POLL - Time it takes to learn pro level jazz improv?

[AllanAllen]

Not to be too pedantic but Tal retired at 27 to become a sign painter and I believe Wes stopped working his factory job once music sustained him and his family.

I think we all know the difference btw semi pro and wes/tal. I think the discourse may be bc the limitations of communication on the fourm. I'm usually pretty lazy myself with my writing.

Tal has said in an interview he never retired. He just moved to New Jersey and gigged there. It was everyone else who said he retired.

[Tal_175]

I think it's possible for a reasonably talented person to study jazz for 400 years and still not be able to do justice to the bebop/straight ahead style of improvisation. This style of jazz is played with phrases. If one doesn't work on developing a phrasal vocabulary in a systematic way, I guess it's possible these jazz phrases won't emerge out of other things they practice. Also a lot of jazz standards are vocal style compositions. The heads may teach things about melodic and harmonic construction but they don't teach instrumentalist phrases of the style (aside from bebop heads) or how to play them so they come out right rhythmically and harmonically. I'd be interested to know if there are musicians who achieved success in this style of improvisation with an anti-vocabulary approach.

[Mick-7]

One needs to be quite stubborn, willing to work on something until you master it, and this can and often does require intense focus. Breakthroughs happen when you do that, but may never come if you don't. By "breakthrough" I mean a point where you understand and can execute something you've been working on, you finally get it and it's no longer a struggle. And these breakthroughs are cumulative, one can be the stepping stone to the next.

In a nutshell, commitment to study is the key to success, if you don't have it, it will be reflected in your playing. It can require an almost obsessive devotion that most people are unwilling to sign up for.

[pamosmusic]

I think it's possible for a reasonably talented person to study jazz for 400 years and still not be able to do justice to the bebop/straight ahead style of improvisation. This style of jazz is played with phrases. If one doesn't work on developing a phrasal vocabulary in a systematic way, I guess it's possible these jazz phrases won't emerge out of other things they practice. Also a lot of jazz standards are vocal style compositions. The heads may teach things about melodic and harmonic construction but they don't teach instrumentalist phrases of the style (aside from bebop heads) or how to play them so they come out right rhythmically and harmonically. I'd be interested to know if there are musicians who achieved success in this style of improvisation with an anti-vocabulary approach.

What would qualify as an anti vocabulary approach?

[Mick-7]

I'd be interested to know if there are musicians who achieved success in this style of improvisation with an anti-vocabulary approach.

Don't think there is such a thing, if you listen to a lot of the music, you'll absorb the vocabulary. I reject the pedagogical concept that it's something one must consciously understand, in fact insisting on doing so is liable to hinder your progress. You need to be able to hear and play the music, not reverse engineer it.

[Tal_175]

What would qualify as an anti vocabulary approach?

One example of the infinitely many activities that can qualify as an anti-vocabulary approach would be only memorizing entire solos.

[Tal_175]

Don't think there is such a thing, if you listen to a lot of the music, you'll absorb the vocabulary. I reject the pedagogical concept that it's something one must consciously understand, in fact insisting on doing so is liable to hinder your progress. You need to be able to hear and play the music, not reverse engineer it.

You don't have to "understand" vocabulary.

[Mick-7]

You don't have to "understand" vocabulary.

Your comments implied otherwise, "If one doesn't work on developing a phrasal vocabulary in a systematic way." Sounds like analysis to me.

[Tal_175]

Your comments implied otherwise, "If one doesn't work on developing a phrasal vocabulary in a systematic way." Sounds like analysis to me.

Not at all. For example a time honored approach is to transcribe Django's lines over various chords progressions and work on applying these to tunes until they are ingrained in your playing. Then you'll start making variations by ear. Then learn more phrases etc. You don't have to analyze the lines and why they work.

[pamosmusic]

One example of the infinitely many activities that can qualify as an anti-vocabulary approach would be only memorizing entire solos.

