The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
Reply to Thread Bookmark Thread
Page 2 of 7 FirstFirst 1234 ... LastLast
Posts 26 to 50 of 159
  1. #26

    User Info Menu

    Regarding memory... For a long time, decades actually, I've thought a good memory was an important asset for musicians. So, I've often paid attention to the correlation and it has held true that the best musicians I have known have really good memories, musical memories.

    You can't play a tune by ear if you can't remember how it goes. I have a friend, perhaps the best musician I know, that I've asked to sing some random song... like Beethovin's 5th (which I did ask once). He'll sing it with surprising accuracy going on and on into the B section etc. And he's into jazz not classical. This is not about finding it on an instrument (which he can), it's just about remembering it in your head. That kind of memory is something that is hard for me to fathom, kind of like someone born blind trying to understand what being able to see is like.

    My memory, not so good.

  2.  

    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by fep
    Regarding memory... For a long time, decades actually, I've thought a good memory was an important asset for musicians. So, I've often paid attention to the correlation and it has held true that the best musicians I have known have really good memories, musical memories.

    You can't play a tune by ear if you can't remember how it goes. I have a friend, perhaps the best musician I know, that I've asked to sing some random song... like Beethovin's 5th (which I did ask once). He'll sing it with surprising accuracy going on and on into the B section etc. And he's into jazz not classical. This is not about finding it on an instrument (which he can), it's just about remembering it in your head. That kind of memory is something that is hard for me to fathom, kind of like someone born blind trying to understand what being able to see is like.

    My memory, not so good.
    So, do you feel one can still be a good jazz player (or improvisor) with a below average memory? (general, or musical memory - or are they somehow different?)

  4. #28

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by princeplanet
    Which line do you mean here?
    Really... never upstage the soloist

  5. #29

    User Info Menu

    Yea... photographic memory, perfect pitch, There seem to be some of those players.... years ago in one ensemble... both the pianist/ violin and the sax player both had perfect pitch. I don't... but when you play all the time, you develop relative pitch... I remember tunes in different keys...and can mechanically name and hear notated pitches... or transcribe on paper.

    But for most... you can really help your ability to remember tunes by understanding Form and common harmonic motion, and then become aware of the few small changes for different tunes. Yea... I know most want to memorize the melody and then put together the pieces around that melody. I guess if you were a single line player etc... sure. But generally we as guitar players... aren't. We play harmony, at least most of the time. Anyway that's the point of memorization by Form... it covers all aspects of the tune. And if you can't remember everything... at least you can be in the right place.

  6. #30

    User Info Menu

    Regarding my previous post #27... I guess I'm referring to memory and recall. I hear my friend sing a melody and I'm amazed it how accurately he remembers/recalls it. I guess I must be remembering Beethoven's 5th also as I can recognize how accurately he is singing. So perhaps my issue is not memory but recall.

  7. #31

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by princeplanet
    I'm quite sure there are many confirmed cases of head trauma leading to special "gifts" regarding sudden increased capacities in memory, creativity, or both if you're lucky!
    Thanks! I didn't know that. My memory was near-eidetic already (it sounds like I'm heaping up the oddities, but it's true), so maybe the 2 work better together now? I'm very happy with this part of the side-effects, anyway. (removed original comment, because embarrassed)

  8. #32

    User Info Menu

    I’m sure genes can enter into it as well as environment. But for the average person who hasn’t any exceptional genetic gifts or upbringing, I suspect what makes some stand out as improvisors has more to to with how deeply they have engaged with music, both listening and making it, especially when young.

  9. #33

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Reg
    Yea... photographic memory, perfect pitch, There seem to be some of those players.... years ago in one ensemble... both the pianist/ violin and the sax player both had perfect pitch.
    I used to think that having perfect pitch was a huge asset, but as my relative pitch has improved a lot over the years, I think it's less and less important. There are a bunch of musicians who were good quite young that do have absolute pitch (Mehldau, Chris Potter), but there's also tons of top level players that don't have perfect pitch. Geoff Keezer was super good as a very young person and doesn't have absolute pitch.

