Dude says - I play what I hear

[MarkRhodes]

[QUOTE=mr. beaumont;482668]When someone says they play what they hear, they mean in their own head. That's hearing. Everything else is listening.[/QUOTE ]

When you put it that way, it sounds wrong to me. Hearing requires something sounding. Maybe what you 'hear in your head' is a combination of memory and imagination.

Before speaking, or posting, we might consider what to say. We may say there is a voice in our head but we know there is not a voice in our head. This is imaginary. This does not mean it is unimportant. (Though it's worth pondering that many times we think of something to say, say it, and immediately realize it 'sounded better in my head' or 'made sense until I said it, when I immediately realized it was nonsense.')

The assumption that what we might 'hear' in our head would be right, or at least fitting, may be unwarranted for the same reason that any assumption we might have that 'words that pop into our head' during a discussion would be right, or at least fitting, to say....

[mr. beaumont]

Maybe I'm wording it wrong, but would you agree you can listen without really hearing? Or is it better to say hearing without comprehending?

What I'm saying is, if you can play what you hear, you can play what you actually hear and comprehend...So there's obviously degrees here...people are better at it with oractice, as their listening comprehension gets better...

But 9 times out of 10, when somebody who's talking about improvising says they play what they hear, they mean internally.

[vintagelove]

Sight singing. Do it for a few years and much of the rest is easy.

The tough part is when a "concept/sound" is new to you. It just takes a bit of time to internalize it.

[gnatola]

But 9 times out of 10, when somebody who's talking about improvising says they play what they hear, they mean internally.

But, can one manifest it instantly on one's instrument? Especially at fast tempos? I contend that it cannot be done. There are, of course, those rare exceptions.

"Internalize" is an oft-used word on these forums. That is what I believe is happening. Practice until you can conjure lines at will. You are still playing what you know.

[sgcim]

One dramatic example of how this works is the time I devoted a month or two years back to blowing off of Giant Steps at 320bpm.
I came up with a bunch of patterns that I used mechanically over and over, not really pre-hearing them.
I didn't improvise off of anything else except Giant Steps.
A friend called me up to go to a session at a club, so this was a chance to see if I gained anything from all of this work.
They called some standard that I usually would have no trouble improvising on, and I felt like i didn't know what to play!
The only thing I could play was Giant Steps!
I realized that this type of pattern playing resulted in changing the process that I used when improvising, and I went back to playing the way I used to play, but that experience scared the hell out of me.

[newsense]

This is one of the best threads ever and has confirmd my feeling that there at least as many ways of interacting with music as there are subscribers to this forum, even in as narrow a field as jazz giutar.

Honest question: How many of you (or people you know) can type and write exacly what you are thinking in almost real time as you speak the words (i.e within the physical limts of moving your fingers across the keyboard) ? How is this conceptually different from improvising over changes by singing and playing what is in your head ?

I should add that this is more of an aspiration for me than an actuality, but it is something that I can feel is close to being a possibility.

[MarkRhodes]

Honest question: How many of you (or people you know) can type and write exacly what you are thinking in almost real time as you speak the words (i.e within the physical limts of moving your fingers across the keyboard) ? How is this conceptually different from improvising over changes by singing and playing what is in your head ?

Interesting question. I can type but certainly not as fast as I can think. The typing runs way behind the thinking.

As for the conceptual difference, words are different kinds of things than sounds are.

Also, some people who 'sing what they play' are singing the rhythms more than the pitches. Consider the chromatic scale played from the open E on the low E string to the E at the 12th fret on the high E string. That's easy to play but few people have a singing range that wide.)

