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

[Christian Miller]

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

Famously so


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[Christian Miller]

10/10 thumbnail. what does ABLM mean?

Always Be Learning Music

I’m trying to make it a thing. My inevitable failure will not dissuade me.


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[Christian Miller]

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.

Tbh the main challenge of teaching adults is getting them to stop thinking and start doing. Those that seek out jazz guitar lessons are usually very smart and highly educated people.

I have no beef with academic knowledge (lol) but discussing the whys and wherefores will get you nowhere in playing terms.

Make the sound FIRST. Learn the terminology later, if at all. Terminology is mostly useful for labelling stuff for convenience of recall.

The doing is the thing. That’s why kids learn fast. If you know enough as a teacher to stop boring them with talk (hard for me lol.)


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[joe2758]

always be learning music

i’m trying to make it a thing. My inevitable failure will not dissuade me.


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gitc

[pamosmusic]

gitc

got it thanks christian

igpgat

[joe2758]

lol! it was "Got it that's cool"

[Bobby Timmons]

@ Christian: That's because adults learn music in the fashion of a 2nd language. To do that, you must break it down. Adults don't absorb a 2nd language the way children learn their primary language.

[Tal_175]

That's because adults learn music in the fashion of a 2nd language. To do that, you must break it down. Adults don't absorb a 2nd language the way children learn their primary language.

When it comes to guitar, most children are old farts by that standard. They are typically 14 and older. In fact, many great jazz guitarists started in their teens and they weren't necessarily learning jazz at that point. That's way too late by the classical standards.

[Bobby Timmons]

^ Yep. Therefor most people need to have music broken down to learn it effectively. Osmosis only won't cut it.

[pamosmusic]

@ Christian: That's because adults learn music in the fashion of a 2nd language. To do that, you must break it down. Adults don't absorb a 2nd language the way children learn their primary language.

not really.

if we're using language as a metaphor, then it's a second language for children too. The first language being the one they speak.

I really think it's just inhibitions. I'm in a pretty interesting spot where I teach nine and ten year olds, but it's the top band in a program where they start playing at seven, and get their instruments (most of them) at age eight.

So they are kids in many ways ... I can get them playing games, for example. We did steps and skips the other day, where one person improvised on a the scale we were playing that day, and when they played stepwise, everyone walked around the room, and when they played skips, everyone skipped around the room. You can't get adults to do that. They'll sing at the top of their lungs. Most adults won't do that either. I sing really loud and intentionally bad in the class, and I absolutely skipped with them. Things I would NOT have done when I was 22 and not teaching children or whatever. (EDIT: my wife is also an elementary music teacher, and I should know better than this and should probably model singing halfway decently, but here I am)

But it's really interesting because when they have instruments in hand, particular in a rehearsal or something, they have a lot more hangups. They don't act like nine-year-olds ... they act like people who have been playing saxophone for two years, or whatever. They don't have the same hangups as a lot of adults do, but they know what "bad" and "good" sound like to them, and they hesitate accordingly.

[AllanAllen]

Tbh the main challenge of teaching adults is getting them to stop thinking and start doing. Those that seek out jazz guitar lessons are usually very smart and highly educated people.

I have no beef with academic knowledge (lol) but discussing the whys and wherefores will get you nowhere in playing terms.

Make the sound FIRST. Learn the terminology later, if at all. Terminology is mostly useful for labelling stuff for convenience of recall.

The doing is the thing. That’s why kids learn fast. If you know enough as a teacher to stop boring them with talk (hard for me lol.)


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I'm guilty of this. I spent a lot of time looking for the forest in all these trees.

[Bobby Timmons]

@ Peter: Yep, so having them just do it isn't going to usually work.

[joe2758]

many great jazz guitarists started in their teens

I'm guilty of this

[pamosmusic]

@ Peter: Yep, so having them just do it isn't going to usually work.

the opposite of this

The entire point of the game with the steps and the skips, for example, was to get the class listening, and the improviser playing things they wouldn't normally think of.

If I'd said "hey you should think of playing skips of various sizes in your solo" they would stare at me blankly, nod, and then play nothing different whatsoever. When I make it part of a game (especially one they get fruit snacks for "winning") then they're Ornette freaking Coleman.

I'm constantly having to think of ways to trick them into just doing it. Even while we've also been playing our scales in thirds and things like that.

[Bobby Timmons]

Oh yeah, I see.

[Christian Miller]

@ Christian: That's because adults learn music in the fashion of a 2nd language. To do that, you must break it down. Adults don't absorb a 2nd language the way children learn their primary language.

I have no real idea how someone learns a second language as I neither speak a second language nor teach languages.

I can say what it’s like to teach jazz guitar.


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[Christian Miller]

not really.

if we're using language as a metaphor, then it's a second language for children too. The first language being the one they speak.

I really think it's just inhibitions. I'm in a pretty interesting spot where I teach nine and ten year olds, but it's the top band in a program where they start playing at seven, and get their instruments (most of them) at age eight.

