "Lester Leaps In" solo.) Now, select two groups of 100 people. Group A is musicians and Group B is non-musicians. Ask members of both groups to listen to a solo and then say (-or write down) what they think the solo is saying.
(Perhaps some members here will put themselves to this test.)
I predict there would be little agreement on what any of these soloists is saying in these solos. And these are great solos. I predict many people, even among the musicians, would say it makes no sense to talk about these solos "saying" something, that is, expressing an idea. They are more about mood, feeling, than communicating an idea. (
I think solos would be less interesting if they were about saying something (-communicating thoughts rather than feelings. You read the morning paper to find out how last night's game came out. You don't keep going back to read the story to get the same thrill. You can't get the same thrill because after the first reading, you know the story, and although you may appreciate a nice line, the emotional impact is greatly reduced. It is otherwise with music. The longer you play music, the more you love it, the more you hear in these solos. It is the *experience* that brings you back to these records, not something that can be summed up in words, not an idea such as 'be nice to people' or 'share the wealth' or 'hate is bad.'
I will say this, though. When I studied general grammar (-which is about all grammar, not English or Spanish grammar), I read that interjections are not really parts of speech in the way other things (nouns, verbs) are. Interjections are included because it's nice to have a term for them and assign them a place in the system of grammar. The reason interjections are not really parts of speech is that they are not parts of sentences. They are expressions of emotion, unmediated by thought. (Such as saying "damn" or "doh!" or "ow!") If improvisations are to be likened to language, make it be to interjections! ;o)
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04-05-2014 09:55 AM
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Mark--I think you are making the argument that jazz cannot be considered a language because it is ambiguous; it doesn't convey an idea or feeling precisely. But all languages have degrees of ambiguity.
It really comes down to what your definition of language is. Still, there are similarities and differences between learning a second language and learning jazz improvisation. What can one tell us about the other?
The reason that I think the article I posted is interesting is that, post 9/11, there has been a lot of research going on to determine what will get people fluent in a second language fastest, because the government wants to train a lot of people in Middle Eastern languages quickly. In jazz we have a lot of opinions, but little controlled experimentation on what is most effective. ("This worked for Wes" is not controlled experimentation). So it could be helpful to say, "Hey, language has vocabulary and grammar. It requires the ability to manipulate them in real time in response to changing circumstances. It requires interactions with other people using the same language. That is a lot like jazz. Maybe some of this ESL research can help us jazz musicians learn faster too!"
Did anyone read the article?
I saw a clip of a master class that was led by a famous jazz pianist. He was telling the class that great improvisation comes from having a concrete sound in your mind that you then produce. He pulled some one up from the audience and had her improvise. Then he had her "hear" a specific solo in her head, and improvise again.
Guess which one sounded best?
Now the master pianist may be right or wrong, but the demonstration is pure horse shit. Of course the student played it better the second time! She has already practiced it once, and there is social pressure for her to up her game. You could tell her to think of her favorite color and get the same result.
Of course Wes learned by transcription. There were no other methods. Of course many after him have done the same, because Wes "proved" it works.
Unfortunately, this type of thinking about "proof" pervades a lot of thinking in jazz, and that is why I think looking to other disciplines for learning strategies is a good idea. Yes, what has worked for other jazz musicians is highly relevant, but it is not the end of the story. Jazz pedagogy is still in it's infancy, and basic research on how to best learn jazz is pretty much non-existent.
You can't paralyze yourself waiting for the perfect practice method to be proven in the lab, so you have to go ahead and try what has worked for others, and see how it works for you. But be open to new ideas too.
It will be interesting to see how pedagogy changes over time. There are certainly many great players nowadays who have done much more than transcribe.Last edited by Jonzo; 04-05-2014 at 12:09 PM.
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Ambiguity is not the issue. Great poets may be ambiguous, and much advertising is built on it. I don't think music conveys ideas at all. I think it expresses feelings well. But that isn't the main point. When I learned Latin as an adult, it never seemed like learning music. (Nor do I ever think, when trying to untangle the flurry of notes in a bebop line, 'what is the subject of this sentence?') Originally Posted by Jonzo
People who speak different native languages---such as Japanese and Spanish---have made it in major league baseball and can communicate things with teammates but we don't think it helpful to speak of baseball as a language or language as a sport. I think it much more helpful to think of music as a craft and that one learns to do it by doing it, the way one learns to hit a baseball or drive a car. Taking up one method or another is like apprenticing oneself to a master. You do things whose meaning and benefit you can't yet grasp ("wax on, wax off") but later realize. (Or else you abandon that method and take up another.)
