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I'm working on jazz blues and picked up some bebop licks. I practised them over and over, played with the rhythm, changed little inflections here and there, tried to get it inside me. Yet, every time I play through a blues and insert the line, well it sounds okay but feels wrong, false, contrived.
So, it's that awkward and difficult line to walk, between learning the language and giving an honest expression of how you feel at any given moment. I can see what Charlie Parker meant when he said something along the lines of learn all that stuff, then forget it. At the moment, though, it can feel like I'm acting the part rather than being the part. Every lick and cliche I learn, the more I feel I'm getting away from myself. But to work out a complete new language yourself is something only a few geniuses manage.
When I listen to someone like Eddie Diehl, I know I'm hearing lots of bebop lines, superlatively rendered by someone who has mastered the art and gone on from there. I'm not hearing licks and cliches, or at least I'm not aware of them, yet he can sound like Parker on the guitar. I guess the answer is to live the life for decades. Too late. I don't think playing licks will ever feel natural to me.
Anyone else feel this way? Anyone else feel decidedly the opposite?
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07-11-2017 02:16 PM
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Rob, I'm really glad you feel this way. I'd never say I could live on a diet of strict Dowland, though I can listen to it and enjoy it.
Improvised guitar has been around for a whole lot less time than tonal harmony and polyphonic music in the western tradition, but how is it that inside of a lifetime (Roy Haynes was at the start, still there now) some have come to believe that that lexicon of that era must be the adhered to canon of today?
When I'm in NY, that set of sounds makes a lot of sense. Still, it's an affinity that's rooted in the mutual rhythms of NY and bebop. I don't play it that way but it makes sense. Bebop is a rhythmic accent and studying it from a lexicon of rhythmic embellishments is how I find kinship. What's your connexion with the music? Where's the compulsion to play that way? Remember, Parker is someone EVERYONE says you should know, but why not Elmo Hope? Why not Monk? Why not Lee Konitz? Why not Frankie Trumbauer or Lester Young? All those people took a more basic note set and applied their own relevance to it, and often it was rhythmically based.
If it doesn't fit, don't wear it. Jazz really is about learning how to sew your own wardrobe, despite all the talk that you're not hip unless you buy into the Parker/Pass/Wes line of clothing.
Make your own. It's the real jazz membership. Why not?
David
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I think it's a matter of taking time for things to internalize and emerge with your spin on it. I went through a long phase where I consciously practiced blues clichés, mostly through transcription. For a while using them sounded forced, but the exercise taught me the critical lesson that the "grease" you get from using blues ideas in jazz is almost entirely due to issues of articulation, swing, and subtle messing with time, and almost unconcerned with note choice (which is basically minor pentatonic with the b5 and the occasional passing tone). In particular, it's one of those things no book can teach you, you can only start to hear it by listening to those who do it well (e.g. in Jazz, Green, Burell, Wes, Benson, Peter Bernstein). In my experience, looping a single Grant Green blues lick and playing it a hundred times until I can play it reasonably accurately is much more valuable than learning say 20 blues licks but only thinking of them as "quantized" to a series of 8th notes (eg learning them from a book).
The contrast with bebop guitar (to me at least) is that many of our guitar bebop heroes are great at weaving long, sinuous lines that melt through the changes like butter, but frequently this is done mostly through rhythmically simple steady 8th notes with the occasional triplet and rest. Good blues lines (like Parker's, or Cannonball's) never do that: they depend on what Cannonball called the "wide beat", i.e. the ability to place notes deliberately and accurately in different places around the beat. To me that is the payoff of focusing on blues clichés: they get you to "de quantize"
Also: FWIW, in my experience non-guitarists, and audiences, tend respond better to a decent blues playing than to a great control of bebop lines. As much as I love correct long bebop lines they are a bit nerdy compared to the earthiness of blues ideas. So having blues cliches in your bag will increase the calls you get for gigs!
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A couple of thoughts ...
Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
Classic advice is to listen and copy lines with all the nuances intact. Then, over time, you create your own style.
And, a lot of great players did that.
But, like everything in jazz, there's always a great player who did it another way. Not everybody transcribes that much, including teachers who recommend it to others. (Metronome practice is another thing in this category -- I know teachers - great players - who recommend it, but never did it much themselves).
My experience is that some sounds stick in my ears much better than others. So, there are sounds I can make my own and sounds I can't, no matter how much I practice.
I think I'd probably be a better musician if all sounds stuck and I could freely choose among them, but I've been at it long enough to accept that that's not going to happen.
OTOH, I think it's possible, maybe even necessary for most players, to forge an individual style based on both what you can do and what you can't do.
