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Originally Posted by Roscoe T. Claude
Jazz players (who play by ear) can switch keys and play the right modes by ear instantly. It's not hard work to get that skill - it can be fun and playful to train that way. It takes some time but is absolutely possible for anyone with a musical ear. You may get startled by mistakes but they will clear off faster than you'd think
It's just that starting players don't target that skill directly very often. Because its quicker to start playing memorizing the positions of the patterns. For many people it gives false hope and/or frustration that it is the one and only way to do it.
So yeah, imo you totally can learn to play instinctively through standard jazz pieces if you're already playing and liking your blues stuff. Just have to dig around for good tools and methods.
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04-24-2016 05:35 AM
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Just for starters, you can record a nice 2 or 4 bar comp in each key and each function. So you'd get 12x7 little files. Put them in your music player,let them play randomly and jam along. Foobar2000 does it well for example.
There are of course ear training apps but that takes a while to test them out. Avoid crappy midi sounds at all costs! Those practice sessions must sound good and make you feel better, not worse.
Also you can just put on any nice jazz performance from youtube and try to jam along without even knowing the tune. The more modulating, the better. Doing it like this, when occasionally you get on track and do even a short perfect run - thats where you gain the real street skill.
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I think it is essential to get away from the notion of memorizing licks and visual diagrams. Music is auditory and it is essentially more mathematical at base - it is about intervals. An interval in one key is the same in every other.
You don't want to think about chords as diagrams or even those insanely crazy diagrams of scales that look like the interconnections on the New York city subway system. That is the wrong 'route' to take, imo. Unless you want to learn very s-l-o-w-l-y.....Last edited by targuit; 04-24-2016 at 08:30 AM.
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Originally Posted by henryrobinett
. In that sense I'd listen to a lot of Dexter Gordon, Cannonball Adderly, Coltrane, Rollins, Michael Brecker. Those are my guys anyway. Less guitar players. They phrase like guitar players, every time.
I think listening to these guys is less about how they sound, than about what they play, esp. the ability to play long, well-constructed phrases. Dexter Gordon and Dizzy G. (trumpet, I know) can both play long well-organized phrases--not 2 or 4 bars, but sometimes it seems like entire choruses-32 bars. Stan Getz is another guy, I think who can do this.
Sonny Rollins can solo on something for successive choruses, and take an idea, build on it, and run with it forever it seems....so well-organized and logical, you can almost diagram it.
IMO, this is not possible without complete harmonic understanding of the tune, and technical facility...so this is an ultimate goal, not something feasible for a beginner.
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You can sound like a sax what you can do is learn from their phrasing, how they develop their solo, the use of rhythm.
You are not going to be able to make a string instrument respond like a blown reed instrument. String instrument like guitar, piano, violin, etc, the notes die fast and have a plucked type of attack with wind instrument they can blow long streams of air and change notes over that stream and using tonguing to articulate the notes.
So can't sound the same, but you can learn from what the great of sax played and studying others instruments be it sax, trumpet, piano, will get to think differently breaking from guitar finger patterns. Every instrument has things that are easy for them and not for other instruments.
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I think every profesional player has developed licks. Not because it's better but because there are going to be performances or times during a performance where you need to have a tool to pull back the melody.
I don't think many players have them as their base of how they approach improvisation but as a tool. You wont be 100% every time you play but your audience has to enjoy it every time.
Plus like someone said before me, I think it's more about devices.
What I think about during playing is different per piece but I think what you are more curious about is how I'm thinking about playing. That depends more on the setting. Is it a jam and are we playing a piece I'm not familiar with? I will probably spend more time analyzing as I play because that way I am learning the piece as I'm playing along. Have I done the work on a piece? It is very little thought and just following my fingers to the notes of the melody I hear in my head.
No one is born a musician, we are taught. We can understand music in different ways, but letting your insecurity guide you into arguing with musicians who look at it differently doesn't help anyone. The only thing everyone pretty much agrees on, it's a lot of fucking work. Make sure it's worth it to you. The rest seems to be up for debate.Last edited by Joe Dalton; 04-29-2016 at 09:01 AM.
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I tend to be a thinker.... Not so much about the tune, more of what possibilities the tune has, the band has, what might entertain the audience. I know all the BS, I don't need to think about theory, harmony etc... I'm not a memorize and perform player... so I do try and think about my or others... performances and recordings of whatever tune we're playing...
All that becomes a reference.... I then listen and start creating new relationships and see where the developments might go.
Licks personally can be used as implied harmonic or melodic reference, hints of where I want to go with my solo, or the same when someone else is soloing.... I hear hints.... or sometimes directions of where someone wants to go. Some players do the same thing but just feel everything, I can just feel and react or interact also, but generally not my style.
