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Is there any correct way to qualify a jazz player to the appropriate level?
A long time ago, one great jazz musician-pianist told me something after listening to a concert by Miles Davis / 1983 /:
"I am neither beginner nor intermediate or advanced.
I'm just a jazz music fan..."
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11-28-2021 04:57 AM
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"Correct way", "jazz player", "beginner, intermediate, advanced"; I think we need some definition before we can come up with a scoring system.
However, you have come to the right place for advice.
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Originally Posted by SoftwareGuy
Does anyone have an idea for such a system?
Who is to decide on qualifying to the appropriate level?
Is it best to qualify yourself to the appropriate level?
Beginner, intermediate, advanced-should we follow the principle: not what is played but how?
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Originally Posted by kris
Basic stuff; can you play through a good repertoire of tunes, comp, play melodies, solo fluently? Grade tunes by difficulty. Have a few technical etudes based on bebop lines, modal patterns, common voicings. (Maybe repeat some of the syllabus of more standard guitar exams with the proviso that they must be played by memory.)
You could start off with backing tracks in the lower grades even.
it wouldn’t be hard to assess, just pay an experienced jazz musician to examine. But I daresay it would be too much trouble to set up for too little return.
Also I think exams are often limited in the sense that mainstream teachers need to be able to teach them. So you have to teach the tecaher to teach improvisation as they go through the sylllabus. This is hard, and would also be shit.
There are jazz piano exams.
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Intermediate players have begun to develop their own voice. Advanced players have developed their own voice and arent hindered by technical and musical limitations too often.
Or to put it in another way, beginners are toddlers, intermediates are tourists and advanced speak their native tongue
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Originally Posted by Peterson
- learning the ropes to be able to join the community (novice)
- be welcomed in as a junior member of the community (apprenticeship)
- acceptance into the community as peer (mastery)
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Originally Posted by Peterson
How do you get it?
Is the advanced one only the one who needs to have his own voice?
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Originally Posted by Peterson
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But this 11-year-old kid is an advanced jazz musician.
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There is no level, you play or you don't !
If you don't, you talk !
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Originally Posted by Lionelsax
...but Who is to judge it?
Perhaps life is to verify this.
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Originally Posted by kris
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Agree with you can play or you can't.
Levels are for children's piano recitals and adults to feel better about themselves (ever see someone online call themselves an "advanced beginner?" Hilarious)
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Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
... but how to understand the inscription on one of Aebersold's books -'Intermediate 'in the right corner of the cover?
This book is not necessarily for children.
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Originally Posted by kris
For example in this context Biréli Lagrène would be a beginner.
He plays while others like me talk about him.
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I think beginners sound bad, intermediate can sound good, and advanced sounds good all the time and does impressive moving stuff. They're fluent, sound good all or almost all of the time, and they don't have technical limitations.
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Originally Posted by Lionelsax
Musicians usually talk about themselves.
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Originally Posted by Clint 55
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Originally Posted by Clint 55
This reasoning is clearer to me.
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Originally Posted by Lionelsax
My double bass teacher said 'if you don't practice, I will throw you out of the lesson'
He meant to play with the bow.
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Pat Metheny described himself in various interviews as an ‘eternal student of the guitar’.
The cellist Pablo Casals was once asked why he still practised for hours every day in his old age. He said ‘Because I think I’m making progress’.
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Originally Posted by kris
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Originally Posted by Lionelsax
I had the opportunity to play the same concert with Birelli about 20 years ago.
After the concert, to my surprise, he came up to me and said, 'You are good'.
I replied to him: 'You are good'...Birelli : 'You are good and you are different'.
Then we talked for a while about hollow-body guitars.
I remember it very fondly until today.
A very nice guitar virtuoso.
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Look to UNT and Berklee for their courses, then evaluate. (MSM, USC, others...)
UNT has 4 undergrad and 1 grad improv course. They don't reveal as much online as they used to, regarding content.
Once upon a time I believe Berklee had about 6? Anyway, UNT has 16 week semesters and Berklee may be on 12 week quarters so...
But this isn't rocket science. There are levels of difficulty by:
- compositional form,
- time signature,
- keys and modulations,
- harmonic rhythm,
- tempo,
- rhythm
Beyond that you have :
- ability to improvise (vs. memorize/pre-plan) at all,
- ability to improvise multiple chorus',
- ability to improvise with assigned/required material, (target/approach techniques, upper and lower neighbors, superimpositions, substitutions, upper structures, patterns and cells, etc.)
In other words, it's one thing to say "hey man I play whatever I want" vs. having a professor say "for this lesson your assignment is to do xyz" - and then be able to do it and do it convincingly/musically.
That easily seperates levels of players. Of course you have barrier exams for each level of class to begin with. You can't even enter unless you can already do xyz.
Formal study isn't for everyone, I get it, but standards aren't as difficult to define as some might think. Are there different levels of Accounting classes? (yes, it's already figured out there too).
Vintage fuzz on "space" transistors
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