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ragman's analysis looks good to me. Jens Larsen, who is a very good player and posts here a lot, has done an Harmonic analysis of All of Me which might give you some ideas as well. Here is the link:
Analyzing a Standard: All Of Me - Jens Larsen
His site has a lot of great stuff in it - worth a good look.
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05-17-2017 03:07 PM
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Originally Posted by p4chuss2
Actually that list is really long of players that start by ear then later start studying theory to learn the common language musicians speak. Many of the older musicians I talk now recommend it learn by ear first then learn the theory. It's like learning to talk as a child your parents did give you a dictionary and say learn the words then you can talk. No you learned by hearing and imitate what you heard and see the reaction to the sounds you made with your mouth. As you grew you learned meanings of words and common phrases, eventually you went to school and learned the grammer and such. Music is no different learning by ear first from the start you are developing the mind, ear, hand relationship. I came out in a interview with a name guitarist who was talking to Wes Montgomery. Long story, short... The guy asked Wes how he handled a II-V. Wes had no idea what he was talking about. So finally the guys plays a II-V and asks Wes what do you call that, Wes said that's just a sound and started playing. Wes knew all the sounds and how the sounds he'd use over them, just not the theoretical labels.
Playing music like talking is all about the learning sounds.
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Yes to all of the above
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I've made a lot of strides in this area recently working through Howard Roberts Superchops practice regimen with a study group here in The Players forum. You play through real, somewhat dense and complicated (to me) changes at ridiculously slow tempos with the goal of gradually increasing speed. It has helped me tons.
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That's really what I meant.
I recall watching an ancient VHS of Joe Pass on Youtube... playing and talking with an interviewer about how he plays. His playing is brilliant but his explanations come slowly as if he is having to translate from his internal representation into an outside language for the interviewer, who knows theory. At one point he has just played something ending on a G13 (rooted at the third fret - the 3x345x chord). He spends about five long seconds with a couple of false starts and pauses before he is able to identify it as G13. Clearly he does not use the names of these things when playing. But he can translate to be understood in the public language of theory.
The video of Wes in Belgium going over the song with the pianist is similar; he misnames a few chords and corrects himself. There too I recognize that what I'm seeing and hearing is the communication process of an ear player... notice how many times he indicates or clarifies something by just playing it to the pianist (and what a fine pianist!). Wes also can talk it through with theory language, but that is not how he knows it inside.
Then there are lots of jazz guitarists whose playing to my ear "smells of the lamp" - from when the smell of oil lamp smoke on documents produced by arduous, overwrought overnight efforts tended to reveal their method of production. It sounds like you can hear a little too easily the mental theory machinery behind their playing. One that studied composition, theory, and instructed professionally that seems to have avoided that sense of revealed mechanics quite wonderfully is Kenny Burrell... others I'm sure as well.Last edited by pauln; 05-17-2017 at 06:45 PM.
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I really appreciate you all took the time to answer and even record audio!! Amazing community. Many thanks!
However I am still confused.
1) Why do most of the teachers ask you to start with arpeggios and scales?
2) I am definitely not Joe Pass, or Django, so just picking up the guitar, hearing the changes and playing through them with beautiful lines is not possible for me right now
I have to find another way
3) How do many jazz players play fast cool lines on so many bars? There must be a previous learning of the sounds and possibilities. I cannot have that full creativity all the time
4) I liked the concept of seeing a whole and not just a bar with a chord and the nice example. I am however too far away from that right now. Any tips are welcome !!
5) Are you really saying that you don't visualize or see the scales arpeggios that you "are" on? Or that you can't arpeggiate a tune from beginning to end? If you do, any tips on visualizing it ?
Many many thanks !
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Oh, don't be :-) Originally Posted by p4chuss2
Because you need some tools before you can play anything, you can't just launch in. But you also need the chords. I'd say that came first in any case.Why do most of the teachers ask you to start with arpeggios and scales?
