Jazz Articulation on guitar (rhythms, phrasing, et al)

[destinytot]

For me, Romain Pilon is hard to beat in the articulation stakes. Great control of legato and dynamics with a faultless time feel. I chanced across Romain in a small Paris bar about five years ago where he and his fantastic trio blew me away. Check out this clip posted earlier today with that same trio and a guest pianist. The solo starts at 5'55" and the final couple of choruses from 8'55'' are particularly fine. Romain's right hand is amazingly efficient, as graceful and precise as a master calligrapher!:

Holy Globalisation, Batman! Goes to show you what happens when culture crosses borders - you get diamonds and pearls such as M. Pilon.

Thankfully, my daughter loves trains (and my Mrs D, like me, loves Paris).

Thanks for this. PMB!

[Gabor]

In that order ?

My order would be

1. Good notes
2. Good tone
3. Good time
4. Good ideas


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Well, I liked the original order by Richard, it was better imho. Notes are way overrated :-)

[MarkRhodes]

But yeah, I get you. Whose the master of jazz guitar phrasing from the guitar POV?

Charlie Christian. Django. Wes. Grant Green. Kenny Burrell. Barney Kessel. Herb Ellis. Joe Pass. The usual suspects!

[yaclaus]

A fun thing to do is to take a phrase in any given position and play it starting with each and every finger and let that fingering shape the phrase and where you play things. Then record it and try to find out why you think it sounds best in either of these fingerings. I might give it a try tomorrow and post an example here

[yaclaus]

Gave it a shot with a beautiful phrase by Paul Desmond from Blue Rondo a la Turk I heard on today's morning run. The guitar (or me) doesn't give it any justice at all. I am really new in this field of being very specific about how I want to play something and would love to hear peoples preferences. Next thing to do could be to try to omit the pinky as much as possible like many pros have done. I like Mark's comment about not minding things getting stringy. I have gone for legato for so long that it's good to be reminded that the sound of strings can be good! I like the sound of Wes picking notes and there is also quite some string sound in Bernstein's playing. At this point I'm most about playing it where it's most facile technically and not in the bassy area around the 10th position.

[destinytot]

Here is what is works for me, doing since 2 years and now sometimes... maybe... I would like to think... there are some barely noticable results. (Before that, I had no concept about how to improve)

I know it is a bit general: listen your play. I do not mean record then replay. That would be a cruel thing :-). I mean always listen while you play, make listening the sound what you produce a very deep habit. If you are not satisfied, slow down. (again a general "saying nothing") But I mean it, really.

Some examples:

- When I practice scales, never, never do it unplugged. I always plug my guitar to my amp, to hear the sound quality what my pick, left/right hand produces, including the not wanted noises and bad sounding notes. The goal is never the speed, instead sounding good.

- When I practice Donna Lee, say I could play it at max speed 200 bpm (not too fast I know). I play it one or twice at that tempo, but I play it at 150 bpm ten times. This tempo allows me to really enjoy, I have time to listen and I have time to make fun with very little phrasing nuances, experiment new little tricks just for fun. All those things will not happen if I practice in my full speed.

Hopefully one year later in 2018 my max speed will be 220 and I can practice my phrasing, rhythm with joy at 170 bpm.

Great stuff.

[destinytot]

1. Good time
2. Good tone
3. Good ideas
4. Good notes.

In that order.

On time: metronome, drum genius, biab, another player(s). Singing solos by masters. Improvised sung solos from what's in your head. Record. Analyze. Rinse and repeat. Listening to tons of jazz daily.

Good tone: 99% of tone is in your hands. Imagine first the guitar is a percussive instrument. A drum set played with your fingers that also happens to produce notes secondarily.

Tap second line beats with your left hand fingers. Attach notes to it. A drum solo with notes.

Imagine the sound of the note is released about an inch beneath the fretboard. Push down deep emotionally through the wood to release the sound.

Good ideas: great soloists are storytellers. They lead listeners. They say something, say it again, and again a little differently, and then say something new.

They improvise in 2 bar, 4 bar, and 8 bar statements depending on tempo.

Simple stuff. Lots of space. The notes frame the space where the music is created.

It's like a portrait artist drawing highlights of a face. He can't draw light so instead he draws shadows. It's the dark that brings out the light. And, it's the notes that frame the space.

Jazz is created by what you don't play. Which is why endless eighth note solos dull the listeners ear. Law of diminishing returns.

Good notes: Since the majority of modern jazz study concentrates first on what I consider the least of a musicians concern (what notes to play) I'll end here. Plenty of resources on the subject.


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Singer Joe Lee Wilson used to say, "Jazz is syncopated silence." I like that a lot - and the parts in bold above resonate very strongly with me, too. Thank you!

[christianm77]

TBH I think there's a lot to be said for working on this one intuitively by making sure you are really hearing the phrase.

Big issue every guitarist suffers from at some stage is trying to play a phrase before they can really hear it. I bet that's the real problem for anyone struggling with articulation.

But hearing music is something that has to be practiced just as much as playing. An intermediate student hears a Parker solo say in a different way to a advanced player. And two great musicians might not even hear the same music the same way, which is why conversations based on listening can be really fascinating.

I mean there is so much detail in confirmation for instance.

In terms of technical practice ensure you can play scales etc with various types of slurring and different dynamics so that technical side of music is ready to support your ears when it's time to play a musical line.

Playing the guitar should be as intuitive as we can make it.