Oh wow.

You don’t think that would lead to bebop vocabulary?

[Mick-7]

Not at all. For example a time honored approach is to transcribe Django's lines over various chords progressions and work on applying these to tunes until they are ingrained in your playing. Then you'll start making variations by ear. Then learn more phrases etc. You don't have to analyze the lines and why they work.

I would call the part in italics "analysis" - what chords will this phrase fit, etc. Still not sure what you mean an by an anti-vocabulary approach, sounds like you mean not thinking in terms of discrete phrases? I suppose Pat Martino would qualify in that regard?

[Tal_175]

Oh wow.

You don’t think that would lead to bebop vocabulary?

I am happy to be wrong. Do you know any players in any style who got good at improvising by only memorizing and playing entire compositions/improvisations without a phrasal level study of sorts? Like do you know any classical guitarist who after memorizing Bach tunes, suddenly became competent in improvising in Bach style?

[pamosmusic]

Like do you know any classical guitarist who after memorizing Bach tunes, suddenly became competent in improvising in Bach style?

I think you know this is a silly comparison, because classical guitarists studying (“memorizing” is a bit of a cheapening of what they do, if you’ll pardon me being a little snooty for the moment) Bach are not making any concerted attempt to improvise. So if they set out to improvise “suddenly” then of course they won’t be good at it.

The comparison would be if I know any baroque improvisers who do it well, having learned entire Bach pieces and never spent any time trying to incorporate individual phrases into their improvising.

I don’t know the answer but it’s a better faith question than the one you posed. I don’t know … Christian might know.

I am happy to be wrong. Do you know any players in any style who got good at improvising by only memorizing and playing entire compositions/improvisations without a phrasal level study of sorts?

As for this bit … sure … i know some people who have learned a handful of whole solos that they fell in love with and just played them with the recordings and never really made any attempt to dissect and incorporate the language. They’d play the solo, then play their scales and arpeggios and junk, then play the solo, then improvise and see what happened.

I don’t know. I never thought that was particularly uncommon.

Jim Hall used to say he never really transcribed, save a handful of Bird solos.

[Mick-7]

I am happy to be wrong. Do you know any players in any style who got good at improvising by only memorizing and playing entire compositions/improvisations without a phrasal level study of sorts?

I think Pat Martino said he never followed the lick/phrase approach, but in a way it's a ridiculous proposition, like saying, "write me a paragraph with no sentences in it."

[Tal_175]

I think you know this is a silly comparison, because classical guitarists studying (“memorizing” is a bit of a cheapening of what they do, if you’ll pardon me being a little snooty for the moment) Bach are not making any concerted attempt to improvise. So if they set out to improvise “suddenly” then of course they won’t be good at it.

The comparison would be if I know any baroque improvisers who do it well, having learned entire Bach pieces and never spent any time trying to incorporate individual phrases into their improvising.

If you don't know the answer you don't have to share an opinion. That's what I asked in good faith.

[Tal_175]

I think Pat Martino said he never followed the lick/phrase approach, but in a way it's a ridiculous proposition, like saying, "write me a paragraph with no sentences in it."

Pat Martino is a prime example of the phrase based approach, have you checked out linear expressions?

[pamosmusic]

If you don't know the answer you don't have to share an opinion. That's what I asked in good faith.

Eyeroll

[Mick-7]

Pat Martino is a prime example of a phrase approach, have you checked out linear expressions?

Saw a bit of one of his videos on it, perhaps I got the wrong impression. But there are certainly musicians who are not phrase oriented, take more of a "big picture" approach to improvisation.

[Tal_175]

Saw a bit of one of his videos on it, perhaps I got the wrong impression. But there are certainly musicians who are not phrase oriented, take more of a "big picture" approach to improvisation.

Let me reiterate what I was saying because these types of points tend to drift on this forum.

