Meaning of Jazz Language

[testowe233]

Learning tons of licks, transcribing jazz pieces, gluing together phrases and making them sound good in the harmonic context led me nowwhere in understanding the jazz language.

It's like being in France, hearing "Bonjour, une baguette s'il vous plaît!" being repeated by clients in bakery. And me repeating it in the same bakery context, not understanding what baguette is. You won't learn French by blindly repeating common phrases that fit into the context. I can use properly phrases that work at home, in the bus, in the shop but I'm cluess regarding their meaning.

What is the meaning of jazz language then, since it is not directly pointing to the tangible objects/feelings/situations/behaviours (like spoken languages do). Or does it? The only feedback might be the reaction of other musicians, but the output is another phrase (therefore piece of jazz language).

What information and meaning is conveyed by the melodic contour of the music, their rythimic contour? After going through papers on semiotics and musican narratives but I haven't found any clear response. I'm not a developd musician, so any help would be greatly appreciated

[Boston Joe]

Musical language is more abstract than verbal language, for sure. What it "points to" is largely cultural, and to a greater or lesser extent (depending on the person) personal. Some musical pieces (e.g. Berlioz's Symphony Fantastique) are written as "soundtracks" to imaginary stories, but unless there's a specific intention in that direction on the part of the composer, what a piece of music is "about" is pretty much all in the mind of the listener.

(Talking here about strictly instrumental music. Music with lyrics is a whole other ball of wax.)

One of my favorite pieces of music is Metheney's "The Way Up". I have deliberately not read any commentary or criticism about this album, because I have very strong mental imagery associated with it, and I don't particularly anyone else's interpretation of it to color mine.

I think it's kind of like a tangent to the experience of reading a book. When you read a book, you've got sort of a mental "movie" going on of what's happening in the book (at least I do). Music is the soundtrack to mental images like that. At least it is for me. (And I guess for at least a few others, too. After all, Aaron Parks called an album "Invisible Cinema" and Mark Knopfler called one "Making Movies.")

[destinytot]

Learning tons of licks, transcribing jazz pieces, gluing together phrases and making them sound good in the harmonic context led me nowwhere in understanding the jazz language.

It's like being in France, hearing "Bonjour, une baguette s'il vous plaît!" being repeated by clients in bakery. And me repeating it in the same bakery context, not understanding what baguette is. You won't learn French by blindly repeating common phrases that fit into the context. I can use properly phrases that work at home, in the bus, in the shop but I'm cluess regarding their meaning.

What is the meaning of jazz language then, since it is not directly pointing to the tangible objects/feelings/situations/behaviours (like spoken languages do). Or does it? The only feedback might be the reaction of other musicians, but the output is another phrase (therefore piece of jazz language).

What information and meaning is conveyed by the melodic contour of the music, their rythimic contour? After going through papers on semiotics and musican narratives but I haven't found any clear response. I'm not a developd musician, so any help would be greatly appreciated

If you start by focusing on Pragmatics, I think you'd eventually acquire some Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) in that French bakery - there would be visual (and other) cues to help. In music (I'm self-taught), I daresay that might correspond to assorted 'home & away' harmonic cadences.

But building a wealth of lexical resources - vocabulary and grammar structures - requires study and analysis of dicourse/text: Cognitive and Academic Language Proficiency (CALP). Two useful ways in which this might correspond to learning the 'jazz language' could be: creative play on meaning in context (connotation, synonymity and contrast), and organisation (use of pattern and motif). Edit: then there are ways/devices for organising chord tones (CT) and non-chord tones (NCT). And ways of organising and referencing rhythm - including harmonic rhythm. And phrase length. For pace. Dig?

This would be done by means of transcription and analysis - but putting it that way sounds like a chore. (I'd rather say just sing solos - but without any half-guessing.)

Back to the bakery: the depth of CALP requires being able make the (literal) connection between the word baguette and what it denotes. Its use in music is different (it can mean 'drumstick'), but no more difficult - if (unlike Donny) you have a frame of reference.

Personally, I'm happiest in the bakery (my natural habitat, stuffing my face on BICS) - learning by doing, and testing out ideas.

I'm re-posting a great TED talk by Chris Lonsdale in which he presents and explains five principles and seven actions. I'm also taking the liberty of suggesting that much of what he says can be transferred to the learning of the 'jazz' - with the rider that what he presents here is about the language of (spoken) interaction. I think it's twenty minutes well-spent.

[Drumbler]

Learning tons of licks, transcribing jazz pieces, gluing together phrases and making them sound good in the harmonic context led me nowwhere in understanding the jazz language.

