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

[pamosmusic]

OK please do share their practice processes. I mean that could be a valuable teaching tool for you too when you have a student who isn't as left brained as you. Aren't you curious?

He just improvises

He plays scales and arpeggios and stuff to warm up and then just plays over tunes.

So something I’ve helped him with is setting up parameters. Like rather than playing the whole tune, looping through small parts … four measure chunks, four measure chunks that start in unusual places, three or five measure chunks.

Playing on single strings or pairs of strings, strings that aren’t adjacent … every phrase has to crescendo, every phrase has to decrescendo.

His ear just grabs articulation and accent patterns and stuff, so I add some tricky accent pattern stuff on the scales since I know he’ll hit that stuff from time to time. He won’t sit playing phrases along with a recoding but he’ll spend fifteen or twenty minutes on scales, so i know he’ll try the three over four accents or whatever … so I can help his technique keep up with what his ear is able to glean.

But yeah … he warms up and then just plays. So it’s about helping the playing point toward some coherent musical end.

[Tal_175]

He just improvises

He plays scales and arpeggios and stuff to warm up and then just plays over tunes.

So something I’ve helped him with is setting up parameters. Like rather than playing the whole tune, looping through small parts … four measure chunks, four measure chunks that start in unusual places, three or five measure chunks.

Playing on single strings or pairs of strings, strings that aren’t adjacent … every phrase has to crescendo, every phrase has to decrescendo.

His ear just grabs articulation and accent patterns and stuff, so I add some tricky accent pattern stuff on the scales since I know he’ll hit that stuff from time to time. He won’t sit playing phrases along with a recoding but he’ll spend fifteen or twenty minutes on scales, so i know he’ll try the three over four accents or whatever … so I can help his technique keep up with what his ear is able to glean.

But yeah … he warms up and then just plays. So it’s about helping the playing point toward some coherent musical end.

But that's still a project in progress, not a proven method to acquire competency in straight ahead jazz improvisation with a rich vocabulary, right?

[pamosmusic]

But that's still a project in progress, not a proven method to acquire competency in straight ahead jazz improvisation with a rich vocabulary, right?

We work on jazz tunes and he plays them in a jazz style using jazz vocabulary, and all practice of all kinds is a project in progress, so I’m not entirely sure what you mean by the distinction.

[joe2758]

I've been taking lessons from Peter for about 5 minutes and it's fun. I think that's important. It's like having a personal trainer at the gym.

edit: i'm none of the players he's talking about

[pamosmusic]

I've been taking lessons from Peter for about 5 minutes and it's fun. I think that's important. It's like having a personal trainer at the gym.

edit: i'm none of the players he's talking about

Joes being modest. Hes the MIT professor.

[Tal_175]

We work on jazz tunes and he plays them in a jazz style using jazz vocabulary, and all practice of all kinds is a project in progress, so I’m not entirely sure what you mean by the distinction.

Would you objectively say that he is currently competent at straight ahead/bebop improvisation with a rich vocabulary?

[pamosmusic]

Would you objectively say that he is currently competent at straight ahead/bebop improvisation with a rich vocabulary?

It would be difficult to give an objective answer to a subjective question.

He’s playing music he likes and playing it well and would come of quite well at a typical session. So make of that what you will.

[Christian Miller]

The question is how does one systematically work on expanding it. When a student comes to you and say they want to get good at bebop/straight ahead style. You notice in their playing that they have very little vocabulary, they are just aimlessly hitting notes? What is your approach you take with the student. Again if you say, you asked them to just keep noodling and it works, I think that's a worthwhile finding to share on the forum.

Well, probably something along these lines. At least initially.

Just because I've found to be generally more effective with most than the Barry Harris method. Most newcomers to jazz don't know the guitar well enough to do the BH thing (I mean I didn't for years) although I've had a few very motivated young students assimilate that stuff very quickly.

Above all ABLM

[Bobby Timmons]

Tal, by using vocab are you talking about both specific ideas from players and worked out from the raw material?

[joe2758]

10/10 thumbnail. what does ABLM mean?

[Bobby Timmons]

Though I disagree with learning jazz without knowing what you're doing, Christian's point is true that most newcomers can't really immediately assimilate the whole academic music system.

[Tal_175]

It would be difficult to give an objective answer to a subjective question.

He’s playing music he likes and playing it well and would come of quite well at a typical session. So make of that what you will.

Yes, there might be some subjectivity in what people consider doing justice to the bebop/straight ahead style improvisation like they hear on the records. I suspect a lot of people who don't consider themselves competent assume the bar of competency to be something along the lines of what I described in the post #175.

[northernbreed]

I've been taking lessons from Peter for about 5 minutes and it's fun. I think that's important. It's like having a personal trainer at the gym.

edit: i'm none of the players he's talking about

Guessing you maybe meant 5 months?

[Tal_175]

Though I disagree with learning jazz without knowing what you're doing, Christian's point is true that most newcomers can't really immediately assimilate the whole academic music system.

