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Originally Posted by bobby d
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06-05-2020 12:00 PM
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Originally Posted by princeplanet
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Originally Posted by christianm77
Of course, I'd listen to Sonny Rollins, Cannonball, Hubbard etc and realise their ideas were miles beyond mine, and I resolved to get good at expressing the changes better. And yes, I swallowed the old dictum that you should be able to improvise un accompanied and a listener should still be able to hear the changes in your playing. All my favourite players could do it, so it seemed like a lofty, but important goal to work towards.
Now, I can tell you that I went from happy go lucky let's just have fun eyes closed just wing it play what you think you hear , to the exact opposite! Years of hard work drilling devices and vocab, scarcely allowing myself the reward of "just blowing" for fear of slipping back into my old lazy habits. Now I can outline changes like a changes running machine, and am only recently allowing myself the luxury of freewheeling every now and then, which is the other thing the greats could do (Rollins in particular).
Here's the thing - while the freewheeling yields the odd surprising gem, it's still far too imperfect, or just a bit shite in too many bits to feel like I can get away with it. I probably now need to devote years to doing mainly this, whilst not losing the measured, contrived chops.
So to your point - I totally get why to tell a Jazz student to loosen up and try and hear music as music and not a maths challenge, but this should not be a "one size fits all" slice of advice for all your students. Some will want or need more discipline to achieve their goals, and others will need encouragement to get off the safety rails more often. Some might benefit from being pushed to the edge of the cliff of spontaneity from the get go, whereas others need to stop their bad noodling habits cold in order get some serious chops that only hard core shedding will give them.
But you're a teacher, so you'd know this, right?
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Originally Posted by princeplanet
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Originally Posted by bobby d
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Originally Posted by princeplanet
This is why comping is an art and listening is important. If I amp for you, I listen to what you play and try and complement it, and vice versa. It's not always true that that listening means pitch choices.
Let me give you one of my favourite examples. Have a close listen to just the head of this, and what the pianist plays underneath and how he plays it:
What do you notice?
Experienced players will force different stuff over things and sound great (George Benson comes to mind), but I wonder if I'd give this advice to a novice or even intermediate players. I can remember, in my early Jazz learning days, playing over Autumn Leaves and discovering that I could pay the same stuff over the minor 2 - 5 - 1 that I did over the maj 2 - 5 - 1. Haha, I also remember congratulating myself for finding this "hack"! , and being encouraged by this, I set about looking for other hacks, or shortcuts that would make jazz improv easy, like rock improv is! ...
They should also not be expected to improvise fluently, but encourage to appropriate and adapt material, and listen as much as possible
Things like chord tones and scales are great practice for fretboard knowledge, but the importance of vocabulary and melodies should be stressed when it comes to music. You can obviously explore how the two relate.
They should also be encouraged to learn plenty of tunes, including melodies, and be playing in groups as soon as possible.
Of course, I'd listen to Sonny Rollins, Cannonball, Hubbard etc and realise their ideas were miles beyond mine, and I resolved to get good at expressing the changes better. And yes, I swallowed the old dictum that you should be able to improvise un accompanied and a listener should still be able to hear the changes in your playing. All my favourite players could do it, so it seemed like a lofty, but important goal to work towards.
Now, I can tell you that I went from happy go lucky let's just have fun eyes closed just wing it play what you think you hear , to the exact opposite! Years of hard work drilling devices and vocab, scarcely allowing myself the reward of "just blowing" for fear of slipping back into my old lazy habits. Now I can outline changes like a changes running machine, and am only recently allowing myself the luxury of freewheeling every now and then, which is the other thing the greats could do (Rollins in particular).
Here's the thing - while the freewheeling yields the odd surprising gem, it's still far too imperfect, or just a bit shite in too many bits to feel like I can get away with it. I probably now need to devote years to doing mainly this, whilst not losing the measured, contrived chops.
I think that actually it's the FRAMING that is the thing I am concerned with. And it is a bit fucked up in a lot of theory/improv books to be honest.
