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im not sure it’s fair to dismiss them on that basis. I don’t that’s the intended purpose of Mark’s books
Originally Posted by JimmyDunlop
I think there are quite a few people who think that theory and improvising are the same thing and as a result try to use the book as an improv method. Tbf there’s nothing out there in the marketing to tell them otherwise.
Furthermore the early stages of jazz education always seem to be front loaded with chord scale stuff, I know it was for me, so it seemed logical to continue in this vein. I only found out later what playing the changes really involved.
For straightahead jazz I’ve got the most out of the Barry Harris approach. There are books and videos by Roni Ben Hur, Howard Rees and others… But even that would fail if not for contact with real music and experienced musicians.Seems you also dont like them too much, WHat theory book or what method do you suggest to improvise?
Also Barry; kind of advanced really. It’s probably better to start with something simpler such as grips based improv. Or melody stuff (I hear good things about Hal Crook but his book is kind of expensive.)
I have an idea for teaching improv that focusses on embellishing melodic/harmonic/contrapuntal pathways (related to melodic improv and Gjerdingen’s Schemata theory) but that’s on a back burner. I’m also not certain anyone would be interested and quite honestly it’s not something I’ve used yet in teaching.
anyway here are some thoughts about developing improvisation fwiw
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03-11-2023 02:51 PM
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Oh I also like Forward Motion by Hal Galper
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Did I do good? Originally Posted by JimmyDunlop
The most mindblowing thing I discovered in this thread is that the author has 1000+ posts in 1 year ...
never seen before
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Christian I watched the whole video lol... interesting
whats the jazz scrap book? Why do you use that as your channel name instead of yours?
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IMO Levine's book is beyond brilliant. Best text I ever used in any subject. Very well thought out and beautifully written. Filled with examples of great jazz ideas. Even the graphic design is top notch; it would be a tough read in a densely packed small font with minimal white space. Originally Posted by JimmyDunlop
I didn't say flawless. Has there ever been a text so perfect that nobody else ever wrote a text on the same subject with something to offer?
It really helps to have some keyboard reading chops to hear his examples, but even if you don't there's all kinds of good stuff therein.
It is one of the few books that changed the way I play (the section on melodic minor did that).
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So you learnt to improvise with that book? Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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Seemed like a good nom de geurre Originally Posted by JimmyDunlop
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Imo the best resources for learning are a teacher and youtube. A teacher can show you exactly what you need to do, stuff that would take you years to figure out. Then with youtube, it's so easy to sort through the exact topic you need. Books are hard to get through and have lots of irrelevant info.
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This is the first I've heard that I know how to improvise. Thanks! Originally Posted by JimmyDunlop
More seriously, I learned a lot *about* improvising from the book.
Not much of it got into my own playing and what did, oddly enough, was more in relation to comping than soloing.
But no other books were any more effective except Warren Nunes' books, but I was studying with him at the time, which probably helped.
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Just so you know, I won’t hear a word against our Jamey
That said, I do think we’ve had a few decades to reflect on the results of the jazz education explosion that Jamey was a key figure in and refine our approaches to teaching jazz at the entry level. I don’t think the ‘scales on chords’ approach teaches jazz or sets people on the path to learning jazz. It serves the function of getting beginners to sound inoffensive on Little Sunflower, and encourage them to take their first steps into the music. Teachers often teach this way because it’s how they are introduced into the music themselves…
I do think even in that goal it is flawed in certain ways and may even problematise jazz improvisation unnecessarily at the early stages by creating the notion of ‘good sounding’ and therefore also wrong notes that should be avoided and front loading jazz workshops with a lot of technical info that may take a long time to apply.
Hence endless conversations about whether or not we can have a major seventh on a dominant chord and so on, which should be cleared up with a bit of study of the records.
The language of the Mark Levine books and so on seem to encourage this sort of theoretical introspection imo especially among those who don’t have direct contact with experienced/professional jazz musicians.
