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[This thread now contains 6-7 threads on improv, focusing on the transition from knowing scales and arps to making jazz.]
Transition: I've been blistering everything from metal to slow blues improv. but I am
A bare bottomed bebop baby...and I'm a poet and I know it ha! What I'm not quite yet is a good jazz improv. guy and even the changes on a not so hard tune like Giant Steps has me worried and confused. I mean I practice playing jazz progressions (I know how to construct jazz chords from scales so it is hard to stump me) but if I'm asked to solo over the changes all I know is to try to establish a base, like a major scale, a melodic or natural minor, for the dominants a mixolydian which I assume is standard, though I try to be original. I don't know about anyone else but when I improvise over rock and blues I try to play my own licks and borrow the "trade" licks too---I assume you do something of the same sort in jazz? Yes, I need to listen to more bebop, but I have been into jazz fusion for awhile and have taken some pains to master Mr. Frank Gambale's sweep picking techniques: to be honest I love the three note per string scales but I use the sweep arpeggios sparingly because if you sweep too much it's obnoxious and unmusical. In a nutshell, can anyone give me advice on how to improvise over jazz chord progressions...secrets are welcome--Last edited by MarkRhodes; 05-02-2016 at 01:46 PM. Reason: Consolidation of many threads
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03-16-2016 08:32 PM
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Play the changes. Learn how to hit every change before you look for ways to simplify.
Throw scales away for a while and learn arpeggios.
Only learn jazz if you love jazz. Listen to jazz rabidly.
You will never play jazz I'd it is not the music that plays in your head.
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Mr. beaumont: Thank you for the helpful reply. I have the urge to learn jazz but it does not run through my head and I do not listen to anything remotely bebop--today I was practicing with a jazz book and when I took breaks I rushed to listen to Slayer and Pantera. I have a big white Gretsch Electromatic: not a metal guitar but versatile and I like the dirty metal sound I get out of it when I play into my Spider IV Line 6. The Gretsch is just my primary guitar: I also have an Epiphone and Baby Martin, but I ramble away from jazz. You know what gets my heart pumping? Stevie Ray Vaughn playing Little Wing: Kerry King and the boys playing Seasons In The Abyss: Dimebag Darrell riffing and soloing---but do you think I should try and add jazz to my repertoire? This is a serious inquiry so please don't be cynical...I've been struggling wih this a long time. Help if you can--- Jon
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To mr. beaumont:
You have been most helpful with your replies so thank you...!
In my last message I had decided to pursue heavy music
instead of jazz but I had two top notch jazz books ordered
on Amazon. I attempted to cancel them but the cancellation
failed and they have already taken my money. A day ago
I wanted to trade my Gretsch for a metal guitar but my
dad said I couldn't use the case he bought for me and
when I considered it the trade would hardly be economical.
I don't believe Everything happens for a reason and
though I'm reading a psychic intuitive now I'm hardly
Woo Woo...
I shake my magic 8 ball and all signs point to me becoming
a jazz guitarist so I'm off to listen to some Coltrane and
Parker---just so I'll know, can you tell me an easy song
to play, a more challenging tune, and a very difficult tune??
I thank you much and have a fine day.
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After listening sing it, then play it. Forget the books Roscoe I am sure you know more than enough. Listen, sing, transcribe something you dig then you will be hooked as you try to understand the mystery, you will be drawn deeper and deeper, the goal posts will keep moving.
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You sound young, so the only advice I'll give is...
Originally Posted by Roscoe T. Claude
Play the music that moves you, and never think you have to make decisions now that set what you play in the future in stone.
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gggomez- Thanks for the reply. A guy at Guitar Center told me something very similar to your response when I traded up to get my Gretsch. The tech at G.C. was playing and tuning on the big white Electromatic beast and he said "Nobody will say you can't play the blues on this thing." He knew I wanted it for jazz but he was making sure I knew that the Gretsch is a versatile beast...not feral anymore though, her name is Ashley. My biggest problem with playing is learning by ear: the not playing that you have to have to even know what key your in. I appreciate the advice though and I am going to tune in--
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Hey Roscoe... sounds like you have some basic technique... that's a good thing.
So playing jazz boils down to target notes with a relationship to a chord.
What that means... a note is nothing with out a relationship. And generally that relationship is harmony, a chord. Even if you say your developing a melodic line with relationships to different notes.... once you have two notes your implying harmony.
The whole melodic development thing comes after you have the target note relationship to Chord concept together.
Sweeps, chord tones, scales, arpeggios etc... are all just methods of using... the target note(s) or the filler between the target notes. I'm talking in slow motion...
Playing or spelling the changes is just the beginning, if you don't understand the harmony... your not going to understand what the changes are, or what are the chord tones.
So after your able to understand Target Notes... and develop some skills of connecting and developing those Target notes to become melodic ideas etc... your then ready to actually start playing jazz. Playing Jazz is taking those target notes and developing them melodically, as stated above... and also developing along with those melodically developed target notes... the filler melodic material between them........creating and developing them harmonically, basically adding and creating more harmonic movement from the basic changes.
This approach to playing has lots of common practice.... think of a blues... you already know standard filler chord patterns that fill in the space between the basic changes, even replace them. Jazz harmony just has more levels.
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And man remember Kill em All and Bonded by Blood are blues albums as is early sabbath. Even Show No Mercy is very blues based. That was my scene in the early 80s.
Given it is a form you probably have a feel for maybe go down the path of listening teanscribing jamming with Lee Morgan, Stanley Turrentine, Grant Green, early Benson, Kenny Burrell, Jimmy Forrest.