You clearly think controlled experimentation is crucial. This may be relevant to assessing the merits of competing theories buttressed by controlled experimentation but if your goal is to actually improvise, rather than to develop a theory of the best way one might learn to, the only "controlled experiment" that matters is whether doing X works for you. (Now, if you run a band camp or teach students of different instruments in school, you have to play percentages and do what seems to work best for the most, but even then you tell struggling students who show talent, or just determination, that another method might work for them.)
When I learned Latin as an adult, it was nothing like learning to play guitar or to play jazz. It was about learning to think in another language.
Just out of curiosity, what do you mean by the grammar of jazz? Theory?
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I've always liked the jazz versus language comparisons. They're obviously not the same but used in comparison one can make some useful observations such as:
Bill Thrasher said:
There are a lot of useful comparisons that can be drawn between learning music and learning language. They don't have to be exactly the same, useful comparisons can still be made.A little practice every day is better than once-a-week cramming. You talk pretty well, and you didn't learn that by sitting mute all through the week, then yealling non-stop for 24 hours on Sundays.
I also like the vocabulary comparison: When you speak you draw from your vocabulary, when you improvise you draw from your vocabulary.Last edited by fep; 04-05-2014 at 12:06 PM.
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Mark--Yes, theory.
Controlled experimentation is crucial if you are going to claim one method is proven to be better than another. But experiments involving creativity will always have a subjective element, so even experimentation will fall short. Still, it will add more information to the discussion. The trick is in measuring creativity.
When you learned Latin, I am guessing that it was not like what are currently considered the most effective methods for learning modern languages. There was probably not a lot of interaction with native speakers, for example.
In Japan, most people "learn" English, but relatively few people can speak it.Last edited by Jonzo; 04-05-2014 at 12:51 PM.
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Originally Posted by targuit
In the spirit of this thread, I'm going to disagree with everyone! Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
I'm with Jeff on the lick bit. I've seen a slow evolution myself. You find or write licks and you discover new pathways for your ear, your mind and your fingers. These new pathways come out in your playing and they are often not a note for note regurgatation of the original lick, but they are related. I started to hear the altered scale and the whole tone scale by writting and applying licks. And I've had the happy experience of spontaneously hearing and playing these sounds while playing with a band. I remember how good it felt to spontaneously hear and start playing the whole tone scale phrase over a chord, the feeling of it coming from my ear. Learning the licks is just a first step along the path, at least that's how I'm experiencing it.
I'm with targuit in that I like transcribe and slow downer programs. I've always done best with graduated learning methods and have experienced improving my ability to hear jazz lines at faster tempos by working with them slowed down. Not only have I experienced it, it just seems so logical to me. I also like spending time transcribing classic rock, it's so much easier. One has to crawl before they walk before they run. Granted, this is all antedotal personal experience, perhaps different people learn best with different methods.Last edited by fep; 04-05-2014 at 12:40 PM.
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I think your main point is that any concept can become a tool for creativity, once you start to apply it to your own playing. It could be single string work, or a scale, or a lick.
i think the slow downer question is about what motivates you. If you are motivated to learn a complicated solo, slow it down. Some people find gadgetry demotivating. I haven't found a slow downer interface that I like.
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It's not the destination. It's the journey.
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OP here. Wow what a conversation, debate, etc. Funny if we were all in the same room discussing this in person, I'd venture to say that it may be going more smoothly. Originally Posted by jbyork
I'm currently using Joe Dochtermann's "The Charlie Christian Method for Jazz Guitar" and to a lesser extent "Improvise for Real" by David Reed. But I may go back to Conti's "Ticket to Improv."
If I had the chance to clarify my question, in light of the conversation going on here, it would sound something like this:
I realize that there are many roads to Rome. I realize there is probably no one silver bullet that works for everyone. But if you might humbly consider yourself fairly able to improvise a solo over the changes of a standard, I'm directing this question at you.
