Dude says - I play what I hear

[destinytot]

This is great:

So is this:

[MarkRhodes]

In speaking,Your mouth forms the word simultaneously as you hear it within you. it's become an automatic thing. Of course, you've been speaking the language a long time. Your choice of words, the rhythm and intonation you use to emphasize them, comes from what you're feeling at that exact moment. You also have a vocabulary, acquired over time. In conversing with others, you are performing the process of interactive improvisation every day with your speech. The process is not a mystery. BUILDING A VOCABULARY, as in your speech. You will not remember a spoken word or phrase that means nothing to you emotionally, and therefor you will never use it. Learning music is NOT "I'll wear sack cloth and ashes, and a hair shirt until I'm worthy enough to hear this". Learning music is listening with a blank slate open mind to what you're trying to acquire. Feel your chest as you do. How does it make YOU FEEL. What you can't relate to emotionally in your own personal way, as you're trying to acquire it, you will never remember and never use. be it words or notes.

---People often think before they speak. This saves many of us from saying something we will later regret.
---People often don't pay attention to what the person they are conversing with has actually said.
---People often don't pay attention to what they themselves are saying. ("Do you even hear what you are saying?" "Huh?")
---Much speech has little, if any, emotional quality to it. Consider saying which floor you want when entering an elevator, or asking someone in a store where to find something, asking for the time, for directions, whether we need to stop for anything on the way home, where the sports section of the paper is, what time it whether someone called, and so on. Even if there is an emotional quality to such statements it is not the most important aspect of them.
---I remember lots of things that don't have much emotional meaning. ("Lefty loosey, righty tighty." "Contradictory statements cannot both be true." "Potency and act divide being in such way that whatever is, either is pure act, or of necessity it is composed of potency and act as primary and intrinsic principles.")
--- Much of the emotional speech we here is on auto-pilot. ("There he goes again..." about the government, management, overpaid athletes, traffic, underpaid teachers, whatever.)
---As Hal Galper teaches in one of his videos, it is important to minimize your emotional output to the lowest possible level. (Others may disagree with Hal about this. I am not saying he is right and you are wrong. I am saying good improvisation can be done without much emotion or feeling.)

[destinytot]

I am not saying he is right and you are wrong. I am saying good improvisation can be done without much emotion or feeling

I completely agree with this conclusion. (In theatre, they call it 'ham'... is 'cheese' its musical counterpart?)

People often think before they speak. This saves many of us from saying something we will later regret.

That sounds like cautious reflection to me, metatalk - (self)'talk about talk'.

People often don't pay attention to what the person they are conversing with has actually said.

And that sounds like poor listening skills?

Much speech has little, if any, emotional quality to it.

In my opinion, emotion would be inappropriate and weird, incongruous to the point of being funny.

Much of the emotional speech we hear is on auto-pilot.

I think that's perfectly analogous to bad music - the listener is unlikely to be moved.

it is important to minimize your emotional output to the lowest possible level

I completely agree. (David Mamet argues something to that effect, too True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor: David Mamet: 9780679772644: Amazon.com: Books .) It's up to the listener to construct meaning - including emotion - through perception. Our task is to put the words/notes in the right places, i.e. send a strong signal for the listener to decode.

[mr. beaumont]

If you watch that video, Hal's talking about minimizing emotion as a way of keeping you from getting too "excited" and trying to hard to swing...but the concept of minimizing emotion in general is important to me. I want people to feel something from my music, but I don't really want to "tell" them what to feel. So as an example I think I used here before, it's NOT "I'm going to play 'sad' now," it's more "I'm sad, and I'm going to play now, and if you're sad too, you might catch that." (or you might get something totally different out of it and that's cool too)

The latter, IMHO, is so much more powerful.

[Reg]

Some interesting points...I'll ramble for a while...So when your performing, personally all my skills can come into play. My emotions and interaction with the band and the audience. As Mr B was saying...I'm not trying to lecture the audience and tell them what's right, I'm for the most part... entertaining them. If I can educate them in that process of entertainment... great. Also of course depends on the gig, sometimes... I'm the reason people come to hear the music, they enjoy my entertainment approach, and I'll play more that I do usually... put more emotion into the performance, I read the audience reaction and also use that aspect. Or when someone else is soloing and the audience is getting into the whole thing... I put a little more energy into backing up what the soloist is playing, go with them... more so than interact with them. I'm hearing what they hear.

As far as hearing the music before, during or after... yea it all happens. When I'm arranging or writing out charts... generally things get finished because of dead lines... so I'm generally hearing the music in my hear and from the notation on the paper... or on the screen. I generally check the sound after I'm done... for mistakes etc... generally notational.