So;
'don't play the 13th on the iim7 chord because it gives away the sound of the V7. For this reason it is an avoid note.'
as opposed to how I'd put it:
'if you play 13th on the iim7 chord, you are basically playing a type of dominant sound - listen'
So, the language you use as a teacher.
Right, OK... learning to outline chords. Great that's a positive thing. So, we've learned to outline a chord progression. What can we use it for? How can we develop this idea?
As opposed to - 'make sure we play the chord tones in our line so that we can hear the changes.' or 'don't play this note on this chord or it will be a clam.'
Am I making it a bit clearer?
There's also actual bullshit as well, like 'playing over chords' - junk that, and replace with 'playing into chords.' Teach student to phrase correctly instead of playing disconnected lines. This should be easy if they are learning actual jazz music, because that's how it works, and there are simple exercises to sort it out.
So to your point - I totally get why to tell a Jazz student to loosen up and try and hear music as music and not a maths challenge, but this should not be a "one size fits all" slice of advice for all your students.
Some will want or need more discipline to achieve their goals, and others will need encouragement to get off the safety rails more often. Some might benefit from being pushed to the edge of the cliff of spontaneity from the get go, whereas others need to stop their bad noodling habits cold in order get some serious chops that only hard core shedding will give them.
But you're a teacher, so you'd know this, right?
Good teachers do this. I'm not trying to say that this is some new shit. It's rather - the good shit - at least that I have found so far.Last edited by christianm77; 06-05-2020 at 03:35 PM.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
So yeah, as for spending years learning what we later realise were the "wrong" things, it's as much the student's fault as the teacher's. Teaching anything is a huge responsibility, but teaching Jazz guitar is such a micro niche discipline without any real established pedagogy, where the expectation is an ever evolving moving target, constantly being re evaluated amidst an endless sea of confusing options, all in an ADHD world where people think that 6 months is a long time to spend learning anything...
Ah, but I'm sure you'll have the odd student that managed to pick up a trick or two and didn't blame you for ruining their promising career as a professional musician.
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Originally Posted by princeplanet
It might interest you to learn for instance, I don't teach most jazz students Barry Harris stuff. It just doesn't work for them. I try to extract what is powerful about Barry's approach and abstract it for more general use.
One aspect I think is powerful, and universal is chunking. Another is not being overly concerned with playing 'the right notes' on chords but actually focusing on creating compelling lines.
However, it's actually by having to teach students who are not like myself might need that I started thinking this way. Even more when I started thinking about the implications of the very 'scientific' and rules based way we seem to teach improv. (And how those rules are taken often as prohibitions or laws almost.)
Anyway, ttheory fucks students up in various ways. I see this again and again. The people who persist are the nerdy people, but it messes them up if they can't get out of that rabbit hole and start making music. I think contact with good educators is essential for this. e.
Problem is, of course, that not every student may agree they need to learn what you think they need to learn, and they won't even know they disagree with what they are being taught until many years later! Maybe they don't even know yet that they don't wanna be a cool, off the hip Bopper. Maybe they wanna be a fusion licks monster, or a composer of Bossa type tunes, or a really good reader, or a Freddie Green clone, or a soulless Maths Jazz Computer...
I just want them to trust their ears, get into the music they have an emotional connection with deeply, and work on having a clear, clean process.
If I had a student who was really good, but whose playing I didn't actually like that much, I would consider that a success. OTOH usually people end up picking stuff off you because a lot of the learning is them listening to how and what you play, as much as what you say, if not more.
It's not even relevant whether or not they play jazz really. We have the exact same problems in blues and rock guitar. Even worse if anything.
So yeah, as for spending years learning what we later realise were the "wrong" things, it's as much the student's fault as the teacher's. Teaching anything is a huge responsibility, but teaching Jazz guitar is such a micro niche discipline without any real established pedagogy, where the expectation is an ever evolving moving target, constantly being re evaluated amidst an endless sea of confusing options, all in an ADHD world where people think that 6 months is a long time to spend learning anything...