But none of us are. May I suggest something? Don't compare yourself to professional, experienced, gifted players. Be what you are, start with what you've got and do that. What else can you do? Work on that and you'll find your own voice, that's far more important. Which doesn't mean don't listen to them.I am definitely not Joe Pass, or Django, so just picking up the guitar, hearing the changes and playing through them with beautiful lines is not possible for me right now I have to find another way
Because they've been doing it for years. How do you so easily rattle off all those English sentences compared to an Italian who only started last month?How do many jazz players play fast cool lines on so many bars? There must be a previous learning of the sounds and possibilities. I cannot have that full creativity all the time
Yes, see the chord and the notes and you begin to realise how they're connected and run easily into each other. When you're really, really familiar with a tune it's possible to see the whole tune as one thing.I liked the concept of seeing a whole and not just a bar with a chord and the nice example. I am however too far away from that right now. Any tips are welcome !!
Well, it would certainly be very boring, both for you and the listener, if you literally arpeggiated each chord from beginning to end!Are you really saying that you don't visualize or see the scales arpeggios that you "are" on? Or that you can't arpeggiate a tune from beginning to end? If you do, any tips on visualizing it ?
Yes, you do sort of visualise what you're doing but it's really more subconscious. It's there, but way in the background. But that's the result of experience. The trouble with beginning all this is that, yes, you've got to go slow and work it out at the start but you obviously can't play like that. Anymore than you stop and consider each English word when you speak.
As I said, it's all a gradual process, a bit of trying this and that, playing this and that, absorbing this and that. It all goes into the subconscious and one day it suddenly works without a lot of effort. Give your subconscious mind a chance! It's the way we do anything, from walking, washing, tying a shoelace, handling a knife and fork... anything you like. Playing the guitar is exactly the same.
So get a tune, nothing difficult. Find out what you need to play over it and keep going. Work within your capacities, don't try to be too ambitious. It will come, you'll see, and one success leads to another.
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Thanks
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By the way, record what you do (both chord backing and solo) and listen to it back. No one else needs to hear it. You'll hear pretty easily where it doesn't sound right and you can work on improving it. This is very good advice
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This might be useful...
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This is almost exactly how I practice. A looper pedal is handy, but definitely not necessary. You could always just record the chords on your phone to practice over. Or there are countless DAW recording options...the problem with these (for this purpose) is that it's easy to get bogged down in the recording process, rather than the intended practice. That's the nice thing about the looper; you never have to take your hands off of the guitar. Originally Posted by ragman1
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I usually only play one chorus of a tune and then loop it. If I'm recording, I c&p the chorus as many times as is necessary and then add an ending on the last one.
Usually, not always.
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Because I've learned different ways at different stages, what I actually do is an amalgam.
That said,
I spent a lot of time learning the individual notes in the chords and scales that I use. So, I know, more or less instantly, where the notes in the major and melodic minor scales (all keys) are on the fretboard. Same for most chords. The idea is for those notes to "light up" on the fretboard when you want the scale. I still have to drill myself on it. It's a lot of work, but it always seemed to me to be less work and more effective than learning multiple fingering patterns.
For me, when I learned a fingering pattern, it was hard to grab the pattern from somewhere in the middle. I tended to be root based and it was hard to shake. By going to note-knowledge, I avoided all that. I haven't done it for harmonic minor or other scales because it isn't that easy. I can get various alterations in the scales I use by thinking of the scale degree I want. So, for example, I know how to add a b9 to a mixolydian mode.
Similar pattern for arps with the additional advantage, I think, that I don't think of chords as grips all the time anymore. Since I know the notes, I can grab one, two or three notes on the fly, which makes it easier to do more of a piano like accompaniment, at least to my way of thinking. Basically, it's like improvising a simple melody with two/three notes out of the chords -- behind the soloist.
I'm not recommending this as the best way for somebody to learn. Frankly, I don't know if it's best. It might be more difficult to add in more sophisticated scales my way. I don't know because I haven't really done it.