You probably spent years and years with the guitar. Playing lots of things. Playing lots of things that led to your ability to improvise a solo. Using various techniques, perhaps.
But if you were pushed to name the one thing that helped you the most (not a silver bullet, but some book or practice regimen, or combination of things) in all your experience, what might it be?
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Two things really...sorry, I can't separate them.
Chords up and down the neck, and lifting ideas from records and realizing they lived inside little chord shapes all over the neck.
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Excellent. Thanks. Sounds kind of what the Charlie Christian book emphasizes. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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I can't comment on the general thrust of this thread-absolutely not qualified to make such teacher level assessments, but I can't say enough about your last point - the lines that lived inside the chord shapes. I'm practicing the crap out of this idea with songs, isolating a triad shape (root and both inversions) and being able to find the other notes in relation to this. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
By way of a simple practical example - Even something as basic as a 2nd inversion triad on strings 2-3-4, play it with the barre- where's the P4, tritone, P5, m6, M6, m7, M7, ev8? They're right there. Practice the crap out a triad shape and be able to play any of these intervals without thinking or fumbling? This has been a huge thing for me.
Barney Kessel 101-he always played the chord then played a line built from it.
I think with enough practice, the combination of tunes and music knowledge merges with a basic fingerboard mastery such that lines become a natural extension of the player.
Basic fingerboard mastery means to me knowledge of all the drop 2 and. Drop 3 chords and triads and intervals. The reason why scales are so important is not to run then but to play intervals as if they were second nature.
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Listening to a *lot* of jazz. Originally Posted by angelpa
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Hard to name one thing. Im pretty confident that one thing alone wont reallly get you there but if I had to boil it down to one thing (he says, right before naming 3 things, lol) by far, transcribing (whether writtten or not) bass lines, chords, melodies and solos in that order.
For me that has been the fastest route.
But what has helped make that the fastest route are:
A fundamental knowledge of chord and scale theory as they apply to a guitar neck
Technique, not just notes, as part of transcription
The constant practice in a playing situation (jamming!)
Recording and listening to yourself and fixing why you suck
Any tool you can find (including yours or someone else 's ear) to help you transcribe whether its a record album played on 16 speed or Transcribe!
It worked for me learning rock and it's working for jazz.
I was lucky enough to have a teacher early on who stressed ear training and transcription (no matter how simple).Last edited by Michael Kaye; 04-05-2014 at 06:05 PM.
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I agree that useful comparisons can be made between different things. Especially where beginners are concerned, 'jazz is a language' can be useful. But consider your example of vocabulary: all English words are part of English vocabulary. What speakers who spoke another language first discover when learning English is that they may have the vocabulary down but it is the idioms that confound them. (One can ace a vocabulary test containing the words "up" and "yours" but have no idea what "up yours!" means. Originally Posted by fep
I think we talk about jazz vocabulary, we're talking more about idioms (-"the lick" is a great example, and the "Ellington ending" is another, and so is the phrase Charlie Parker uses to open his "Now's the Time" solo. Indeed, the recording of "Guitar Boogie Shuffle" by The Virtues draws heavily from the that solo (-the first chorus) but it isn't jazz
Much early jazz was made out of songs that weren't written as (or previously performed as) jazz pieces. Blues, pop songs, folk songs. Jazz was a way of playing music and most anything could be given a jazz (-or ragtime) or blues treatment. "O When The Saints Go Marchin' In" started as a gospel song and was usually played slow but now it suggests Mardi Gras--or a football game played in the Superdome---rather than a church service. What's jazzy is how the hymn is played (-when it's played as jazz) and what makes it sound jazzy (-or bluesy or country or whatever style one does it in) is a set of conventions for playing jazz, or at least Dixieland.
It's easy to see this if one listens to early rock records (or soul records, for that matter): you have young people trying to make a name for themselves and they're taking available material and doing it in 'the new style.' When Elvis cut Bill Monroe's "Blue Moon of Kentucky" he radically changed the tempo. It is said that Bill Monroe hated it---until the royalty checks came in. Elvis got "real, real gone" with "Milkcow Blues Boogie" and the way it came out, it wasn't a rural blues anymore. "Let's milk it!"
