-
Originally Posted by wzpgsr
-
08-25-2018 11:36 AM
-
Originally Posted by Tal_175
Mark takes a long time showing his METHODOLODY for working on the elements of feel that are being discussed. Nothing helps if we don't just sit down and work with it, all the graphs and stuff are really just trivia. You listen to the band and try and fit, or it can be the metronome as Mark shows expertly. It's all about listening, not about the interpretation of arbitrary language, that just goes round and round in circles, as it must.
The way you play should be constantly fluid and responsive, ie you should never try and be right, good is a much better goal.
If a technical explanation seems logically consistent but after having 'understood' it you are no further forward in refining your practice approach then it is just a piece of trivia. Good for arguing but of little use for playing.
Maybe some of you are wondering if I can swing. Well the answer is that I couldn't give a monkeys, if I feel good when playing then that is good enough for me.
D.
-
Originally Posted by Freel
Eventually I found a trainer who was a very astute observer of how humans and horses got along. We discussed my horse's background (rescue horse, previous abuse, left for dead, etc) as well as my own temperament, why I wanted to learn to relate well to horses, and we started with very simple, very concrete exercises, we actually called them "games" to play with the horse, in the round pen, no saddle, all on the ground. I was astonished to find that after just about 6 or 7 sessions of playing these silly but very specific concrete "games" with my horse he started paying attention to me, I started spotting his signals, we learned each other's language, and that launched me and that horse on a 15+ year journey together that only ended this past summer with him breaking a leg and having to be put down.
What I'm saying is for some, these images and feeling descriptions mean very little, or make us feel like we'll never get it.
I'm glad there are other ways to get there, or I'd have given up a long time ago when a guy looked at me and said, "Stone, you really don't swing, do you?"
-
Originally Posted by wzpgsr
D.
-
Something that always seems to get overshadowed by "when to play each 8th note" in swing feel discussions is "how long to hold each 8th note"? How much space between the notes, regardless of where they start or stop. Some players have an almost staccato feel to their swing. It's not always legato.
-
Originally Posted by joe2758
Given the overlaps it's interesting that they DON'T apply that stuff to swing. I think it's partly the completely incorrect notation that gets described as written out swing. Even from people who actually know how to swing themselves! Mind boggling.
-
Originally Posted by Tal_175
It's advice that works IF the student can feel the swing at the same time and lock in. Otherwise they will sound rhythmically uncoupled. This is the problem Joe had in the OP, if you recall, before we realised he had to lock into the upbeat.
Also, there is a confusion between causes and effects in language about jazz rhythm. For instance people talk about 'behind the beat phrasing' - this is an effect, not a cause. As Jonathan Kreisberg puts it 'people think this music is floating, but actually it's locked in.'
Wynton Marsalis points out the Billie's phrasing is heavily based on 1/4 triplets and this gives the phrasing that sounds 'behind the beat.' If a singer simply sings 'behind the beat' then it just drags and is all over the place rhythmically, we all know that awful carry on.
And so on. Matt normally chimes in at this point.
-
Originally Posted by wzpgsr
-
Originally Posted by wzpgsr
-
Originally Posted by lawson-stone
OK, here you go, a childish game to learn to treat your metronome like a horse. (You are aiming at even notes here, adapt for swing once other things are solved).
1.Set your metronome at 40
2.Count 1e+A,2e+A,3e+A,4e+A
3. Get those A's perfectly in time with the metronome.
4. Lift your foot with A' and drop it when it feels good, that is the downbeat (ie on 1,2,3+4)
5. Take one bar of music that you are working on and play the first thing that happens, quite often a bass note on one for guitar music but really it can be anything.
6. Take the rest of the bar to think about wether or not playing that one thing interrupted your sense of the flow of the rhythm. It will probably take a lot of just playing that one note to notice.
7. Repeat 5+6
8.Repeat 5+6
9. Repeat 5+6 until you stop resenting it and are completely happy to continue
10. Repeat 9.....
11. Grudgingly add the next thing that happens in the bar (maybe it is a chord stab, or the second note of a scale or well anything. Just add that one thing, resist utterly the temptation to pretend that you wanted to play more than that, that is an illusion caused by a lack of control.
12. Keep adding one thing at a time until you notice that the quality is dropping, take a break and then go back to the start either with the same section or with a new one.
-------------
That's it.
I am so glad you shared your description of how gentle and fun learning is when we choose the right entry level. Yehudi Menuhin said something like this 'There comes a time in every musician's life when he needs to start over again from the very beginning and learn anew like a total beginner, that time is every morning.'
People generally learn a whole piece and then proceed to redo their mistakes over and over and over. The internet doesn't help, too much edutainment, people showing off and really not sharing the truth of what practice is.
I chose to share the story about my father because, no matter how difficult a person may find playing the guitar to be, we can all feel it when it is right. If you have the capacity to feel it then you have the capacity to make others feel it too.
When we learn too fast we tend to want to hold onto our bad habits because we did not give ourselves the time needed to think when practicing.