(the first rule of jazz is of course, any note sounds good if Sonny Rollins plays it. Now we can go into ‘why’?)
over zealous application of theory for improvisation at the expense of connection with the music itself results in a type of pseudo-jazz that is more a game of ‘match the scale to the chord’ than anything to do with jazz itself, let alone swing or blues. As numerous musicians inc Brad Mehldau, Peter Bernstein, Ethan Iverson etc have pointed out repeatedly.
I also think there are aspects of it which are actively discouraging to some people. Happy to expand on that if anyone’s interested. Other than that I think it’s benign enough provided students are out into contact with good teachers and mentors. There’s clearly a lot of good players out there. I also think that this status quo has evolved from the best of intentions and no one is ‘to blame.’ It can also be hard to find or adopt a good alternative, so people go with what they know
Jordan Klemons talks about the ‘jazz industrial complex’ here’s a great seminar he did recently.
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Jordan approach may represent an alternative and accessible path. As I say there is also Hal Crook who makes similar criticisms of the scale on chord approach (it’s not an uncommon view among educators actually). I think melodic variation has untapped potential as an accessible approach onto improv. However, it has to be made clear that advancement in jazz has to be done based on checking out the music. Jamey is always VERY clear on that.
Kris you are IMO wise to differentiate between jazz improv and improv. In fact I would separate the two completely - jazz line building and ear learning of vocab on one hand and improvisation on the other. A player must be versed in the first to be able to improvise jazz.
Otoh Non idiomatic (ie ‘free’) improv or various kinds can be worked on without any reference to jazz.Last edited by Christian Miller; 03-12-2023 at 06:35 AM.
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You get there first, Christian. I've just deleted a pretty acerbic rant all about snake oil :-)
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To the extent that I can improvise, I owe it, I think, to some theory -- knowing chord tones, extenions, tensions and tonal centers is especially helpful.
But, I think I ove more to the general approaches to soloing of Jim Hall, BB King and Carlos Santana. I've transcribed a bit of Jim Hall, but not much. No BB or Carlos. It's not their licks, it's the way they communicate emotion.
I've occasionally transcribed bits of other guitarists, but the licks almost never make it into my playing. Same for reading through lick books. I once was given an assignment to write lines for ii Vs and I still use one of those.
I know, or have been exposed to, what seems like quite a bit of theory. I think it improved my comping more than my soloing.
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haha. Yeah I would be softer. I don’t think any of this comes from a duplicitous place, no one is trying to trick anyone. I think things can end up in a status quo of their own through natural drift. An idea gets its own legs, commerce is part of that for sure. There is money in jazz education… maybe not for the educators themselves though haha (though it is a steady gig). There’s a lot of forces at work here Originally Posted by ragman1
i actually think a massive one is inertia. I once observed a very good young educator working with school age students who was focussing on ear learning for repertoire (as opposed to the usual leadsheets) but still used a more typical Aebersold style scale approach for teaching the students to solo, and so on. He had to work hard to get the former approach by the higher ups and it was striking how good all the students sounded playing their melodies (swinging and phrasing right and sounding like jazz) compared to their solos and comping (which lacked rhythm, swing and didn’t sound like jazz - what we’d perhaps patronisingly expect from kids of that age). It was really stark. But he lost the gig soon after I think mostly to internal politics. I think his opinions and ideas in general were in conflict with others in the organisation. He wanted to shake up a lot of things, rightly so IMO.Last edited by Christian Miller; 03-12-2023 at 07:52 AM.
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'Anybody can do it'
'I haven't met anyone who can't improvise'
The guy is obviously trying to sell something. I wish it were true that anybody could do it. But they can't.
Anybody can try to do it. That is true.
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Famous teachers attract talented students. You give someone who can play and has that sponge like thirst for knowledge and motivation to apply it a bunch of info they will do something with it and advance rapidly. Someone who can’t play won’t learn to play any better. Originally Posted by kris
You can also meet students who can't play even though they learn from famous teachers.
