The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Also, we might think about the 10,000 hours, but most improvement in any given skill is done in the first 80 hours. So the trick is to find things you really suck at and make fast improvement. That is very good for the motivation long term.

    I posit also that that 10,000+ hour body of knowledge we call 'jazz guitar' in reality is made up of many 80 hour chunks.
    I think that's true. Any type of complex skill is made of up large number of interconnected skills that need to be worked on individually at some point.

    80 hours might be a good guess. But over a period of time. Chemical processes of building neural pathways take time. That's why cramming too much too quickly goes to waste. Also brain is lazy about making/changing pathways. It needs to be convinced that it'll be a worthwhile effort. That's where the repetition comes in. If the brain keeps encountering the same task, then it starts to believe that may be it's more energy efficient to burn this task once as a "hardwired" skill instead of executing it as a software algorithm.

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  3. #27

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    Quote Originally Posted by Marcel_A
    the 10.000+ rule shouldn't be taken to seriously.
    No you are right, Gladstone goes off on one.

    But as an order of magnitude it checks out in my experience. If anything I regard it as an underestimate.

    It’s not just practice btw... A player can acquire skill fast, but you need a lot of hours on clock to be a competent jazz musician.

  4. #28

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    I think that's true. Any type of complex skill is made of up large number of interconnected skills that need to be worked on individually at some point.

    80 hours might be a good guess. But over a period of time. Chemical processes of building neural pathways take time. That's why cramming too much too quickly goes to waste. Also brain is lazy about making/changing pathways. It needs to be convinced that it'll be a worthwhile effort. That's where the repetition comes in. If the brain keeps encountering the same task, then it starts to believe that may be it's more energy efficient to burn this task once as a "hardwired" skill instead of executing it as a software algorithm.
    There is some research somewhere I think re: 80 hours thing. In general learning curves flatten off quickly, so it’s important to keep yourself challenged. It also keeps you humble as well, which is great!

    If you practice the same thing for 10,000 you won’t improve. So I think that figure is actually really unhelpful. You amass skills and experience over time, so you look back and say ‘well I’ve been playing jazz for 25 years and I’m still shit’ haha

  5. #29

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    Don't take analogies too literally silly sausage.

    It's also got nothing to do with speed training or anything like that.

    An example of "training like a pro athlete" would be:

    6 days a week 4 hours a day regimen.
    - 1 hour scale/arpeggio internalization major scale, MM all positions 12 keys. In scale steps, ascending descending intervals. Diatonic triad arpeggios.
    - 1 hour ear training. 20 mins solfege, 20 transcription, 20 intervals.
    - 1 hour repertoire. Goal 10 tunes a week.
    - 1 hour chord voicings. All inversions Drop chords, 5 chord types.

    etc. etc. etc.

    I'm not saying that's how one should do it. But these types of regimens for musical training do exist. I'm contrasting this type of approach with a more laid back, creativity and making music focused approach.
    Well yeah - I did something VERY similar for many years. It helped. Sometimes I did ear transcription - not memorizing anything, but as ear training. Major, Harmonic and Melodic Minors, pentatonics, diminished and whole tone, sometimes augmented scales. A whole battery of exercises that when with them. Arpeggios - triads both for within the scales and encompassing the full pattern. Triads, 7ths, 6ths, sus triads, sus 7, sus maj7, sus 6 (weird huh?, Aug triads, 7ths, flat 5 triads, b5 7, b56. Then extensions, then triads superimposed on chords to make them altered, i.e. D triad on c7 to make it +11, 13 or Db min on C7 to give me the b9, #5 sound.

    That was a lot of work for years. I'm never doing that again. The good thing is I don't have to. Tye main thing was applying them over songs after straight and exhaustive practice so they become useful and music.

  6. #30

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    The work does need to be done one way or another... it had to connect to music for me, and I’m glad I approached it that way on the whole.

  7. #31

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    Oh also the ear learning without memorisation; that’s something that’s underrated in my opinion.

  8. #32

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    No you are right, Gladstone goes off on one.

    But as an order of magnitude it checks out in my experience. If anything I regard it as an underestimate.

    It’s not just practice btw... A player can acquire skill fast, but you need a lot of hours on clock to be a competent jazz musician.
    You need a lot of hours on clock to be competent at anything. But the 10.000 is just a random number. Somebody once said, give me a high number. 1.000.000! Nah, too high. Oké, 100.000! Doing some math: 8 hours a day, 6 days a week. A few weeks off. Nah, too high. Let's stick with 10K. Sounds good.

  9. #33

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    Quote Originally Posted by Marcel_A
    You need a lot of hours on clock to be competent at anything. But the 10.000 is just a random number. Somebody once said, give me a high number. 1.000.000! Nah, too high. Oké, 100.000! Doing some math: 8 hours a day, 6 days a week. A few weeks off. Nah, too high. Let's stick with 10K. Sounds good.
    Well it was based on some initial research which was then somewhat ..... popularised .... by Galdwell. I can track it down if you are interested. Came up in a seminar on music edu.