It sounds like the OP has an individual style that's ready to emerge. He knows what is him and what is somebody else. So, one idea would be to spend part of one's practice time focusing on playing through tunes using the stuff that comes naturally and feels most like yourself.
And to spiral out of control here a bit .... I think that it's possible to sit down in the practice room, with your full rig on, and decide that you're going to work on an individual style. I think it starts with your tone. What you want it to sound like. It continues through your gear, i.e., whether the gear you're using allows you to create the sounds in your head, optimally. Then, when your tone/gear allow you to express what's in your mind, you can start playing tunes and try to express your own feelings through your playing. Basically, you sing lines out loud (or silently in your head) and try to play them.
More personally, after playing about 50 years without ever having done this, I sat down to do it about 2 years ago. I changed guitars (to the Yamaha cheapie, because of the slender neck), set up 4 patches in the pedalboard, one of which became my solo tone; and accepted what I thought was a good solo, even though my conception is pretty much at odds with what I think of as classic jazz guitar pedagogy. I've been getting called for gigs more since I did that. I'll never be a great player, but I really do think this is helpful, which is why I wrote this.
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I pretty much felt the same way when I was learning my first Hendrix or Clapton licks. I don't know that it's altogether that different. Sure, the bebop language is more complex. It's faster. But I'm finding it's the same phenomenon, really. I am very much pushing myself thru the same thing. The only thing I have going for me is a little bit of wisdom from my own experience, but, at 3 years now in to the jazz genre I still feel like quite the beginner. That's humbling for sure. Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
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All good thoughtful responses. Appreciated.
David asks what my compulsion is to play this music. That goes back to my childhood when my sax-playing father would put on records by Tubby Hayes (the British Charlie Parker) and Lester Young. My dad was not a great player, but played some gigs in bars. So, I had the sound in my head early on. But my father moved on, the music stopped, and eventually I started playing guitar. I've had a long and varied journey since then, but have never played bebop, although I have certainly played blues outwith a jazz context. It was hearing Eddie Diehl the other week that got me digging that music again. Those long sinuous lines are beautiful, but they feel almost alien, though clearly they resonate within me somehow.
So, I'm digging up memories of my childhood, but sense that too much water has flowed under that long bridge for me to make that connection musically. I'm not frustrated at all, and am generally happy with what I'm doing musically. It's the process of learning the language which is making me feel quite distant from it. Lots of listening and playing lie ahead, which is not an awful thing at all. I'll enjoy the journey, all the while knowing I might not get to the destination.
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One more thought on this. Many jazz musicians, myself included, can hide behind the mechanics of playing correctly over changes and rarely confront (or expose ourselves in gig situations) the many expressive aspects of the music. I think Jordan once said on this forum that Bernstein told him "a computer can play the right notes". There are enough jazz guitar nerds impressed by playing correct bebop that you can get validation without necessarily thinking about artistry. Perhaps hence the ill-at-ease-feeling Rob gets in forcing blues cliches: it can feel like a weak-assed cultural appropriation when you first dabble.
Last edited by pkirk; 07-12-2017 at 11:02 PM. Reason: brevity
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Another good post there, pkirk. "Weak-assed cultural appropriation" rings a bell!
I did some free improv many years ago, and enjoyed doing it. Might try it again.
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All I basically ever did was learn some ideas (not that many, really) mainly from Bird, Wes, Dexter Gordon, Chet Baker and Joe Pass. Then I just kept messing about with them and gradually out of that I found I was coming up with some ideas of my own. But it was a slow process for me, it took years. Sometimes you just change a couple of notes 'on the fly' and a new idea is born.
To be honest, that is largely what I am still doing, i.e. messing about with my possibly quite limited stock of ideas, and every now and then adding one or two new twists.
I sometimes feel I'm repeating myself a bit, but hey it's fun, so I keep doing it!
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If I had your skills, Rob, I'd write, edit and redraft. Just a suggestion.
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I think at some point you have to go beyond imitating what you hear. Transcription with the aim of acquiring 'language' is IMO an adolescent activity - an important phase to go through, but you grow out of it (transcription for purposes of ear training or study remains important.)
To me it all comes from the rhythm. The rhythm sculpts the flow and shape of your line and you choose you notes in order to facilitate the rhythmic phrase. The notes are essentially filler, with chord tones falling on the important accents.
Problem is you have to really know a tune inside out - arpeggios, scales, connections etc - to be able to do this fluently.