[Reg]

Can you hear whole notes, slowly one note or maybe two...my point what's the difference between hearing one note or a collection of notes or a phrase. Do you need tone able to sing the notes or it doesn't count as hearingI can hear changes and I sure can't sing themWhy do you need this slow motion version of hearing for it to be realWhen I play I'm usually inthe moment, ahead and remembering what happened before, this is a different skill than slowly singing or being able to sing in a almost rehearsed style. Oh yea the world is flat... I'm on my phone, this is way to slow, I'll finish later

[3625]

But, can one manifest it instantly on one's instrument? Especially at fast tempos? I contend that it cannot be done. There are, of course, those rare exceptions.

"Internalize" is an oft-used word on these forums. That is what I believe is happening. Practice until you can conjure lines at will. You are still playing what you know.

Gnatola - I thought about what you've written, and IMHO you might be barking up the wrong tree on this. For myself, I've made it pretty clear in my posts that I'm in the 'play what you know' camp, and have no problem with that. But as for what you're asking, whether or not there are a few freaks out there who could accomplish this according to your high standards, for the most part it's irrelevant - and here's why I think so:

What you're saying could be accomplished by a Roland sampler, or a parrot (a very hip parrot) - however, if you had the ability to replay on your instrument instantly whatever you heard, it would still take time to analyse it, understand it, and then incorporate it into your own system of improvisation. Because in jazz what we're talking about is the ability to improvise yourself and say something meaningful. All the great jazz improvisors understood what they played according to the system that they used - in reality that's how it works. The ability to mimic anything you'd listen to wouldn't make you a great improvisor - it would be a great additional skill to possess for sure.

There are autistic savants who are better than most in terms of replaying on the piano whatever they happen to listen to - but unfortunately they are not particularly good composers or improvisors, at least by professsional standards.

EDIT: I'll add the same applies to recreating on your instrument what you hear internally when people refer to 'playing by ear' - like whistling. You'd be able to play what you made up as you went along, but you wouldn't understand what you were playing. Like when amateur jazz singers do a scat solo - they're just jiving - the lines aren't real deal.

[gnatola]

Gnatola - I thought about what you've written, and IMHO you might be barking up the wrong tree on this. For myself, I've made it pretty clear in my posts that I'm in the 'play what you know' camp, and have no problem with that. But as for what you're asking, whether or not there are a few freaks out there who could accomplish this according to your high standards, for the most part it's irrelevant - and here's why I think so:

What you're saying could be accomplished by a Roland sampler, or a parrot (a very hip parrot) - however, if you had the ability to replay on your instrument instantly whatever you heard, it would still take time to analyse it, understand it, and then incorporate it into your own system of improvisation. Because in jazz what we're talking about is the ability to improvise yourself and say something meaningful. All the great jazz improvisors understood what they played according to the system that they used - in reality that's how it works. The ability to mimic anything you'd listen to wouldn't make you a great improvisor - it would be a great additional skill to possess for sure.

There are autistic savants who are better than most in terms of replaying on the piano whatever they happen to listen to - but unfortunately they are not particularly good composers or improvisors, at least by professsional standards.

EDIT: I'll add the same applies to recreating on your instrument what you hear internally when people refer to 'playing by ear' - like whistling. You'd be able to play what you made up as you went along, but you wouldn't understand what you were playing. Like when amateur jazz singers do a scat solo - they're just jiving - the lines aren't real deal.

Thanks for the thoughtful response 3625. I'll be the first to admit that I don't really know the answers. Just trying to figure it out.

I think we humans tend to over-complicate things. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that top performers in any field don't think in these terms. They just do it.

[3625]

I think we humans tend to over-complicate things. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that top performers in any field don't think in these terms. They just do it.

Good quote attributed to Bird:

"Master your instrument, Master the music, and then forget all that s*** and just play"

I'm hip to the whole Zen trip - in fact a few times on this forum I've described playing bop guitar as my version of a Zen martial art - I think there's some validity to that. But in relation to the above quote, it presupposes that you've done the necessary work to internalise what you've learned, before you can get into the zone when improvising and just 'be'.