  10. #34

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    Allways interested.

  11. #35

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    Wes said that he only practiced things he would play in performance, never practiced anything that he would not play in performance... kind of the long way of saying, "Learn songs (the way you would perform them)".

    Recall that Wes had a day job as a welder, this approach reflecting a very direct management of limited time and full focus on end product performance.

  12. #36

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    I don’t think Maradona practiced much either.

  13. #37

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    Quote Originally Posted by Marcel_A
    I don’t think Maradona practiced much either.
    LOL. Whoa!

  14. #38

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    Quote Originally Posted by pauln
    Wes said that he only practiced things he would play in performance, never practiced anything that he would not play in performance... kind of the long way of saying, "Learn songs (the way you would perform them)".

    Recall that Wes had a day job as a welder, this approach reflecting a very direct management of limited time and full focus on end product performance.
    Thank goodness there's a world beyond Wes for some.

  15. #39

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    Quote Originally Posted by Marcel_A
    Allways interested.
    OK, so the wikipedia page on Outliers has some useful references to the literature cited by Gladwell.

    The 10,000 hours figure referenced by Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers with respect to violin students was an average figure - for already capable students. That's the kind of order of magnitude input it takes. It might take someone 5,000 hours, or 15,000, assuming deliberate, effective practice, a genetic predisposition towards music and everything else. So that's a lot of caveats already.

    As I say anecdotally, that seems about right as the amount of time you have to bank on the instrument. You might get it together with less than that, but pretty much every jazz guitarist who is any good at all has banked heartbreaking amounts of time on their instrument.

    It's not the only factor and I don't want to get hung up on something which is kind of debunked pop culture BS anyway. The point I was making is as Dave Leibman puts it - it takes about a decade (IIRC) of really hard work to become competent as a jazz musician. A lot of other things are important. Moving to NYC is helpful, for instance. Getting a good teacher helps a lot, or failing that having a good learning and practice process. Falling in with a good cohort and good mentors and so on and so forth.

    But ultimately even if you have all of that together you are looking at a lot of time.

    This can be.... a bit horrible and dispiriting for those who maybe don't have 10 years of full time playing and practice to throw at it. Why even bother? What do you do?

    You look towards the steady development of skills and take pleasure in that. Ignore that massive collection of knowledge that professional players possess and focus on the process in the here and now.

    I think I myself must have banked well in excess of 10,000 hours; doesn't mean I get to cash those chips in for a great career lol. But, TBF I do have some skills on the instrument, and I often forget that they are unusual sometimes as many of the people I know are really really good at playing an instrument. The level to which sheer time spent on practicing hard to do stuff day in day out does advance you in a very real way. That's kind of cool. What you do with that of course is a harder question to answer. But if you bank time on things with measurable outcomes, you will get measurably better. And that's encouraging!

    And the joke is - that's what pros all seem to do to... They are constantly in awe of other musicians. A lot of the them are too busy to practice much anyway and working on the basis of all that hard work they banked back in music college.

  16. #40

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    Thank you. I never really looked into that 10k statement. It’s such a random arbitrary number. I’ve done WAY more than that. If that were true I’d be really good by now! Sheesh. Liebman’s paraphrase seems more on the mark. What’s missing is the individual. We are not programmable bots. Some guy could do 15k hours and just work on stupid stuff, disorganized and have terrible taste in music and never seem to improve is poor technique. Someone else could spend 5,000 hours and be absolutely astounding. I hear some kids fresh out of high school. I can’t imagine they could have played 10k and they play rings around me and everybody else. That’s just a uselessly arbitrary figure. But taken with everything else it’s relevant.


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  17. #41

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    Quote Originally Posted by henryrobinett
    But taken with everything else it’s relevant.
    I don't think it is.
    Learning something (i am a teacher, so i think i know something about this) is completely different from person to person.
    Christian refers to a study in which it took some student 5.000 hours to become good (whatever that is) and someone else 15.000. The whole 10.000 rule is the difference between the two. It's arbitrary and not relevant.
    It suggest that more hours = better player.
    And that is not true.
    It suggests that 12 hours practicing a day is better than 2 hours practicing. Not true either.
    If it comes to music there are a lot of different things one has to learn. Part of mastering jazz is physical. Your body needs to learn how to play an instrument well. The 10.000+ rule is focusing on that part. That's why violinists need to start young. Otherwise they never make enough hours. But it is obvious that some children who start young never master anything and others do. So to me the 10.000+ rule is like saying to your students: don't forget to practice. That's what makes you a better player.

    I have a master degree in economics and that's what i teach. My subject can become pretty abstract and that is pretty difficult for some students, but to others it's like drinking a beer after a hot and sunny day. Some need to make hours others don't.

