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A friend just sent this video to me. I love Pete's playing so much and this video really shows why. What goes into his cocktail. He knows the fretboard unbelievably well, but doesn't seem to be the slightest bit interested in talking about that or expanding on it or anything. His entire being seems to be obsessed with the ear and the tunes... specifically the melody. Not making the changes, but creating something beautiful and spontaneous from the melodic content of the composition... with a occasional dippings into the changes.
But rather than constantly chasing after trying to develop the hippest lines based on chords, where you're always stuck playing the same 'hip' stuff over every tune... he seems to prefer to avoid that world and let the hip things happen naturally by following the contour of the tune and the melody.
What do you guys think? Where do you find the balance?
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/84224397
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05-10-2016 10:59 AM
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A trumpet player told me that a long time ago. He said if you don't incorporate aspects of the melody into your solos, it's going to sound like you're playing the same solo every time. But if you incorporate aspects of the melody into your
solos, you'll always be playing a different solo each time.
I worked with him a long time ago on 'club dates' (weddings, parties etc...) when we used to play hundreds of standards on those gigs, and he said that experience was good because players like us tend to always hear the melody of the tune in our head while we're improvising on it.
As usual, PB is right on the money.
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Anyways, I personally feel that every student of music and guitar should go about learning in the way that feels congruent for them. I'm never going to be one to tell anyone NOT to work on anything or that they're doing something wrong. So I totally respect anyone who wants to focus on one thing (fretboard, changes, etc) before the next thing (music, melodies, etc).
That said, I get very weary when I hear others talk about this 'process' as being a truth that all students should follow. That we should all have to work through playing changes and ONLY playing changes until we've reached some objective finish line (as though there is one) and then take their playing to the next level by studying the music itself.
Most people I know (myself included) spend years and decades, sometimes a lifetime, trying to perfect their ability to 'make the changes' with little to no thought as to where that will lead them or how to actually make music with that ability. And often times, when talking to players who are wrapped up in that world, even when they're talented players who've accomplished a lot, I can pick up on the frustration in their world when they start talking about the heavyweights out there. They seem to be baffled by how musical some of these guys are and don't get why, even with the ability to make changes, they're still not yet able to touch the magic of these legends. What's so different about them?
I used to study martial arts and early on was asking my teacher if there were any basic forms that he could show me so that I could have something tangible to work on... sort of like 'making the changes'. Just muscle memory stuff to focus on. He said in our art form we don't waste time with forms because no two moments of life will ever be the same, so why try and force myself to react the same way twice to two different moments? He told me that when the reality of a situation like this actually comes to pass, the body will naturally move and fight the way it's been trained to. In other words, don't put in anything during training that won't serve the end goal during a fight. And I feel the same way about music. I see it as a mirror that reflects back whatever we put in front of it. If we want to sound like we're running changes in our playing (which is not a bad or wrong or misguided desire), then by all means we MUST spend time on that in front of the mirror so it will be there for us.
I just wonder if we need to separate it out so much? Why not do both? Why not spend a little time working on 2 5s and then spend time focused on our ears, on melodies, and on learning to develop ideas through the arch of a tune? Or at least to allow for that as an option within the first 10-20 years of our development so we don't cripple our ears and our ability to think thematically and melodically while muscling through learning to outline changes. Especially since once we learn to make the changes, then everyone wants to know how to play out. So add another 5-10 years of study to the picture for that, right?
Shit, I'm getting verbose. Not sure if you watched the masterclass or not... but in it, even Pete recognizes the importance of being able to make changes. He just feels that we should have the ability to utilize the melody AND the changes, to expand our horizon and give ourselves more options. And he's got some of the hippest 'changes making' stuff I've heard. I love listening to him play and hearing him living inside the melody and then out of nowhere throwing in one of his giant, fretboard running, rootless, arpeggios. But what makes those sound so sick to me is that he's not punching me in the face over and over with those riffs. He uses them as small accent points which gives them a sense of control and authority that just knocks me out of my chair because I'm being embraced so gracefully within the tune and the melody, and then BOOM, he clocks you over the head.
Which is why I didn't set up this thread as an either or, or which do you guys think is right or not... I set it up with the question:
"Where do you find the balance?"
Because there is no right or wrong answer, and there's certainly no ONE sized answer that fits all... not IMO. But there is an answer that's right for everyone. And if spending 20+ years ONLY on changes feels right for someone, and they've legitimately considered what they're skipping over in order to do that and still feel it's the right move... then by all means, they've got my vote of support. Some guys are just 'changes' players and are sick at it! It's all aesthetic preference.