Here's how I practice it. IRealPro on my phone. I pick a tune, set it for 13 choruses changing key by a fourth or fifth each chorus. Then, I start improvising making sure to use the scales/arps that I want for each chord. If I can't do it, I slow the tempo until I can. Drill. Drill. Drill.
I also know some licks and I sometimes associate some patterns with specific chord shapes -- because that was the way I learned first.
It all works. It leads to the same place where you can hear what you want in your head and your fingers find the notes.
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I never have been able to see the board "light up" but I know the neck well and unless I'm having a bad day/ sleed deprived, etc. whatever note I'm on, I know what note lies anywhere I drop a finger on any fret nearby, including jumping strings. Oddly enough this is easier for me to do if I don't look at the board, though I have read of other folks having a similar sensation of their "minds eye" being better than straight visual input. Still, would be cool to see the note pool you're drawing from lit up with bright red LED's. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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So, to use the All of Me example, not that anybody asked <g> ...
Cmaj. All the "white keys" on the fretboard "light up". Use them to make a melody. Maybe you're more careful with the 4th to avoid making it sound like G7.
You can always lean a little more on the tritone, as if you were actually playing in Gmaj. Of course, you can play any other note, but they aren't quite as guaranteed to sound consonant unless you play a strong enough line.
Then, onto E7. All you need to do is raise the G to a G#. That is, you're now playing all the white keys except, instead of G, you play G#. The theorists will notice that this is aka A harmonic minor.
A7. If you know that A7 has a C#, not a C, you can change only that note from Cmaj. The result is A B C# D E F G. That's D melodic minor. All white keys but C becomes C#. You might prefer hearing a Bb instead of a B which makes it D harmonic minor.
Anyway, my point is, that if you know the notes in the chords and you know the notes in the scales, it's going to be pretty simple to get through these changes, including nailing the most important notes in each chord (that's arguable -- you could play the G against E7 and get a #9 sound and the same thing for the C against A7, but I'm keeping it less advanced here).
Thinking this way, instead of C Ionian, A HarMin, D MelMin etc might make it easier to play a smoother sounding line, since you won't be tempted to start each scale/mode on the note you start with when you practice it. Sort of, it's all white keys, except when you adjust something. And, at any given moment, the adjustments are minor. That's true in lots of tunes -- if it wasn't true the harmony might sound pretty jagged.
All of Me is simple because the tonal centers are simple. Also, it's in Cmaj. Change the key to F# and it might seem harder, but that's only because the player may not be as comfortable in 6 sharps. Conceptually, nothing is different.
With a more complicated tune, you might have to spend some time thinking about the notes that change as the chord changes. After a while, you've pretty much seen and heard it all (at least for standards) and you can stop thinking about it.
All that said, here's another way.
Strum the chords, sing an improvised solo and figure out how to play it. Keep doing that until you get bored with your lines. Then transcribe something a little fancier and learn to sing and play it. Repeat. There are people who play great solos and know zilch about theory. Andres Varady (cover of GP at age 14 or so) is a great soloist and reported that he doesn't know a single scale. He's got great musical imagination, great ears and the ability to find the notes in real time.
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It only goes to show there's no one way, different people do it differently. I know my notes too but it came from reading music and playing lots of stuff. And I learnt reading music from Bert's Play In A Day when I was... can't remember. Very young, anyway. So luckily I learnt both together, this dot = that note (in various places). And I also learnt from a record player.
I think the reason I do so much 'strange' stuff is because I don't want to be locked into tunes too much. Once you get away from that you have to think in terms of mood, sound, image, and so on. I still find it limiting because it is. There are only 12 notes!
But I always rebelled against turning playing guitar into a chore. If I wasn't playing something aesthetic, forget it :-)
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Thanks !
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That's like a very good summary a scales...The idea is for those notes to "light up" on the fretboard when you want the scale.
actually I our Reg's approach how to have it down.. very logical, very elaborated, practical and clear an drelatively fast if you are diligent...
