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Boston Joe, you are very perceptive, and I'm not being sarcastic. I am fishing for that specific answer because there's a certain amount of underlying insecurity in me and I want a solid rock to build my house on. Here's the 411 on Roscoe Thomas right now: Writing my own music comes most naturally to me but i think I will be a much better musician if I learn jazz tunes. Now, I am a rocker and probably always will be, but there's no reason I can't get just as much satisfaction out of comping and improvising over jazz as I do rocking out, and in time I may even prefer the style. I'm working on learning horn and piano tunes by ear and I think once I can do that it will open up a whole new world for me, as Parker and Coltrane and Davis and Monk don't just run scales, they make music, and I've just realized that is, after all, my ultimate goal; to make good jazz music. I'm gonna give the formal scales a rest and focus on melody and changes: Thanks for the help---
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04-01-2016 12:06 PM
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Well then, the thing to work on would be the insecurity. If you ask questions already knowing the answer you're looking for, you're just wasting people's time. (Or else you're a lawyer questioning a witness.)
Originally Posted by Roscoe T. Claude
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I swear, the term "running scales"...., and implying that beginners not play them, because they'll somehow hurt your musicianship..... Every horn player knows these scales cold BEFORE working on any jazz.... in 3, 4 & 6 note sequences... in 3rds, 4ths and every conceivable interval... (3rds ARE arpeggios btw, ....3 note scale sequences ARE basic targeting patterns), ascending AND descending.
Most guitarists are somewhat behind the game on scales anyway . Guitar is one of the few instruments where you can even CONCEIVE of possibly playing arpeggios WITHOUT knowing your scales cold, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't know them as well.
If you're ONLY running scales up-and-down, the scales themselves are NOT the problem. Surely musicianship is far more than individual musical devices?
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princeplanet, I'm getting to know you and no, you don't sound too harsh: you're just no sugar coating and no b.s. and I recognize that because I'm much the same way. I live in High School sometimes, which is ironic because I did a lot of things and had a lot happen after I graduated---I went to Atlanta Institute of Music for a few months and completed level 1 but had to leave because of mental illness then had an accident at 21 etc. etc. etc. but who cares? I'm 33 and just now getting my jazz on and I do want to play JAZZ and if I can leave all that petty guitar competition nonsense behind Excellent: I never liked all that anyway I just did it because I thought you had to somehow...??? I think I will find it's a pleasure being on a forum with serious musicians who care a lot about the tunes and little about the rest. Thanks...
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Sounds to me like the next step for the OP is to apply scales to tunes. Try to get up to 30 tunes memorized and playable in a few keys each as soon as possible if you are serious about learning jazz, then apply your scale knowledge/studies to tunes.
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I don't think anybody thinks scales aren't valuable tools and things to know. It's just that Roscoe was talking about them like they're the be-all-end-all. Plus he said he already knows them, so continuing to beat them into the ground probably shouldn't be his focus. Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
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The thing that so difficult for people on a forum like this, is disassociating themselves from a poster. Everyone here is on their own journey in their own quest. So when someone talks about learning skills or applying running scales, but our own experience comes to the fore. It gets in the way of our being able to actually figure out where you may be coming from or what stage in the process you are at.
There certainly is nothing wrong at all with having technique so amazing that it scares people. Nothing at all. I think it's great. I've been there, done that. Go for it. One of the things that's amazing about jazz is there all kinds of different levels and stages.
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Good, because although some of us may sound like smart asses, we genuinely try to help. Like Jeff says, we're all white belts here.... Find a good teacher, he/she will straighten you out. You're a writer you say? Well consider this, I think that learning scales is akin to learning the alphabet. It's the very beginning. Then comes words, then sentences, then grammar, syntax, then comes expression. Then comes advanced expression (think subtextual semiotics etc). Originally Posted by Roscoe T. Claude
With Rock and Blues, you can go from the alphabet straight to expression, because it's primitive. Using the language analog, think Kanye West lyrics. Now consider Shakespeare, or James Joyce. Several levels above, right?
That's right, Jazz is Shakespeare as Blues/Rock is Kanye.... Hmmm, messy metaphor, but you dig, right?
(wait a minute, didn't Kanye say he was Shakespeare???
)
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Jon, Originally Posted by Roscoe T. Claude
Your desire to "baffle people" does, indeed, sound like an ego trip. But that's probably OK, everyone goes through a phase where they want to impress people. As a composer and musician your goal, in my opinion, should be to reach people with your music and move them emotionally. If your driving goal is to have people scratching their heads about how you do it you will probably be severely limiting your audience to a rather small sub-set of guitar geeks. Jazz guitarist Howard Roberts once famously said, "Fast doesn't mean good, fast means fast".
