The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    Yea...I love HM.

    Here's something think about... lets talk about sight reading, most guitarist suck, that's just the way it is. So how do you expect to get better.
    Generally in real or live situations, gigs etc... your not going to really ever sight read any better than.....at any given time in your past, the best you ever did. I mean at the high point of your playing over the years, at some point you sight read at your highest level. And if you, as most do practice sight reading a little every day, you get a little better, maybe.

    My point, if you've never put in some serious time, (like 4 to 6 hours a day for months), getting that sight reading skill together, your not going to get to higher lever of being able to sight read. One hour a day for 50 years, ??? 18,250 hours,
    won't compare to 144 hours over a six month period. You'll reach higher levels of performance from the six months as compared to the 50 year method.

    Personally this same concept... or at least a way to verbally talk about learning, applies with many of the skills required to perform jazz... at least at the speed of jazz.

    Target... really, two choruses and you're bored... so why are you bored? What would not make you bored.

    Have you checked out great players in live situations... gettin after it. Good old days of M Brecker and Joey Calderazzo etc... nothing gets going for a couple of choruses. But I'm not talkin about pop jazz etc...

    Anyway... personally I believe you can only perform as well as you've trained your self. Yea... you can have magical moments etc... but generally live performances are down the middle of your skill set. Pretty much all believe you need to put in the time... but as I've said since I've joined this forum, The organization of that time is just as important... and really... I believe much more important.

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  3. #27

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    Did I make my point clear.... Getting better at all the small elements of what ever skill your trying to improve will get you to overall higher levels of performance of that skill, as compared to working on the general skill.

    In my topic.... working on the individual elements of phrasing or playing lines, will develop the overall skill faster and to a much higher level of performance than just working on the skill of phrasing or playing as one element of practice.

  4. #28

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    Quote Originally Posted by Reg
    Yea...I love HM.

    Here's something think about... lets talk about sight reading, most guitarist suck, that's just the way it is. So how do you expect to get better.
    Generally in real or live situations, gigs etc... your not going to really ever sight read any better than.....at any given time in your past, the best you ever did. I mean at the high point of your playing over the years, at some point you sight read at your highest level. And if you, as most do practice sight reading a little every day, you get a little better, maybe.

    My point, if you've never put in some serious time, (like 4 to 6 hours a day for months), getting that sight reading skill together, your not going to get to higher lever of being able to sight read. One hour a day for 50 years, ??? 18,250 hours,
    won't compare to 144 hours over a six month period. You'll reach higher levels of performance from the six months as compared to the 50 year method.

    Personally this same concept... or at least a way to verbally talk about learning, applies with many of the skills required to perform jazz... at least at the speed of jazz.

    Target... really, two choruses and you're bored... so why are you bored? What would not make you bored.

    Have you checked out great players in live situations... gettin after it. Good old days of M Brecker and Joey Calderazzo etc... nothing gets going for a couple of choruses. But I'm not talkin about pop jazz etc...

    Anyway... personally I believe you can only perform as well as you've trained your self. Yea... you can have magical moments etc... but generally live performances are down the middle of your skill set. Pretty much all believe you need to put in the time... but as I've said since I've joined this forum, The organization of that time is just as important... and really... I believe much more important.
    I agree that with 4 to 6 hours a day continuously for months at a time will make almost anyone a great sight reader. extrapolated out, 10 to 12 hours a day would make for an even more proficient sight reader. But, other than kids sacrificng their after school play time . . . and serious giggin pros who gig during the evening with most of their day time freed up and able to be devoted to paratice . . . where does the non pro musician, working guy, corporate executive, business professional type person find that 4 to 6 hours a day?

    But, your point is well taken about organizing what time you do have to practice and study music. Lack of structured and organized practice time is probably my own biggest detriment to more rapid advancement. Probably the easiest to self correct as well. Discipline man, it's all about discipline. I've got to find more self discipline within myself.

  5. #29

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    Sight reading and reading notation are conditioned by pattern recognition. You see a typical guitar passage and you simply recognize where that pattern of black dots can be played comfortably on the neck. I studied classical guitar form the age of twelve or so. With the advantage of youth if you practice something daily, you get progressively better. When I got into Julian Bream, I focused a lot on his repertoire including his series of albums of Elizabethan era lute music and more Bach. Then, I worked pretty hard through my twenties on classical as well as approaching jazz more directly post college. So I just never stopped reading music daily from the age of twelve, though most of my jazz study initially was by ear and equally important.