When anyone starts playing their IQ sinks like a stone and with it their ability to learn, that's why it is so important to work on CONTROL first and notes later, the control comes from saying NO to the habit of hacking through.
The above exercise will make EVERY SUBDIVISION UNIQUE, because in putting a piece together like this you learn to RELISH the special and unique character of every part of the bar.
Happy playing.
PS, I do this every day, except for the days when I don't improve.
D.
-
i thought DG default is legato with staccato punctuations, not usally a string of staccato 8ths right?
-
Originally Posted by joe2758
Try it like I just outlined for Lawson. or if you feel confident play the whole section with him.
Notice stuff, try and synch perfectly, be lazy where he/she is, be loud,soft,legato,staccato, wherever they are.
Speed up in 5 percent increments till you start playing rubbish, pick another section.
In no way will talking about minutia of an imaginary idealised perspective of an particular player do the things for your playing that this exercise will.
I really don't know why people are trying to put things in boxes with statistics. Play along with the record, but play smart, that's all anyone ever needed. Dexter played every bar different, so should you.
(for all I know you swing super hard and would shame me on the bandstand, but I am getting a bit frustrated by the fact that click bait videos of limited interest seem to be dictating the direction of this discussion)
D.
-
Originally Posted by Freel
Anyway, I only responded to what Joe said specifically. He said he'd found something which helped him, a concept I felt had helped me, and posted a video which seemed to back up his interpretation of swing eights.
-
Originally Posted by christianm77
I had a class of pupils who I struggled to get to listen to me, one day the classroom teacher put a video on of me playing electric, they were impressed.
I was depressed.
Anyway I guess that's just another story about me, I should be less selfish to stick to other peoples ideas and experiences, even if I don't really get them yet.
D.
-
Originally Posted by Freel
I'm not as dumb as I likely sound, but the beat description was a bit cryptic for me!
Also I'm delighted you didn't take offense at my comment; re-reading it I would not blame you. I'm at a strange point musically. When I started jazz 25-30 years ago, I really hoped to sit in with jam sessions and organize a little band and all that. It hasn't happened, and so now I'm really just trying to learn to play to delight my own sense of accomplishment. I want to play Joe Pass sort of sounding solo guitar and I want to be able to play bebop sounding lines. I'd love to do those improvisational, but I've learned the most from learning things note for note, it seems. At this point I just want to hear music coming out of my amp that does not suck. Doesn't have to be "mine" any more. I still hope to play for others, but in my little community it's just not likely I'll ever have an ensemble or a chance to play much for others, so I want to like my own playing.
Modest goals, but that's it. I doubt I'll ever get to the ideal sounding flow state you describe. Not resisting, just being honest about my future in music. Sucking less is my goal now.
-
Basically I'm talking about four notes per beat played even. Four syllables 1,e,and,a.
Internet is terrible for getting to know people.
It's good that you think you suck, you care and you want more.
Go easy on yourself, and thanks again for the story, I REALLY liked it.
D.
-
Originally Posted by christianm77
Actually I don't hear dexter as staccato at all. He does that thing where he plays dead straight against a swinging rhythm section though, that's just great, and instantly identifiable.
-
[QUOTE=mr. beaumont He does that thing where he plays dead straight against a swinging rhythm section though, that's just great, and instantly identifiable.[/QUOTE]
yeah man that’s pretty much the topic of discussion
-
Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
Re. Dexter he sometimes does that thing where some notes in a line are ‘chopped’ short, presumably a tonguing thing (oo-er!). Maybe that’s what Joe meant.
-
Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
The straight on swing thing is the subject of the thread. Straight is cool - it's where to fit it.
-
Originally Posted by grahambop
-
One should never try to swing.
-
Originally Posted by christianm77
Beyond that, I hear a lot of talk about these things which shows that there's a lot of confusion at much more BASIC levels than is often being discussed. The discussion in this thread for example about "behind" and "ahead" is the real stuff IMO, the way pros talk about it, but very often, we hobbyists are using these SAME TERMS to describe actual rhythms, like triplets.
"Listen to so and so on this, laying WAYYYY back behind the beat". [Plays the video, and it's a quarter note triplet]. How frustrating is that? We're talking about 2 completely different things and using the same terms.
-
Originally Posted by christianm77
Bobby Broom is a player where I think there’s a very clear distinction between his legato eighths and his more staccato eighths. I just put some of his music on as I was writing this and there’s so much variation in swing feel in just one line, it’s really excellent. It sounds to me like he’s moving in and out of being ahead of the beat, behind the beat, staccato, legato, strong accents etc. All of this combines to make a really dynamic swing feel.
-
Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
Anyway I'm not playing at Smalls every week. There's pro and there's pro.
Everything I say on this subject, I got from musicians I respect. I can give you links if you like.
"Listen to so and so on this, laying WAYYYY back behind the beat". [Plays the video, and it's a quarter note triplet]. How frustrating is that? We're talking about 2 completely different things and using the same terms.
I suggest checking out Do The Math regularly. Learned more from there than anywhere else online.
Used Ibanez AF 207 7-string archtop
Today, 06:50 AM in For Sale