    If i listen to a guy like Jaco Pastorius i think he is one of the second group. Jazz was to him like breathing. I doubt that it took him a lot of time to master his bass or the music he was playing. He saw it right away.

  18. #42

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    I’m not entirely sure where the disagreement is meant to be.

    Anyway here’s a Wes quote:
    To me, all guitar players can play, because I know they're getting to where they're at. It's a very hard instrument to accept, because it takes years to start working with it, that's first, and it looks like everybody else is moving on the instrument but you.’

  19. #43

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    I’m not entirely sure where the disagreement is meant to be.

    Anyway here’s a Wes quote:
    To me, all guitar players can play, because I know they're getting to where they're at. It's a very hard instrument to accept, because it takes years to start working with it, that's first, and it looks like everybody else is moving on the instrument but you.’
    Thank you for that. I’ve been playing off and on for 20 years and I sometimes feel like I’m so slow.

    But I don’t take lessons because I don’t have time to rehearse.

    From what I’ve seen with many lessons, a song leads the way into the relevant scales and arpeggios/extensions. And I think that’s exactly the right way to link your ears feelings fingerings shapes so that you can use them later - where appropriate. And Autumn Leaves has a lot to get started with.


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  20. #44

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    Gladwell used the Beatles as an example. He suggested that their time in Hamburg was their 10,000 hours. I'm not sure if they really played that much (they were there for about 120 weeks and they weren't playing 80 hours a week), but it is reported that they played a lot.

    Had he used the Rolling Stones as his example, it wouldn't have even been close. They did their first tour shortly after forming.

    I've known some prodigies who were gigging with pros when they were too young to have 5000 hours. It happens.

    The 10,000 hour thing is based on a study of classical violinists iirc and may not be as widely applicable as Gladwell suggested. He's a talented and thought provoking writer, but his works aren't peer reviewed science.

  21. #45

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    I think Gladwell is full of it lol

  22. #46

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    Quote Originally Posted by Marcel_A
    I don't think it is.
    Learning something (i am a teacher, so i think i know something about this) is completely different from person to person.
    Christian refers to a study in which it took some student 5.000 hours to become good (whatever that is) and someone else 15.000. The whole 10.000 rule is the difference between the two. It's arbitrary and not relevant.
    It suggest that more hours = better player.
    And that is not true.
    It suggests that 12 hours practicing a day is better than 2 hours practicing. Not true either.
    If it comes to music there are a lot of different things one has to learn. Part of mastering jazz is physical. Your body needs to learn how to play an instrument well. The 10.000+ rule is focusing on that part. That's why violinists need to start young. Otherwise they never make enough hours. But it is obvious that some children who start young never master anything and others do. So to me the 10.000+ rule is like saying to your students: don't forget to practice. That's what makes you a better player.

    I have a master degree in economics and that's what i teach. My subject can become pretty abstract and that is pretty difficult for some students, but to others it's like drinking a beer after a hot and sunny day. Some need to make hours others don't.

    If i listen to a guy like Jaco Pastorius i think he is one of the second group. Jazz was to him like breathing. I doubt that it took him a lot of time to master his bass or the music he was playing. He saw it right away.
    In the interests of honesty, I have to hold up my hands and say I haven't actually read the study.

    However, if you can find me a world class jazz guitarist who hasn't done something like that amount of work (call it about a decade of serious dedicated work and gigging), be my guest. There are AFAIK no quick studies on this instrument playing this music. Someone like Julian Lage might be young, but started in early childhood. Maybe Charlie Christian - but the music was simpler back then, more like blues.

    Not sure about Jaco. Bass is a little different in some ways; it has different requirements to jazz guitar for a legitimate level of professional performance (being solid and strong rhythmically gets you on the bandstand, rather than being able to solo or knowing lots harmony, for instance). It certainly sounds like he was a total natural, but I think it would be inaccurate to say that he didn't work at it; it's more that work for some people is more like play; they can learn very effectively in an apparently disorganised and non linear way. I can't really tell from the bios I've seen how much personal practice he did. The way they tell it much of his learning was done through apprenticeship - the old fashioned way. (That's a whole thing in itself... anyway...)

    Incidentally he did play music before bass - on wikipedia it says he was playing drums age 8 - 13 and a sporting injury meant he couldn't do that any more, by 17 he was on double bass and swapped to electric, other bios appear to contradict this slightly, but basically say the same sort of thing.

    When you get into something and do it 24/7 for a concentrated block of time even non-genii can make progress very quickly. Sounds like he didn't do things by halves... one bio says he always had a bass in his hands ...

    Genius is most certainly a thing, but it never flourishes without serious amounts of work. Mozart worked really hard... how many pieces had he written by age 18?

    But ultimately, unless you are interested in education itself, none of this pop psychology actually matters that much. What is important is your personal relationship with study, practice and gigging.
    Last edited by christianm77; 11-01-2020 at 08:25 PM.