Most of the problems I identify above come from a type of teaching and jazz writing that is overly controlling and specific in nature, and not sufficiently student directed. (You have to give the student confidence to play something as if they mean it at the very least - quite a lot to improvisation is a confidence trick anyway.) I think this is historical. In the 70s jazz courses had to make their case, set out their stall as an academic subject. That's why they are so old fashioned and clunky from a teaching standpoint.
(I mean avoid notes... seriously? Tell your student to avoid playing the avoid note. SMH.)
Now, education has moved on... higher education is moving towards different models as the internet obviates the need for many more traditional teacher roles. One of the most important remaining roles is to cultivate a community or practice and act as a mentor or guide to the student. Everything else can be learned online.
In fact as a teacher I have to HOLD BACK on giving out knowledge all the time. I have to be extremely careful not to get drawn into theoretical conversations that eat time and reduce the amount of actual musical application in the lesson. It's to be as transparent and simple as possible.
Ah, but I'm sure you'll have the odd student that managed to pick up a trick or two and didn't blame you for ruining their promising career as a professional musician.Last edited by christianm77; 06-05-2020 at 04:32 PM.
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Can I ask, how long have you been teaching Jazz guitar? And how have you changed your approach over that time and why? Finally, have you had any students for a long enough period to see them be shaped into happening Bop players?
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Originally Posted by princeplanet
What’s tending to happen is my teaching is getting a lot less technical and more music oriented. I’m trying to talk a lot less, which needless to say I find a challenge haha, especially when drawn into some theoretical discussion.
with the jazz students what tends to happen is the accomplished ones do a few lessons on Barry Harris or whatever and get on top of it under their own steam. They just need the raw materials.
They tend to go from teacher to teacher taking what seems useful to them.
So those players can certainly play good or great, but I don’t think I can take credit; they are very self directed, sometimes at a very young age.
With less accomplished students who are maybe starting to learn jazz, they need more input. The biggest issue with these students is getting them to use their ears and stop talking about theory.
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OK, it's a shame jazz students don't tend to stay with one teacher for long, it must be frustrating not being able to see long term progress under one's tutelage. OTOH, you can see why students would wanna "sleep around" ...
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Originally Posted by princeplanet
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I.e. all students are bastards... they never call!
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love this thread....
singers that play and players that sing what they play...perhaps not in performances..but just about every keyboard and guitar player I have met along the way does this ..
it may not be consistent or have any way to follow it outside of the player..
Glenn Gould "sings"..on the Goldberg Variations by Bach...(and catches hell for it...)
Jimi Hendrix did this alot..and many blues guitarists do also..
going beyond..theory..harmony..melody..
the Kind of Blue album to me and many others is a turning point in jazz in particular..
the predicable chord changes you could hear coming and what played over it was gone..
improvised solos over very wide harmonic structures gave the players freedom to incorporate many melodic ways to solo unchained from set chord patterns
the tune All Blues is just that..its using ingredients from blues structures..major and minor..in a "3" feel..
I have taken the tune and pushed the chords off the chart..so to speak...
the simple melody is moved and reintroduced in minor thirds and the resolving chords device is moving in a ascending chromatic movement back to I7
I play altered notes from London Bridge and the first five notes of Giant Steps over the I7 vamp and make the IV7 vamp descend back into the I7
I sing it in my head..and scat sing it away from the guitar...
I think every musician not only jazz players..reach a point where they take a large leap away from a tunes chord structures and experiment without a net..so to speak..and just see what happens
and many find an open door to a new direction in their playing..and hearing..I like Joe Diorios phrase..."stretch your ears.."
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I have the impression that some people want a singable line a lot more than others.
So, if I hear a lick being recycled (e.g. playing it in different keys against a series of chords to create different harmonic juxtapositions) I'm not likely to consider that singable. Lambert, Hendricks and Ross might see this differently. Not a criticism. That style can be thrilling.
When I hear something that immediately sounds like it could have a lyric that it wouldn't take LH&R to sing, I think of it as a singable line. My goal as an improvisor is to work in this way.