Your desire to be original is admirable. However, you need to understand that everyone who is regarded as an innovator became that by synthesizing their influences into a unique voice. If you wish to do that you need to understand that you must become intimately familiar with "the Jazz Language". I believe that it was jazz trumpeter Clark Terry who said, "Imitate, Assimilate, Innovate". There is no way to skip steps. We all have to do this. Everyone starts out as beginner.
Playing scales is not the same as playing music. Scales are a tool to help you train yours ears and fingers. If you continue to focus on playing scales, you will just get better at playing scales. At some point you need to play music and in the beginning, this means playing music written by others. Listening to and playing great music is very important learning tool for musicians and is invaluable for aspiring composers.
One of the players of my generation who has been lauded musicians and critics as an original is Bill Frisell. He is capable of playing straight ahead jazz guitar but he has taken his influences and background and shaped them to serve his personal vision. He is a perfect example of "You have to know the rules before you can break them intelligently".
Every artist is a product of their influences. No artist develops in a vacuum. Allan Holdsworth, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Al Dimeola, Miles Davis. All went through a period where they imitated their heroes.
Regards,
Jerome
P.S. As was mentioned upstream, it's also perfectly all right to do whatever you want.Last edited by monk; 04-01-2016 at 01:29 PM.
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True enough, but don't you think that getting bogged down with scales is a pretty common pitfall for a lot of guitarists? Matt noted that horn players know their scales before they start working on real music. Guitarists don't usually discover them until they've been playing a while, and consequently tend to look on them as the solution to whatever rut they're in at the time. And if you read the original post, you can see that Roscoe says he already knows his scales. So yeah, he can keep drilling them and get his speed way up, but if he's just playing scales real fast, is he going to be satisfied? Originally Posted by henryrobinett
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Thank you all for your replies. My response is that I'm going to make every effort to be myself and make music that is good, and not just fast. Like many of you I believe there is more than one way to excellence, it just depends on who you are. princeplanet I hate to have to correct you but Kanye is better than Shakespeare and invented jazz in another life. Also he doesn't often get credit for the internet, but...ha ha ha is all I have to say after writing that. To use iconic American writers William Faulkner and Sylvia Plath would be like highly influential virtuoso jazz guitarists while Tom Clancy and John Grisham would be the more popular rock and rollers. I know I just kind of restated you, but it's a great point and i was kind of thinking aloud (quietly). I wrote for the newspaper in school, novels and short stories in my mid twenties and poetry since I was 27. I write some poetry now but for the years I wrote novels and short stories I didn't play guitar: I don't know why. In fact I put down the guitar for over 12 years then picked it up again, for whatever reason. I think, judging by the way I play, that I have unfinished business, and I could be wrong but I think that means I need to play jazz.
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Interesting. I came to jazz (seriously at least) after a period of not playing as well. My hiatus was shorter, maybe 3 years, but when I started again, I knew I wanted to do something interesting and challenging. Originally Posted by Roscoe T. Claude
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Quit the blathering and procrastinating, get a chart of a simple jazz tune, like Autumn Leaves, that is often recommended for beginners, and start applying what you know to it at a slow enough tempo that you can think and decide what and why to play. If you'd started to do this the same time you started posting about your quest you would probably already be on to Blue Bossa.
That being said, Autumn Leaves may be a "beginner" tune, but remember that Miles Davis included in on every live album he released from about 1956 to 1968 and every version is different, the most recent version is drastically different from the earliest. If Miles Davis found inspiration in that progression for almost 20 years, we still can now.
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NoReply, your post is hysterical...with me the riffs, licks, progressions etc. come a lot more naturally than learning scales does. I started learning scales because I was playing rock and metal and I thought you either did scales and theory or learned by ear. I am just now getting to where I can learn by ear so I went the scale route. Writing music is easy for me but learning new scales and other people's music can be hard. I'm just being honest, I have strengths and weaknesses like all the rest. You're so right about handing the, usually kids, at GC candy then getting away fast! How would you like to work at one of those stores, or perhaps you have? I've often entertained the fantasy of catching someone shredding up a storm and plugging a cheap guitar in near them and slamming out Smells Like Teen Spirit! Knowing me I would run it through a few times then cry out "That's old punk rocker Kurt Cobain right there!" Boy, I better back off...I'm getting into the Anti-jazz...and the guilty pleasure---
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I don't blather I obsess and I don't procrastinate I put off...Ha!