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Originally Posted by Nate Miller
I read multiple improv teacher compare knowing the basics of improv to driving and talking. That experienced driver isn't thinking about press pedal, move shifter, check mirror, etc its all done sub-consciously. Same with talking to someone you're thinking about point you want to make and listening to others you have a lot of words and phrases you use that are automatic. Improv the same after experience playing and woodsheding you have technique and theoretical knowledge programmed in so you can listen and respond in a live playing situation. Think about talk to kids in school learning words and you talk to them and almost hear them think with the pauses as they work through what they want to say. Beginning soloists are the same you hear the pauses as they try to assemble ideas or licks to create a musical sentence they haven't built enough vocabulary and practiced speaking over tunes.
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What are real authors thinking about when they write a novel? What are real artists thinking about when they're faced with a blank canvas?
Did Dickens have the same approach as Joyce? Did Caravaggio have the same approach as Picasso?
People want to find the way that Real Musicians (in capital letters) think about things, in the hopes that if they find this secret, they'll be on the path to the player and person that they fantasize about becoming.
But the reality is there is no one "correct way to think about things." Every great jazz musician has their own approach, their own way they organize material, their own aesthetic vision.
The "lick" question comes up pretty regularly, and I always give the same answer: it depends on the player. Some players use pretty much all pre-arranged material. Some use almost none. Some use a mix, and again, how much of a mix depends on the player.
A guy like Michael Brecker used almost all licks. A guy like Warne Marsh used almost none. Which approach is better? Or are they just different?
Take a listen to this:
Sonny Rollins solos first and Sonny Stitt follows. Rollins uses very few licks, takes a lot more chances. That's his aesthetic, that's his approach to improv. He walks a tightrope every time he plays -- occasionally he falls, but he goes places few dare to tread.
Stitt's solo is almost all bebop licks, strung together flawlessly. Is that better or worse than what Rollins did? When I was younger, I would have rejected Stitt's approach outright. Who just wants to string licks together?
But I have a bit more perspective now. Stitt was a grinder: a road warrior that played hundreds of gigs a year, recorded dozens of sessions, barely eked out a living, all while battling his own demons. A lifestyle like that can wear a man down. I can understand why he thought he was best served having a very orderly musical approach when the rest of his life was anything but. And I can appreciate the craftsmanship behind it, the skill it takes to get up on stage night after night and never hit any clams.
Is it the approach I would take? No, but that doesn't make it wrong.
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I think that I know what you are getting at, but I don't really like that analogy. Where I live the traffic can be so horrendous that you really need to think about what you are doing. I see an unconscious approach more analogous to shooting a basketball, or hitting a golf ball. or something that you are muscle and mind trained to do in a more elective manor. Originally Posted by NoReply
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great points dasein....
It's interesting, I've seen Stitt a bunch of times, a few nights in a row. I really wouldn't call his playing safe...always enjoyed his playing much more than Bird... same with Rollins... didn't like his later playing, but I still hear lots of licks.
I do think you need the skills to even be able to make a choice, or even understand what the choice can be.
And although I agree with Nate... after you've played most tunes a million times. You can be on auto pilot... I have always just not chosen to perform that way.... I don't want to miss anything, I've always felt I at least owe the music that much.
I generally tend to not want to perform a tune the same way over and over.
And my favorite... Johnny Griffin
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That's one of my favorite jazz records. (Love their version of "Sunny Side of the Street" and "After Hours" too.) Originally Posted by dasein
I think Sonny Stitt was one of the greatest of all bebop sax players.
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I heard someone say once that Sonny Stitt just plays charlie Parker licks but he plays them better than Bird did. Pretty sure it was meant as both a compliment and a dig
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And more to the point .. It seems like this topic gets recycled regularly but the general consensus is that it's always both but to widely varying degrees. Does Sonny Rollins play licks? Of course he does but probably much fewer than other players. Does Sonny Stitt improvise freely? Of course he does but he sticks way more of the mannerisms and licks in then some other players do.
I also really loved the distinction someone made earlier about "licks" and "devices" ... That's huge. Difference between someone who plays Dave Baker lines from How to Play Bebop is totally different than Michael Breckers exploration of melodic patterns. You could argue that both are licks but thwyre very different things.
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Is "devices" here equivalent to "patterns" as in the book "Patterns for Jazz"? If so, I certainly appreciate the distinction. (And Sonny Stitt knew a lot of patterns too!) Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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To me, yes. Dave Baker used to refer to his four measure long lines as "patterns" and the little four cells as "digital patterns" ... It's probably the same as "economy picking" and "transcribing" when there's a lot of people using the same vocabulary in different and conflicting ways.
i also would include in "devices" the sort of things that I often call "mannerisms" .. Like 1, 6, #6, 7 ... A bebop sort of mannerism
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Jeff has pointed out the benefit of studying, say, chords and arpeggios at the same time which makes sense, or scales and improvisation I would say and I will try to do this, but do you think it more beneficial to work on Vol. 1 of the Jazz Gazette or try to learn Wes Montgomery or Joe Pass by ear? Then as far as reading music goes for all practical purposes I am beginner, how should I approach learning standard notation? I would think learning by ear is more important but I see the advantages of reading too---any ideas?
