The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
Reply to Thread Bookmark Thread
Page 2 of 5 FirstFirst 1234 ... LastLast
Posts 26 to 50 of 108
  1. #26

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Clint 55
    How are you establishing that Joe and Wes's solos are representative of the melody and not totally built creatively from the chords if they don't quote it anywhere? On first listen I heard Joe hit the melody note maybe twice and Wes not at all.
    You dont have to straight up quote the melody like monk does sometimes for it to inform your harmonic choices.

    Bar 1 wes plays the 3rd of the I chord to start off, which is in the melody. He shows continuity in that idea targeting the 3 of bVII in bar 2. In bar 3 he plays the 1 on VI7 as the melody does. bar 4 & 5 he nearly quotes the melody with embellishments around the 7 of VII7 (end of bar 4) going down to the 9 of ii(bar 5). In the first 5 bars hes made it clear hes not playing some chord changes, he’s playing days of wine and roses. I believe its our job to get inside of these tunes in this way if we’re going to carry on the tradition of improvising on em.
    Last edited by mastodonovan; 11-25-2021 at 01:59 AM. Reason: Spelling

  2.  

    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #27

    User Info Menu

    Wait, I listened again and am hearing it.

  4. #28

    User Info Menu

    Peter Bernstein is a big advocate of this approach (no surprise he’s coming out of monk) - his advice for improvisers is play the melody so many times you get bored with it and have to improvise. Each time change more, melody, rhythms and ornamentation until the melody is only hinted at.

    Typing this I’m again baffled as to why I don’t practice this more often. Once you become a competent changes player one problem is to make sure you don’t play an endless meaningless string of notes and ii V licks. The melody is a time honoured way to find meaning and structure in music.

    (NB this will not help with vamps haha.)

  5. #29

    User Info Menu

    Mass market jazz education obsesses about harmony (because it’s easy to write about) when actually many of the older improvisers (including Wayne Shorter as well just as much as Johnny Hodges, Getz, Prez etc) we’re equally if not more concerned with melody. You won’t find a better improviser on a melody than Coltrane notwithstanding his harmonic approaches

  6. #30

    User Info Menu

    There's absolutely nothing wrong with using the melody as a sort of gauge when soloing. Presumably you've just played the melody and know the tune well. So what will you do next?

    I think the point is whether what you do next complies with the tune, it's as simple as that. It doesn't have to mirror the melody - in fact that would be a bit dull - but it surely ought to have some relevance to it.

    My point, if not a beef, about this is that it depends how one does it. As I said before, if you're being guided by the 'play off the melody' concept then you'll be hamstrung by that concept. That's what concepts do, they hamstring us, whether they're musical, religious, ideological, and all that. Just as person living in a concept isn't living at all, I say a person improvising according to a concept isn't really soloing freely at all either. They can't, they're too bound by their concept. This is simple, isn't it?

    But the person who doesn't have the concept is still feeling the melody and the ambiance of the tune. If he's not, then he's not soloing properly either. They may mirror the melody and cadences of the tune or they may not. There's no pattern, and that's the point. But the moment you follow a pattern then you're straitjacketed by it and your playing suffers.

    Just to bore you (it doesn't matter, nobody'll bother with it!) I've just done this. There's no formula up front yet who, even if you start somewhere in the middle, would doubt what tune I'm playing?


  7. #31

    User Info Menu

    I disagree with the idea that using concepts is inhibiting. By focusing on 1 or a few things, you can execute better and get a better result.

  8. #32

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    Typing this I’m again baffled as to why I don’t practice this more often. Once you become a competent changes player one problem is to make sure you don’t play an endless meaningless string of notes and ii V licks. The melody is a time honoured way to find meaning and structure in music.
    I've always liked the playing off the melody approach to soloing. However, I do like the changes approach too so I have been practicing that more lately. I want to be able to bop around and create good rhythmic lines with no clams by only using the chords.