I'll try the tune on YouTube: easy ones sometimes give you some
breathing room to horse around a bit. I was playing with an
Albert King and Stevie Ray tune the other day and because it
was more or less basic blues I was able to put my own licks in
while picking up some of there's. I definitely need basic tunes
to practice learning by ear: the more sophisticated stuff I can
usually get the melody and just a little more. I'm gone while
the Mona Lisa's still grinning...
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That's exactly what you want to be doing. Find your own licks. Figure out how they fit into the tune. Originally Posted by Roscoe T. Claude
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Ask Carol Kaye what she thinks about scales. She'll straighten you out in a hurry and get you playing. Carol Kaye walks the talk.
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I know this is outside of jazz but it's music and I think it is relevant:
My favorite metal guitarist Dimebag Darrell said when he tried to take
lessons some cat put some dots on a piece of paper but he was too hot
to sit down on that right then...then he says, and I'm paraphrasing, 'it's
been taken to this level now where everyone can noodle, everyone knows
scales and can shred, everyone can play arpeggios, f--- it man, I want to
jam!' I could take that to mean I need to crank up the Coltrane and play
his tune then my own. I hadn't taken the advice from Darrell because
I thought the rules didn't apply to him since he was a 'natural.' I now see
the forest and the trees...
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Do I think playing scales it is a common pitfall for guitarists? No. You have to do it. What happens, that I see, is guys don't do them enough. They finish before they're done by a longshot. The scales have to be so much a part of you they're no longer scales. And when they're half baked it sounds like the guys are playing scales. So when a bunch of people are critical of guitarists who really play their scales they're only half of doing them, and the guys were being critical probably only half did them themselves. Originally Posted by Boston Joe
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There is knowing scales, and then there is knowing scales. I know few people who really know their scales. I doubt that Roscoe really really really knows those scales. Maybe not. But if he did he wouldn't be asking about them. Which means to me he needs to practice his scales some more.
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By the way scales are the be-all and end-all. All music in the western hemisphere is based on the scales. They are built from scales from the bottom up. You have to have a completely conceptual understanding of scales. Now eventually you'll play like you're not playing scales at all. You'll slip in and out. You basically won't play scales at all. You'll be playing neighbors, Enclosures, arpeggiated figures, chromatic lines, patterns. But if you don't know your scales down cold - I mean cold - you're going to struggle with everything else. So yes scales are the be-all and end-all.
Last edited by henryrobinett; 04-01-2016 at 02:51 PM.
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By the way I played Autumn Leaves at a very moderate 120 and I really like
those chords and changes: simple but beautiful. I think it often takes a master
to not overplay, to leave breathing room that can be appreciated by many.
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Miles Davis was brilliant at that. Check out some of his recordings of that tune. He uses some very interesting note choices. Originally Posted by Roscoe T. Claude
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Henry, I don't know scales as well as I would like but they are the basis of my playing
and I've read before that there are only scales as any series of intervals you choose to
play fits in with some scale and chords and arpeggios are nothing but notes from scales
so my Uncle who knows no scales or theory but is a great player is still playing scales when
he's picking out phrases and playing chords. So you are correct, I think what a lot of people
are against is getting locked into one pattern or position, and that can be limiting. But it
really has nothing to do with being against scales, so to speak, because you can't help but
play them.
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I took a few lessons last year with a very fine guitarist. In our first lesson, after playing through Autumn Leaves together, he asked me how my scales were. I told him I was OK on them, then I played a little & he suggested I should work on his scale exercises in his book. I was a bit embarrassed as the first exercise was G Major scale in 5 positions, but I took it up with purpose. Since then, I've been working slowly through Mixolydian, Dorian, Melodic Minor, Lydian, Lydian Dominant, Locrian, and Altered. I usually play them at slow tempo listening to each note rather than trying to race through them as fast as my fingers will allow. I have been amazed at how much progress my ear has made in the past few months as a result of this practice. I can hear various modes much more clearly now, and it has had a direct payoff in the richness of my improvisation too. It turns out to have been a great lesson, and I have a new attitude about working with the scales.
One other great scale exercise I learned last year was to play any scale slowly alternating each note as loud, soft, loud, soft, etc. Sounds simple I know, but it is amazing how quickly that exercise can focus the mind! Scale practice offers lots of dimensions, and I'm nowhere near done with 'em . . . don't think I ever will be.
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