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okay, so MY TEACHER TOLD ME THAT IN HIS DAY HE DIDN'T HAVE STUFF LIKE biab, and consequently he had to "hear" changes. I don't have biab, and I've tried making rhythm tapes, but my recording device is terrible. With that said, how do you guys work out lines over tunes without something like BIAB? For example:I'm currently revisiting "yesterdays" by Kerns, and I've got the first few bars in my head, however when it cycles through, it's really hard to hear in my head when I should change keys, ect, b/c it's hard to hear the changes. I'd have to listen to a recording, but it's difficult, b/c i end up spending too much times listening to the other player's lines. Also with a tune like that that cycles (E7-A7-D7-G7-C7-F7-Bb7-Em7b5-A7) I know all the scales, tones and arpeggios I can use, but how would I approach it tastefully? should I start by addressing my own alterations, substitutions? I don't wanna go use the Charlie Christian method of treating each chord specifically, nor do I wanna go transcribe Bird or see how Wes did this, I wanna start tastefully, in my own way
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One must learn to hear Progressions, not chords imo. While Chords on their own are skills to master aurally in a tune like Yesterdays you are dealing with a tune that has a very strong progression from the D minor section, then the Section that has the descending bass then to the cycling Dominant chords.
All I can say is from my own experience. I never used BIAB only when I was uber noob. I do not like Aebersold recordings although they have alternate uses, especially for extremely difficult progressions at first. What it takes to be able to hear changes is a wider aural recongition of things, and to become familiar with the Harmonic vocabular of Jazz.
Step one really is to hear root movement clearly. To know it's going to be a ii V I progression just by the bassists line is something that I think can't be under stressed. But to also know that in a typical situation of playing Standard tunes with functional harmony, the changes can often be rather predictable. I hear the changes to Yesterdays in my head as I type this reply out because
A - I know that tune pretty well
B - The Tune has easy changes with a melody that is singable thus helps me relate to the movement undernieth
C - I have in my mind's ear versions of this tune in my playlists that I really dig, thusly I connect to it easier then if I was to perhaps sight reading it from a leadsheet.
People with BIAB still need to hear changes. This is why I don't perscribe that as a valid tool to students (although they go and use it anyway which isn't any sort of big deal or nothing, one must use the tools he or she finds helpful). There's a great book called "Hearing the Changes" which I would recommend finding by Jerry Coker, which I am sure Aebersold sells on his website. It's pretty helpful in order to organize how to approach this issue.
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Another great post Jake!!!
I think my playing really progressed when I realized that each progression had a destination and I started to really listen to where it was aiming. It made me start to try and anticipate a resolution point further and further down stream. I began to hear progressions instead of chords and my improvised lines started to sound more coherent.
I believe that the skill of hearing a progression and its various resolution points greatly enhances the ability to create better improvised lines because they too must have a resolution point down stream, or they can be used to delay the resolution. This is why I dropped the chord / scale approach in favor of using a tonal-centre approach, which is more about progressions than individual chords.
With this in mind, I started to really appreciate well crafted progressions and melodies from the Real Books.
I think the problem with BIAB is that after a while it becomes too predictable and the mind disengages from really listening. I don't know what the alternative is other than play with other musicians.
Personally, I like to use just the bass line (which usually sticks around root movement) and try to comp my own rhythm track. Then I record the head over these tracks and try some improv. After that I replace the comping with something new. I alternate between replacing each track to try and simulate playing with a living person. Eventually I drop the bass line track. Its a great way to explore a tune and internalize the progressions using BAIB but this same process can be used by creating your own Freddie Green type back-track as a starting point.
Last edited by Jazzaluk; 09-13-2009 at 01:52 PM.