Based on the players I know, players I studied, and my own journey, I am under the impression that in order to improvise in the bebop/straight ahead style competently one has to work a lot on developing a phrase vocabulary and applying them harmonically. I have no stakes in this being a necessity for learning to improvise in this style. If you say you know players who chopped cabbage while listening to Charlie Parker 4 hours a day for 3 years and when they picked up their guitar they could improvise in that style and kill it, that's cool. I'll be happy to learn that.

Or a more realistic example that came up earlier, if you say you know a guy/gal who only memorized 10 entire solos and without isolating any phrases or working quite a bit on building phrases over the changes (just by playing these solos) they learned to play the changes in bebop style, that would be a very worthwhile piece of information to share on the forum.

[Mick-7]

I followed Joe Pass' approach to improvisation, which he went over at his workshops I attended when I was about 21 years old. He describes the approach in his books. The prerequisites to it are: (1) understand basic chord theory and progressions, understand how chords are constructed and their correspondence to scales. Once you know those basics, you just practice playing over the chord changes. You'd start by playing scale like lines, arpeggios, etc. He suggested you play straight eight notes, or at least keep playing, to compel yourself to play lines that both flow and connect the chords.

As your facility at this improves and your ear develops, you'll start hearing and playing more interesting lines and the more you do this, the better you'll get at it. But learning and memorizing phrases and playing them over chord changes was not a part of this method or at most, it was incidental to it. I found I was progressing much faster using this approach than musicians I knew who were using the method that Tal_175 described - plus they all tended to sound like the musicians they were copying.

[Tal_175]

I followed Joe Pass' approach to improvisation, which he went over at his workshops I attended when I was about 21 years old. He describes the approach in his books. The prerequisites to it are: (1) understand basic chord theory and progressions, understand how chords are constructed and their correspondence to scales. Once you know those basics, you just practice playing over the chord changes. You'd start by playing scale like lines, arpeggios, etc. He suggested you play straight eight notes, or at least keep playing, to compel yourself to play lines that both flow and connect the chords.

As your facility at this improves and your ear develops, you'll start hearing and playing more interesting lines and the more you do this, the better you'll get at it. But learning and memorizing phrases and playing them over chord changes was not a part of this method or at most, it was incidental to it. I found I was progressing much faster using this approach than musicians I knew who were using the method that Tal_175 described - plus they all tended to sound like the musicians they were copying.

I think you misunderstood what I was describing. Joe Pass's approach actually sounds like what I was referring to as working on developing a phrase vocabulary and applying them harmonically. I deliberately avoided describing the approach in a way that limits it to only memorizing someone else's licks. For example Barry Harris's approach is about building lines using the basics, arpeggios, scales, chromatic passing notes etc. Of course some rely on licks more, others learn cells, and yet others work on building lines from first principles (scales, arpeggios, passing notes). These are just different ways of developing vocabulary over the changes. In fact, Joe Pass method books contain etudes that consist of lines per each type of chord constructed from the chord's scale and other devices. There are several pages of lines per each chord. These are the types of activities that build vocabulary. He also has etudes that are continuous 8th note lines designed to help the student focus on how he builds chord specific lines from the scales by simplifying the rhythm.

[pamosmusic]

Okay so what doesn’t qualify as “working on developing a phrase vocabulary?”

Because I don’t think I could think up anything that qualifies as practicing improvisation that wouldn’t.

[Tal_175]

Okay so what doesn’t qualify as “working on developing a phrase vocabulary?”

Because I don’t think I could think up anything that qualifies as practicing improvisation that wouldn’t.

I did give one example I believe.

[pamosmusic]

I did give one example I believe.

The one where you memorize ten solos or whatever?

What does that guy practice?

Nothing but the solos?

[AllanAllen]

plus they all tended to sound like the musicians they were copying.

Man I wish I sounded like Chet Baker, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Kenny Burrell and Charlie Christian… exactly how many licks do I need to learn for that to start?