If struggling by ear there is a Jimmy Forrest Grant Green CD and also a Johnny Hodges Wild Bill Davis and Grant Green CD where they keep it pretty straight and dont shred.
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giant steps--easy--really...dame wish you told me that years ago...
try doing arps on all the chords...7 5 3 1 b3..and then reverse it .. that should keep you busy for a day or so
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Why would you want to play jazz if you don't even listen to it?
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Originally Posted by dasein
He's young, and I think he's finding himself in one of those situations where he'd like to make "guitar playing" a college/career choice, but there's no "metal/shred/blues" program in the universities...jazz, brothel music, is somehow more legitimate
The other possibility is the simple "jazz will make you a better player, maaaan" wisdom that gets spouted at the local GC, so kids with little interest in the actual music will try and force themselves to learn it.
I don't know everything about jazz, but I do know if you don't like it or listen to it you'll never be able to play it.
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I practice and improvise with the 3 note per string scale sweeps and some arp. sweeps here and there but I also use a lot of hammer ons and pull offs. I know the latter are considered legato, but are sweeps legato or staccato? It wouldn't matter but I want to be able to effectively describe my playing to someone who hasn't heard me or otherwise isn't familiar. Thanks for any help....
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It depends how quickly you raise your fingers off the notes. Do it quickly, that's staccato. Do it slowly, that's legato.
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I want to play Jazz guitar like nobody's business, but I know from listening I need a lot of tools and ammunition, however you want to label it...Let's start from the ground up: Do I know a lot of scales?
I don't think so, but I can play the major and all it's modes, the melodic, harmonic and Hungarian minor,
the Persian, the Pelog, the whole tone, chromatic, major and minor pents., the Kumoi, the Hirojoshi and I
think all the Bebop scales--now that's a list complete with some I don't figure I'll need, but Allan Holdsworth said there are "hundreds and thousands of scales and you'll go crazy trying to figure it all out!" I'd say Allan was a lot sharper tool in the shed than me (I've been hit ungodly hard on the head folks: I'm lucky she still ticks). Tell me what you think about the practicality of scales in jazz both as improvisational tools and aids, that is forms to learn music by. Listening to piano and horns I can pick out maybe the melodies and a lick or two on my first run through which i don't think is too bad, but let me know: Yours in Jazz...Jon
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Sounds like you've got all the scales you need. Now focus on tunes.
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When you say "know," what does that actually mean to you?
Like if I ask, "what's the IV chord in a harmonized Persian scale" can you answer?
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Excellent question mr. beaumont, and I almost addressed it in my post---maybe not the IV chord in a harmonized Persian scale because I don't really harmonize any scale but the major and I don't know where to begin with a Persian...take an exotic scale like that or a Pelog or a 5 or 6 tone like the Kumoi or Hirojoshi---I don't even learn the sweeping patterns to these scales because I want to preserve their exotic phrasing and not simply blow by important notes and intervals. Plus playing them slower or differently gives you the most unique lines for your buck. I used to do this when playing metal all the time---excellent break and addition to the diatonic/pent. norm... Monk: I can't tap my foot because I haven't got a foot: I'm a para and double amputee. I can clap my hands and nod my head though, and this seems to get me by. Compensation tools are really quite a thing. Jon
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There are 12 notes. You're never more than a 1/2 step away from one that's not a clam. If you hit a clam, call it a passing tone and move on. The rest is phrasing and time.
John
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You know a lot more scales than I do. I USED to know and apply a lot more, but I don't think about them anymore, so I have no idea how many scales I know and apply. For me I know Major, Harmonic and Melodic minors, pentatonic, blues, whole tone and diminished. Every now and then I'l play an augmented. I don't generally think modes, unless the song is written in some strange mode.
It takes a good while to ingest all those scales and modes to the point where you don't think about them. But creative improv doesn't happen with thought and effort. But you have to think and effort for a long while before you can let those things go.
So Major scale and it's associated modes.
Harmonic and Melodic minors and their associated modes.
Diminished and whole tone scales.
Pentatonic and blues.
You're done.
BUT KNOWING THEM is the issue. You've got to KNOW THEM like the back of your hand. Better. Most people don't know the back of their hands that well.
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Fascinating outlook John A.: I agree with you. I spent years running scales wondering when I would really get it wondering if the scale running would ever end--mind you, I love making melodies and playing runs with scales, and
while I am one to play 8-10 hours a day sometimes, I do not relish the thought of practicing the same damn thing
over and over...I mean maybe one day play it to death, but the next try something else and spend long whiles just
playing your own music---that's what I do. I guess I was just insecure and thought everybody was progressing doing
something I wasn't: I'm always looking for the magic bullet and the closest thing I have found to it is focus and perseverance...I know of no other "secret.'
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Agree with this, but skip the "modes" Originally Posted by henryrobinett
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I tend to practice the same thing every day, ad infinitum with improv thrown in.
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And I think it would be good to know the modes to those scales Henry and it sounds you're no slouch in the scale and theory departments yourself, but I took a terrible hit on the head in a car accident and learning scales I didn't know before is harder than Chinese arithmetic what with my short term memory loss (and I need glasses, so that doesn't help...) Okay enough of this woe is Roscoe, I'm going to take the scales I know and use position shifts and passing tones to get the music I want out of me. Good idea? What do you think?
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Focus and perseverance IS the magic bullet!
As for scales, yeah...the knowing...that's the big thing.
Better to REALLY know a handful than to just know patterns for 20.
The big thing about jazz is the why...WHY does this scale sound good over this chord? That's why I asked the harmony question (which I don't know the answer to, either, I have no idea what a Persian scale is, but I'm guessing there's a b2 in it?)
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