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Once again Jake, thanks for your advice. I've always been frustrated with the fact that I can breeze through a tune like All the Things, Satin Doll or Green Dolphin St, for at least an hour's worth of choruses, yet with a tune like Days of Wine (a tune I have known in and out for at least five years) I have always struggled with knowing where certain changes except the obvious key change from g- to Bb- are. I know in tunes like All the Things are easy, because the melody is for the most part the thirds of the chords. Yet with a tune like How High the Moon, the last turn of am7b5-D7-G-am-D7-bm-E7-am-D7 or even the moevement to Misty during the bridge of am-D7 to cm-F7 have been hell for me, even with a good bassist and comper playing at 40 bpm.
Are you suggesting I internalize tunes?
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+1 on the great advice here... BIAB is a really fun tool, but in my opinion it can students really lazy. The best way I find to practise hearing the changes is to practise with a metronome alternating a chorus of comping and single line soloing. It can be tricky at first, but being totally independent helps you hear the changes and stops the embarresment of getting lost in a tune.
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Best way to Internalize Tunes is to not learn them from sheet music and instead learn them from recordings.
Sounds simple, but hey, people are lazy and would much rather read it out of books. Next standard you learn go transcribe it, write it out after you figure out the changes. That way you're trusting your ears and your experience learning it rather then a mental image of letters and notes on paper.
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When I use BIAB, I just use it to play the progession. I don't look at the chords changing. After it's loaded, I just generally let it play and then listen for the changes. A lot of times I will plug in a song into BIAB and then just sit back and listen to it play several times before trying to play over it, sort of hearing a solo in my head. If folks are just using BIAB like a chord chart, then I would agree that's a dangerous road to go down.
I prefer to record myself doing the rhythm work, then play over that if I'm being serious about learning something, or working on an original thing. But BIAB rules for just working out solo ideas and experimenting. I can make alterations/subs and add or subtract things so easily, it really keeps me moving along the learning curve. I can just loop parts of the progression and really woodshed on them, then do the whole song. Those practice files they have where they run a progression through continuously changing keys is extremely useful for improv practice. I would never have the patience to record myself comping something through 12 keys - but I am not a pro, though, so I can indulge myself in laziness like that.
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Very interesting thread! I've found that I've got to use both the auditory mode to get the sound in my head and work with the visual (i.e. sheet music) in order to relate the sound to the symbol. I find combining those two sensory approaches reinforces the tactile experience of playing it.
That said, it may also be because although I can read I'm not fluent enough for a relatively unfamiliar song to sound "right" simply playing it from the music.
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Singing the root progression, singing the 2 critical guide tone lines has been greatly helpful to me in internalizing progressions. Sing 'em til they're part of you. They also provide excellent material for playing lines through the changes.
To drum it in I'll play 1, say a guide tone line while singing the root prog etc. Then switch it round, do all comb's. Mix n match.
You'll start to hear stuff.
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I thought of this way of using BIAB to test/practice Hearing the Changes in your head.
Put in your chord progression and mute everything except the drums. Improvise single lines along with just the drums while imagining the changes - without looking, play a couple of choruses and then sneak a peak to see if you're still in synch with the BIAB changes being displayed.
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you just have to know the song really well. you can hear the changes on a blues or a 2-chord groove right? same exact thing, if you'd heard yesterdays 1000 times in your life you would have no problem hearing the changes. you have to listen to jazz. Not a digital representation of what a "jazzesque" rythm section is supposed to sound like.
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Exactly, Timscarey, I think that is right on. For example, I have been working a great deal on rhythm changes lately with Aebersold, transcribing, etc. Now, I have gotten to the point where I can hear those changes (of course I don't always hear the different substitutions yet) every time it is played. There is nothing to transcribe. I just KNOW the chords. Same with blues, All the things and a few other tunes. So, it really seems like you those tunes you mentioned above (yesterdays, etc) are just not really internalized deeply enough yet. Most tunes are like that for me. I am familiar, but I don't really KNOW them. The latter requires many, many listenings, playing along (without looking at charts), etc..