(I like Scotty Moore's solo here. Lots of rockabilly players know this one by heart and use it whenever it comes in handy, whether they're playing this song or not.)Last edited by MarkRhodes; 04-05-2014 at 06:00 PM. Reason: Wrong video link
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Originally Posted by Jonzo
Here we go again. Wes didn't "transcribe". He couldn't read or write music, correct?
Folks - Playing by ear, regardless of style, and regardless of what you are playing is not "transcribing". Figuring out melodies, chords, blues solos, rock solos, jazz solos - by ear and playing them directly on your instrument - is not transcribing. It is learning to play something by ear, no matter how slowly and tediously. If you write it down then it is transcribing. Period.
Why is this important? Because a lot of advice here tells the OP to transcribe. So what are we telling him anyway?
1. To figure out by ear, and write it down?
2. To figure out by ear, write it down, and play it?
3. To figure out by ear and play it?
4. To play it, even if its already transcribed?
And why are we telling him that? What are the merits of each? Which is most valuable?
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Huh? That seems overly complicated as a reply to my simple statement. I didn't say jazz and language are exactly the same, I actually said the opposite of that. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
It's also a leap to take that simple statement and talk about playing in a style. I wasn't talking about playing in a style (although if you develop jazz vocabulary which includes playing lots of jazz tunes and listening to jazz, you probably will develop a jazz style). But this line of discussion is going far afield of my simple statement.
All I wrote was a simple comparison: "When you speak you draw from your vocabulary, when you improvise you draw from your vocabulary."
Last edited by fep; 04-05-2014 at 06:29 PM.
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Point taken. Originally Posted by fumblefingers
I think informally (and wrongly so) most of us use the term incorrectly to distinguish the casual "by ear" translation of a song vs the minutely detailed study and copy of a piece "as played exactly".
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In a jazz context, the term "transcribing" is typically used to mean either 2 or 3. In my view the value comes from 3. But 2 is good too since it helps with sight reading, and allows me to quickly relearn solos I once transcribed but forgot. Originally Posted by fumblefingers
Incidentally, although it may be a stretch to call it transcribing,
5. playing along with a recording a bunch of times and trying to cop as many lines as possible
is also a good thing to do. I think of these as extremely focused listening. It's hard to really understand how good Wes Montgomery or Clifford Brown etc. really were without doing any of these.
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I'm glad you said this. Originally Posted by fumblefingers
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I had heard that, but wasn't sure I heard it correctly. Thanks for clearing that up. Originally Posted by jbyork
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I think you may have not understood the point Jonzo is after here. He is claiming that the techniques used to teach language to adults ASAP (-the military training soldiers to speak / interpret foreign languages) might be used to teach jazz because jazz too has a vocabulary and a grammar. Experiments may prove him right but I am skeptical because I don't think jazz and language are alike in that way. Originally Posted by fep
What you mean by vocabulary (in jazz) would better be conveyed by the term "cliches" (or "conventions"). Ironically, many jazz musicians wish to avoid cliches---some deliberately write tunes without ii-Vs, for example, because that's been done to death---and people who walk out on them actually came to hear those cliches---a nice rhythm on the high hat, a walking bass line, something that swings, a great melody---and when they don't hear them, they leave.
It's worth noting that many other musicians who improvise----many country, blues, and rock players have dazzling technique and distinctive styles----don't talk about learning to play hot licks, endings and intros, and comping patterns as learning a language. I suspect they a) don't find it helpful and b) think it sounds pretentious.
But Jonzo's assertion is that maybe because jazz IS language it should be taught the way that languages are taught. Again, research may show this works. If so, I will be surprised and admit I was wrong. But for now, I think this approach wrong-headed because I really don't think jazz is a language in that way.
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Mark,
It seems like you are trying to address Jonzo's statements not mine. Where exactly did I take Jonzo's position, what ever that may be? I haven't read most of the posts on this thread. My comment is a responce to Jeff's comment that he hate's the comparisons of language and jazz.
Making comparison of language and jazz has a long tradition but it shouldn't be taken literally to such an extreme. That is nonsensical to me. Your reply to my simple comment is also nonsensical to me. It seems you are just being argumentative, strange as I'm not arguing with you.
