-
So you get a basic music and guitar knowledge (as I did) so much so that you feel confident enough to go to a professional for lessons.
The first thing he does is give you a musical concept and attempt to demonstrate it over a standard and then says, " you know.. like the bridge to 'Blue Moon' ".
You say (that is, I say) yeah right....how does that go again...I don't know it?
"Don't know it!"
And then he says the words that stick in your head forever...." well, you should..."
And you finally get into FUNCTIONAL HARMONICS and maybe take a course in figured base.
This was a very inspiring...maybe we should have a thread "WELL YOU SHOULD KNOW IT!"
-
02-14-2017 07:14 PM
-
If true, this is sad and misguided, and probably harmful. How do these "students of jazz" think people played back when recordings were unavailable, and most people playing the music didn't read music anyway?!
Originally Posted by John A.
Did the music from roughly 1900-1930 just fall from the sky?
I honestly believe a lot of people "studying jazz" would be a lot better off, reading a bit, and listening to as much of the history of the music as they could, for say 2 years before entering a formal program of study, rather than going off to study CST, scale theory, or so much of the other technical hoo-dah that passes for jazz instruction.
Hal Galper has said that music school faculty used to seriously, but gingerly, discuss the question "What if we graduate people who just can't play?" (I'm quoting his sense...not his exact words.)Last edited by goldenwave77; 02-14-2017 at 08:25 PM.
-
As a beginner I lived and breathed scale theory for many years. Helped me site read a lot. I always wrote my music in my head and tried to complete or nearly complete compositions before ever playing them on an instrument.
-
Thank you for cluing me into Aimee. I think her kind of wonderful.
I've been obsessing lately about a Julian Lage tune, 'Nocturne'. The melody haunts me. Digging in revealed the tune was written by Spike Hughes and first recorded by self and his Negro Orchestra in '33, for the most part with Benny Carter's Orchestra with guests Coleman Hawkins and 'Red' Allen.
If you listen to the band they are seamless. However they all could read.
But in general I agree with Aimee. I am too subserviant to the given changes. She has made me think
-
I don't think of it in such melodramatic terms. It's a phase some people through until they figure out more balanced approaches. Myself included. Originally Posted by goldenwave77
John
Sent from my SM-J700T using Tapatalk
-
Philco mentioned this above, Aimee's video on playing over rhythm changes. (She actually has three videos on this subject but I think he meant this one because he mentioned how she sang lines and this one opens that way.)
-
Another Aimee Nolte lesson, this one on how to swing.
Especially interesting to guitar players because she talks about Freddie Green.
The examples she focuses on here are "April in Paris" by the Basie band, "C-Jam Blues" from Oscar Peterson's "Night Train" album, and Nina Simone's "My Baby Just Cares For Me."
Thrilling bonus (-for me, anyway) a swinging mention of "On the Atchison, Topeka, & the Santa Fe."
-
Everybody i know who plays by memory likes this better than reading (or following a lead sheet), including myself. It's a very rewarding effort to start memorizing tunes. Once used to it, things will get tremendously easier and more musical.
But i still usually bring my iPad with 40 indexed real books to gigs to cover for possible requests which i don't know.
-
That's how I feel about it too. Originally Posted by JazzNote
-
what do you guys think about this? she talks about this 'play what you hear' thing. this exercise seems a lot easier on the piano though. unless you use two strings only or something
Julian Lage says in a video on youtube that he doesnt always hear what he plays and he admits it. he thinks its ok because that way you can come up with stuff that you could never have heard in your head in the moment
I guess i understand both mindsets and its definitely useful to practice this kinda thing she describes in the video
-
The playing what you hear is definitely easier on the piano, because every note in every octave exists only once.
I think of faster playing as a combination. You hear "signposts," if you will...a general arc or shape of a line, some melodic "check-in's." You might not hear every note, but you might pre-hear some highlights.
-
I read somewhere---can't now recall where---that one reason reading music is easier on piano than on guitar is that musical notation is like tab for piano (!). Perhaps an overstatement, but on piano, any note to one's right is higher than any note to one's left. (And the number of lines / spaces between two notes is the same as the number of piano keys between the two notes.) It's not that way on guitar. It's why fingering is such a big deal for guitarists. "There's more than one way to skin a cat" becomes, for guitarists, "There's more than one way to play a phrase. There's more than two too..." Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
Still, Aimee sings better than I do and sings lines better than I do. Getting better at that on guitar could only help me...