I admit that I like to analyse things - just completed a few weeks ago some cognitive & neuroscience units as part of my psych undergrad, that touches on a lot of the stuff discussed here. That said, Reg isn't one for naval gazing and I dug his earlier description of how he hears it. The bottom line is that he's totally right when saying it results from lots of playing, in particular performing. I'm hardly gigging at all these days, but I did one yesterday - there's something about performing in public that heightens your ability to hear everything you play + the musicians you're playing with. Gotta make the effort to get back into doing it more regularly.

[princeplanet]

I'll add the same applies to recreating on your instrument what you hear internally when people refer to 'playing by ear' - like whistling. You'd be able to play what you made up as you went along, but you wouldn't understand what you were playing. Like when amateur jazz singers do a scat solo - they're just jiving - the lines aren't real deal.

This is a great point, that having a "parrot" ear may not make you a great improvisor if you lack a "system" that integrates borrowed concepts in a meaningful way.

But what about Chet Baker? Apparently all he played was by ear, he never understood or analysed any of it, all borrowed concepts. Or the untutored "scat" singers you mention, if all the ideas that come to them while scatting still come out sounding like Jazz- whether they're understood or not- then maybe you could argue that all such ideas have inner logic that don't need to be understood by the player, or listener for that matter..... the original "composer(s)" did all the hard yards for the rest of us! ........ ?

[3625]

But what about Chet Baker? Apparently all he played was by ear, he never understood or analysed any of it, all borrowed concepts. Or the untutored "scat" singers you mention, if all the ideas that come to them while scatting still come out sounding like Jazz- whether they're understood or not- then maybe you could argue that all such ideas have inner logic that don't need to be understood by the player, or listener for that matter..... the original "composer(s)" did all the hard yards for the rest of us! ........ ?

Yeah.... dunno... If Chet really did play by ear and nothing else, he would be one of the few exceptions that make the rule. Maybe he knew more than he let on? or not? I haven't got a clue. But you can say that Bird, Coltrane, etc. knew their stuff inside out - that is the overwhelming majority of heavy players. My vibe is for guys like Lester and Wes - even though they didn't necessarily know theory in the traditional way, they still were smart enough to work out their own system. It just didn't use the same labels for concepts used by the mainstream.

Wes is interesting, because Harold Mabern said that playing with Wes you never knew which key he would start a song - each night it could be a semitone different. That suggests Wes was an ear player. Yet Wes knew all those hip secondary dominant chord subs for instance - so I think he knew theory, but perhaps his method of acquiring it was a bit more haphazard because of his late start in music. Holdsworth is similar in that respect.

As for me referring to amateur scat singers - I should clarify - I meant bad amateur scat singers lol. We've all heard it, the singer who thinks they can hang with the instrumentalists, yet what they are singing is some kind of quasi-jazz - basically jazzy BS.

[princeplanet]

Oh god, yeah, the amateur scat that thinks he/she hangs with the real cats, one of the reasons I do not listen to vocal Jazz... I almost get angry when someone proudly announces themselves as a Jazz singer, and then you realise they've only been singing Jazz standards for a year, singing Pop covers before that. I mean, come on!....

[Liarspoker]

I can play what I hear (sorry for the carp scatting):

Well of course that fun little clip is only playing what you hear on a very basic level.

When it comes to jazz solos forget it - I think in terms of chords etc.

Even when playing rock solos I'll try to play what I hear, however the cycle goes sort of like: Try to play what I hear, fail and then play a pre-played idea which I know will work.

I haven't played much over the last few months but before that I did daily ear training and my melodic and harmonic understanding, upon hearing music, definitely improved.

I now find that when I am not focusing on music that certain intervals jump out at me. Not all the time but sometimes I'll be driving and a note will be played on the radio and I know that it's a 5th or 3rd etc. It's slowly coming together but it takes me a lot of time.

Similarly with harmony I am starting to discern different voices more easily which only makes music more beautiful.

I still have a long way to go but as my ear improves I only love music more and more.