I just tend to be more curious about each individual player and finding out what they love and what drives them and learning things from them, rather than walking down the dark, shadowy, dogmatic back alleys of "This is the process and how we should all be following it."
Especially when you consider that learning a ton of tunes from this perspective is actually a pretty decent way of learning to navigate changes themselves. I mean, how many melodies are disconnected from the changes so much that we can't study them and find new and interesting ways to make the changes? If we take the time to look.
Sorry, I got a few months of not typing on here and had some verbosity backed up. Think I got most of it out.
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Glad to see you back in shape, Jordan!
The balance, that's the thing, of course it's better if a player studies and applies both methods depending on a tune, mood, etc. I only said what I said because I saw inexperienced students thinking, oh, great, I don't need to bother finding a way to play the changes, I can just play variations of melody. It doesn't lead to good results IMO. I do like both ways personally, and LOVE more melodic (hate this word, rather prefer catchy) lines over show offy stuff. BUt...
...with some tunes it simply doesn't work, and that's another issue. Try to play Sweet Georgia Brown and it just calls for smoking hot lines, forget about the melody, let it rip through the changes kind of thing!
Then again, we do play very different kind of jazz, so there's that...
Sorry for not keeping up with verbosity, I can't type that much, hopefully you can see my point
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Definitely all about the balance. Which is what I was curious about with where you all find your own.
As far as specific tunes goes... Tea for Two got mentioned, and SGB. I honestly don't play either of those tunes much. My guess is that there's probably a ton of juice that can be squeezed out of the melodies with some thought and effort. I think with SGB it might be good to start with a melodic reduction. Break the melody down into what I refer to as the anchor notes. The strongest notes where the melody really anchors itself inside of the changes (because this whole conversation aside, the melody and the changes really aren't two inseparable things, but two viewpoints of the tune that were composed together and meant to function together). From there I might try and start building basic phrases in and around the anchor notes. If I wanted a more burning bebop vibe, then I might try and think of the anchor notes as columns that hold the structure up and fill in and around them with chromaticism, scales, arpeggios, etc. But the phrases would be based around that. Or I might do a rhythmic etude where I play literally any bebop/chromatic/changes based stuff I want, but base all of it on the rhythmic phrasing from the melody. Utilizing the melody doesn't always have to be just about the note choice or making up variations. Sometimes, my favorite way to 'play out' is to play chromatic nonsense, but to keep it strictly to the rhythm of the melody. It makes it sound completely intentional. And I can weave in and out of the actual melody that way too. But it grounds it in something recognizable and musical.
The other thought I had about cherry picking issues with specific tunes is that I don't think the point is to learn a bunch from one tune and then you've mastered the concept and get it. It's a cumulative affect. It's about developing the thought process and the ear from doing this stuff with every tune we look at. Because the flip side is we could say that learning to play the changes isn't good because if you're working on Coltrane Changes, that doesn't work against this other tune, or whatever. Everything is situational and contextual and builds on itself.
And frankly, to get a little out for a second... sometimes "the changes" aren't even really the changes. I'm trying to remember how to play the guitar and navigate tunes right now after 4 months away from this thing. And the other day I picked up my guitar for about 2 hours and mostly just played Stella the whole time. The melody note against the first chord (which most people treat as an Ehalfdim7) is an A note. If you're only working on outlining changes in the most basic sense 1-3-5-7... then there is no A note. And the Bb will clash with the actual melodic content and the chord voicing. Often times, the melody is what tells us what the real changes are. That's an 11 chord. If you treat it as an E at least, which I don't anymore...because it wasn't written that way, and I think the original sounds better. Besides the point. But being able to outline the changes to the first bar sort of dictates that we've looked at the melody and understand how it's related to the chord. Hence why I said earlier that the changes and the melody are far more inseparable than we're really giving them credit for being. Which is why finding the balance is so important.
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I listened to this masterclass in the other thread, but gave it another listen with the start of this thread. The part that popped out for me was the idea of playing the melody in various keys. So I spent some time last night with Wine and Roses. Fantastic exercise! I hope can make this a little more routine.
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Yeah... I think making anything that strengthens the ear more routine can only be good, right? How's it coming along so far?