-
Thinking about this some more: this may be the best argument for guitarists to learn to sing.
The voice doesn't have "fingerings". Being able to sing a line means you really know it.
-
Definitely. I mean, it doesn't have to be good singing. But singing lines is soooo important.
-
There is something seriously odd about her video editing and slightly off smile (who is she looking at off to the left?), but I am digging her lessons! That one on playing over rhythm changes is awesome.
I'm in the Rhythm Changes study group, and she inspires me to write my own lines. Really good stuff. Isn't the Internet grand?
-
To me she sounds far too restrictive by saying that it's not cool to play something you don't hear. There are lots of great solos which i doubt that the players could sing them note by note. Eg. check out Herbie Hancock on There's No Greater Love from the Miles Davis album Four And More (piano solo starts around 7:20). He gets into what she probably would think to be "non singable stuff" at 8:08 and i find it really cool. I think part of the challenge is to play new stuff and surely one won't always hear in advance where it's going to go through. Originally Posted by mokapot
-
Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
Exactly. Herb Ellis was a great example of that. (He says Joe Pass did it too, sang what he played, but I've never heard Joe do that on a record.)
-
Aimee talks about that in one of her videos. She uses the example of John Coltrane and how she didn't believe he could sing one of his "sheets of sound" solos. But she does think he knew what he was doing and how it would come out. (Coltrane practiced a lot even for a jazz giant and knew the full range of his instrument in great depth.) Originally Posted by JazzNote
Last edited by MarkRhodes; 02-19-2017 at 10:18 AM.
-
Yeah, I think I take from it more like--get good at playing what your hear before you go off trying to play what you don't hear (or at least put some time into it, because if you slack in that department you run the risk of getting noodly fingers) Originally Posted by JazzNote
And again, hearing in advance doesn't always mean every note. You can hear a whole solo in advance, if you think about the shape and "touchstones" idea.Last edited by mr. beaumont; 02-17-2017 at 03:59 PM.
-
chicken or egg?
I remember when first getting into altered sounds over dominant chords it was just gibberish to me. But I was told that playing the melodic minor a half step over the root of the dominant chord was cool.
playing that melodic minor scale up and down and just pulling random sounds out of it slowly internalized it .... and then the gibberish started to transform to things I could hear .. and the abilityto recoqnize that stuff on records too.
-
I'm definitely gonna get into scat vocals and this exercise of hers. I even borrowed a Bob Stoloff vocal improvisation book from the library. While stumbling upon some vocal jazz videos I got the impression that I could gain a lot of confidence in my musical expression just by getting into scat vocals. It's not like I really like the comical syllables they come up with... But the thing I have noticed while singing some solos is it could really help someone like me who is afraid of dancing to loosen up.
I also don't ever want to become restricted to a few musical genres and their rules, so it'd definitely be an interesting idea to practice some things like the whole tone scale, the diminished scale, getting really weird with the melodies... Even if you don't end up singing scat vocals your music will be affected in a positive way.
I agree with the guitar being more difficult for this exercise but after a while it still is ok though. Good point that you don't need to hear each and every note but some of it here and there. Isn't jazz improvisation about the rhythm mostly? I heard a keyboard player say that you can play any notes in jazz, I assume he meant that you just need some good phrasing while at it
-
Here's a video of Aimee's about figuring out the chords of a song and writing them down.
-
Jimmy Bruno addresses this question in a video posted on another current thread: Originally Posted by mokapot
Jimmy Bruno?
(See post #31) Jimmy respectfully disagrees with what may be called the Dizzy Gillespie position.
-
Bruno's comment interested me too. As I recall, he did acknowledge rhythm and melody were distinct things (obviously), but when you're improvising they must come together. In other words, on the bandstand don't first decide on a rhythmic motif, then decide what notes to play. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
However, if someone asked a follow-up question whether that approach could be useful in the practice room, I'll bet he'd say it could. That is, as an exercise invent some rhythmic motifs then put notes to them in some tunes you know well. You can stumble into some good ideas that way.Last edited by KirkP; 02-20-2017 at 02:52 AM.
-
Originally Posted by KirkP
That reminds me: when Jimmy teaches his "five fingerings" and wants new students to create lines using just those fingerings, he stresses the importance of rhythm.
Reply With Quote
Shipping Catastrophe
Today, 07:27 AM in Everything Else