    Everyone I know that has perfect pitch has always said to me that they felt relative pitch is a lot more important. I definitely agree. You can hear most of what you need to as a jazz musician just by having good relative pitch and enough understanding of the language to hear the changes to most standards.

  10. #34

    User Info Menu

    There is something about musical memory, however, that is required of great improvisers. It is that they can remember the song. They can remember the harmonic relationships and movement, the melody and always know where they are in the song while soloing. They don't need a chart in front of them.

    When I go out to hear live jazz, one of the things that I notice is that at least half the band has the chart for the song in front of them. If they need the chart, they don't know the song. Usually I am one of them. But relatively few people seem to be able to know 500 songs and be able to play them at a moments notice. Hmmm, no pun intended there. The people who are great jazz musicians can do that.


    I am not a great jazz musician. After 40 years of studying this music, I have a couple dozen jazz songs memorized that I can play at the drop of a hat. I have tried various things that some great jazz musicians say to do in order to be able to remember the songs. They don't work. I don't have that kind of memory, as far as I can tell, or at least have not been able to access it if I do. There are multiple memory systems in our brains; memory is not a monolithic process. It may very well be, as the OP noted, that some people are simply biologically equipped for this; it's also quite likely that people with that ability will not understand people who don't have that- because it seems so natural, like breathing. And sometimes those people will denigrate musicians who can't memorize that many songs and play them in any key at any moment at any tempo in any kind of feel.

  11. #35
    OK, so there's remembering tunes, that's one aspect of musical memory, sure. But I'm more interested in this thread to hear about the ability to remember chops, mainly single note chops let's say. If you added up all the lines, licks, devices, tricks etc you ever committed to memory at some point (if only for a brief time), what percentage would you say you've forgotten? I know, it's hard to know what you've forgotten, but I'm guessing that the average player forgets a lot, maybe up to 90%.

    But imagine how more advanced you'd be if you managed to keep 50% of everything at call, right under those fingers at any time - hear it clearly and execute upon demand. How about 75% ? You'd be a monster, right? You'd rely less on creativity, maybe, and and more on recall, "creative" recall maybe... So how many great players, I wonder, simply have strong musical memory in this sense, as opposed to being strong at actually improvising fresh lines most of the time? Can one be so good at recalling that even their band mates don't know? Parker once said "I can play all I know in only 8 bars", but Owens showed he actually had a few hundred motifs he frequently pulled from. After decades of analysis, we face the fact that we can never understand his methodology, so what chance did his band mates have, or his audience for that matter? Is great improv at that level sometimes a high level, calculated game of "mix 'n match"?

    Those of us with only an average memory need not apply... ?

  12. #36

    User Info Menu

    I have never consciously committed "licks" to memory. I would probably sound much more proficient if I had! In retrospect I probably should've been doing that from early on. I've tried to commit melodies to memory because within those melodies there are many great ideas for improvisation. There are a few solos of favorite players I've worked out. If you were to listen to me play, however, you would hear a lot of things that you might think of as characteristic licks but which are really just habits and laziness. Maybe that's all licks are, come to think of it. If that's the case, I would rather my licks be my own habits and laziness rather than borrowed from someone else.

  13. #37

    User Info Menu

    I do not think it is possible to describe it in a clear way.

    Once I was in a jazz club with a friend of mine - who is not jazzer or musician but loves that kind of sound. He began to ask me: do they improvize now or not?

    These kind of questions for me are like atheist asking a believer: can you show me exactly where the God is?

    I tried to explain the idea behind it but he really pushed for direct 'yes or no'. Then - already irritated - I told him: you are here on your own will! Use your ears, mind, soul and knowledge and answer this question yourself... what do you hear as improvized?

    this is the key for me... in jazz discussions people often discuss an issue of 'if the player improvizes or not', and as a result they come to the point of 'what is 'improvized here'... which is unanawerable from player's point of in my opinion.