[newsense]

I'm pretty sure I don't play what's in my head. Everything I play sounds like it originated about three feet further down.

Is that what's known as playing in the pocket ?

[princeplanet]

Is that what's known as playing in the pocket ?

No, he means he's pulling it out of his ass!

[jayx123]

I think singing what you play is good exerciser you are more connected with the sounds and it help alot with phrasing because you need to take a breath every few seconds and dont end up playing endless phrases

[MarkRhodes]

There are autistic savants who are better than most in terms of replaying on the piano whatever they happen to listen to - but unfortunately they are not particularly good composers or improvisors, at least by professsional standards.

I still wish I could do that... ;o) I wouldn't trade being creative for it, but it would be nice to have that kind of concentration and recall.

[princeplanet]

I still wish I could do that... ;o) I wouldn't trade being creative for it, but it would be nice to have that kind of concentration and recall.

Oh man. what I wouldn't give! You do get tiny glimpses, I think, in dreams when you compose stuff perfectly in real time (a whole orchestra sometimes!) Or when you're playing what you hear in your head (or subconscious?), and landing every impossibly slinky line perfectly.....

When I was studying, I once woke from a dream about a 12 tone row I composed in this dream, and to my amazement I transcribed it and indeed found out the musical line was 2 perfect 12 tone rows, where one was a related inversion (from it's "Magic Square" series). Try doing that while you're awake!

So I'm supposing if you can somehow create this on some subliminal level, somehow, then it's gotta be in there somewhere, no?

[MarkRhodes]

When I was studying, I once woke from a dream about a 12 tone row I composed in this dream, and to my amazement I transcribed it and indeed found out the musical line was 2 perfect 12 tone rows, where one was a related inversion (from it's "Magic Square" series). Try doing that while you're awake!

So I'm supposing if you can somehow create this on some subliminal level, somehow, then it's gotta be in there somewhere, no?

I think this is called a "diffuse state". It helps when stuck to distract oneself. Many people have found the solution to their problems in dreaming. I think Einstein said he got his best ideas while shaving. Sometimes it's during exercise. The mind continues to work on things when we're not conscious of it and sometimes we have a breakthrough in such unguarded moments. (Of course, I sleep every night but rarely have breakthroughs, so it's not a guarantee...)

[Little Jay]

('cause of you don't hear it in your head, you can't play it!)

Yes, you can.

You guys are funny. You just quote things you've read the so-called masters have said and regurgitate it. Think for yourself.

Read Zen Guitar. Like everything else, take from it what works for you.

?!?!??

Sure, I can play something I can't hear im my head, but that's just playing a pattern I see on the neck (or even see with my 'inner eye' cause I can play it with my eyes closed). Or I can play sheet music of a piece I've never played before, sure.

But that's different, I didn't mean it like that. I couldn't play Happy Birthday if I wouldn't know how it sounds..... Or in other words: hear it in my head.

(And here's me thinking I came up with a catchy line and it turns out to be a quote.... So hard to be original!)

[Reg]

Yea... I would agree with Jay, You can play what you mechanically memorize etc... I would guess, many amateurs do just that, even to the point of playing memorized improve, or at least collections of memorized phrases.

I think maybe we need to define what being able to hear is... unless you grew up in a good church, or singing lessons from birth etc... your not going to be able to sing everything you play. I guess that might be one of the reasons some guitarist can't cover faster tempos... they try and sing what they're playing, anyway...

My earlier post about how may notes you can hear....vertically and horizontally, hopefully made you thing about this being able to hear concept. Get over the one liners, most of them are BS etc..

Just as you can hear slow notes and put them together to create solos.... you can also put together slow collections of notes and phrases together to create solos... eventually your able to put together and hear complete solos, you can pre-hear the complete solo, or at least a couple of choruses... You then have the ability to interact with that pre-heard solo, interact with the rest of the band and the moment to create your performed solo, which will become an ensemble solo, with band and audience interaction.