  9. #33

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Clint 55
    I disagree with the idea that using concepts is inhibiting. By focusing on 1 or a few things, you can execute better and get a better result.
    The turnaround E7 in Summertime is usually an augmented sound so I used that. But is that a 'concept'? I suppose one could use that word but I wouldn't, it's simply acknowledging the necessary harmony at that point. By concept I mean setting out to improvise a solo according to a set plan. In other words the plan comes first then the solo tries to conform to it.

    Don't you think that would inhibit free playing?

  10. #34

    User Info Menu

    Without constraints there would be no art.

  11. #35

    User Info Menu

    Yes, but not good playing haha. I don't think using a framework or a rep is detrimental in the end because it helps you focus to be able to create something better than without the use of devices. Also in reference to the analogy to other disciplines I don't agree with this either. By knowing how things function according to my beliefs as a Christian, I'm able to make better decisions within the concept and live better.

  12. #36

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller

    Typing this I’m again baffled as to why I don’t practice this more often. Once you become a competent changes player one problem is to make sure you don’t play an endless meaningless string of notes and ii V licks. The melody is a time honoured way to find meaning and structure in music.
    But you're assuming playing the changes without reference to the cadences of the tune. It's not like that. One is guided by both the sound of the changes and the feeling of the melody.

    It's all in the listening. The listening is more important than both melody and changes.

  13. #37

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    Without constraints there would be no art.
    Of course, otherwise it becomes random nonsense. The very form of the tune is itself a constraint, if you like, only I wouldn't call that a constraint. Constraint on what? It's got to have a form, melody, harmony, rhythm, etc otherwise it's not really a tune at all, but that's necessary. It's not conceptual, the thing is there in front of one.

    Playing freely doesn't mean playing anything one likes, that's silly. A chimpanzee can do that!

  14. #38

    User Info Menu

    Abstract scenario of Joe G Tar and his ongoing relationship with a tune he's got a long term relationship with.

    When Joe G Tar was young, he took it upon himself to learn to play guitar. However it was when he went to a jazz club with a friend and heard world famous guitarist Jim Kell play I hear a Rhapsody that his world changed. "What's he DOING? And that SOUND! Where are those ideas COMING FROM?!!" and the journey to uncover the mystery an the mastery began.

    Joe got all the records he could find, recommendations from other players, a shelf full of books, subscriptions to several YouTube channels and one day finally sat down to tackle the tune itself.

    "Play the head. Learn the words. Sing it as it was written". That was good advice. He heard stories about Dexter Gordon. Heard Johnny Smith tunes that played the head in gorgeous concert presentation and for a year, played the head as gorgeously and with the integrity of Frank Sinatra in a Nelson Riddle arrangement.
    Many people who heard him said "Great job! You're an artist and a poet."
    But a little voice said "What can I do now? I'm not quite as satisfied as when I hear Jim Kell's new recording.

    Fast forward 10 years. During this time, Joe has been true to Rhapsody. He's learned rhythmic displacement. Some hearing him shook their heads. Some nodded. He discovered more about the tune by changing these phrases, he became closer to an essential character of the tune he never suspected.
    He discovered different ways to approach certain notes. AHA! That's fresh. And my relationship with the tune gets deeper. Some shook their heads, some nodded, his satisfaction deepens. His marriage to the tune strengthens.
    He discovered chromatic notes. There appeared an edge to his playing of the tune that shared the same sense of shape, architecture and drama with the form of his Sinatra-esque past. He felt a personal investment and many AHA! moments as his options expanded.

    One day he came across Lee Konitz, and Lee's take on I Hear a Rhapsody was like his wife had become someone else; someone else's wife, and even more recognizable although the notes were different from anything he'd play himself.
    It was a revelation.
    He found out about Lee Konitz's steps to improvisation. He listened to Lenny Tristano. His solos had none of the original notes, but the way he danced with the form was as true as the day he began his long love affair with the tune.
    Many shook their heads. But many came up afterwords and put their arms around him.

