Spending a lot time on tunes

[brent.h]

I find myself spending 90-95% of my music/guitar/practice time on tunes:

- checking out old unfamiliar tunes (e.g. currently looking at 20s standards in depth; spent many months on even earlier tunes)
- listening/singing to the original recordings repeatedly (viewing the original sheet music only later to check if I got it right)
- practising plain melodies until they become comfortable
- practising basic shell chords of tunes till they become easy
- practising plain melodies and shell chords in all 12 keys
- distilling melodies to half notes

To be really honest, this is my favourite thing to do in music: simply learning tunes. Doing this makes me a lot more confident in my jams. Makes me feel 'connected' to something, too.

I know that doing this is not going to improve my improvisational prowess. I know I need strategies and licks and stuff to help me navigate the changes.

But I'm lazy, and I'm not a pro.

Just today, I decided to learn a 40s tune, Speak Low. After which, I practised 'If I Should Lose You' in all 12 keys.

Don't know if it's time well-spent, but it was a lot of fun.

[James W]

That's nice.

I'm sort of the opposite, in that much if not most my time is spent developing stuff to play over changes - or not even that, technique and scales. It's possible I get bogged down in preparatory work but at the same time at the moment I am playing the long game so to speak. Obviously I still transcribe but not generally in the way you do.

I'd say I have a pickier relationship to the repertoire you mention. I guess generally speaking I prefer post-WWII stuff.

I plan on really shedding thoroughly just a few tunes so that I can at least sound good on something! Rather than spreading myself thin as I see it on learning loads of tunes... I reckon those with more talent or who learn more quickly probably don't have this predicament.

[brent.h]

Something strange happened to me, though.

In knowing more tunes, I feel like I can 'hear' my way through CAGED shapes better and recall melodies (that I haven't touched in a while) a lot more quickly. And I'm finding that it's really true what they say: your first 20-30 tunes are hard, but after that, you can pick up tunes quite quickly (like in less than 20mins or something, if the fingering is not so difficult.)

[GuyBoden]

When I was younger, I played many (and any) songs from sheet notation badly, so nowadays I only learn songs by memory and play them badly.

[brent.h]

When I was younger, I played many (and any) songs from sheet notation badly, so nowadays I only learn songs by memory and play them badly.

I literally laughed out loud

[brent.h]

Part of me wonders if I can get away with using only the fragments of melodies as licks instead of copping long complicated licks from jazz greats.

To me, this seems super-efficient.

The fragments are small, simple, can be practised in all keys, recalled easily, and inserted easily into solos. And using the fragments reinforces my brain's/ear's memory of the song.

Already, fragments of tunes are appearing in my solos:

- the opening line of Miss Jones
- the opening line of Hot House
- the opening line of Confessin
- the opening line of Dinah
- the opening line of Indiana
- the ii-V line in Groovin' High
- the ii-V line in Melancholy Baby
- the ending line in Rose Room as a V-I (love the ragtime-ness of this melody)

[Stringswinger]

Joe Pass once was asked what the most important advice he could give an aspiring jazz guitarist. Joe's answer was "Learn tunes, chicks dig guys who know tunes".

[AllanAllen]

Part of me wonders if I can get away with only using fragments of melodies as licks instead of copping long complicated licks from jazz greats.

This is very common in jazz. Check out this transcription of an Ed Bickert solo where he quotes the song melody, You and the Night and The Music as well as But Not For Me

[brent.h]

Wow sounds great on an SG!

[benhatchins]

enjoy it! Spending time on tunes is one of the best ways to improve. Repetition really helps build confidence and muscle memory. It’s kind of like grinding through levels on epic games epic-games.pissedconsumer.com/review.html until things click. What styles are you focusing on right now? Consistency makes a big difference. Keep at it.

[brent.h]

Does this happen to anyone else:

Playing a melody over and over again until it inspires you to hear/sing/play an extension or extrapolation of the melody? And that extrapolation doesn't sound illogical at all. In fact, it sounds a bit more... musical (?) than the licks I've learnt.

I feel that repeating a melody in various parts of the neck is unlocking something in my subconcious mind.

[emanresu]

Sure. Classical guitar. Piece is ready and sounds good, playing it over and over increases the enjoyment.
Or playing a groovy thing of some rhythm-music type, the enjoyment increases.

[brent.h]

I could have been clearer. I meant repeating a melody enough times that when it comes to improvising/soloing on the tune, you hear 'secondary' melodies and you play them instead of the licks.

Here's an oversimplified example.

Consider the melody of All of Me. In the first bar, it goes C, G, E...

I was repeating the tune again and again, and when I started a solo, I heard/played C, a higher E (major 3rd higher), then returned to C. I dunno, it sounded really logical to me, not just because it had the same rhythm or because I was playing on the strong chord tones. It was something else. It felt natural, like what Ruth Etting might have done or something.