The analogy of conversation with music is tricky... we all spend our entire life speaking and having conversations, most just don't have the time put in to really understand the language of music well enough to speak in real time. Try and have a conversation with someone with pre-written out paragraphs of words from a few books etc...

Hearing is obviously one, if not the thing. But you need to have heard or have an understanding of what's possible to hear, and how to realize..... what your hearing, thought you hear or are trying to hear.

You can approach by hearing something and then realize or learn to play what you heard. Personally it's always a balance, a combination of everything.... But the development of musicianship... all the technical BS, isn't magical, there are no secrets or pass words needed. And I've found that my hearing improved much faster when I developed the technical performance skills of guitar before I tried to hear what I was playing... When I was a kid playing BS gigs, rock, blues and lots of old school jazz gigs...when I started working on melodic minor... a big hearing door opened up, I was this straight classical/rock kid with lots of rhythmic chops... but didn't hear a lot of what was going on...

Again the point... being able to hear and internalize etc... is personal and takes different amounts of time for everyone, but the learning the technical skills, isn't that complicated, we all learned the basic 26 letters of the alphabet, words etc...

I'm still learning how to express myself using those letters, words and organized usage of the language... yea not very good analogy...

[destinytot]

Interesting stuff.

Leaving interaction aside, the utterances of speech and the guitarist's playing produce signals. There is a sender and a receiver.


Words and notes are merely symbols. Their meaning can be literal or inferential.

"From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type. All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors."
(From the Preface of THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY by Oscar Wilde.)

[princeplanet]

So, as the OP, can I interject? Reading a lot of rhetoric here, stuff that makes you all feel warm and fuzzy..... Now I love a tangent as much as the next guy, but I wanna dove tail, if I may, back to my opening gripe. A dude says " I play what I hear"... and I say he hears what he knows. Fine, can we leave it at that? After all, most of the comments that relate to being able to do just that are stating the obvious. We can all freakin' hear what we freakin' know!!!!

But do you hear what you don't know?

Me, I like to hear, in my head, a weird amalgam of my favourite dozen or so sax players (yeah, I know, I picked the wrong instrument blahblahblah...). I can blow lines in my head for days, stuff that feels familiar, yet stuff I've never played. Can I play it? Sure, a coupla bars at a time, if you give me a minute or 2 to work it out and get it up to tempo (usually pretty quick...). But that's not the same as thinking of something I've never played before and playing it exactly as I'm hearing it, and immediately!

Now if you guys can do that, you are either freak prodigies, or you are hearing simple lines at modest tempos. Or are are you just hearing stuff you largely already know?...

Playing what you what you hear, eh? If you're hearing stuff like what I'm hearing, and you can play it on the freakin' guitar with zero latency, well then, you must be the Sonny freakin' Rollins of the Jazz guitar! When's your next gig?

[mr. beaumont]

Well, I can hear a simple line at modest tempo in real time--actually improvised, not just canned stuff.

So if I, a regular dude, can do that, what's to say someone who hasn't practiced 1000's of hours more over many years more couldn't do more?

[pingu]

I had a look at 'jim mullen london school of music part 3' on the you tubes

he deals with this 'playing what you hear' topic ....
very well i think

[wolflen]

playing what you hear .. ok..jimi Hendrix hears a machine gun..or bombs bursting in air..and he plays them..concepts unrelated to music..ella fitzgerald sings a scat line..and joe pass copies it "note for note"..playing what he hears..

now extend that into inner realms of music.music/souds in your mind...something NOONE has ever heard before..ok..now you find a way to play THAT..you make it tangible-so to speak..so you can tell other musicians/listeners about it .. so they will hopefully understand what your saying..or trying to say..

I clearly remember hearing Robert Fripp - king crimson -- doing stuff way beyond anything I have heard before .. but then I heard Coltrane surpass Fripp by eons..using sounds I have heard before..could both these musicians play the others lines by hearing it just once..as ella and joe did..


is the ultimate goal to BE the music..not play it..but BE it .. consider Bach...not how he created but what did he hear before he played it..or was it just..he sat at the piano..ahh..that's a nice run..ill add an A note to that in the bass..yes that sounds good..lets see..i hear a decending bass line over an E major chord..with the inner voices moving in different directions..counter point..yes that's what it is..

[destinytot]

But do you hear what you don't know?

No. It may as well be noise if we can't bring it into the realm of form and apply it with conscious control.