    It is much more valuable to try to dig what we here as improvization (every player is first of all a listner!).

    I compare it with classical: there are Schubert's pieces that are called Impromptu (expromts, improvizations).
    Of course he could improvize, but these are pieces of music, they are written out and most probably directly on paper as he mostly did.
    They are called like that becasue they sound like improvizations.
    The composer hears it, the ausdience hears it - they must undertsand musical language well to be able to feel the spirit of improvization.

    Same thing in jazz? What do we hear as improvized and why that solo sounds like a challenging improvization? and that sounds like a pre-learnt routine?
    I am sure this is much more connected with inner spirit and creativity of it than whether the player used pre-composed solos or not...


    very important criteria for me is repetition. A few times I heard solo repeated note for note... that had immidiate effect. It lost the improvized feel. I do not mean variations - or development of the idea...

    It is also an interesting issue: at which point I begin to hear it as 'fake' -- how much, and how accuarately it is being repeated that I begin to feel deceived?


    (This is the differenrnce between classical and jazz -- once it is written it is only 'a charachter of improvization', imitation of it... but not real one, so it is legitimate, in jazz it does not work)
    Last edited by Jonah; 12-11-2019 at 05:38 AM.

  14. #38

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by princeplanet
    OK, so there's remembering tunes, that's one aspect of musical memory, sure. But I'm more interested in this thread to hear about the ability to remember chops, mainly single note chops let's say. If you added up all the lines, licks, devices, tricks etc you ever committed to memory at some point (if only for a brief time), what percentage would you say you've forgotten? I know, it's hard to know what you've forgotten, but I'm guessing that the average player forgets a lot, maybe up to 90%.

    But imagine how more advanced you'd be if you managed to keep 50% of everything at call, right under those fingers at any time - hear it clearly and execute upon demand. How about 75% ? You'd be a monster, right? You'd rely less on creativity, maybe, and and more on recall, "creative" recall maybe... So how many great players, I wonder, simply have strong musical memory in this sense, as opposed to being strong at actually improvising fresh lines most of the time? Can one be so good at recalling that even their band mates don't know? Parker once said "I can play all I know in only 8 bars", but Owens showed he actually had a few hundred motifs he frequently pulled from. After decades of analysis, we face the fact that we can never understand his methodology, so what chance did his band mates have, or his audience for that matter? Is great improv at that level sometimes a high level, calculated game of "mix 'n match"?

    Those of us with only an average memory need not apply... ?
    I can only speak from my own experience, but I think it is possible to improvise without knowing hundreds of pre-learned ideas. In fact I don’t think it works like that. Sure I probably know quite a lot of ideas or phrases, but I couldn’t list them out or anything. They’re just in the brain somewhere and when I play, I don’t consciously recall them. My memory isn’t that great, if I play a transcription or something I will forget most of it. Actually I think I have picked up more ideas over the years just by listening to lots of jazz.

    As an experiment I just tried playing the first 8 bars of ATTYA a few times, and trying to play different lines each time. I know that a lot of what I played sounded similar to what I always play, so definitely I am re-using ideas to some extent. But I was still able to come up with quite different lines each time. And I reckon I could have carried on doing it quite a few more times. So I don’t think you need a lot of ideas to do this, somehow you can keep on varying and tweaking and re-working what you know, enough to make something reasonably different each time.

  15. #39

    User Info Menu

    Yesterday I walked from the car into the office building, but I took steps slightly differently than ever before. Some were the same, others were different. Some were faster, others slower, some were longer, others shorter, some were straight and others off angle.

    I did it somewhat whimsically, but always in response to the stimuli around me. I recognized the form of the parking garage, elevator, and walkway, and random cars going by, but didn't have to think very hard about them. It all seemed fairly effortless - masterful even - but I was warm when finished. Amazingly, I was putting one foot in front of the other and with a steady beat the entire time!

