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while it's great to know theory,we realize there are players who are not fortunate enough or based on other circumstances,able to receive proper music theory education.
nevertheless there are many examples of exemplary players who have even changed the face of music and still awe listeners today and haven't been taught formal music education,examples being wes Montgomery,Django Reinhardt,charlie christian,king oliver,and modern prodigy joey alexander.
what advice would you give players who are trying to play jazz,(or music in general) in order to understand how to do things like comp,improvise over chord changes,or even how to comp with a piano player and bassist.
personally for me i would answer those questions with things like,play counter melodies and harmonies to support the soloist playing the head or solo,don't get in the pianists and bass players sonic range,and make your solo be able to sound like you can hear the chords in the background without them being played
i know there are plenty of players in this website who are not well versed in theory so i feel this thread could help out alot so i'm hoping we can have players ask questions and people who know theory (or even don't know theory but are experienced in this music) help them out with phrases or simple sayings usually based off how we hear (which is how theory should be used anyway.....TH EAR Y)
anyway i hope y'all have fun with this!\
p.s. while answering any question with "know your theory" is the best response yes,i believe you are missing the point of this post by answering like that
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06-11-2016 03:09 AM
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I would say "know your intervals". Being able to hear one in your head, and translating it to fingerboard use in real-time, seems pretty vital to me, not that I'm able to do that as often as I'd like. :/
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Like this perhaps
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Do what Django and Wes did. Start young, and learn tunes (by ear).
If it's too late to start young: learn tunes harder.
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See live music. A LOT. And listen. A LOT.
Work hard and put in a lot of time on the instrument, learn to really love playing and do it because you love it. Don't just play it, hear it.
When you notice something in your playing, and only after you've noticed something through playing, then that's the time, ask questions.
Don't use your instrument for distraction, mindless entertainment or to take up time...that goes doubly for online activities.
You can come to know a way of playing that transcends conventional wisdom and theory. And it will work.
David
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Look you don't want to understand what your playing, or at least don't want top put in much time, or don't have the etc...
I know most like to say, get your ears together, listen etc... and yea it's a basic requirement. But if you want to play jazz, you obviously have listened and will continue to do so. That is the easy part... no brains or skill required.
The most important aspect of being able to play.... "GET YOUR TECHNICAL SKILLS TOGETHER ON YOUR INSTRUMENT"
Your not going to ever be able to play jazz...no mater how much you listening. And yea you can skip the theory BS. Although it's interesting to hear others on this forum finally have realizations about playing jazz... figure it out somehow, and many of the concepts... I've posted on this forum years ago. But there is something about going through that slow process of trial and error, figuring out personal theory revelations, magical obscure secrets, I guess it does create more drama, and who really cares in the end. Anyway can work.... but the technical part about being able play jazz on guitar... there is no way around it, you can't skip the process.
You need TECHNICAL SKILLS ON YOUR INSTRUMENT.
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Besides this I would add that you should be thinking about limitations within song structures that make them coherent. Although not within the jazz genre, Jimi Hendrix not only had mad technical skills, but he also understood how to limit his playing to fit within song structures. In jazz you can go nuts on improvisations, but in some ways it is nice to tie a bow around them to give the whole song an understandable feel. It can be more than just literally resolving the key, btw. My two cents, and although I find theory fascinating I am far from deeply understanding it.
Originally Posted by Reg
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Wayne Krantz said (if I understood him right) in a masterclass I was at that he felt that learning loads of theory had perhaps been a bit of a distraction from trusting his ears, and that we was looking towards abandoning it in his playing.
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not exactly sure what this means, could you clarify what you mean by technical skills? Originally Posted by Reg
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"I am not saying that what you do isn't beautiful, but it's theoretically absurd." Debussy simply replied: "There is no theory. You have merely to listen. Pleasure is the law."
ohhhh!!!
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hi everyone! awesome responses! i really loved them and took them all to heart
although i want to say an opinion. i wanted to make a thread where we give advice to people and give them perspective on how to hear music or play it if they don't have theoretical knowledge to support their musical epiphanies
however i don't wish to slash off music theory or demote it,what alot of people and mostly young theory students don't understand is music theory HAS TO BE USED BY YOUR EAR IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT
before i get on a rant i just want to state i'm not slashing music theory in this thread,just providing alternative perspectives to people to be able to understand music
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This might seem odd but I make a distinction between practical theory - or perhaps 'music practice' and real music theory. Originally Posted by jazzy anime enthusiast
Music practice - a patchwork of ideas and rules of thumb, internalised by the musician and used in conjunction with the ears for improvisation and composition. This is not a desire to come up with a grand theory of music, just stuff that will actually help a budding improvisor to play music.
These are little snippets of info that can be used right away to help in playing music.
For example:
- chords often go around the cycle
- play a tritone sub on a dominant
- add in extra notes in a descending scale to make the chord tones come out on the beat
And so on
Music theory is stuff like:
- why does backcycling work so well?
- how does a tritone sub work?
And so on
Obviously there is stuff that blurs the boundaries between the two - like Chord Scale Theory
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I know that I got off the rails early on by fervently studying the "Jazz Theory Book" and dissecting the "modes of the melodic minor scale". It was only after I shifted my focus to really mastering the major scale and related arpeggios in five positions and adding appropriate chromatic tones did my actual playing and enjoyment improve. Attempting to match arcane scales to underlying chords instead of hearing and enhancing the melody was a path to hell for me.
Advanced theory may be useful in explaining why something works, and in identifying new possibilities, but imo basic theory is really all that's required to get far down this road. Let's ask, say, Charlie Christian or Jimmy Raney about the modes of melodic minor and how they improved their playing............