Christian's approach recognizes the importance of stealing, borrowing vocabulary and mapping them to harmony in ones path to jazz fluency. I think analysis is easy and useful, but I wouldn't be surprised of some can get good at learning in this style without doing much analysis of the lines.

[joe2758]

Guessing you maybe meant 5 months?

I was just exaggerating that it has been too short a time to be much use to the conversation. It's been about 2 months.

[Tal_175]

I was just exaggerating that it has been too short a time to be much use to the conversation. It's been about 2 months.

Based on how he generally talks about his teaching approach, he sounds like a good teacher.

[Bobby Timmons]

Christian's approach recognizes the importance of stealing, borrowing vocabulary and mapping them to harmony in ones path to jazz fluency. I think analysis is easy and useful, but I wouldn't be surprised of some can get good at learning in this style without doing much analysis of the lines.

Are you going to answer the question I directed at you or only speak for Christian?

[pamosmusic]

Are you going to answer the question I directed at you or only speak for Christian?

Christian is a little shy, so I do find this helpful

[Tal_175]

Are you going to answer the question I directed at you or only speak for Christian?

I wasn't speaking for Christian. I was making a statement about the content in his video.
Going back to your question,
Tal, by using vocab are you talking about both specific ideas from players and worked out from the raw material?


I explained this already in an earlier post but it's a long thread. I am aware of a few different approaches to acquiring vocabulary. Some may transcribe vocabulary from their favorite players and ingrain them over the changes without any analysis. They would make variations by ear. Some may analyze them, come up with new lines based on analysis. Some may build lines using bebop devices like the way Barry Harris teaches. I would consider all of these working on vocabulary.

[Bobby Timmons]

Then I'd agree with you that most good players worked out vocab. Though Peter says he's worked with some students who get good more intuitively. Which I'm sure happens but I don't think is the rule. I think it's much more the rule that if a player has command of little or zero vocab, they can't play, regardless of what else they know.

[pamosmusic]

Then I'd agree with you that most good players worked out vocab. Though Peter says he's worked with some students who get good more intuitively. Which I'm sure happens but I don't think is the rule.

I don't think there really is a rule for how people learn.

Maybe heuristic is a better word.

I think the same thing when I talk about vocabulary at all ... so you know that this lick sort of looks like a major triad, even though there's lots of other stuff there. Putting it into a framework gives you a vocabulary for talking about where it aligns and where it differs. So it's a place to start a conversation, whereas otherwise you're just looking at a collection of notes and going hmmmmmm

The way people learn and absorb music is similar, I think. As a teacher, I would definitely say that there are these broad ways of learning people sort of align with, more or less, but it's generally the way they differ from those frameworks that is more interesting and more important. It's not useful for me to insist that the patterns fit them when they don't. And they never do precisely.

[pamosmusic]

Suppose one's goal is to competently play in the style of bebop/hard-bop/straight-ahead. Like all those records that we love.
Here are some of my observations:

- This style of jazz is played with phrases. A phrase isn't a two bar lick necessarily. They are often short.
- These phrases have a certain recurring relationship with the underlying harmony but there is still a lot of expressive freedom with them as they are like, well vocabulary.
- The phrases can be analyzed as things like 3-9 arpeggios, bebop scale etc. but it is unclear if a player necessarily needs to know this as long as they practice them in a way that they can hear the phrases in the context of harmony and the phrases come out right.
- Aside from specific phrases there are also certain concepts or higher level ideas that you'll find in the recordings of a player. These could be things like playing around chord shapes, using minor ideas over ii-V's etc. These I'd say also part of their vocabulary in a broader sense.
- Good players have a rich set of vocabulary that they are expressive with. A lot more than an average noodler in any style.
- If you study a player, you'll find that not everything they play is vocabulary, but quite a bit of it are. Their vocabulary also opens up their creativity as jumping off points to different ideas in the moment.

Are there any good faith disagreements with these observations?

Okay, I don't know that I'd really disagree with any of this. But is this different than any other style of music?

[Bobby Timmons]

@ Peter: I agree. I'm not trying to dictate how people learn, I'm just pointing out the prerequisite skill sets largely shared by competent players.

[Tal_175]

I agree. I'm not trying to dictate how people learn, I'm just pointing out the prerequisite skill sets largely shared by competent players.

I don't think there is any dictating going on. I am happy to find out about alternative learning paths that would lead to the share skill set I attempted to outline in post #175. Achieving that without working on vocabulary deliberately and diligently and get the results of these competent players. I don't think I have seen yet that alternative fleshed out in this discussion.

[Tal_175]

Okay, I don't know that I'd really disagree with any of this. But is this different than any other style of music?

The history of recordings in a style set the bar in how rich and complex the vocabulary is and how rich and complex the harmonic contexts the tunes of that style are. If all one has to do is to play the same 12 bar blues in two keys for the rest of their lives, the learning process to fluency with the core vocabulary can be more forgiving.

This is not a superiority statement for the more complex music.Music doesn't have to be complex to be relatable. In fact, most styles of music that are more accessible to listeners do not put the same learning curve barriers to musicians as the more difficult to navigate music.