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I am more of a Student than a Pro at this despite playing a long long time , so I am mapping and tying together as much and as SIMPLY as possible. Originally Posted by p4chuss2
I actually play across the same inversions and voicings that I normally PLAY as chords- but not at the same time...
So if my Rhythm Guitar is a Minor 7th Voicing I might superimpose other minor 7th arps over it or even relative major 7th over it and or target the Tones by visualizing and mentally hearing them or even minor voicings as Arps that are a 5th above the actual chord.
Even targeting Barre Chord Tones and noting ( pun intended ) where the 7th and 9th and 5th are etc works great if you play in time.
I AVOID the redundancy of learning separate Arp Formulas since I already learned the Chords
- BUT not saying this is the is the BEST or most THOROUGH way and I am not a qualified Teacher for this - but it works!
Start anywhere - IF you can play a B Minor 7th - and visualize that those Notes and extensions are right there !
Don't separate them - tie them together and use them. The Chords and Inversions start tying together..BUT you don't have to fly all over the neck for good Solos !
Great Solos ? No experience with those yet ..
You don't have to play every note in each chord and if you visualize the first inversion three or four frets up the same set of strings - there's more safe spots to target or connect or just play.
Also remember that Pentatonics major and minor are subsets of Major Scales and Relative minor scales- there are at least 3 Major and 3 Minor Pentatonics for almost any chord AND if you start and end on one of the Chord Tones even going from a Cmaj7th to a Dmin 7th -A7 -Gmaj 7th connecting one or two chord tones as the Target for each chord
and a few notes off the adjacent Pentatonic off each chord...it is actually kind of difficult to play notes that are 'Outside' or 'Wrong'...ESPECIALLY if ' framed by Chord Tones on both ends of the Phrase...
Also adding arpeggiating or Vertical Patterns are more unique and more of a ' fresh resource ' IMO but any visualization helps .Last edited by Robertkoa; 06-04-2017 at 08:31 PM.
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Back when the skies were shining blue I wanted to be able to solo.
So because I had a CAGED tutoring book I spent all summer learning the 5 major scale positions utilising all 6 strings - e.g. G scale is played within the 2nd position only (1st finger on 2nd fret) starting F# finishing on A so that covers 7th through to 9th
I thought of each major scale as a shape e.g. this is the one whose root starts on the lowest bass string and with a left finger (index or long finger) on the scale root. The 5 shapes have a root on one of the 3 bass strings and are left or right 'handed' in my mind (right handed is where the root note is played with the ring or little finger)
Didn't matter that I wasn't thinking "this is a G scale" but only mechanically playing and memorising each shape because I knew where the root notes on the bass strings were from chord work.
Once I had the shape and a root note I could start creating a solo - not really - because I was always starting a solo on that root note, I needed the arpeggios as well.
That took longer than the scales but really started the process proper. I can start on a chord tone, not a bad idea and proceed to another chord tone via the scale tones.
If you think this takes a while - oh yes - but I'm in there now and the fretboard knowledge is growing.
Pleasantly, because I have a major scale, say G, A dorian is the same shape - tie it to an Am arpeggio and I have another weapon; F#mb5 is the same shape - tie it to an arpeggio - off we go.
Still a lot to do - but it's working for me.
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I have another example...
I am playing around with 'Modal Chords' so I just Played one and immediately played a line or lick right from the b6 down to the natural 5th an octave below..
I SHOULD know what Mode I just played ( lol ) and it's probably Aeolian but a few Variations fit no matter what ( even OFF of strict Modal ) because I
'Framed' the line right around the typical Barrè chord
for an A Minor except you raise the 5th on the B string - leaving the natural 5th in the lower Octave.
So that line can be quickly found over other Inversions and Voicings of the Minor b6 Chord and etc. starting with typical Barrè forms.