    So,
    Am I special, and possessing of an incredible memory?
    Or
    Am I going through little motions that have been used in whole or in part, countless times before, and without overthinking them?


    And - I also recall that I was once hospitilized and placed into a partial body cast for a few months. When I was finally released from the body cast I struggled to take a few steps before needing to lie down immediately. The next day I took a few more steps, and the day after that I was walking around.

    So what's that all about? Is it all about a great memory of how to walk? Or is it about memory and conditioning combined?

    These are the questions that plague mankind.

  16. #40

    User Info Menu

    Here's the thing, IMO - Make a jazz sound!

    Meaning - if you want jazz sounds to come out of you, put jazz sounds into you. Garbage in, garbage out - just like a computer sytem, even a very sophisticated one. If the data (stimuli) going in is inadequate then we can't expect that the output will be the holy grail of the answer set that we desire.

    Jazz routines must sound like jazz. If you play pop, rock, blues, country, classical, plectrum guitar routines, why would you expect that when you attempt to improvise that you'll sound like the guitar version of a Bird or Trane? That's entirely unrealistic.

    Improvisation output is a result of conditioned input. What we practice, how much and how often we practice it. If we want to improvise - in any style - we need to carefully choose how we practice.

  17. #41

    User Info Menu

    If you go into computer systems analogy (we definitely should not), then you must do it way more responsible way, without this, the only thing we got, are misleading half truths.

    - regarding garbage in garbage out: this is true, but does not lead us to any recipe or conclusion, there are systems with value in, but still garbage out. So armed with this knowledge we still do not know how to make music, just one particular recipe of an antipattern.

    - regarding degrading the memory part: both program and both data are stored in the very same type of memory, (Neumann principle) so program, conditioning, etc is also memory in the terms of this thread. This applies to your example of walking after hospital, not only of the computer analogy.

    ***

    Walkin is a learned thing so it stored in memory. Babies who learn 10 times faster than a teenager, take 6 month to learn that and memorize all the different contexts and use cases to get to a low intermediate level. and they practicing many hours per every single day. (a 3 years old child's walking skill is not equal with an adults advanced walking skill)

    So your example proves that many hours of context related (subcontious) learning and memorizing is necessary to get the skill, we can not say it is just conditioning and not memory. It is memory. But learned in baby age, so this skill is deep in your mind. This way it is similar to perfect pitch which is also can be learned this baby age, when brain is way more open and flexible to learn an memorize this kind of "programs"

  18. #42

    User Info Menu

    My points are simple Gabor. We mystify and romanticize jazz improvisation too much. We all improvise in many ways, in everyday life. Speech is but one obvious example.

    So,
    Could anyone improvise jazz effectively? No, not necessarily.
    Are all those that can improvise, equally adept? Nope.
    Does it require more work than most people, even most serious musicians, are willing to commit to? Yes.

    My point is - if one wishes to be an effective improvisor in any style of music then they should be direct - not indirect - with their studies/practice time. They should first practice the very sounds that they wish to hear when they improvise, and if there is more time in the day to practice other things, then so be it.

    Here's a little secret - even the very greatest of jazz players still practice. Ask yourself why.

  19. #43

    User Info Menu

    Imagine you are about to hear some melodic lines and it is your intention to determine if they are "new", for now they are just straight eighths...

    The first line is just one note - this is not "new" because all lines of eighths start with one note, and if you normalize the lines per key signature there are 12 possibilities, but if you don't normalize and let the note take on any relative degree then you can match any reference counter example, so just the same note... nothing "new" yet.

    The second line is two notes (might be two of the same note) - similar to above despite more possibilities, I won't do the math but there are countless lines that start with whatever two notes you may choose, they've already been played, recorded, and heard countless times, not new.