It's like being in France, hearing "Bonjour, une baguette s'il vous plaît!" being repeated by clients in bakery. And me repeating it in the same bakery context, not understanding what baguette is. You won't learn French by blindly repeating common phrases that fit into the context. I can use properly phrases that work at home, in the bus, in the shop but I'm cluess regarding their meaning.

What is the meaning of jazz language then, since it is not directly pointing to the tangible objects/feelings/situations/behaviours (like spoken languages do). Or does it? The only feedback might be the reaction of other musicians, but the output is another phrase (therefore piece of jazz language).

What information and meaning is conveyed by the melodic contour of the music, their rythimic contour? After going through papers on semiotics and musican narratives but I haven't found any clear response. I'm not a developd musician, so any help would be greatly appreciated

Wow, you think way too much.

Just follow the changes, make nice sounds and swing!

[princeplanet]

.....
What information and meaning is conveyed by the melodic contour of the music, their rythimic contour? After going through papers on semiotics and musican narratives but I haven't found any clear response. I'm not a developd musician, so any help would be greatly appreciated

Semiotics? My uncle was Professor of Semiotics at the Bologna University, he gave me books to read that he'd written. Let me just say this, you do not need to know a single thing about Semiotics in order to help you understand Jazz Language!

I can remember having the same question - What the hell is "Jazz Language", and where can I find it? People would answer : "it's in the recordings, figure it out!". But a parrot can mimic any language, with out really understanding it, so transcribing is only a part of the answer... I should say that I don't really like the Jazz - Language metaphor, it's inadequate and inaccurate on so many levels, but it can still be helpful if you don't get too caught up in it. For me, transcribing Jazz was like mimicing the French language complete with accent. After a while you can tell when a French accent is kinda close to the real deal, even though you have no idea what is actually being said!

So if you got the order of some words badly mixed up, you'd have no idea you weren't making sense. French people will look at you funny and just walk away... Now consider the Jazz mimicry (transcriptions) you've done in the same light. You know some phrases, but you put them together in ways that just don't sound like the conventionally accepted norm. If you translated bad French (or bad Jazz) into English, you could unwittingly be trying to say things like " I am become you to see I are to play the Jazz most authentic". If a foreigner said that to you at a Jazz Jam, you'd either fall down laughing, or you'd smile and slink away...

But if he said "I'm the real deal motherf*cker!" - well, now he's speaking a language you can understand. And so it goes with the Jazz vernacular, you know what makes Jazz "sense" and what doesn't, not just because of it's sound but it's meaning. Take the "Altered" scale. Now give this scale to a Jazz newbie and it can sound very unmusical. If he starts on the wrong note, or phrases a group of notes poorly, it will not sound like how Freddie Hubbard can make it sound, even though the pool of notes is identical. When someone can understand the Jazz Language, he can understand when something sounds conventionally "correct" enough to be considered "Jazz". People can jerk off all they like about how Jazz has no boundaries, and anything goes, but no! Listen to Eric Dolphy, you know it's Jazz. Listen to Shoenberg, you know it's not (or you should).

If Jazz can be considered a kind of Language, it's precisely because (like other languages) there are conventions and rules, thousands of them. Understanding the meaning behind the rules means that you know the way to, say, stitch 2 jazz devices together so that it sounds like Jazz, and that there are many ways to stitch them together that doesn't.

So if this language gets learned by so many players, how come some of us find it so impenetrable? The answer is because you are probably trying to learn it in a vacuum, whereas many people (especially in the past) learned it communally, and just like any other language, being around others a lot that always speak the language, you just pick it up without effort.

I feel au fait with the Jazz language these days, not just because I have enough Jazz phrases and devices to "speak" with, but because I know I can develop my own ideas from scratch and discern (from much trial and error) what sounds like Jazz from what does not. Some people can do that with only 2 or 3 phrases they know, whilst others still can't, despite knowing thousands! Semiotics won't help them either....

[destinytot]

Some people can do that with only 2 or 3 phrases they know, whilst others still can't, despite knowing thousands!

[Thecytochromec]

I was at the Mexican grocery store the other day and the clerk asked me if I spoke Spanish. I don't really speak Spanish, but I know a few "licks" though. It was enough to get me by in my situation. Long story short, I knew more Spanish than he knew English so to him, I seemed like I was not far from fluent. The truth is that I only know fragments of the language so I can't express myself like I can in English. My delivery of personal jokes and wit aren't there.

I see music is another medium of this. You can learn a lot of the building blocks, but you need to develop you musical wit and jokes. You need to develop your own sad stories and passionate rants using the expressions you have. It helps to learn a fancy word like "transcendence" but until you understand it's meaning, appreciate its phonetic function and use it in your own personal expression you'll never transcend.