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I used to wish someone could modify my guitar so that when it "heard" a chord, the corresponding playable notes would light up and become available for me to aim at. These days, if I want the guitar to light up for any note I'd like to play against any chord, all the notes would light up! Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
To the OP, I'm not being a wise guy, just offering a heads up - that ultimately the goal is to know how to use all 12 notes and make it sound like Jazz, starting on any note anywhere on the neck, on any part of the beat against any chord for any tune... Absolutely. If you listen to, transcribe and analyse all the great players on any instrument, this is what you will realise, time and time again. Again and again and again...
So just sayin', learning all the correct notes, scales and patterns for every chord, as hard as it seems, is still not enough! Not if you want to sound like your fave players. Not by a long shot. Sorry, but someone's gotta say it, at the risk of scaring you away . So if you give yourself 10 years to be the player you'd like to be (tough but realistic), then you better make it your goal to learn all the basic stuff quick smart. All the useful chords (Drop2, drop3's for a start) all the scales, all the arps, all the positions and all the keys. Like the back of your hand. Get it all down in the first couple of years. Then learn how to use this knowledge to turn it into Jazz- which, as many failed self taught wannabe Jazz guitarists will attest, is the hard part.
If this sounds like too much work for no short term gratification, that's ok, but find a teacher who can work in some fun elements along the way. Don't trust yourself to do this any more than you'd trust yourself to learn brain surgery! Do it, and remember, it's supposed to be hard, and it is hard for everyone. Yup, everyone.
Good luck.
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There's one unspoken assumption in all of this which has to be addressed - one which myself and others probably made for a long time, the detriment of our own development and waste of personal time: and that's the idea that you have to develop a way for "thinking" about entire scales/patterns, so that you can actually negotiate PLAYING. That's not really the way it works. Actually, the structures of visual patterns/scales/ arpeggios etc. facilitate PRACTICE more than they do PLAYING. You have to have somewhere to start with some basic fretboard geography etc., but that's just the starting point for practicing basic material.
There really should be a constant back-and-forth of using the structure to understand basic layout or fingerings starting points etc., but then it goes back to SIMPLIFYING and working on something more basic, at a level where you can actually hear and comprehend easily. Before you can learn to see/hear EVERYTHING, you have to learn to see/hear ONE thing.
For example, target the root of whatever chord you're playing, by playing a simple line which begins and ends on the root. Transcribe short simple lines from Grant Green or whomever, but keep it simple. Play your line and simple variations until you can hear it and have developed that basic ear/finger connection to the root in that position.
Then, do the same in other positions, understanding that the goal is to be able to hear simple target pitches without thinking so much. Then, later, did the same for the third, fifth, and other chord/scale degrees. Again, this is probably INFORMED by the patterns etc., but the simplest way to learn to hear the WHOLE scale is to learn to hear PART of it. You can't learn to hear and see EVERYTHING until you can hear/see "SOMETHING".
Don't be judgmental or impatient with yourself in the basic process , and understand that it isn't usually linear/ progressive/gradual either. If you keep it simple enough, in a few short days, you find that it just happens: you hear your simple vocabulary and you play it without thinking so much. You don't quite know how it happened, but that at that point, you have a better understanding to the REAL answer to the question in the original post of this thread.
More than that, you have an immediate better understanding of what the process is going to look like going forward, and you don't have to worry about it so much.Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 06-05-2017 at 02:22 PM.
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One other thing: patterns/fingers teach your ears in the same way that your ears eventually find the patterns/fingerings. So, once you begin playing a small bit which is arrived at by "ear", your fingers "figure out" what you're doing and "fill out" the rest of the pattern mentally at the same time. Sometimes the ears inform the fingers, and other times it's the other way around.
Of course, eventually, it's all one thing and instantaneous. I'm looking forward to getting there.Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 06-05-2017 at 02:22 PM.
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Yes, the mysterious and wonderful way the fingers and ears work together, and the way the subconscious eventually coalesces the two until they are inseparably entwined. "Fingears"! Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
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