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Learn the major scale, harmonized chord progressions and arpeggios in each of 5 positions, cold, without error.
Make a video or audio clip performing these.
When that's done, then ask the question above.Last edited by boatheelmusic; 04-30-2016 at 10:39 AM.
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Alas ... everyone tries to learn jazz quick. As far as I know, generally to no avail.
The advice on learning the fingerboard (variously described as major scales in positions, arpeggios, triads, whatever) is definitely the best place to start.
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Broad strokes my practice is almost always divided between scales or single notes, chord voicings, and tunes.
Scales and single notes can sort of easily double as chops stuff ... metronome, picking accuracy, speed, string skips, whatever you need.
Chord voicings can sort of easily double as big time fretboard knowledge stuff ... inversions, positions, voicing types, upper structures, what have you
Tunes are tunes ... there's nothing really to say there. Learn tunes you like to play. Sure there are a boatload of tunes that "all-jazzers-must-know" and if you get into them because you like them then great. More important is applying all the technique and chords and stuff to tunes you like. Learn them, solo over them, transcribe guys you like.
Truthfully ... you can ask "what's the fastest" as many times as you want and you'll never get a good answer. That's because there isn't one. No two ways around it.
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If you try to learn this fast, you will only learn it "half-fast". Originally Posted by pamosmusic
(And I'm not being personal about this, but just telling the truth. There is the famous story about the hottest young sax player in the hottest jazz city of the time---Kansas City. Now Kansas City at the time didn't have 1 or 2 places to play, more like 40 or 50...and this kid had a reputation .---he was good. So good he got to play with a famous band that was coming through....and he gets up in front of everyone, and he knows how to play in a couple of keys, and then they throw an unfamiliar tune at him--maybe in a key he didn't know well...and he starts playing....and he is friggin' awful--clams (wrong notes) all over the place....they boo him, and he was SO BAD....the drummer throws some cymbals...as in..."go home...you don't belong". That was Charlie Parker....and he just picked himself up, after being publicly humiliated, and goes home, devotes himself to practice, and becomes the greatest soloist of all time (Louis A. excepted, maybe)....and mind you, Charlie Parker had been playing for several years, and played a couple of instruments already....had played in school bands....had some knowledge under his belt.)
So yeah, you can learn this music fast....and I've got a way for you to lose weight easily--and you eat everything you want; and I can restore your hair for a penny a day; and I can guarantee a way for you to become rich and famous, in the privacy of your own home, for just minutes a day....and I can teach how to make every woman you meet fall all over you with desire and longing....
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"I've got a way for you to lose weight easily--and you eat everything you want; and I can restore your hair for a penny a day; and I can guarantee a way for you to become rich and famous, in the privacy of your own home, for just minutes a day....and I can teach how to make every woman you meet fall all over you with desire and longing...."
Need all the above, do tell more!! LOL
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Still trying to learn jazz quickly. 20 years on :-) Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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If someone keeps saying the words Fast or Quick, Jazz is not the path to follow. Jazz is a lifetime exploration just look at how many 70+ year old Jazz player there are and they are all still exploring new ways to play thru old tunes. Jazz takes time to lay the foundation, base of knowledge necessary to journey from and back over and over again. Look at Miles Davis playing Autumn Leaves and John Coltrane My Favorite Things all throughout their careers always finding new ways to interpret the songs. Even to play Jazz fast take a long time to build enough vocabulary so you don't sound like a Lotto machine of licks. Originally Posted by christianm77
If someone keeps saying Fast they should sit down and rethink what their motivation and commitment is to Jazz. Playing Jazz is like a choosing a religion.
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Obviously I'm still awaiting the fame, riches and blow.... That's what jazz guitarists get, right? Originally Posted by NoReply
Seriously, there is an undercurrent of 'learn to play jazz quick' implicit in the way a lot of jazz educational is marketed, and it's, needless to say BS.
On the other hand, there are also blind alleys, disinformation, misconception and wasted effort, and these issues are real. Now with the internet, these wealth of information both good and bad has become greater than ever - just look at this forum alone! So I say - get a good teacher, if you can. I'm self taught and I feel I wasted effort on the wrong things.
But maybe I'm not seeing the whole picture.
It's funny though, just the other week I felt I suddenly realised something fundamental about my playing - the sort of thing Hal Galper describes in his essay 'radical change vs incremental growth.' Progress is non-linear, and when you advance like this (it might be subjective in fact) you feel like you have made an amazing shortcut.
And then you remember you've been playing for decades.
But yes, some players understand - perhaps intuitively - how make a set of radical changes quickly. We call these players talented. Can this be taught? I don't know.Last edited by christianm77; 04-30-2016 at 02:20 PM.
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