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Originally Posted by lawson-stone
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06-03-2020 10:17 AM
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I'm all for the horizontal approach...
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While everyone seems to be offering their suggestions for how Jazz should be played, or how Bop should be improvised or how the music should be taught etc etc, I'd just like to add my own thoughts. Yes, playing too vertically can sound boring but playing horizontally too loosely can as well. Singing your lines, and trying to play them while you sing them is fine, but unless you work hard on your instrument at expressing THE changes clearly first, then the quality of your sung lines may be limited. Take that 2 - 5 - 1 - 6 progression mentioned. Sure, if it's iim7 - V7 - I - vim7, then even a non musician could probably scat some decent lines agains it, and yes they would probably be generalizing the tonic...
But turn the V into a V7alt, and the vi into a VI7b9, then suddenly the untutored singer doesn't sound so great. Let's face it, even jazz students at all levels may still manage to sing clams against those altered sounds. And if they don't, then perhaps they're not hitting the juicy altered notes in interesting ways that the schooled improvisor might play on his/her instrument. I bet most of you (if you've practiced vertical lines enough) would probably sound more convincing on Giant Steps playing your instrument as opposed to scatting. The more experienced players (especially the ones that eventually get good at playing what they hear) may be able to sing against these challenging progressions and hit enough important guide tones to sound "legit", but that's only because - and here's my point - they trained their ear to hear these important notes through years of practicing playing the strict changes.
I certainly hear what Christian is saying, and I know I need to heed the advice, and I do, but only because I'm now ready for it. 5 years ago I certainly wasn't! Like someone said earlier, learn the rules first, and then bend them. I suppose you gotta ask yourself at what point do you start to encourage practicing "skating" over changes? Too soon may lead to lazy habits in some. Too late may entrench different lazy habits for others.
As I said in my first post in this thread - It's a fine line, innit?
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Originally Posted by ragman1
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Originally Posted by princeplanet
there are only resources. The only people who think there are rules are people marking exam papers.
how did everyone get so afraid to be a musician? Play music. Play melodies. Use your ears. Listen, play.
Steal someone else's minor key lines and play it on another minor key tune. Quote melodies. Embellish the melody. do what you have to. Just play MUSIC.
Later, there are resources beyond this.
Look, Giant Steps is a whole different bag. People who start with Giant Steps are going to get the wrong end of the stick.
Fine line? More like sunk costs fallacy...
BTW I'm not anti theory. I'm not anti-theory tests either, even. I am pro context.Last edited by christianm77; 06-03-2020 at 12:20 PM.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
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Originally Posted by princeplanet
problem with the way many people think with jazz - the ones who can’t play it, or rather don’t feel they can ... they think of what they shouldn’t play. Avoid notes, clams, bad sounding notes.
thats dumb. Basic educational psychology, right?
Don't think of the pink elephant!
why do we make things so difficult for students? Jazz takes enough work as it is.
And the worst thing! Students can’t let this BS go. Because sunk costs. It’s hard to admit you were sold a pup. But the silver lining is that info will come in useful further down the line.
I see this all the time with students.
I was that person.Last edited by christianm77; 06-03-2020 at 02:20 PM.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
Last edited by ragman1; 06-04-2020 at 12:08 AM.
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Originally Posted by grahambop
Not disputing the idea of playing what is heard internally, just not thinking of Joe Pass as someone who vocalizes that.
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Originally Posted by ragman1
I’m taking about what the yanks call ‘grade school.’
TBF I know a lot of jazz musicians who teach this way too. Usually it’s because that’s how they were taught. (But not necessarily how they learned.)
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Originally Posted by lawson-stone
You can hear Herb Ellis talk about it here. He knew Joe and performed with him; I'm taking his word for it.
Starts at 10:49
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
it's small point, to be sure. But I'm feeling cranky!
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as for singing .... and playing
Ed Cherry sings right now live from Smalls... Peter Bernstein also hums something but Ed just really sings
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Originally Posted by Jonah
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Ed Cherry has a great resume and is a great player. I heard him at Small's last Fall, sitting a couple of feet from him. Loved his time feel.
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Originally Posted by lawson-stone
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Originally Posted by christianm77
besides - the tune of Blue Moon without comping sounds quite boring fi you are not creative with phrasing or ornaments...
I asked what they were doing.. he said they go to orchestra... Russia has pretty solid dedicated musical education for kids and I could not believe they went to real musical school.
He said: No, they just go to 'Noise orchestra'.. they just gather together and play tunes.. recorders, harpsichord, drums, guitar.... and now they do it online.... I imagined this band (these poor kids) doing 'Blue moon' online...
Noise orchestra! ...
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A video by Adam Neely on audiation.