The real problem may be that there are SO MANY TUNES that you feel overwhelmed and you just need to be able to sort of manage through them as best you can. But, then, when you try to play them on your own without accompaniment or even with accompaniment but without charts, you get lost easily. This happens to me all the time. This is just a question of being overwhelmed I think.
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So my advice would be: take that specific tune Yesterdays and just work it to death in every sense. Listen to every version you can, play along with them, transcribe Wes' solo or some lines, etc.. Eventually you WILL know it.
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hi , i think that if you dont hear changes, well, its just a matter of sit and train your ear, practice with your piano, sing invervals, sing bass roots changes, and learn the song, learnin it is to be able to sing the melody, to play it, and to remember the changes, all in 12 tonalties. take as it was said, days of wine, and learn the melody, read it or take it from a record, if you take it from a song, write it ! and then again, the same with the progression, think in chords in a functional way, DAYS OF WINE Imaj , bVII 7 , etc and then try to play it in different tonalities. its hard work, but the benefits are inifinite. and sing the melody, sing it while you play the changes, sing it as you can sing a beatles song, or anything, to practice your improvisation, you can use biab, or aebersold, but not all the time, you must improvise, as it was said up here, alone, independent, play 4 bars of comping, 4 bars of solo, or 2 and 2, or 8 , or 1, as you wish. also , guitar players tend to separate this two things, comping, and solo , yes, they are veery different things, but technically in guitar are the same, use chords to improvise, and use lines to comp. play with your metronome, and play with your feet. and play and play and play.and transcribing solos and everything, is really important. u will never play nothing interesting if you re not aware of what came before you. i think that you will be interested in that kind of things when you realize how important this things are. if u continuee playing , you ll find a point that youll have to trasncribe, and analize, and all that stuff, for two reasons, because you will need it to get to the next level, and because its part of a daily musicians rutine and you will end lovin it !
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A friend of mine who is a really world class jazz harmonica player, new album out now, suggested a way of practicing to me after a local school fundraiser we played together at ( well he really played, I kind of got away with it just). It's no substitute for the discipline of the methods suggested above, and it's not exactly cheap, but it does get results:
get a drum machine and a tiny mixer off ebay or wherever as cheap as possible, and a roland rc20 or other loop pedal. Put your drum machine and guitar through the mixer into loop pedal, and play one chorus, or phrase or whatever, then improvise over the top.
The big advantage with this set up over biab, which I've had for a few years now, is that
a. You have to remember the progression while you play, there's no screen as a crib sheet
b. You choose the voicings
c. you hear it warts and all, including whether you time the whole loop accurately. There's nowhere and nothing to hide behind.
d. It can be switched on at the click of one switch if you run everything from one plug block.
e. No email, www or forum distractions while you play.
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[quote=black.bird;49686]A friend of mine who is a really world class jazz harmonica player, new album out now, suggested a way of practicing to me after a local school fundraiser we played together at ( well he really played, I kind of got away with it just). It's no substitute for the discipline of the methods suggested above, and it's not exactly cheap, but it does get results:
get a drum machine and a tiny mixer off ebay or wherever as cheap as possible, and a roland rc20 or other loop pedal. Put your drum machine and guitar through the mixer into loop pedal, and play one chorus, or phrase or whatever, then improvise over the top.
The big advantage with this set up over biab, which I've had for a few years now, is that
Might as well go ahead and record yourself just playing the changes, like the ancient times, in that case. I used to do that and don't find any advantages in it. All you have to do with something like BIAB or Aebersold is look away from the changes. What's the big deal?
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Of course, there are advantages and disadvantages. All in all, I like the new toys though.
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As you point out, it's not so very different from any of the other methods, the differences are subtle, but for me significant. I certainly find myself learning, and remembering the sequence quicker this way.
I tried it because I was not getting what I wanted out of biab. I hasten to add that is my problem, not biab, it's a great tool. So I borrowed my friend's kit while he was on holiday, and loved it. Everyone needs to find what suits them.
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