    How many notes in a line does it take to play something new? When do you reset the count of notes?

    If it takes greater than some particular number of notes to emerge with something "new", what happens when phrasing is mixed in and the shorter segments comprising the phrases are less than the "newness note count threshold", so resulting in just a series of old things strung together? Who decides that one phrase isn't really two concatenated shorter phrases?

    Seems to me that improvising does not mean playing something "new" with respect to the history of music so much as playing something new with respect to what you have played yourself, going with that confident musical feeling within the moment of performance where you just know intuitively that an idea, something you yourself have not played before, is going to sound just right...

    The alternative is the bizarre belief that true improvisation would be performing on a type of instrument with which you had no experience playing whatsoever, like you having never touched a trumpet and I hand you one, "Just Friends in C, ah one, two, one two three four..."

  20. #44

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by pauln

    Seems to me that improvising does not mean playing something "new" with respect to the history of music so much as playing something new with respect to what you have played yourself, going with that confident musical feeling within the moment of performance where you just know intuitively that an idea, something you yourself have not played before, is going to sound just right...
    Agreed. But maybe you have played fragments of this "new from me" idea, although maybe not the whole idea. Assuming any tempo other than slow, chances are if you go for something that you haven't played in practice - or something pretty close to it - you'll miss.

  21. #45

    User Info Menu

    Improvization is first of all feeling of making choice right now for me.

    Somehow I just feel it or not.

    It is what it important for perceptions of it I guess.

  22. #46

    User Info Menu

    OK... there have been years... when I've played non stop gigs, day, night... I remember almost any tune, I can't remember all the names of the tunes, but melody or changes etc... and can play or fake the tune.

    A couple things... generally playing the same tune in same way gets old. Changing the feel, the time signature, and even with better players the harmony. Example put tune in relative or parallel major or minor.... or even the older put in a Blues harmonic context.

    Back in the 70's and 80's the modal thing was fun. I guess my point is.... typically improve can be developed through the melody, the harmony, even rhythmically... and combinations of. But when you develop a melody... you don't just keep playing the same melody right. there's some standard approaches for developing melodic melodies, phrases... what ever melodic line you choose. Generally Harmony is involved. There are very organized steps that help organize how your creating improv using that melody or melodic element.

    So unless your playing solo... or forget that your performing with other musicians.... there's more to improv than just yourself.

    Example... your performing simple old standard... say pentup house, Sonny R tune....

    So maybe... instead of developing the melody with the changes or maybe even hearing both as the same thing.

    So A-7 D7/ Gmaj7 you push... A-9/D D9#11/.. / B-9 E7#9 /

    and bars 9-12 instead of D-7 G7/D-7 G7/ C-7 / F7 / you use /G9sus Ab9sus/ G9sus Gb9sus/ F9sus/ F7#9/

    There are choices.... So is memory or memorizing where you and the ensemble take the tune... have anything to do with what your playing. Personally.... I guess some, but generally your using your very physical skills, musicianship, ears, interaction to just play tunes in a Jazz style. I use to try and explain to amateurs that it's like ....using Plug and play within a Form with musical organization.
    But most musicians just don't really understand Musical organization. There is a difference between memorizing subs and understanding why they're called subs and why they work.

    I play gigs all the time where musicians haven't developed these jazz skills... and yea... they basically need to have rehearsed or Memorized this or that to be able to play ? There is nothing wrong or right with this approach.... it just takes time, so getting back to Prince's point... I disagree... Parkers approach is very understandable... his ability is another thing.

    When you play Parker tunes... do you hear or plays the basic changes, or do you actually play what the melody implies.

    You can call the basic changes a pedal harmony and play vanilla but what's the fun of that.

  23. #47

    User Info Menu

    I'm sure it won't be long (if it hasn't happened already) before someone plugs all of Charlie Parker's / Django's / whoever's solos into a big computer and programmes it up accordingly, and out will pop a whole load of new solos that will be indistinguishable from the real thing (at least for anyone other than the most knowledgeable of listeners). And there'll be no creative intelligence or inspiration behind it - only memory. Albeit computer memory.