[destinytot]

I had a look at 'jim mullen london school of music part 3' on the you tubes

he deals with this 'playing what you hear' topic ....
very well i think

[princeplanet]

No. It may as well be noise if we can't bring it into the realm of form and apply it with conscious control.

Let me put it another way. You can scat something in a style you know, right? Say something simple, like blues lines. Now something a little more tricky like bop style lines. Everything you can scat you could probably play, some of us can make it without stopping to think, just sing along with what you play (or vice versa). Cool.

Now scat something weird, like fast Coltrane free style passages. Something out of your comfort zone. Sing out loud, heck even record it to prove to yourself that it's not unformed noise. Now transcribe that free form scatting. Note how long it takes you to get even a single phrase down. Much longer than playing along with the more familiar material, right?

So, I guess my whole point is that I think it's disingenuine to proclaim "I can play whatever I hear, instantly". Apart from a very small percentage of musical freaks, I'll take that statement to usually mean "I can play whatever I hear instantly, provided it's in my comfort zone".

That's a whole world of difference to me...

[targuit]

Reg always likes to say "You can't hear what you cannot play." But I think it is also true that "you cannot play what you cannot hear."

What I mean by that is illustrated by a simple example. I find it hard to play very atonal random stuff. Sure I could play completely randomly to illustrate the sound of GC on a Saturday afternoon, but it is hard for me because I am grounded in lyrical music. And to play atonal, meaningless crap is hard because I am hard wired to play lyrically and melodically.

I'm not sure that much of this discussion is really very important, since whether you can literally scat along with your improvised melody lines (let's remember that it is rather impossible to scat sing chords) or not is not as much a big issue as the quality of your melodic line. That is, if your melodic line is crap, it doesn't really matter if you can scat it.

To examine in another light. I have recorded myself since I was a young boy messing with my Father's TEAC tapedeck days. As tech improved, I got a Fostex eight track tape machine, which I thought was ok, but still limited. With the advent of digital recording, I purchased an $889 Korg D1200mkII digital recorder (just found the slip the other day) which was finally more what I was looking for in terms of a creative tool to really hear what I was playing as transparently as possible. And I have made hundreds of home recordings of jazz and country rock music. In the process of experimenting I have many recorded examples of myself scatting along with improvised lines as I overdubbed lead lines with the guitar over my rhythm and vocal tracks. Most of these examples were as I was working out lines, not necessarily the "finished product" - so I can say I have documented examples of being able to play what I hear and scat what I hear. Big deal.

In effect, what is important is the quality of what you hear at that point. The shape and architecture of the melodic phrase. The way you "tell a story" when you solo, building to a climax. I always joke that a good solo is like great sex. Start slow, keep it rhythmic but with some subtle variety, build to a peak emotional and physical climax, and end relaxing in the afterglow. And leave them wanting to come back for more.

Thursday morning I recorded another version of The Shadow of Your Smile, a three track recording to replace one that I had put up on my YT channel. The first recording was not satisfactory for a number of reasons relating to poor gain staging, poor percussion track, pitchy vocals....the list goes on. The original is still on YT, as I have not yet finalized the mix to replace it, hopefully today. But, an interesting thing was that apart from a different percussion track and better gain staging, faster tempo,singing in full voice, bumping the key up a whole step from Dm to Em, and playing the "lead" guitar track on my Godin LGX-SA as opposed to my Yamaha classical used for the "rhythm" guitar track, I still was overdubbing my lead on the same song. Or more importantly, the same harmonic context.

That factor came home to me as I was recording that lead track literally as I was playing the first few notes. After I listened to the playback, I realized that the lead I had recorded the second time (referring in particular to an instrumental solo sans vox in the middle of the song) was not that different from the original take I had recorded weeks ago. I doubt the second recent solo is identical to the first, but it is in the same harmonic context. I was reacting to the same harmonic bed, so I was hearing a similar solo in my mind. It reminded me that melodies rarely spring up out of the blue, but rather in a harmonic context, even if it is only implied. I would add that the solo was never something I had written out before hand. It is how I reacted to the harmonic and emotional context of the song.

And I can say that I did not scat the solo audibly. But I did play what I hear. At least I think so...

Jay

[destinytot]

Firstly, if you'll pardon my fuzz, I want to say that I appreciate and value the opportunity to engage in this discussion.

Everything you can scat you could probably play

I wish that were so, but it isn't - yet.

Now scat something weird

Subjectivity aside, I'd say pitches stop being 'weird' as soon as they are identified in a context.

I'll take that statement to usually mean "I can play whatever I hear instantly, provided it's in my comfort zone".