[Boston Joe]

I was at the Mexican grocery store the other day and the clerk asked me if I spoke Spanish. I don't really speak Spanish, but I know a few "licks" though. It was enough to get me by in my situation. Long story short, I knew more Spanish than he knew English so to him, I seemed like I was not far from fluent. The truth is that I only know fragments of the language so I can't express myself like I can in English. My delivery of personal jokes and wit aren't there.

One interesting thing that can happen when you learn a new language is that you might discover a turn of phrase in that language that's really useful. For example, in Spanish, there's a kind of weasely way to blame something you did on someone or something else. Instead of saying "I forgot the book", you can use a reflexive construction that says "The book forgot me." You can't really pull that off in English without sounding weasely and lawyerish.

Those are the things I try to look for in musical language. Little idiomatic things that are expressive in ways that nothing else is.

[Binyomin]

Maybe the next step is to analyze the licks and try to generate new, original licks based on whatever pattern or principle your analysis revealed.

[grahambop]

It doesn't have to mean anything, it just has to sound good!

[christianm77]

Skiddleyboobadoobop!

[grahambop]

Skiddleyboobadoobop!

Hey, that's one of MY licks! Give it back!

[Boston Joe]

It doesn't have to mean anything, it just has to sound good!

That assumes that there's no meaning in sounding good.

(I'm not sure if there is or isn't, but it seems like an assumption worth challenging. "Good" is a subjective judgement, so the music must have communicated some positive value in order for it to be perceived as "good".)

But again, musical language is distinct from verbal language in that it doesn't signify anything in and of itself. If it's done well it can evoke joy or pain, or any number of other emotions. It can stir up memories or provoke imagery. I'd call that kind of stuff "musical meaning". Certainly, when I'm playing well I do feel as if I'm expressing something fairly deep and ineffable. I couldn't say exactly what. If I could, I wouldn't need music to do it.

Consider another language: mathematics. Mathematics is arguably MORE concrete than verbal language. It expresses some very specific things: quantity, proportion, function, change over time, etc. These are all things that CAN be expressed in verbal language, but it's very cumbersome and confusing to do that, so we have math as a specialized language that can express that stuff logically and elegantly. Even when it's abstract (e.g. using variables instead of concrete numbers) the relationships that it expresses are still very specific.

So... three languages that express three different spheres of experience: the extremely concrete, the extremely abstract, and all the stuff in the middle.

(I'm not trying to make any real point here. Just exploring the idea.)

[JazzinNY]

The whole thing with the language analogy is that, to me, the key to transcribing is you see how players dress up simple devices like triads and arpeggios to make good jazz lines. If you just play a series of triads or arpeggios, it doesn't sound like jazz. It's the use of chromatics, of mixing chord tones and non-chord tones, and the phrasing, that does it.

[Boston Joe]

The whole thing with the language analogy is that, to me, the key to transcribing is you see how players dress up simple devices like triads and arpeggios to make good jazz lines. If you just play a series of triads or arpeggios, it doesn't sound like jazz. It's the use of chromatics, of mixing chord tones and non-chord tones, and the phrasing, that does it.

Well yeah. Just using the building blocks would be kind of like trying to talk using just nouns and verbs. You could do it, but you'd sound really weird. You need adjectives and adverbs and stuff to make the language more subtle.

[matt.guitarteacher]

What is the meaning of jazz language then, since it is not directly pointing to the tangible objects/feelings/situations/behaviours (like spoken languages do). Or does it? The only feedback might be the reaction of other musicians, but the output is another phrase (therefore piece of jazz language).

What information and meaning is conveyed by the melodic contour of the music, their rythimic contour? After going through papers on semiotics and musican narratives but I haven't found any clear response. I'm not a developd musician, so any help would be greatly appreciated

Children learning a first language don't necessarily have to associate full meaning before acquiring an understanding of the sound /syntax etc. of language , before they start at least using it and hearing it....somewhat "understanding it ", beyond representational meaning.

All this learning stuff isn't just linear . Learning the syntax and sound of something isn't lost when you finally do get around to connecting the "meaning" part. God knows there are many who overly focus on the "meaning" (theoretical) before ever associating it with the proper sound/phrasing etc.

[Boston Joe]

Children learning a first language don't necessarily have to associate full meaning before acquiring an understanding of the sound /syntax etc. of language , before they start at least using it and hearing it....somewhat "understanding it ", beyond representational meaning.

Yeah, kids go through that babbling phase where they're just learning to make mouth sounds. Eventually they learn to control it enough to mimic adults and use words. That's when they really start learning to attach meaning.

(And I think it's hilarious when a little kid fixes you with a VERY SERIOUS look and says, "Charmaggogmanchagaggogcharbunagungamaug!" and then looks at you like you're supposed to understand what he said.)