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seems to me - and always has (in fact its what got me into the whole trip in the first place) that the whole thing is about the way the melody and the changes lock together
so that's the balance
you have to know the changes very very well in order to be able to see precisely how the melody unlocks the key of the changes
my first love was celia by bud powell - and strictly confidential also by bud powell
and i spent the longest time - before i knew the changes well at all - boggling over how the melody seemed to arise out of the changes - or be the perfect expression of or manifestation of the changes - and - on the other hand - how the changes were nothing but a kind of basis for the melody
in particular i was boggled by the way in which different moments of the melody implied or contained a chord change (how can the journey from one note to another do that - they're just single notes?). the better i got to know the tunes the more the harmony fell out of the melody and the melody implied the harmony
i still find that the best way to work on tunes is to keep trying to find exactly how the melody and the changes go with each other. this has the best effects both on playing the tune, accompanying and on improvising
Last edited by Groyniad; 05-13-2016 at 04:04 PM.
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the point is to come to appreciate deeply the way that the melody makes the changes
it always strikes me that the melody is precisely the very best possible way to make the changes
it shows you the very best way to do it and invites you to find more (that are at least not that much less hip and satisfying)Last edited by Groyniad; 05-13-2016 at 04:06 PM.
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I like to walk up 2 bars each chord so Ab Bb C Db and then your at D for the next part of the tune
Originally Posted by pingu
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Not familiar with the last tune played "Luisa" (?spelling). Anyone know the composer?
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Luiza ....Tom Jobim
It's in the All-Jazz Real Book from Sher Music and may be available as a single download.
It's also in Vol 1 of the Chediak Tom Jobim series.
They can be found online.
Good hunting....it's a lovely tune.
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I had the pleasure of hearing him again a week ago at a wes tribute in indianapolis (and a monster line up also including martino, Rusell malone, Bobby broom, henry Johnson, Fareed haque, Dave Stryker, and Royce campbell) and was floored (again) by how great PB's playing is. I recorded his take on Wes's "Bock to Bock" and decided to learn it. I've done a bunch of transcriptions but this time I thought I'd just learn the entire chorus by ear, I've been doing this recently and I think things get internalized faster if I don't write them down and read them as I did in the past. I'm also testing my 55 year old brain, whose memory function have been seeming buggy...
In any case, Bernstein's time is simultaneously perfect and squirrely. By that I mean that it's perfect, but he does a lot of getting way behind the beat, and then catching up, accordion style, which is incredibly cool. Sort of the anti-martino. I don;t even know if I'd be able to notate it carefully. In that sense it really is one of the harder transcriptions I've done of guitar.Last edited by pkirk; 09-28-2016 at 10:25 PM.
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Hmm, PB has this way of playing things that are much harder than they sound. I don't think that's exactly the same thing as making difficult things sound easy....
Timing wise to my ears there's a lot of implied straight over swung/implied double time phrasing in that solo. And loads of fourths right? Always a beast to get clean on the guitar. I'm practicing fourths at the moment, in fact.
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That's what I like about Pete's work: the utter clarity and 'cleanness'. Whatever he tries comes out---like it could be no other way.
I even suspected his stuff was worked out because it is so clean. I don't think so, though. Pet licks, yes--who doesn't?
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I like your characterization. I agree that it *sounds* worked out, but every time I see him there are these great moments where he reacts often in very clever ways to what his bandmates do. Originally Posted by fasstrack
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Yes, the intention is so strong in Peter's playing. Check out this solo from his duo album, Dialogues with Joachim Schoenecker:
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10-05-2016, 12:51 PM #43dortmundjazzguitar Guest
that back to bock version is great. i first heard pete in 1992. he was such a breeze of fresh air. fortunately he comes to europe regularly so i get some chances to get my butt kicked. oddly i've never transcribed much of his stuff. dunno why. maybe his style is too personal.
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peter is the real deal. i've been listening a lot to him, especially that monk record. done a bit of transcribing, love his colorful open string voicings and extremely melodic phrasing. just feeling the way he approaches time and melody is astounding.
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I always feel with Bernstein a lot of what makes him great is not just in the note choices, but how he plays. Playing along with him sounds like a great thing to. I should probably do it myself.
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also i would encourage OP to play along with peters interpretations of melodies before diving into a solo, not to say you're not capable but even the way he can manipulate his story through the head can be the best look into what you may be searching for by transcribing.
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That's a great idea, especially given PB is so much about the melody. Originally Posted by Zakk J.
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no kidding man! I learned just his head in and head out of "let's cool one" from that monk trio record....and wow. absolute perfection! lee konitz talks a lot about improvisation as just a 10-step process slowly manipulating and embellishing the melody until you have an "act of pure inspiration", or basically a melody wholly your own that was derived from previous content....but all within the spontaneity of "live" unedited performance. I think PB is a great example of someone who treats improvisation in the function of creating new melodies to serve the music. Originally Posted by christianm77
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