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The blues has definitely been the biggest inspiration for my re-assaying jazz playing. The rhythmic content of blues often does have a bit of swing in it, but the harmonic and melodic concepts can often be stultifying. It was listening to and playing along with some of the jazzier blues (T-Bone comes to mind immediately) that pushed me back into things like how to play through a b5 substitution and so on. Working up my own, bluesier version of "All Blues" was a decent start -- a swinging and yet slow blues loaded with chords you don't often see after 548 covers of "Three Hundred Pounds of Joy" or whatever.
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I think the value in transcribing is not in learning "licks" or cliches but in learning solos as narratives with structure and choices made with a musical purpose in mind. Composing an engaging solo seems very different than simply playing over/to the changes or finding something that fits and I think requires focusing on a different frame of reference/larger arc from the very beginning of the piece.
I'm in a heavy blues phase so have gone back to some early inspirations for lessons.
Miles Davis brought in Wynton Kelly to play on Freddie Freeloader for a reason. It is great to transcribe his solo and then Miles solo and explore the differences and the overlaps. And then there is Coltrane's solo
) Like wise I have been transcribing Scofield's live approach to All Blues and comparing it to Wayne Shorter's. Lots to learn from both by way of two very different voices with very different stories to tell within the same musical context. Transcribe Burrell and then Turrentine on the same tune!
just a thought
Will
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If you grew up playing rock and blues, then you were basically playing the same song/scale for many, many years.
Really just the same small area over and over again.
You probably would not learn jazz that way because you think it's a deep subject and you must study every aspect and do lots of scales and exercises.
I don't know the answer but what works for me is playing over the same set of changes until it feels as easy as my old rock pentatonic ramblings.
I guess what I'm saying is that I have to internalize it. There can be no thinking involved.
If you are going to learn licks then you need to know them just as well as you know an old rock lick. Otherwise, they just disappear over time.
They have to become what you play naturally.
THEN you start to mess with them.
The learning is easy. The playing is the difficult part.
That's why a lot of people drift toward constantly learning and theorizing. They are always preparing but never really playing.
I think it's best, for me anyway, to just play some simple tunes and get really good at them.
Then I learn licks and use them in those simple songs. Then I make up my own stuff.......but it came from those licks.
Just keep doing that over and over.
Rhythm Changes is great for that.
Mr Parker plays lots of licks.....over and over.......and Cannonball is the lick master! Don't forget Mr Benson......lick city!
That thing that you play when you're doodling.........that's the lick that you have internalized!
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Not sure if this is the right thread, but ....
I d/l Chico Pinheiro solo transcription on Cafe Com Pao from a link somebody was kind enough to post earlier.
For a significant portion it's two bars of Bb7#11 and two bars of C69.
Looking over Chico's solo, he is basically playing Fmelmin to Clyd, which are obvious choices over these chords.
What makes his solo great then? It's melody and structure. For example, at one point he descends a Bb7 arp and ascends a C7 arp then descends a Dm7b5 and ascends an Em7 (bar 7) (apparently, he knows his melmin harmony -- and that B really anticipates the chord change to C69). Nice, and accompanied by equally nice, and different, stuff in every other bar.
It's helpful to know that you can get that from Fmelmin and Clyd (or even Cmaj in those particular bars). But, it doesn't get you where you need to be. There is simply a world of difference between playing the right notes and playing a great solo. So you do all that foundational work, and then you need to figure out how you're going to make it sound like great jazz in an individual style. Transcription is the classic way to get there.
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On choice progressions, and just to get into the swing - not 'forever' (which would be absurd). Originally Posted by destinytot
I find syncopation that sounds contrived to be the greatest impediment to pleasurable listening. Elegance and flow, on the other hand...Last edited by destinytot; 07-12-2017 at 01:15 AM.
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Re. transcription, two points...
Firstly, in my opinion, one is only recording one's perceptions (for better or worse).
Secondly, I feel that much depends on the level of analysis: if the complexity of the object of analysis/study is beyond one's chops, the value of transcription is questionable, at best.
I prefer by ear (with a keyboard for reference); super-slow, a couple of bars at a time, and always with reverence - by candlelight (like medieval monks...
) - until it flows. Then play it at "tempo de learno" (trumpeter Bobby Shew's phrase for "no faster than you can play it correctly.")
Last edited by destinytot; 07-12-2017 at 05:14 AM. Reason: spelling
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Interesting to read everyone's take on absorbing the language. Thanks for the comments.
Its interesting going from listening to Parker and Gillespie, to listening to Jim Hall and Julian Lage. The former pair created the language of bebop, while the latter pair have thoroughly absorbed that language, as well as many other languages and dialects, ending up with something that is entirely their own. That's where I'd like to be, but the journey is a long one. So, I'm not trying to imitate a style, but feel that learning licks and cliches is a form of imitation, leading to friends and family thinking you are playing jazz, which in some way you are, but in many ways you are not.