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06-12-2016, 07:04 AM #14destinytot Guest
I started as a singer (but I think playing guitar has become more important to me). The most 'formal' of the lessons I've had were for voice, which didn't require theory - at least not directly - because the focus was on the production of good tone.
A turning point for me was joining a choral society. It quickly became obvious to me that the members who sang well had сonnaissance de cause (whereas others, including me, either learned their parts from an audio cassette or copied the more competent singers).
I wanted to be like the first group, but I wanted to sing 'jazz' (yawn)... So I got a vocal Real Book (hush-hush) and a copy of Ted Greene's Chord Chemistry.
Leaving aside the (dense) chord reference pages, Ted Greene's book introduced more than enough theory for me to have fun with a Real Book without hurting myself.
(Thank you if you've read this far.)
Thirty-two years later, I rely on nothing but my ears. I read a little most days (out of respect for written melody), but it's not enough to be able to play anywhere near as fluently as I'd like.
Re. the OP, what I would recommend is learning to use (not 'play') a piano/keyboard for preparing/studying music (especially for working out progressions and lines) - but transferring immediately to guitar, where application requires technical ability/skills. Personally, I find this very effective and rewarding.Last edited by destinytot; 06-12-2016 at 07:08 AM.
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I like in the Jonathan Kreisberg interview video I posted in it's own thread they touch on this and like when they talk about player that don't study theory. In general they say the compensate by learn huge amounts of vocabulary that learning tunes and learning solo/vocabulary that is there theory alternative. Also mentioned Lonnie Smith great Jazz organist and he not a theory person, but once again like other old or experienced Jazz master they know sounds. They know sounds of chords and cycles and etc and they know vocabulary.
As I've said in past you can learn basic theory or you can play by ear and spend as much if not more time reinventing the wheel. I would just say let music move you to wanting to the theory behind it not the other way around. Playing and listening is the teacher. When you discovery the musical idea first you're also discovering the feeling the goes with it.
Learn music like a child learns to talk, imitation and repetition. Later they may or may not learn the theory/grammar, but they continue expanding their speech by continued imitation and repetition. Learn tunes, transcribe, imitation and repetition.
Enough time for coffee.
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Also - you might understand the major scale and how to play intervals and triads through it. That could take a few minutes to understand.
Now go and shed that on the guitar, all positions, all keys, to the point where you don't have to think any more.
How long does that take?
And can you sing these patterns? Recognise them by ear? Mix them up into combinations of two or more intervals (BTW I LOVE this sound)?
More time.
Where theory can be really useful, maximise the utility of what you already know. Allow you to apply a small amount of material in every possible situation, so you are never groping around for things to play over a m7b5 chord or whatever.
Now Charlie Christian may not have been a theorist, but he certainly seems to have used this process in his playing, in that he understood many different ways the same minor 6 type material could be applied.
Obvious example - well now I know my major scale, what else can I do with it? Oh well here are the modes of the major scale and you can use the same stuff over different chords types. It's good to know that a D dominant scale (mixolydian) will have the same fingering as the G major scale.
Of course, you have to learn the sounds - but at least your fingers will remember the shapes....
And so on...
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I understand what you wrote and can agree with it. However things like syntax and grammar are effective for communication. They are taught because of the need for commonality to communicate. IMHO ignorance of these subjects is not a virtue regardless of how poetic one might feel about their use of language. I spend more time deciphering emails at work than I would like because of poor syntax and grammar. Often times the author means to communicate the opposite of my interpretation and we go back and forth several times to understand each other. I can only imagine a jazz ensemble renting studio space to work on projects only to spend all their time arguing about what someone means to communicate about their parts. Just play can work, but it might not always cut to the chase. Originally Posted by NoReply
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Technical skills ..on your instrument ... is just being able to perform music without having to work everything out you play before you perform.
How to play melodic and harmonic material on the fretboard...that you can repeat. Usually is developed by use of organization... My point was whether you use or understand theory/harmony etc... or you don't, It doesn't really make any difference if you can't play what you want, hear or feel on your instrument.
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I'd tell them to learn theory if they want to play jazz. It's not THAT difficult.
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Speaking for myself I've always found theory pretty easy. Originally Posted by Boston Joe
Learning the language, refining my musicianship, working on my time and feel and internalising material - that's been the real challenge.
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Theory was tough for me for a long time. I mean, I learned the nuts and bolts - how to construct scales and chords, and how to voice lead and write (extremely) basic counterpoint. But I never really got it from a jazz perspective for a long time. Then at some point it just kind of "clicked" for me. Now I think theoretical stuff is pretty simple. And it's even less "Theory" than it is systems of organizing material. Originally Posted by christianm77
My main challenge has been vocabulary. I'm not really good at memorizing licks. Or rather, I can learn and memorize them, but getting them into my improvising is really tough. I basically have to shoehorn them in at every opportunity until they start feeling natural, but that takes a long time.
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It does take a long time. Originally Posted by Boston Joe
But improvisation isn't about memorising licks - or at least, not only about that. For me it's about developing flexibility and working on being able to hear what's going on in detail.
Licks happen by default. But you won't like them because they'll be your licks. But everyone else will hear them as you.
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No, I know. It's not about memorizing licks, but in order to expand vocabulary, I've got to play stuff that's unfamiliar. And the only way that unfamiliar stuff will stick is endless repetition and jamming it in wherever I can (For Archer fans, there *might* be a "phrasing" there.) Originally Posted by christianm77
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They are necessary, but not sufficient. A recovering shredder myself, I had decent chops ... but I still couldn't hear jazz. It landed on me one day, lord knows why or how, but until it clicked in my ears, all my technical chops had no swing and no groove. Originally Posted by Reg
Still working on those, y'know?
Technique:music as bricks:buildings..
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Love it at 9:00 ... Wonder why ? Originally Posted by Jabberwocky
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