"Why Do I Still Suck?" The importance of rhythmic vocabulary

[AaronMColeman]

That depends on how far along you are. If you’re just beginning your jazz journey, then knowing just one jazz blues chord pattern that you can move up and down the neck can get you through any blues that a session leader might call. Then you add another, and then another. In the space of a few months, you’ve learned not only these automatic patterns but also a number of inversions. Which you can then begin to integrate and exchange to taste, as the idiom becomes more and more familiar to you. It’s like memorizing some ii V7 I patterns. IMO they need to become automatic. So that in your jam sessions or performances, if you find yourself in a place you don’t want to be (it does happen), you can let your fingers just go where they know to go.

I'm a jazz newbie, and I've found a great beginner friendly jam session. I call them the "survival skills", the memorized licks and routines that the fingers just fall into. These are my outs when I get lost.

[Jimmy Smith]

Ahhh, now we are getting somewhere! You are acknowledging that it can be possible, in a given moment, to prioritize a component of music instead of devoting the Nth degree of attention to every detail all at once!

Yes. I'm on the fix up my shoddy rhythms and time feel program.

[Jimmy Smith]

So far as I can tell no one has actually said that on this thread (certainly I haven't). The clip in the OP is very explicitly addressed to people who have devoted most of their focus to melody and harmony, but who "still suck". Even though it repeatedly states "notes don't matter", it's quite obviously doing that for effect in order to grab the attention of people who don't pay enough attention to rhythm. I know from tons of real world experience listening to and playing with people at jams and performances that there are a lot of people in that camp. There definitely are people who can play a ton of voicings and hit the right notes (and sophisticated alterations/extensions) over changes, who nevertheless sound bad for rhythmic reasons. Many of them have been at it a long time and don't get better because they keep neglecting the rhythmic dimension of playing jazz. I think the video (its click-baity-ness aside) is making a solid point and is targeted toward addressing a real-world musicianship issue.

Agreed

[John A.]

Agreed

Who are and what have you done with Jimmy?

[rpjazzguitar]

Maybe it is important to stress again (as you did above) that it is of no use to move the same chords up and down the fretboard when playing in another key. I have developed my ears already since years so hearing (at least functional standard) changes is no big problem for me but I learned a lot about the guitar when I limited myself to a range of five frets and played "All The Things You Are" in all 12 keys in that range (almost exclusively) with all possible inversions of drop 2 and drop 3 chords within that range while also trying to include substitutions like tritone subs and passing chords. Later I repeated the exercise with 1-3-7, 1-7-3 and 5-3-7 shell voicings.

Well said. That knowledge will come in handy on a regular basis.

[Jimmy Smith]

Who are you and what have you done with Jimmy?

[Reg]

Yea as Bob Head said... and Rick were talking about..... the "practice thing" about learning the guitar fretboard and how it mechanically works with voicings and the "12 key thing" ... it's kind of the thing you need to have done as a kid... like before you start playing jazz.

Because in the end you throw away all those lousy sounding voicings and boring voiceleading concepts. It's not what you actually play when playing jazz, or performing in a jazz style.

You can rhythmize the shit out most of those voicings etc... and your still going to sound like... shit.

Personally if your not a kid anymore... you need to spend your practice time practicing the good stuff... not being able to suck in 12 keys... I'm not joking. It's better to sound good... great... playing a few things and then try and transpose those things into other things. Tunes, chord patterns, rhythmic licks etc...

Obviously... not everyone etc... you do what you gotta do. Personally I hate sounding like shit...

[Bop Head]

Who said this?

"Bebop wasn’t developed in any deliberate way; it was just what happened when musicians got tired of playing chords and melodies that had been done to death… We were searching for new harmonies and rhythms – ‘the pretty notes,’ we called them."

Well then, who said this? I wasn't successful googleing this quote, there is a Monk interview from 1947 in Down Beat where he starts ""Bebop wasn’t developed in any deliberate way" but goes on differently. Could it have been Dizzy? What is the source for this quote?

[pauln]

Well then, who said this? I wasn't successful googleing this quote, there is a Monk interview from 1947 in Down Beat where he starts ""Bebop wasn’t developed in any deliberate way" but goes on differently. Could it have been Dizzy? What is the source for this quote?

I wasn't asking people to guess; I was asking to find out.

On another forum someone attributed it to Charlie Parker. Ora's Chatbot GPT-7* attributed it to Dexter Gordon. Just now it attributed it to Louis Armstrong. I asked it again and it said Duke Ellington. Now you have found Monk and wonder about Dizzy. I'm expecting Prince and Madonna any day.

When a quote is attributed to numerous figures I tend to think the quote may be significant.

* by the way, don't fear the AI chatbots; I'm 2 and 0 breaking the ones I've played with (GPT 3.5 using language, GPT-7 using math)

[Stevebol]

I started a gig one time and it was 60+ hours a week in the club for months. The guy who ran everything said you'll be tight in a month.
Once you develop perfect meter you don't lose it.

It wasn't a blues gig but I think blues is the most unforgiving when it comes to meter.

[Mick-7]

It is an interesting exercise to do exactly that. Take a tune, pick a note and play a solo using only that one note.

Maybe Jobim's One Note Samba?

Seriously, that would be way too restrictive - only one note per chord or progression would work. Learning to count and play poly-rhythms can help too.

[Stevebol]

I wasn't asking people to guess; I was asking to find out.

On another forum someone attributed it to Charlie Parker. Ora's Chatbot GPT-7* attributed it to Dexter Gordon. Just now it attributed it to Louis Armstrong. I asked it again and it said Duke Ellington. Now you have found Monk and wonder about Dizzy. I'm expecting Prince and Madonna any day.

When a quote is attributed to numerous figures I tend to think the quote may be significant.

* by the way, don't fear the AI chatbots; I'm 2 and 0 breaking the ones I've played with (GPT 3.5 using language, GPT-7 using math)

DownBeat Archives

[dot75]

I wasn't asking people to guess; I was asking to find out.

On another forum someone attributed it to Charlie Parker. Ora's Chatbot GPT-7* attributed it to Dexter Gordon. Just now it attributed it to Louis Armstrong. I asked it again and it said Duke Ellington. Now you have found Monk and wonder about Dizzy. I'm expecting Prince and Madonna any day.

When a quote is attributed to numerous figures I tend to think the quote may be significant.

There's a radio interview with Charlie Parker where he's asked about his playing & he says he's just trying to 'play the pretty notes' my guess is that it's an amalgamation of several related quotes...

[Christian Miller]

Turns out a fair few things Bird was reported as saying he didn’t actually say…


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[pamosmusic]

Turns out a fair few things Bird was reported as saying he didn’t actually say…


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Bird, Miles, and Abraham Lincoln

[AllanAllen]

When a quote is attributed to numerous figures I tend to think the quote may be significant.

Really? When a quote is attributed to numerous figures, I tend to think it's not real.

[grahambop]

Charlie Parker described bebop as ‘looking for the pretty notes’ in a 1949 Downbeat interview, as detailed here:

JazzProfiles: Charlie Parker - The 1949 Downbeat Interview

[Reg]

Has anyone's rhythmic skills improved? Maybe even start taking those rhythmic patterns and expand the concept and start using them with Chord patterns, both harmonically and melodically.

Get past the notes "don't matter approach" and realize it's just opening another door for developing jazz skills.

The notes do matter once you have rhythmic skills... or where to play them.

I'm just curious if anyone has seen any improvement with rhythmic concepts improving their jazz performance skills.