Obviously, there are gray areas. It clearly depends on the harmonic sophistication of the "singer". How complex a line can you imagine sung?
If anybody is interested, I just posted two solos in the Recording and Music Software section of the forum that are examples of what I'm trying to do. There are two separate single-chorus solos. My next step is to try to create a singable line that increases the level of harmonic interest.
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I'm not sure, but surely audiating is hearing something in your mind that is clear enough for you to "copy" it to your instrument, no? I prefer to do this rather than to sing it out loud for 2 main reasons: First my singing range is such that I can't get low or high enough for nearly every phrase I like to play. Secondly, even if I had the range, I can sing fast enough!
But honestly, only the novice learner is perhaps not "hearing" what he/she is playing. Once you get to the point where you are improvising against jazz type changes, you can't just be "noodling" like you can against 99% of rock, blues, folk or country music. Of course if you're just running arps, patterns or licks, then you're probably not really improvising, which might be part of what Christian is on about. Those of us who do / did a little too much of that need to work in a little more horizontal freewheeling, more music, less maths...
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Originally Posted by princeplanet
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Just a relevant quote from a paper I'm reading for an essay based on interviews with older professional jazz musicians.
"....Also, the three non-drummers did not initially find it necessary to be aware of the nomenclature that the “literate” musical community assigns to various harmonic structures (for example, Eb9) and their melodic counterparts (Dorian mode, bebop scale, etcetera) or the names given to standard harmonic progressions (such as ii-V- I) in order to function effectively with other performers. It was of greater importance to understand the structures aurally, particularly through constructing an intuitive knowledge of their relationship to one another within a given tune. Eventually, Thompson, McMurdo, and Fair learned the various theoretical nomenclature that has been assigned to jazz harmony, but not before this aural/intuitive process had occurred."
Paul Louth, Lifelong Learning and the Informally Trained Jazz Artist (2006)
This is basically the point I'm trying to make.
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It's a lovely paper actually - do check it out if you are interested in jazz edu.
I particularly like these lovely network map thingys of musicians. This is an academic who GETS jazz IMO.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
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Some people refuse to accept it. It is presumably helpful to back up one's case. TBH, people are so confused about this stuff. I see it every day.
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06-15-2020, 06:55 PM #122joelf GuestOriginally Posted by christianm77
One of the stories/quotes he regaled us with was from Pres:
'I never let the changes bother what I play'...
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Originally Posted by christianm77
Strange... and such an academic form convinces people?
Is it worth efforts?
I mean it is like saying: we made research between various social group of adult people and found out that 99% of them think that the moon is yellow. Therefore we come to conclusion that blue moon - a very rare meteorological phenomenon - in the lyrics of this song is most probably a poetic metaphor involvong also the meaning of blue in English associated with sadness. Also 56% of interviewed people confirmed that when they cry the moon may seem a little blue through the tears especially in the Northern regions with bright summer nights...
You see we do not need to interview people to find all this out...
If people need this to dig poetics they should not get into poetry at all...
And I believe we (poets!) - if we still want them to be converted - must find artistic ways to get them convinced.
If we want to know the social opinion and statistics for some weird purposes then yes...
but not to confirm that hearing goes first.
If people need that kind of 'scientific' confirmations they would rather do something else... not music
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Originally Posted by joelf
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I met a guy - graduate from college - teaching already... nice capable pro jazz guitarist.
I discussed Pete Bernstein with him... and he said: oh this guy plays such a complex stuff...
I was surprised.. I never thought of Peter's playing as complex.. genuine subtle, deep - yes, but not complex.. it is actually very clear and relatively simple.
Holdsworth or Stowell or sometimes Abercombie can be described as complex in my opinion but not Peter Bernstein...
So I asked him what was so complex in it?
From his explanation it seemed to me that being musical is already very complex.... and even unachievable. The rational unexplainability of some things made simplest natural phrases very complex for him...
So these guys do study and then play music professionally and in fact they do not even start playing what I think music is... this is scary...
Resonator plus toaster pickup for the perfect...
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