    Yeah, there are many ways to be true to a tune, to love it as a deepening evolutionary relationship.
    When you listen to another player, all you can really judge is how it feels to you. And if the player has done his work and stayed true, you can feel that truth. That's just about all you can really hope for.

  15. #39

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Clint 55
    I disagree with the idea that using concepts is inhibiting. .
    It depends on whether you use them to augment your mastery of line craft or as a convenient mandate whereby you can judge others.
    Forms, structure, rules...all part of the inheritance. It's what you do with the inheritance that frees you to compose with total investment and engagement. It's a creating craft. You have to look hard to find your own way out of restrictions, but then you own it. Nobody can take that away from you then.

  16. #40

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note
    Abstract scenario of Joe G Tar and his ongoing relationship with a tune he's got a long term relationship with... etc
    Absolutely excellent post.

  17. #41

    User Info Menu

    I'm waiting for somebody to acknowledge the audience in all of this foofraw. Playing the melody and referring to it occasionally will help your audience enjoy your improvisation. Jazz is in big trouble because nobody thinks about the audience, in which are several levels of listener. Sophisticated listeners, like musicians attending the show, can figure the tune out from the changes or the bass line, but that's a small percentage of a small audience. As far as "concepts" go, I like to use the analogy of a tennis game. Without boundaries and net, it has little interest at all for viewers. Jazz can be viewed similarly: leaving some signposts along the way can help your audience stay with you.

  18. #42

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by ronjazz
    I'm waiting for somebody to acknowledge the audience in all of this foofraw. Playing the melody and referring to it occasionally will help your audience enjoy your improvisation. Jazz is in big trouble because nobody thinks about the audience, in which are several levels of listener. Sophisticated listeners, like musicians attending the show, can figure the tune out from the changes or the bass line, but that's a small percentage of a small audience. As far as "concepts" go, I like to use the analogy of a tennis game. Without boundaries and net, it has little interest at all for viewers. Jazz can be viewed similarly: leaving some signposts along the way can help your audience stay with you.
    Not an answer but rather a commentary, the audience IS why you play out, but I'm observing a broadening of aesthetic sensibilities in audiences, more so with YouTube and shortening of attention spans. At a recent show I attended, it appeared that just about all couples were comprised of one person digging the music, as it was presented, and one person on the phone texting with a radiating LCD message "I AM SOOOOO BORED!!!!!" some even watching movies in the venue hall darkness.
    It's good to give something that all can relate to, but so often this requires some effort from the audience to be aware of what's going on up there.
    A long time ago I brought my wife to a show because she knew the musicians socially but not their music. She was polite but put off. But in her curiousity, she asked me "Why do you like that?" and she had not realized that what they were doing was compositional, not random, that it was structurally referential and not strictly re-creative. She listened to a recording of Greensleeves and her face lit up. "I GET IT!" and although she doesn't see live jazz a lot, when she does, he gets it and loves it".
    Some people in an audience can dig the form. Some can dig the groove. Some, the instrumental proficiency. Some the melodic sense. Some the excitement of the moment.
    I think it's good to acknowledge the audience, to share the integrity of your playing to the highest degree. But second guessing what they need to feel engaged, that is a dangerous game.
    I don't play bar audiences anymore. That's a choice, but it's because it exhausts me to play to the "Louder and Faster" demand implicit in competing with a large screen TV and a race to inebriation. That's my choice.

    I play free improv within my solo space, but my personality is tonal so that freedom doesn't forsake harmonic structure, it plays with it.
    Some will be bored. I can't help that. But some will smile at what I'm saying; they relate. And they will come back, and more importantly, they have a good time at hearing something fresh.
    Personally, I'm always moving towards a good bond with the audience, but too, they teach me what is appealing in what I do that I may not be aware of. It is a give and take.