Of course this won't happened by it's self, like I've said before... if your in the moment... your late. (BS one liner)

When you play jazz, blues, R&B etc... don't you interact with vocalist or other soloist and play call and answer etc...

That's part of playing Jazz... during a standard or tune, trading 2's, 4's 8's etc... with drummer. Then trading with a sax or tpt. If you don't... start, you'll very quickly develop skills to hear what your playing or what someone else is playing.

It's not that difficult with practice and audiences always dig it...

All this of course leads to .... YOU CAN'T PLAY WHAT YOU DON'T HAVE TECHNICALLY TOGETHER ON YOUR INSTRUMENT. And the starting point is.... as NSJ posted in the 2nd post on this thread.... get the rhythmic aspects first.

[mr. beaumont]

I like to play BS debunker too, but I think Galper's pretty low BS as far as jazz teaching goes...

I always took the Galper quote to essentially mean what Reg just typed in CAPS...You can't play what you can't comprehend...so when you spit out a pre-worked out line, yeah, maybe you didn't hear it all in the moment, but you heard it before, when you worked it out.

I just take the "can't play what you can't hear" line to mean, you're not gonna play any ideas in the moment that you can't comprehend...or to use a Reg word, that you don't have a reference for.

[targuit]

I have stayed away from this thread to avoid controversy, but the other day I happened to be working on creating some original music and inadvertently recorded a demonstration confirming that you can play what you hear, at least if that is understood as scatting vocally the line you are playing on guitar and vice versa.

I decided recently to try and compose more original music to get around the issues of copyrights involved when putting musical covers up on sites like Sound Cloud and Youtube. YT seems more tolerant of covers but will require them to be taken down if the owner of the copyright makes that request. So last Sunday I set up my Korg digital recorder and recorded a rhythm guitar track of a blues based progression that nonetheless took some harmonic twists and turns. The music was completely improvised in the moment to a click track. After laying down the 'rhythm' guitar track, I immediately recorded a second 'lead' guitar nylon string track over it. I had no written out sheet music or even the outline of the progression in front of me. The intention was just to create an interesting guitar duet. I would add that on the original first rhythm guitar track I had sung some sparse vocal melodic nonsense phrases as song or verse markers. At one point I created an instrumental break on the second "lead" track and spontaneously broke into vocal scatting that lasted sixteen measures or so and then persisted on for a few more measures beyond the end of the original 'rhythm' track. There was no special intentionality to that beyond trying to create an interesting line and phrasing.

As I listened back to the tracks, I realized that the vocal scatting and the lead guitar line were essentially in sync. In effect I realized that I can scat 'internally' (no vocalization) and 'externally' (with vocal scatting). The later requires more physical effort, in that when I do the internal scatting approach, I don't sound out each note so much as focus on the target notes in the sweep of the melody line - a kind of improvisatory shorthand, in that I naturally connect and improvise the rest of the phrase or line spontaneously - thus the process is more 'economical' in terms of effort. Yet, playing an improvised guitar line as one vocally scats seems to me to improve the overall lyrical character of the phrasing and its coherency.

I refrained from writing this post previously, because there is no intention to claim some type of guitar mastery or special ability, but rather to suggest that I quite inadvertently and unintentionally documented in the form of this recording of a kind of 'work tape' what some of us maintain - that one can "play what one hears in one's head". Hopefully this weekend I can get at least two recordings up on my YT site, one a cover of Shadow of Your Smile and the other this blues original "work tape" - not as a finished work, as that was not the original intention, but more to back up what I'm writing here.

One other point - the ability to "play what you hear in your mind" within the technical limits of your ability to express yourself on your instrument does not guarantee that what you hear is music of the highest order. In fact, that ability confers a certain freedom of expression, but the quality of what you mentally or vocally scat and play depends on your imagination and ears.

Jay