I agree. And I believe in expanding my comfort zone by embracing a growth mindset with regard to playing what I hear. I feel there should be no off-limits as far as hearing goes.

Sing out loud, heck even record it to prove to yourself that it's not unformed noise. Now transcribe that free form scatting. Note how long it takes you to get even a single phrase down. Much longer than playing along with the more familiar material, right?

Actually, I think that kind of transcription will yield the best results in the long run if it's part of a reflective approach to analysis and study.

I'm convinced that the right questions, such as those mapped onto a learning cycle below, will cause the hearing and playing comfort zone to expand:

[Reg]

Maybe worrying about extreme levels of being able to hear is over the top, who cares. There are only a few who can cover or fit the bill.

I think my... "can't hear what you can't play" is from sight reading reference... and your not going to be able realize what you can't physically play... so the being able to hear what you play... is limited by your technical abilities on your instrument. I can easily hear any chord progression at slow to medium tempo, can easily hear arpeggios of those changes... say like 8th note arpeggios, one chord per 2 beats... especially with root starting notes, when I start to voice lead those lines ... make them more complicated, and the mental pattern has options, it's not mechanical... I'm sure I would be faking it a little.

When I write music... I can hear very complex arrangements and harmonic changes, and can hear lines that I would have difficulty playing in time and on the spot, could fake it, or read it, that's what I do.

I play gigs all the time where I answer vocalist or other melodic instruments during solo sections, I make mistakes, but generally no one would even notice, the target notes are usually right. I mean if you have perfect pitch and a photo graphic memory... whats the problem. I don't.

Generally after a hour or so into a gig or session, my ears warm up to whats being played... the skill of playing what I hear or see, sight reading... improves. At long sessions, after 4 or 5 hours... you really start to hear... when you playing a couple gigs a night for a couple weeks... you'd be amazed how well you can play what you hear.

[edh]

"...when you playing a couple gigs a night for a couple weeks... you'd be amazed how well you can play what you hear."

Wow!! How long are those gigs...1,2,3 hours?

[destinytot]

Maybe worrying about extreme levels of being able to hear is over the top, who cares.

Listening to Adam Rogers today really brought home that great improvisers trust and let go.

I agree that taking the principle of playing what you hear to extremes is over the top. I've heard such perfectionism described as 'fear-based playing', as a form of armour against shame and fear - decidedly non-fuzzy traits.

It seems that, eventually, summoning the courage to trust and let go becomes paramount. Thanks, Reg.

[targuit]

Just last night I finalized a new version of Shadow of Your Smile to replace a previous audio video on my YT channel. The link to the "new, improved" version is on the Showcase forum. I create a CD of the mastered tracks directly out of my Korg D1200. In the process I also added several recordings of my "worktapes" of some original songs as well as versions of Dindi and This Is All I Ask - in part to see how various mixes sound and not to 'waste' the CD-R. I intend to put up some Jobim songs very soon.

I had mentioned before that I have recordings of scat singing along to improvised guitar lead playing. One of the blues originals that I was created spontaneously when I recorded included just such scatting. Again the ability to scat with your playing is not that difficult in itself. But the recording is evidence that it certainly is possible and not that hard. The fact that I was scatting was actually quite unintentional, as it predated this thread. I intend to publish this tune once I finish it.

Jay

[jordanklemons]

We're in a studio the other day and a young hot shot player seems to have the other session guys in awe of his ability to sing while playing his lines. When asked about it he shrugged " I just play what I hear" and began showing off his ability. But I just couldn't buy it, so I asked if he could play what he heard someone else play. Again he just shrugged, so I picked up a guitar and played him a single blues chorus I'd recently transcribed from a Tina Brooks record. He didn't get it. So I just played him the first bar. He struggled, kinda like how most people (including myself) do when we're transcribing.

Now here's the thing, I know there are musical freaks out there, and I've known at least one, that have magical ears, and probably can play what they hear, whether it's in their head, or from somewhere else. However, that's quite a different level when compared to guys who have learned to sing what they know they can play. When guys say they can play what they hear, they usually are just "hearing" what they know, or just singing what they're playing. I'm just not as impressed as most people seem to be.

What do you guys think?

Yeah, I think you're right Prince. I think most people who sing while playing are either vocally following their fingers (meaning singing after they play and relying on the sound of the guitar) and are probably just really familiar with their patterns.

That said, it is entirely possible to achieve these types of things in REALITY where we're not cheating. One thing I do sometimes during practice is to play while I sing, except I will sing the note AND THEN play it on the guitar (about a half second later). This is a far more challenging thing to do than to sing and play at the same time. It forces you to make a conscious decision about the note(s) you want to produce, and then it requires the ability to know where they are on the fretboard. It will show you your weaknesses very quickly!

