jazzz

[Friday]

Hi folks. I basically have, in the past week, developed a POWERFUL desire to play jazz. I play guitar and am a decently accomplished improviser in blues,acoustic, folk styles but I pretty much just solo by feel/ear and scales. I certainly don't know every note I'm playing as I'm playing it, nor how it relates back to the chord that I'm playing over. I know the theory behind all of that and could figure it out in a few seconds, but obviously I'm not pausing for a few seconds between each note in a solo. From what I understand, jazz players actually use arpeggios the individual notes within a chord to build their solos. Is that correct? I'm a bit confused on this issue b/c I keep reading that jazz players "move with the changes" by having extensive knowledge of theory and the fretboard. But then I read that "no great jazz player is thinking about every note he's playing, as he's playing it". So are they thinking about the chord and the notes within it...or are they pretty much playing by feel but drawing from their knowledge of theory? Aside from all that. I pretty much just want any advice as to what I should be practicing everyday to begin the path towards Pat Metheny or Wes Montgomery. Thanks a ton! Hope that wasn't confusing...

[Friday]

Anyone...!?

[Over9Thousand]

Well, jazz players do have to know a great deal of theory. But jazz is also known as am improvisational art with no hard-and-fast rules. Once you know the theory well and understand it, it will seep into your improvisation, perhaps without you even noticing.
As far as practice recomendations, the pentatonic scale is by far the most used jazz scale. You should throughly practice this scale and learn to understand it in all of its forms.
Eartraining is also important. One very other important skill is to imitate music just by listening to it.
And yes, Wes Montgomery in particular used arpeggios to build his solos.

[jessmanca]

You should know what notes youre playing when youre playing them at the least.

and how they relate to the chord is very helpful as well.. it's not a bad thing to solo slowly at first. learn the common patterns for jazz chords and internalize them.

[JonR]

Hi folks. I basically have, in the past week, developed a POWERFUL desire to play jazz. I play guitar and am a decently accomplished improviser in blues,acoustic, folk styles but I pretty much just solo by feel/ear and scales. I certainly don't know every note I'm playing as I'm playing it, nor how it relates back to the chord that I'm playing over. I know the theory behind all of that and could figure it out in a few seconds, but obviously I'm not pausing for a few seconds between each note in a solo. From what I understand, jazz players actually use arpeggios the individual notes within a chord to build their solos. Is that correct? I'm a bit confused on this issue b/c I keep reading that jazz players "move with the changes" by having extensive knowledge of theory and the fretboard. But then I read that "no great jazz player is thinking about every note he's playing, as he's playing it". So are they thinking about the chord and the notes within it...or are they pretty much playing by feel but drawing from their knowledge of theory? Aside from all that. I pretty much just want any advice as to what I should be practicing everyday to begin the path towards Pat Metheny or Wes Montgomery. Thanks a ton! Hope that wasn't confusing...IMO, jazz players play exactly the same way you do.
They know enough theory to identify what they are doing if they stop and think - but they don't. They have it all absorbed subconsciously, just as you do.

If what you are playing sounds good, it will certainly relate to the chords you are playing over - and you will be aware of that on some level. You wouldn't hold or repeat the same note or phrase over several different chords, would you? And if you did (it sounds good to do that sometimes!), you would hear how it sounded a little different on each one? And you would base certain choices on those differences. You wouldn't have to think about it too much, or at all. After a while, those things feel natural.
IOW, without (perhaps) being aware of it, you are working from chords and arpeggios, within the scale you're using. (As you say, you could work it all out if you wanted. Why not record one of your performances and analyze it afterwards, note by note? I suspect you'd find the theory behind what you're doing - unawares - is pretty impressive...)

Where jazz musicians (maybe) are ahead of you is that they simply know more and have practised more :rolleyes: . After all, jazz is much more complicated music (harmonically at least) than blues, folk or rock. You NEED to know more. You need to have more stuff in your subconscious.
Eg, you need to know about extended chords, eg, (7ths, 9ths, 11ths, 13ths) which don't occur too often in folk or blues.
You'll get 7ths in blues, but generally only one kind. ALL jazz chords are 7ths of some kind, and there are several.
Jazz also changes key frequently (in the same tune), which blues and folk almost never do, and rock rarely does. You need to be able to identify what's happening - whether you do it by ear, or by theory.
But still, an experienced jazz musician thinks no more than you do about what they're playing. It's all ear/intuition.

The point is, the ear doesn't do it by magic. It can only make its choices from internalised knowledge of all the options, and which ones are best at any given point.
In all of us, many of those rules are internalised before we ever start learning an instrument. We know when we hear someone play a wrong note, tho we won't know why, or what it is. There's a whole level of musical grammar that's in our heads from childhood, just as English grammar is (or whatever our mother tongue), simply because we've heard a lot of music.

Learning an instrument is about learning how to produce those right notes and avoid the wrong ones. For the traditional folk/blues musician, a lot of it is trial and error; but the formulas are very simple - a handful of chords in total, and only a few in any one song. And melodic phrases that are familiar and often simple.
The formulas of jazz are much more varied, and conventional theoretical knowledge is essential (for most) to help you get there.