So they are kids in many ways ... I can get them playing games, for example. We did steps and skips the other day, where one person improvised on a the scale we were playing that day, and when they played stepwise, everyone walked around the room, and when they played skips, everyone skipped around the room. You can't get adults to do that. They'll sing at the top of their lungs. Most adults won't do that either. I sing really loud and intentionally bad in the class, and I absolutely skipped with them. Things I would NOT have done when I was 22 and not teaching children or whatever. (EDIT: my wife is also an elementary music teacher, and I should know better than this and should probably model singing halfway decently, but here I am)

But it's really interesting because when they have instruments in hand, particular in a rehearsal or something, they have a lot more hangups. They don't act like nine-year-olds ... they act like people who have been playing saxophone for two years, or whatever. They don't have the same hangups as a lot of adults do, but they know what "bad" and "good" sound like to them, and they hesitate accordingly.

I sometimes model “bad” singing because enthusiasm and naturalness is more important to me, and I want kids to feel singing is a normal part of guitar lessons.

I used to be a bit weirded out as a kid when music teachers would sing with these trained classical style voices. It sounded funny to me.


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[bediles]

Tbh the main challenge of teaching adults is getting them to stop thinking and start doing. Those that seek out jazz guitar lessons are usually very smart and highly educated people.

I have no beef with academic knowledge (lol) but discussing the whys and wherefores will get you nowhere in playing terms.

Make the sound FIRST. Learn the terminology later, if at all. Terminology is mostly useful for labelling stuff for convenience of recall.

The doing is the thing. That’s why kids learn fast. If you know enough as a teacher to stop boring them with talk (hard for me lol.)


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100% (one hundo P)

[Bobby Timmons]

It is absolutely not one hundo lol. Learning music is exactly analogous to learning a 2nd language. You don't pick it up by rote and experimentation only. You need to understand the methodology to it also.

[pamosmusic]

It is absolutely not one hundo lol. Learning music is exactly analogous to learning a 2nd language. You don't pick it up by rote and experimentation only. You need to understand the methodology to it also.

Yes I remember in my 8th grade Spanish class when the teacher taught me how to sit and how to hold the … uh … textbook or something to produce the best sound?

The language thing is really helpful when talking about learning jazz as an idiom. I like that analogy. Like people who speak can’t walk into a doctors office or an auto shop and convince the people there that they’re professionals. They have to know the turns of phrase and shorthand etc etc etc.

There are also some interesting things like the sound before sight bit.

But learning music is definitely not exactly analogous to learning a language.

And for what it’s worth, are we sure you don’t learn a second language just by diving in and experimenting?

[Bobby Timmons]

It's exactly the same in that most people will not get it intuitively without understanding the mechanics. Therefore it's a foolish way to teach. Even though it's a necessary evil that you have to adapt your teaching to students not being able to absorb the breadth of the fundamentals immediately.

Yes, you don't learn a 2nd language by diving in and experimenting, though analogously it can happen. I live in a majority minority hispanic city. The mexican immigrants often do not learn english even if they've been here years. Conversely, I'm learning spanish and immersed in it. Though I would never learn it without studying the mechanics.

[pamosmusic]

It's exactly the same in that most people will not get it intuitively without understanding the mechanics. Therefore it's a foolish way to teach. Even though it's a necessary evil that you have to adapt your teaching to students not being able to absorb the breadth of the fundamentals immediately.

Ahhhhhhhh got it. So it is analogous to language in that particular way. Not exactly analogous to learning music full stop.

[bediles]

@ Peter: Yep, so having them just do it isn't going to usually work.

Just the right amount of decoding or explanation goes a long way for adult learners. As long as they don't get stuck in a rabbit hole.

As for different ways to skin the cat (maybe pet the cat, these days). Probably said this before, the best players I know were not too methodical and played lots of things they didn't understand but that sounded great. The most Jazz famous friend of mine transcribed maybe 100 choruses from different instrumentalists (A lift a day in may for a few years IIRC), I should ask her for confirmation, but to my knowledge that stuff just went in and there wasn't a whole lot of analysis (at least for all the solos).

[Bobby Timmons]

^ There's a mix of intuition vs knowledge to playing well, but the most effective way to learn jazz isn't not know what you're doing. Especially since we have greats describing how they learned from study like Charlie Parker, Bill Evans, BH etc.

Ahhhhhhhh got it. So it is analogous to language in that particular way. Not exactly analogous to learning music full stop.

There ya go.

[pamosmusic]

Apropos of nothing, I think an interesting distinction between learning music and learning language is that grammar is important to both, but that in music the grammar a means of creating the vocabulary, and in language the grammar is largely separate from the vocabulary.

Like you could learn in pain staking detail how sentences are built but not know how to make one because you haven’t learned the French for “soup” and “tastes like feet” or whatever.

But I could spell out a simple series of rules that would create an actual bebop phrase you could use. It wouldn’t be the most interesting in the world, but it would work.

Im not sure quite how that changes things, but I think that speaks to the utility of grammar in music. But it’s also interesting because words have their own meaning and music doesn’t … so I could learn the words for “sir, this soup tastes like feet” and say them flatly and with poor accent and the server would get my meaning.

Alternatively, I could play a perfect bebop phrase flatly and with no articulation and it would be totally meaningless.