I put it very gently, but unfortunately there are such stories.What a life...
just an idle thought
I can say I’ve had students who have gone on to be killer players. I would be skeptical as to how much this has to do with me.
i think that’s why I’m so interested in the early stages. What processes help someone become competent? This guy I mention shares my passion.
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blame the student! Originally Posted by kris
School and and teacher:
..."What are you improvising, you haven't learned again - failing grade!!!!!!!"...
But more subtly there’s a complicated relationship between assessment (and grading) and teaching.
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Kris -
For once, thank you for not losing your temper with me. You seem to have mellowed recently (and learnt some very good English) :-)
The fact is I'm just not very good at people who offer what is basically a false hope for money. It's not my morality.
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Well, yes, the teacher has to make a living but they also have to do it honestly or they are the wrong teacher. In my view anyway.
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yeah I really don’t want to make out that I’m knocking JA down. it’s not like I’ve achieved what he has or anything close. Originally Posted by kris
I knew that if I mentioned J. Aebersold, I would hear interesting opinions.
Living in the current times, everyone can have their own opinion on jazz education or the way of education.
...bu I greatly appreciate Aebersold for being the first person to take this subject seriously in my youth.
And then it was all under construction.
He was and is the promoter of countless books,cds,videos etc. on jazz.
There are various types of educational materials, where everyone can find something for themselves.
I had contact with Jamey and when I asked him for something he was always helpful.
Today it's easy to criticize everything, but to tell the truth, in my day there was nothing.
I can say that thanks to various materials imported from Aebersold I started to play consciously and started to love what I do.
I can make a joke:
There is so much knowledge on one CD of Aebersold that it is enough for everyone.
Backing tracks - who is the originator?
The first records I brought were: Parker, Davis, 2 5 1.
It opened my horizons.
Oh Jesus, that was almost 50 years ago.
next...the next materials are; Barry Galbraith/books-cds/, Jerry Bergonzi/books-cds/ etc - there is a knowledge digging...itd
Thank You Jamey...:-)
But his materials and approach have been out there for several decades and it’s possible to appreciate with the benefit of hindsight where his stuff works and where it is less successful. I think doing any less that is not taking him seriously.
but musicians do find it hard to accept the critiquing of the methods or ideas of a beloved teacher or mentor. It is personal. In science it’s much more part of life. Gjerdingen outlines that well in the other thread op. That said I do think we owe it to our students to not simply teach what we were taught reflexively
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Plus the US is the land of the teacher/entrepreneur. This is true of many of the people I’ve mentioned, not just JA, but even Gjerdingen. It’s cultural to some extent. I’m not saying that it’s de facto a bad thing.
I notice - perhaps not unconnected- that there’s a lot of incentive to have a recognisable ‘system’.
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tbh I think my business model is fundamentally flawed. When it comes to jazz teaching as a business… well I’ve heard some stories! Originally Posted by kris
The teacher has to make a living too.Some of them had two lessons with me and brag about it to this day.
I’m an idiot otoh.
Capable young student: ‘does this sound good?’
Me: ‘why do you care what I think? Does it sound good to you?’
S: ‘ummm thanks for the lesson, I’ll be in touch.’
the idea that anyone would look to me for validation as a player is terrifying (beyond the initial stages of course where I’m obviously doing that a lot.). There are also such things as grifts, whale hunting and cults in music edu and I find them morally repugnant. They are a good way to get money though .
Fwiw I think there’s an interesting challenge in teaching improv at a beginner-intermediate level. It engages me. It’s flipping hard. Much easier to expound on theory.
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He might never have been a private teacher (one-to-one sessions) but according to Wiki he taught at universities in the 60s, 70s and 90s before he became a promoter. And also presents clinics at the Aebersold (Murray State University) jazz festival. Originally Posted by kris
Jamey Aebersold - Wikipedia
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I would like to hear some of your playing Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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fine, why don’t they just do that then? Whatever makes them happy… Originally Posted by kris
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All I’m saying is I don’t blame Dylan Beato… Originally Posted by kris
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