I've been lucky enough to study with some guys with gigantic ears while working on my masters degree. One teacher recommends sitting at the piano, playing a chord and singing chord tones at random. So maybe, play a BbMaj7 and try to sing the 9th, then try to sing the #11, etc. Always check yourself after each note and re-enforce if you got it wrong. The next level to mix this up and make it more challenging is to sing NON chord tones. So play a Dmin9 and sing the major 3rd.

A sax player in my program told me he used to study with a guy who transcribed solos with no instrument. He would just sit down, listen to a bar or two, and start writing. I'm sure he wasn't 100% on every time, but my friend said he could actually do it. He recommended just spending a little time every day trying it. Get a measure or two down without the instrument first. Then pick up the instrument and figure it out and see what you got right and what you didn't. Over time that stuff can really open your ears up.

But by in large, I'd say you're probably right. Most people who are singing with their playing are probably relying on something....patterns they know and play a lot, the sound of the notes they're hearing, etc. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's still a powerful way to help humanize our playing and connect us to our music more than not being able to sing along with out lines.

[targuit]

Jordan, I hear what you are saying, but I don't think there is time for one to sing with a delay after what you play. If you are truly scatting the notes, it has to be simultaneous with the guitar or you lose the focus. I'm referring to completely improvised playing. In my own case if I had to 'think about' what I played or sang, it would not work. Your fingers and your voice have to be targeting the same destination. There has to be complete sychronicity between the voice and the fingers, or it does not work. At least that is my experience.

Jay

[jordanklemons]

I'm talking about sitting alone and practicing Taguit. Not at a session. Just like you can't learn the C scale by immediately jumping in and playing it in time and at a realistic tempo, what I'm talking about should be treated the same way. You practice it slowly and intentionally first. It's amazing how quickly the ear, the voice, and the fingers can come into alignment with each other when we give them part of our practice time.

Just like with learning a riff, an arpeggio, or a scale, these more internalized elements of music (with practice) will become more engrained in us and then will naturally affect our playing.

Also, it should be stated that the end goal of what I'm talking about is not a party trick of being able to play notes and sing at the same time. I'm talking about deepening the connection between our inner experience of the music we 'hear' and want to produce, and the sounds that actually come out of our instruments when we start to play. It's about intention, clarity, control, and humanization. I find that I sometimes start singing while I'm playing by accident without thinking about it. But I couldn't really care less about developing that ability, and generally would rather not do it if I can help it. I was in the studio the other day and unconsciously started singing with my playing and the bandleader cut us off and had to start another take because my voice was bleeding into the horn section's mics. But my playing has become far more intentional and personal and honest for me since I've started this practice, and others like it. Rather than feeling like a spectator watching my fingers run around, I actually feel like my inner self is the manager and my fingers are now my employees. At least when I'm in the zone. It's an entirely different feeling and experience of playing.

[Reg]

"...when you playing a couple gigs a night for a couple weeks... you'd be amazed how well you can play what you hear."

Wow!! How long are those gigs...1,2,3 hours?

A long gig is 4 hours, like contract gigs... During the summer it can get as busy as you can handle. There are afternoon gigs, early evening, dinner gigs and standard night gigs. You get rummy and rely on your calender. But the playing what you hear thing... whether you've played it before or not becomes much easier. It gets as good as one needs for almost any musical setting. The difficulty becomes.... how much can you remember. How many bars...

Again... how much do you practice remembering and playing back what you hear. Generally I only work on the skill at gigs.
I would think the skill is the result of.... as compared to photographic, perfect pitch memory and performance practice.
I memorize, see and hear music in form...like a chart.

[christianm77]

I just wanted to underline the difference between performance and practice as pointed out by jordanklemons.

One practice all sorts of stuff and often it is very conscious and thoughtful, but when you play a gig or with other people the aim is just to play.

Needless to say, it's perfectly possible to play jazz with no theory at all (rare these days) - the interesting question is how much of that language actually comes from the guitar, and whether or not this is a bad thing (I would say not. The guitar has some say in how you play. Look at the Jim Mullen clip for example, super guitarry language.)

But yes - we work on our ears and learn to sing solos, right?

Practice what you practice, I think, and there's no need to worry. As long as you have the toolset you require to play the music you play.

[55bar]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZTlfPHfwso


sure this has been posted before but WTF?!


ps make sure you listen to the full clip it just gets more and more insane.