But learning any genre of music depends on being very familiar - over years - with what it actually sounds like. After all, why would you want to play blues in the first place, unless you'd heard and loved it for some time beforehand?
Same with jazz. You wouldn't want to play jazz just because someone told you it mattered, or because you thought it might impress people (I guess some people might do it for those reasons...). It would be because you'd listened to lots of it, and wanted to join in. The sounds are in your head already.

To get technical rather than philosophical... :rolleyes: :

Working from arpeggios (chord tones) in jazz makes things easier (than thinking in scales). It gives you a reliable foundation to work from. It's impossible to play a wrong note if you only use arpeggios.
In folk or blues, if you only used arpeggios, things would swiftly get boring, because chords don't change that often.
In jazz (esp in advanced bebop), chords change every 2 beats, and you might get a key change every couple of bars.
Moreover, an "arpeggio" means at least a 7th chord (4 notes out of a 7-note scale), maybe a 9th (5 notes) or more. So arpeggios consist of most of a scale anyway.
Even so, jazz players don't often play entire arps, or only arps. They might go for 3rds and 7ths, or 7ths and 9ths - with other scale notes in passing.

The idea is that the chord tones are your template, your map through the tune.
Everything you play refers to chord tones, because that's how the ear (even those of uneducated listeners) hears "right" and "wrong" notes - in relation to the background (which is the chords).
Doesn't mean "wrong notes" (outside the chord or key) can't be used - they often are - but they work as contrast with the "inside" notes. And that's generally how jazz improvisers think: using "outside" for a bit of spice, surprise or drama, "inside" to make sense of the "wrong" notes by resolving them.
And above all, there's melodic shape: the way chords lead from one to another, individual chord tones stepping from one to the next. As well as the main melody of the tune (very important), the chords contain or suggest other melodies which a good improviser can spot and exploit.

You hear this in a very simple form in blues, eg, where the major 3rd of the I chord moves down a half-step to the b7 of the IV chord. In jazz, that kind of thing is happening all the time, in a constant stream.
A blues player may take no notice of that half-step fall - he doesn't have to, he can wail away to great effect on the minor pentatonic, with bends wherever he feels like. But as soon as he does hear that fall in the chord change, and incorporates it into a solo phrase, he's beginning to think like a jazzman...

[jade_bodhi]

For what it's worth, I read recently that Wes Montgomery didn't really know how to read music, and in that way he was different from a lot of jazz players from his era, who did get conventional musical training when they were young. What does that say about the ability of a person to internalize and intuit knowledge?

J

[JonR]

For what it's worth, I read recently that Wes Montgomery didn't really know how to read music, and in that way he was different from a lot of jazz players from his era, who did get conventional musical training when they were young. What does that say about the ability of a person to internalize and intuit knowledge?

JDjango Reinhardt too; he could barely write his own name, let alone read music.
Arguably the 2 greatest jazz guitarists of all time...

Of course, geniuses are exempt from mortal concerns ;) . For the rest of us, a bit of theory helps us along.

(Even geniuses don't do it by magic, of course. It's sheer obsessive hard work. And starting young...)

[jade_bodhi]

Django Reinhardt too; he could barely write his own name, let alone read music.
Arguably the 2 greatest jazz guitarists of all time...

Of course, geniuses are exempt from mortal concerns ;) . For the rest of us, a bit of theory helps us along.

(Even geniuses don't do it by magic, of course. It's sheer obsessive hard work. And starting young...)

Interesting, Jon, that you mention these two jazz guitarists together. Their styles seem so different. It surprises me less to know that Reinhardt didn't know how to read music because his music always sounded to me very different from other guitarists, past and present, who did read and have conventional knowledge of music theory. His style is so personal and recognizable that it doesn't surprise me that he acquired it without the conventional learning.

Mongomery's sound, on the other hand, seems very traditional to me (I only have one or two of his CDs and am generalizing from them). It surprises me that he didn't learn theory in the conventional way because his style sounds, to my ears, very similar to some of the guitarists from the 40s, who came before him. And then he served as a bridge to contemporary jazz players, Methany most notable among them. My point is just to wonder how Montgomery could learn to make all that very cool, traditional-sounding music without learning the theory in a conventional way. I wonder what his learning technique was? Did he have an idiosyncratic form of music notation? Is there a recommended biography of him? He died young didn't he? I wonder what from?

[JonR]

Mongomery's sound, on the other hand, seems very traditional to me (I only have one or two of his CDs and am generalizing from them). It surprises me that he didn't learn theory in the conventional way because his style sounds, to my ears, very similar to some of the guitarists from the 40s, who came before him. And then he served as a bridge to contemporary jazz players, Methany most notable among them. My point is just to wonder how Montgomery could learn to make all that very cool, traditional-sounding music without learning the theory in a conventional way. I wonder what his learning technique was? Did he have an idiosyncratic form of music notation? Is there a recommended biography of him? He died young didn't he? I wonder what from?He learned Charlie Christian solos note for note, by ear from records.
Charlie Christian records were his university!

IOW, he learned jazz the way some people learn a foreign language - by living in the country for a while, just picking it up. You get the grammar and syntax very naturally that way, with no need for books.
If you have a good enough ear - and enough single-minded determination - you can do the same with music.

There's a few short biogs on the net:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wes_Montgomery
http://www.oldies.com/artist-biography/Wes-Montgomery.html
http://www.starpulse.com/Music/Montgomery,_Wes/Biography/