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
But when one singles out as examples people noteworthy for doing so audibly, I think that's another step and is a very interesting thing. But Joe Pass is not one of those who did this audibly. It's not a judgment on anyone or anything, just a descriptive statement. If one is talking about players who "sing their lines while they play" and the examples involve vocalizing, the Joe Pass does not belong in that group because he didn't do that typically in performance. All these great players have internal singing of their lines, so it's the vocalizing that's distinctive.
But it's not worth pursuing further.
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Another teacher going over the same ground.
"If you can sing it, you can play it."
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Originally Posted by lawson-stone
Again, Herb did NOT cite Joe Pass as a noteworthy example of someone doing this audibly. He cited Joe Pass as an example of a guitarist he knew and liked who did it, period. You have introduced an emphasis ("doing so audibly") that was not in the original. This is reinforced by Herb's reference to George Benson along with the gloss "you can HEAR him to it." This means that in most cases one will NOT hear the guitarist 'sing what he plays'.
Being heard by others is NOT part of the meaning of 'sing what you play' (or 'play what you sing'.) You can't always hear / see Herb doing it in this very video wherein he emphasizes the importance of doing this very thing.
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Originally Posted by Tal_175
The question is what actual progression are you imposing your implied changes over when playing horizontally. If there is a mismatch and it's unintentional it'll sound like scale noodling. But if one is familiar with the tune and aurally aware of the harmony, then they have a lot of freedom as the what melodic devices to employ and sound coherent over the changes. Targeting primary chord tones is just one device not the only one.
People have this ingrained don't they? Harmony is the solution! It's all about harmony.
I would hope that the Lester Young solos would be a strong counter example to this. I mean, there's this thing called the blues for the matter?
Logically, pitch choices on chords cannot be the problem, because we can exactly quantify both. So the reason Wynton sounds badass playing D on Bbm6 is for other reasons that make him badass. Tone, taste, time, the way he's hearing it, and above all swing. All the stuff they can't put in a book.
Never mind.
Anyway, consider this for a sec: the reason why scale noodling sounds like noodling is not because it's scales with notes that clash, but because it's noodling.
- Why is it noodling? It's because the player isn't really hearing what they are playing. That's what noodling means.
- How do you fix this? By learning to audiate what you play.
- How do you do that? Learn music by ear and sing your lines.
Aha, you say - by learning music by ear you will learn harmony aurally! To which I say - yes, isn't that nice! But you will also learn rhythm, phrasing, melody and vocabulary.
If you are really hearing your lines in G major, you are less likely to play a clam like E against a Cm chord. OTOH if you do it won't be a clam, because you will have heard it and it will sound good in context.
But also, you won't really worry about it. And worry is the thing I find is the problem. Because theory gives us things to worry about if we take it in the wrong way. Theory is useful for contextualising things but it cannot drive the music, at least not at the beginner-intermediate level.
And that's what people who struggle with jazz do - they worry. And often they don't know any songs or solos because they've spent so much time worrying. Their time is shit because they are soooo stressed out and thinking.
And now people think jazz is theory. Which perpetuates the whole stupid cycle. It's what people expect.
The other extreme is if you just pedal on the tonic note over the entire changes. It won't sound like you are functionally clashing with the harmony. It'll sound like you're deliberately bringing out different colors of the chords. You can also do that not just with a single note but with phrases and motifs. I hear a lot of coloristic, motivic playing in Miles's playing.Last edited by christianm77; 06-03-2020 at 05:27 PM.
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YOu guys saw the drawings of Stravinsky of music?
Does 'Bach' look like horizontal or vertical approach?
Art is ambiguity... we never catch but theough making it.
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Singing your lines can be done very quietly, with an airy sound. I always sing the rhythmic phrasing of everything a play, I can't help it. The problem is that it interrupts steady normal breathing. Barry Harris does it, Erroll Garner grunts it, Monty Alexander, Keith Jarrett whines it.
Last edited by rintincop; 06-03-2020 at 06:45 PM.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
I actually wasn't trying to make a case against the horizontal approach. But I think it's unlikely Lester Young would've played his solo on any tune exactly the same way over a different progression (in the same key) despite thinking more horizontally. I'm sure that's not what you are suggesting either. So harmony does inform melodic choices even for horizontal players. Therefore having absorbed the harmony of a tune would give one more melodic freedom. You don't think so?
I do appreciate you thoughts about de-emphising harmony in improvisation. It's giving me something to chew on. But may be your frustration on the subject is resulting in an over-correction or do you really mean relying on transcribing melodic phrasing as a way of digesting harmony?Last edited by Tal_175; 06-03-2020 at 06:09 PM.
KA PAF info please
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