    Derek

  24. #48

    User Info Menu

    Someone posted a podcast interview with Bruce Forman yesterday. Bruce is talking about 10 tunes it is great for jazz guitarists to learn because they teach things that occur in many other standards.

    (The list---which varies from time to time--runs: Summertime, Honeysuckle Rose, A-Train, Autumn Leaves, ATTYA, TWNBAY, Green Dolphin Street, EITHER Ain't Misbhavin' OR It Could Happen To You and, finally, Stella By Starlight.)

    The main point he wanted to get across is that the melody is the "hanger". (As in clothes in your closet are kept from falling into an unwearable heap on the floor by being placed upon a clothes hanger.) He thinks melodies imply harmonies and that melodies are easier to remember than a list of chord changes. (It's hard to forget the melody of "Summertime" but the progression is harder to recall. Same with any standard, really. Remembering the changes is like memorizing a list---which can be done but it is much harder than memorizing a melody, which we don't even think of as memorizing at all, just remembering.)

  25. #49

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by digger
    I'm sure it won't be long (if it hasn't happened already) before someone plugs all of Charlie Parker's / Django's / whoever's solos into a big computer and programmes it up accordingly, and out will pop a whole load of new solos that will be indistinguishable from the real thing (at least for anyone other than the most knowledgeable of listeners). And there'll be no creative intelligence or inspiration behind it - only memory. Albeit computer memory.

    Derek

  26. #50
    Quote Originally Posted by digger
    I'm sure it won't be long (if it hasn't happened already) before someone plugs all of Charlie Parker's / Django's / whoever's solos into a big computer and programmes it up accordingly, and out will pop a whole load of new solos that will be indistinguishable from the real thing (at least for anyone other than the most knowledgeable of listeners). And there'll be no creative intelligence or inspiration behind it - only memory. Albeit computer memory.

    Derek
    BIAB has several virtual "soloists" - some better than others - that might indeed fool us sometimes if we were just to look at the notated notes on the page of the virtual solos, vs notated solos that Bird actually performed (listening to the BIAB solos are obviously not convincing, but for other reasons...). But I wouldn't say there is no creativity or inspiration behind the virtual solos - the inspired genius went into the creation of the style that the emulations are based on. Further, there is some ingenuity in the composition of the algorithm that spits out these virtual solos to any tune you throw at it. Far from perfect, but also far from crude as well. It can and certainly will get better.

    We can decode this algorithm to a set of probabilities relating to how phrases get linked (or not) across chord changes depending on which notes start or end each phrase, which part of the bar the phrase starts or ends, balancing chromaticism with leaps, developing an over arching logic to a solo so that it mimics "story telling" etc etc, heck, one day an algorithm might be developed that can even react in time to the backing track (real or virtual). The point being that if jazz improv can indeed be replicated with a computer, then it can perhaps also be "replicated" by humans! In other words, it is likely that many players improvise according to a methodology or system that can be reduced to a set of probabilities relating to how one phrase influences another to be selected from a memorised store. There is still some randomness and unpredictability according to how the player feels from moment to moment, and that by deciding to link phrase 31b to 78c instead of the the other 29 choices at their fingertips just because that's how he/she heard it at the moment is still a creative choice, just not quite as creative as constructing a series of perfect new phrases that are not being retrieved from memory! ...

    OK, so no-one probably plays that way100% of the time, but no one plays like that 0% of the time either. And it's down to how much pre learned stuff we can draw from, maybe, if we wish to play more "good" lines, than lame ones.... I think the greats often relied on their own hard won unique systems that enabled them to pull unlimited ideas from a limited bag. I realised this when I first read "Thinking In Jazz" ages ago, which is basically interviews with said greats...