Oh, I don't know where I'm going with this, so let's all get back to playing guitar
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Early Nat 'King' Cole recordings - his lines pioneered much bop language. Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
Interesting to read everyone's take on absorbing the language. Thanks for the comments.
Its interesting going from listening to Parker and Gillespie, to listening to Jim Hall and Julian Lage. The former pair created the language of bebop, while the latter pair have thoroughly absorbed that language, as well as many other languages and dialects, ending up with something that is entirely their own. That's where I'd like to be, but the journey is a long one. So, I'm not trying to imitate a style, but feel that learning licks and cliches is a form of imitation, leading to friends and family thinking you are playing jazz, which in some way you are, but in many ways you are not.
Oh, I don't know where I'm going with this, so let's all get back to playing guitar
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For a long time that's how I felt too, like I was just regurgitating someone else's ideas and not inventing my own. But you just have to stick doggedly at it. Eventually those ideas become so internalised that you start changing them without really thinking about it. At least that's how it was for me. But if you give up, you've had it. After all, I think it's likely this is how most of the greats started out too, e.g. Wes learned a bunch of Charlie Christian solos, Parker took a job at a vacation camp and spent every day in his room copying Lester Young solos until he wore the records out. And of course they must have carried on assimilating things from other musicians on the bandstand. Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
Another thing I found, was that sometimes when I copied an idea, I would change it for some reason. This might be because the original was just too difficult for me to play (especially some Parker phrases which were too tricky on the guitar). Or maybe I just preferred it a slightly different way. So I think the process of 'morphing' those ideas into one's own can start straightaway, even at the point of lifting them off the record.
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I take playing licks or cliches as an excersise... as well as playing arps Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
I tried to use it in actual playing but it always had negative effect. It breaks the integrity of solo for me... I think it depends on personal mentality.
Actually it concerns even licks that I wrote myself - I cant just insert them because it fits the changes...
So I just do not use it conciously when playing...
For me every time I begin playing is like starting over again... I like the feeling of being at the edge of an unknown, I like to find out what will come up now...
I use more or less conceptions sometimes conciously - like trying to play some motivis sequences, or using some colour of extension etc. it's more general thing than just playing a lick
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Some stuffs I do:
1. Sing solos along with the recordings.
2. Transcribing phrases to work on technique
3. Reading through transcriptions
(usually slowed down or one chorus at a time looped in Transcribe depending on the difficulty)
An interesting idea that Steve Coleman talked about when he is developing new concepts:
Record yourself improvising slow. Speed up the recording and transcribe yourself (the parts that you like).
One other thought:
Play and interact with musicians of as greater skill as they are willing to have you.
This is like the model of babies learning to speak through constant language jamming
with adults who possess far superior talking skills.
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I've felt when having to do a 16 bar solo for rock thing or the damn Giant Steps, the licks absolutely have their place. But if in a "story" mode, everything gets slower and when a cliche happens, it's pretty annoying.
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I believe I understand what you mean... in some cases it may work to help us out..I've felt when having to do a 16 bar solo for rock thing or the damn Giant Steps, the licks absolutely have their place. But if in a "story" mode, everything gets slower and when a cliche happens, it's pretty annoying.
But it's not quite musical context... I mean that's what we probably should try to avoid.
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I think that you can become a successful improvisor within a few years - not a lifetime - given that you are already a very experienced musician.
I think that concentrating on a primary style with perhaps one other one is important. (post-bop plus some Latin, for example).
There's lots of good advice here so I'll try not to repeat too much, but yes, transcribe and PLAY solos, play them slowly then take them up to speed. Be choosy about what you spend time on. (You're favorite 3-5 players might not be a bad idea). Listen to everything to the point that music is always playing in your head. Build and maintain basic technique (scales, chords, arpeggios, intervals), play jazz patterns, and yes the cliches and licks. Practice exercises (voice led arpeggios, neighbors, enclosures etc) on common progressions (modal vamps, blues, rhythm changes, Coltrane changes etc) in at least 4 keys in different regions of the fretboard. Do the same thing - but with improv, no matter how painful. Learn lots of tunes (head and comp). 25-50 tunes.
I'll add one more thing - "compose", play and record your own solos and then assess what you are doing. What do you like to play? Why do you play that? Where does it come from? Is it logical? Is it musically effective? Is it at least somewhat unique or individual? Does your teacher or do your pals think it sounds good? (assuming that they have an ear for jazz). And then, can you generate it extemporaneously? Repetition is key on that last part just as it is with transcribed solos or written pieces.
It's a slog, but there is a path. My two cents.
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