    Many summers since then have come and gone. I still own only one jazz Fake or Real Book by Hal Leonard, which I bought spiral bound in the early Eighties. The hardest part of sight reading for me is the high notes on the high E string above the fifteenth fret or so. I prefer that octave notation thing, but it seems most publishers prefer not to use it.

    The advent of notation software was also very helpful generally, especially for reading the piano bass clef notation. For some reason (maybe because I'm a 'self-taught' pianist) reading the bass clef was harder for me. If you consider "sight reading" to be extemporaneous reading of music that you are not familiar with at performance level, I would not like to tackle an up tempo bebop chart under the gun. But it seems that unless it is a complex solo piece, much of jazz guitar parts in a band context are single note parts essentially where the most important thing is play the rhythmic notation properly. In effect reading a solo classical guitar piece is often easier because it provides the written out harmonic context. Chord study is also important.

    Reg, I know jazz cats love to play extended choruses. But I do prefer the more focused 'short but sweet' statements. Of course, I would rather listen to an extended solo by a jazz musician than rockers. Those endless jam solos of Eric Clapton in the Sixties used to annoy and bore the heck out of me.

    Jay

  6. #30

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    Hey Patrick2... I totally understand. But where I'm going is if one were to put in say... 20 hours into a three day period or even 12 hours over 2 days with an organized sight reading schedule, one would reach a higher level of sight reading, which will become a new basic reference or standard for the skill. Once your able to do something... the next time is generally easier.

    Short practice periods over a long period of time...... don't get you to higher levels of performance.... they usually only "get the time in", as compared to raising the skill level of what your trying to get better at. I know this somewhat goes against what's common practice... or one liners etc... but generally when pros say one liners... it's just entertainment BS, part of the show.

    Jay... yea, I understand. I was part of that 60's Filmore performance thing. But it was fun as a player, the extended modal like rock/R&B jam thing. Jazz on the other hand... well improve is part of what defines the music, taking the short and sweet approach is... on the edge of not really being Jazz... more of entertainment for more of a pop audience, I didn't say good or bad, just closer to musicians playing jazz tunes, as compared to....

  7. #31

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    That's good advice Reg about focusing on one thing and really working it. A bit tangential, but I was watching a documentary on George St. Pierre - the legendary MMA fighter - and he talked about how in the gym the main difference between him and other guys was that he would generally focus on one technique at a time and just learn the sh*t out of it, whereas other guys would go over say 20 techniques in a session.

  8. #32

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    Reg - when I speak of short and sweet, I mean like the classic recordings of Miles, Bill Evans, or a guy like Hank Mobley with Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, and Art Blakey. Of course, if you hear them as "pop jazz", well....

    Rome was not built in a day, and neither are sight reading skills. I think if one is not skilled, I would approach it like fifteen to twenty minutes a day from a Classical guitar text for students like those authored by Christopher Parkening.

  9. #33

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    Recording were limited because of space too...

    Things were different live.

  10. #34

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    This is a great thread, it's something that's often lacking in my solos. I feel I often connect individual ideas but am not conscious much of phrase length, development over several choruses, etc.

    I feel like Reg is making the point that it's not just about "just feel it" and "phrasing" doesn't mean "making it beautiful" or something, but we're talking about tangible objective elements of melodic improvisation. Skills we work on and then can execute said skill because it's something we've practiced, rather than leaving it all up to the Gods of Jazz.

    Reg, could you give some practical examples of activities that increase this awareness?

  11. #35

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    Hey Jake, thanks and Yes, very tangible. I just got back into town and have some BS to take care of today... gigs ... I'll try and come up with some examples, maybe just over a basic blues. Everyone understands the Form so the spatial aspect of the Form might be easy to hear and see with relationship to improve development being aware of length of phrases etc...

  12. #36

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    Quote Originally Posted by Reg
    Hey Jake, thanks and Yes, very tangible. I just got back into town and have some BS to take care of today... gigs ... I'll try and come up with some examples, maybe just over a basic blues. Everyone understands the Form so the spatial aspect of the Form might be easy to hear and see with relationship to improve development being aware of length of phrases etc...
    I know this is a very old thread but its a very interesting theme. Could we do the "rebirth of the cool"?