[princeplanet]

The whole thing with the language analogy is that, to me, the key to transcribing is you see how players dress up simple devices like triads and arpeggios to make good jazz lines. If you just play a series of triads or arpeggios, it doesn't sound like jazz. It's the use of chromatics, of mixing chord tones and non-chord tones, and the phrasing, that does it.

Sure, but it's even more than that, it's like trying to learn street slang, or the language of Hip Hop or something, it's the style and attitude that's important. Syntactical analysis may try to describe it from a particular perspective, but it won't teach a stranger to that "language" how to speak like that convincingly in front of others that do.

[princeplanet]

......you need to develop you musical wit and jokes. You need to develop your own sad stories and passionate rants using the expressions you have......

And you need profanities too for a lot of Jazz (well, my favourite kinds anyway ). Throwing in a gutbucket lick is kinda like swearing....

[testowe233]

Wow, thank you for lots of insights in your responses, much appreciated.

I just stumbled upon a set of articles on fMRI brain scanning while improvising. The research happened several years ago.

"Brain areas linked to meaning shut down during improvisational jazz interactions. In other words, this music is syntactic, not semantic."

How Brains See Music as Language - The Atlantic

[grahambop]

It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!

(c'mon, somebody had to say it!)

[destinytot]

It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!

(c'mon, somebody had to say it!)

Absolutely!

As far as meaning goes, if you can't 'hear' it - it's not for you.

The 'language' business is about manipulation of form - not meaning.

(Talking drums, Kodaly and Close Encounters notwithstanding.)

[TH]

What is the meaning of jazz language then, since it is not directly pointing to the tangible objects/feelings/situations/behaviours (like spoken languages do). Or does it?

testowe233, I hear where you're coming from. I see where you haven't arrived at yet. I understand your feeling. Let me ask you, do you have opportunities to play with others? And let me ask specifically, is there someone you can play duo with?
The language analogy is a good one, but you won't really get what that means until you at least begin speaking. That's different from playing or even sounding passable if not good. Speaking means that effective correlation between a thought, intention and being a part of your expression.
Yes, don't get caught up in the details of jazz lexicon and syntax. You'll need them of course, but when you start playing with another person, you'll eventually get shaken out of the tangle of notes, and you'll reach out, speak and listen with your ears.
Trust me on this one. Make playing in a small group situation a part of your education and practice. See live music. Experience the world outside of your prescribed lessons and you'll start to speak. The meaning of it all will come to you.

David

[Thumpalumpacus]

Wow, thank you for lots of insights in your responses, much appreciated.

I just stumbled upon a set of articles on fMRI brain scanning while improvising. The research happened several years ago.

"Brain areas linked to meaning shut down during improvisational jazz interactions. In other words, this music is syntactic, not semantic."

How Brains See Music as Language - The Atlantic

Great article, thanks for the link.

[TH]

"Brain areas linked to meaning shut down during improvisational jazz interactions. In other words, this music is syntactic, not semantic."

How Brains See Music as Language - The Atlantic

I just looked over this article, there's a lot of short sightedness I think there is some generalization going on here. On first reading I can't agree without reservation.
There are many types of improvisors, and there are many layers of process that go on, even reading the responses to this thread.
For some, improvisation is swinging. For some, just sounding good. For some, it's development of an idea, compositionally. I'm sure a brain scan of someone having a fun time at a dixieland jam will look a little different from what's happening in Sonny Rollins' 40 minute solo constructive masterpieces.

And so will their descriptions of the improvisational process. Making the changes in a killer solo can set a different set of improvisational parameters than developing a conversational and motific conversation with another person in a duo. I also think that who you're playing for can effect the depth of investment in a linguistic mode of thinking. Playing at a bar and competing for sonic high decibel space is different from a small club audience where people can hear what you're thinking. I don't really think that the Atlantic article delves into these distinctions, nor does it address the heirarchy of processes that constitute this thing we call language.

The study seems to take as an assumption that language is separate from musical processing. That's because we study them separately in academia. You're a musician or you're a linguistic or language based student. But language, as it's spoken, has musical content to it. It's called pitch and inflexion. I hear more musicality in British isle English than in many American English dialects. More music in Chinese than in German. To me, music is pure pitch and inflexion ordered into an art. This correlation is completely ignored by the article and the study.

That aside, it's fun to read about what people think. Just reach for the insight within yourself to see how relevant it is to your question.

Anyway, it's a big question you ask. If finding meaning and satisfaction is at the core of it, then don't look to words to find the essence of what it's all about. It's deeper than that. And your guitar can give you some deep insights.
Play and listen.
David