  19. #43

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by ronjazz
    I'm waiting for somebody to acknowledge the audience in all of this foofraw. Playing the melody and referring to it occasionally will help your audience enjoy your improvisation. Jazz is in big trouble because nobody thinks about the audience, in which are several levels of listener. Sophisticated listeners, like musicians attending the show, can figure the tune out from the changes or the bass line, but that's a small percentage of a small audience. As far as "concepts" go, I like to use the analogy of a tennis game. Without boundaries and net, it has little interest at all for viewers. Jazz can be viewed similarly: leaving some signposts along the way can help your audience stay with you.
    That is true, or at least partially true

  20. #44

    User Info Menu

    People always clap what they recognise and like, even when it's not that well done. A superb singer, performing something the audience don't know, will get a fair response. But someone launching into Danny Boy will always get tumultuous applause!

  21. #45

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    Everybody can hear the changes (otherwise why play them). Playing off of the melody also doesn't negate playing the changes.

    I'm not saying people always should play off of the melody. My question is why bother playing the head in the first place if your solo will have nothing to do with it and it'll only be based on the chords. Infinitely many melodies can be based on the same chords, in fact contrafacts are just that.
    Maybe you play the head because you enjoy it, you enjoy the ripple of recognition from the audience when you play it. Most jazz listeners will then start wondering what you're going to do with the piece when the solos start. The head also establishes the basic structure and movement of the tune in a familiar form so that solos, however far from the melody, can be understood.

    You also play the head because the leader called it, and so you play it. You could also reverse the question: why would you want to improvise a solo if the head is where it's at? Is merely embellishing the melody really a testament to how inspiring it is? I like the idea of a player who can really play the head with expression and character, and then improvise at all kinds of distance from the original melody, including a completely fresh expression over the changes.

    For most of us, fragments of the melody are a great way to learn to improvise. Ornamentation is the mother of improvisation. But I think it's also important not to impose an artificial rule. If someone said "stop playing BS and play the melody" I think I'd just bow out and let him have the tune all to himself.

  22. #46

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    People always clap what they recognise and like, even when it's not that well done. A superb singer, performing something the audience don't know, will get a fair response. But someone launching into Danny Boy will always get tumultuous applause!
    Can that stuff I don't care about. I know you can play it. Can we just skip to the encore?

  23. #47

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    ...

    Typing this I’m again baffled as to why I don’t practice this more often. Once you become a competent changes player one problem is to make sure you don’t play an endless meaningless string of notes and ii V licks. The melody is a time honoured way to find meaning and structure in music.
    Wait... you just dissed my whole concept of soloing!

  24. #48

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Clint 55
    Yes, but not good playing haha. I don't think using a framework or a rep is detrimental in the end because it helps you focus to be able to create something better than without the use of devices. Also in reference to the analogy to other disciplines I don't agree with this either. By knowing how things function according to my beliefs as a Christian, I'm able to make better decisions within the concept and live better.
    Funny how some people think they are living without an established ideology or belief system. Everybody has one, sometimes they are not fully self-aware, sometimes they are in denial, but we all have core convictions and perceptions about what we need to be doing. The trick is learning to live through those creatively and fruitfully. Everyone has a philosophy of life. Not everyone has a good one.

  25. #49

    User Info Menu

    Maybe I'll ask a difficult question ...
    Are all these statements the result of a stage experience?
    I played several hundred jazz concerts and I did not see any surprise in the audience that I did not play the melody in the middle of improvisation.
    It seems to me that the audience perceives jazz in the right way when the performer makes the right contact with the listener.
    This is also the charisma of the performer.
    The performer takes the listener to his world and shows him the musical world.
    I saw a concert of a very well-known saxophonist who drew the audience into having fun together not by the melody but by the rhythm.

  26. #50

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Clint 55
    I've always liked the playing off the melody approach to soloing. However, I do like the changes approach too so I have been practicing that more lately. I want to be able to bop around and create good rhythmic lines with no clams by only using the chords.
    I don’t think they are mutually exclusive. I do feel that what I need to play creatively or at least not play my usual stuff is an organising principle to stop the playing being too automatic. Melody is a good choice.

    it is good aspire to be able to play changes without clams and bop language etc. Once you are able to do this fluently other considerations raise themselves