I'm watching Burn's Jazz tonight. Near the very beginning of the show Wynton Marsalis uses the term "the language of jazz". It's common usage, it's a cliche. And, it's just not that important.Last edited by fep; 04-06-2014 at 01:17 AM.
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Thought it was an interesting piece of information to share :
Welcome to the Rosenberg AcademyYou will learn the sound of gypsy jazz the way Stochelo has learned it: studying solos related to specific songs in the repertoire. First you will watch Stochelo play a chorus or two on a well known gypsy jazz standard. Then the solo will be broken down into phrases and licks and through close-ups of the left and right hand Stochelo will show you exactly how everything is played and how it can be used in your own improvisations.Last edited by Nabil B; 04-06-2014 at 05:29 AM.
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A thought experiment here. You are a decent musician if you can do the following as I did this early morning.
Hear in your mind the song When You Wish Upon A Star. What do you hear? I immediately hear the famous version sung by Cliff Edwards in Disney's classic film, Pinocchio. Skipping in my mind the introduction (which in the original recording begins in the key of G and modulates to D before modulating again up a major second to Cliff singing the first verse in the key of E), I hear the high tenor voice of Cliff Edwards and the lush violins articulate the beautiful motif melody.
So I pick up my guitar and begin singing in the key of E. But Cliff's range is a bit higher than mine, so I go down to the key of D to which the original recording modulates at the very end. I begin to play the melody slowly and fill in the harmony of the first verse as the progression moves up the fret board through the diminished chords. D is a felicitous key for playing this song on guitar, though still a bit high at 4AM to sing, so I drop to the key of C, which also plays beautifully on the guitar and is a gentler range for my voice.
Then I go to YT and listen to two versions, one in C and the other in D played by two guitarists as solos. One is a fine jazz player unknown to me but with obvious skills and musicianship playing in C. The other is Joe Pass playing in D, which I link below. I play along to both of these videos.
So what have I done here? First, I heard the melody in my mind. Second, I pick the melody on my guitar and harmonize it in various keys. Third, I play along with two excellent musicians. And after listening and playing along a couple of times, I just take the song through a variety of jazz styles for my amusement, varying the rhythm essentially from a bluesy take through more angular jazzy versions.
A few observations. To be able to do what I did this late night entails certain skills and knowledge. One must hear the melody and harmonies. You must be able technically to articulate what you hear in terms of actually playing the notes and voices in the improvised arrangement. But in fact, much of the arrangement or "improvised" performance is my playing the melody and harmony, with a few Pass like touches. If I want, I can write out a note for note transcription of Joe's performance in D or the other gentleman's performance in C, but both guitarists are doing essentially the same thing as I am.
Now, did I learn this song by transcription? Not at all. I first fell in love with this beautiful song as a child watching Pinocchio long ago. I have know the melody since I was in grade school. But it took years of playing to be able to do what I did this early morning. And years of study and playing to be able to write out Joe Pass's version as a transcription (by ear and without Transcribe, Jeff) with Sibelius, which I do for fun and as part of my project to create an archive of standards.
To me this process is no different than if I were to take one of Hector Villa Lobos' beautiful etudes - no. 7 is my personal favorite - and write out the transcription by ear. Of course, someone else took the trouble, so I learned to play it off my sheet music back in my twenties. Oddly enough, no "licks" are involved in this process. I hear music as notes. I read music as notes. I play the notes I hear. That is it. Transcription is a tool, not an ideology.
My point is that I started playing as a child because I loved to sing and music itself. I already could sing the melody before I ever touched a real guitar or started classical guitar lessons. The music was in me already. But it took years of study and playing time to be able to listen to that music in my mind and make it manifest in a graceful way. Which to me is music that comes from the mind and the heart. That is the magic of music that expresses love and emotion, yearning and fulfillment, tension and resolution, harmony and dissonance.
The music is in you, but you must learn to become the vessel to let it become real. That entails years of playing and "hard work" including transcription if you like. But, as the saying goes, if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. And music is my addiction and passion.
Of course, some might quibble that When You Wish Upon A Star is not a real "jazz" song. After all, this idiot (me) could actually sing this song as a young child. And there are no modal changes, no wondering which scale to play over what chords. How could this be jazz? Well, let's see what Joe Pass has to say.
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