  13. #37

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    I love this idea for a thread.

    So when Reg told me that he liked my lines, but that I had to practice at the speed of jazz--I ran with that idea. I'm still putting the metronome up everyday.

    Reg totally understood my excitement when I finally graduated into the land of phrasing and space--2 bar, 4 bar, and 8 bar phrases (and 16, jeez, Reg!)

    Macro--we don't think Macro enough! I'm talking strictly ear here, but being able to hear how the first note of your solo connects to the home key and where the tune finally ends up.

    Developing the ability to listen to yourself while you solo. I don't mean developing your cringe factor when you play a sour note or line. I mean the ability to remember the line you just played and find a way to answer it or continue it.

    Some of the stuff I've posted recently does this some of the time. Its really hard--but Reg is hinting at that concept that was hard to quantify before--how to tell a story with a beginning, middle, and end.

  14. #38

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    The biggest things for me in being able to think marco (and I'm not saying I'm great at it yet, but it sure has helped) is simplifying song forms and reducing melody.

    You can make almost everything look like a modal piece...not that you play on that way, of course! But function, function, function...

  15. #39

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    How many times have you heard a line and thought you must transcribe it because it is so cool and you must have it, but then you discover it is just a simple series of notes (even something you might have played many times), the surprise that makes it special being the phrasing, timing, and placement of the line with respect to the song?

    Reg is right on about this - development of "balancing of melodic phrasing" is the most distinguishable missing aspect.

    I suggested in a recent thread that rhythm (the spectrum of which includes phrasing and form) is first played by ear, most played by ear, and ultimately must be played by ear. If this were true the consequence might be focusing attention to harmony, chord types and voicing, note selection and sequence of lines, etc., but tending to give "balancing of melodic phrasing" little deliberate focus or sense of composition, perhaps from a misconception that playing by ear is a mentally "passive" process. If that were true, this might be like dividing one's approach; controlling the choice of notes and chords but letting the phrasing fend for itself by ear. To mix metaphors - playing and improvising as if putting all one's eggs in one basket of functional relationships, but allowing phrasing to meander without adult supervision.

  16. #40

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    Quote Originally Posted by pauln
    allowing phrasing to meander without adult supervision.
    I think an immediate benefit to scat singing as you solo is that it improves the rhythmic content of the solo. It's easier, I think, to play something that doesn't make rhythmic sense than it is to sing something that doesn't make rhythmic sense.

    Every time I get bored with what I'm playing and think I need to delve into theory or recordings to find new sounds, I remind myself that I can't even play the stuff I can already hear as efficiently as I'd like to. So, the shortest path to improvement is by focusing on rhythm.

    When I listen to Reg, I am immediately struck by how strong his rhythmic feel is, and secondarily by his chops. Somebody said he could make random notes sound good -- and I suspect that's close to the truth. When I've talked to players with similarly great rhythmic feel (Mimi Fox is one), some of them point out that they started on, or played, drums.

  17. #41

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    Some useful stuff here:

    How to Improvise Longer Jazz Melodic Lines like Parker and Diz • Jazz Advice

    Also I think something mentioned by Chris in the ‘things I learned from Barry Harris’ channel is to try playing lines across the ‘natural breaks’ in the form. E.g. practise playing a line starting near the end of the A section and continuing into the B or bridge.

  18. #42

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    "The other part of your musical foundation are your ears. To play longer lines you must also be able to hear resolutions in chord changes over longer sections of a tune rather than just one progression at a time. Hearing guide tone lines and resolution points in the chord progressions of a tune are key to creating well crafted lines as you improvise. As your ears become more developed, you will naturally hear where your lines want to resolve or create tension as you solo."
    --Eric from Jazz Advice (bold is my own, for emphasis)

    That's a huge part of hearing the big picture.

    Another key to developing melodic phrases that have balance is to learn to hear the silence of sound as sound itself. I'm starting to work on hearing the pauses between the phrases and within the phrase. The spaces between the notes are more strategic than the notes themselves with a lot of the musicians that we envy. Even Pat Martino used space strategically in his own way.

  19. #43

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    I found that playing the Jimmy Raney solos in that Aebersold book he did helped me to get a better feel for constructing longer lines.