PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Woodshedding - Learning to Play! For the jazzers - is this cheating?

Yes. Berklee calls this "common scale".

Modes with visuals:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF47dr8sVyE

A really good explanation

Bookmarked. I like the pop music references he gives. Not unlike learning intervals by well known intervals from pop and famous tunes.

Scott, once the modes are more familiar to you through the kind of practice, exercises and mental programming you are presently working on - which doesn't take all that long actually - if you put that newfound hearing ability of identification to work by transcribing tunes that interest you, the art and practice starts to really blossom.

I've found that a lot of aspiring improvisers and composers, when confronted with the word, "transcribe" seem to think that transcribing means putting all the notes heard on paper.

While that is certainly true in the definitive sense, one can also transcribe by ear by simply working with the target song via repeatedly listening to the recording and finding the correct notes on their instrument, perhaps only a phrase or two at a time.

TIP: Once you have found the correct notes, timing and phrasing on the instrument, you won't really KNOW it until you also practice SINGING it. Or whistling it. Connecting the human voice, regardless of whether we are singers for real or not, to the piece is essential IMO.

The important thing is to find the correct notes and exactly match what is heard on the recording in that area.

I've known some who have an amazing ability to use the short and even long term memory rather than the written sheet for these things. Personally I have used BOTH methods, depending upon complexity of the piece at hand, the goal I have or the need at the moment, for example, a complicated passage that this old brain must have on paper where I can jot the note numbers on the sheet for analysing and practice purposes can represent a shortcut around the complexity of the piece. Other tunes, like Pop and such, that may not be necessary.

As the video fellow demonstrates, a lot of the popular stuff is actually a single-mode exploitation anyway.

Band in a Box's abilities are very helpful to me along these lines, for if I have laid out the target piece there, chords and Melody, I not only have an autoaccompaniment playback for practicing with, I also can print out those Lead Sheets and use them as worksheets to jot down things like the note numbers, chord numbers, mode identification, etc. for practice and study purposes.

Keep up the work, Scott!

"Send me a player who transcribes!"


--Mac

Mac, this class may be the thing that causes me to finally purchase BIAB.

Scott, if you do be sure to wait for v 2014! hehe

I just happened onto this thread, very good stuff here.

Scott, loved what you did in the first clip, hated what you did in the second clip. That synth doesn't work for me at all.

Mac (of course) caught the same thing I did. You should put an arpeggio in there and yes, pentatonics, pentatonics and more pentatonics.

I posted earlier this year that I was taking an online jazz course from an old timer jazz trumpeter, Willie Thomas. He's all over pents. They're 90% of what he teaches. Learn all the pent scales and really pay attention to where the fifth is and what that scale looks like starting on the fifth. That alone opens up a lot with these tunes.

I'm not going to reiterate the theory here, Mac and Zero have covered that well. I'm going to throw in some fast ways of thinking. Take the Eb pentatonic scale. Eb, F, G, Bb, C. What does that form? A Cm7. The classic C blues scale as Mac said. Willie says many times you want to start your pent solos on the 5th so that's Bb but you're just running a C blues scale if your target key is Eb so that's Bb, C, Eb, F, Gb, G.

One last quick cheat tidbit is chromatics. Not just one approach note, no a full chromatic scale for as long as you need it. There's another video by another very good online teacher who spends 10 minutes doing nothing but chromatics to Giant Steps. He's breaking them up for sure and he's starting and stopping in different places on the keyboard but it sounds pretty good nonetheless. Nothing but chromatic runs. I was amazed at that one and I now use that sometimes.

It's great that you're doing this Scott and I can hear that you're making good progress already.

That vid that Zero posted is a guy named Julian. He's got 72 vids and I've downloaded about 40 of them. He's very good.

Keep it up buddy!

Bob

Bear in mind that Scott must present for a particular lesson on a particular jmode or scale, it could mean a downgrade to branch out into pentas and other things.

I mentioned those things to Scott as pertaining to the final goal, which, of course, is soloing.


--Mac

Well, class is over. I'm definitely going to taking this course again. This time, I approached it from what is most familiar to me - right hand keyboard improvisation. Next time, here comes guitar or maybe bass, since I know the fretbaord better on the bottom 4 strings.

I used the pentatonic, I believe, in one of the last assignments which included a I IV V blues in dominant chords. I went ahead and dropped in flat 3rd and 5th scale degrees as accents and just play what I know from past blues jamming with friends. Much more difficult was the 'Olhos de Gato' solo, with lydian modes over top of some chords which are not brain-stem activity for me. First and last choruses of Olhos are the written out melody. I had a really hard time coming up with something that didn't clash with the backing track

Here are these two

Blues Improv: https://soundcloud.com/rockstar_not/scott-lake-week-5-blues-improv

Olhos de Gato: https://soundcloud.com/rockstar_not/olhos-de-gato-improvisation

Scott,

Loving the blues, great choice using and organ patch. This has got a jazz organ trio vibe. Digging it. This is my favorite of yours so far.

Ohlos - I think that patch works well for this tune. It sounds like you are not as comfortable on this tune as the blues, totally understandable. I do here a theme in you solo. I think you could have developed it more by soloing over two chorus.

(When I took the course) - Ohlos, that is not the usual chord progression that I'm more familar with. What worked for me on Ohlos was sticking to mostly chord tones.

Frank, that is the understatement of this thread - I was really uncomfortable with Olhos. I admit that I only had time to do record both of these assignments in one evening, and I am even more ashamed to admit that I cheated with Olhos - I punched in almost every phrase of the middle chorus after the first two chords because they were so unfamiliar to me. I then went back and recorded the leslie control over top of the 2nd chorus.

What I did do as a real stretch for me, is that I wrote out my intended solo for the 2nd chorus of Olhos in Finale Notepad. I've not 'composed' first on staff paper before - ever. I'm 46 years old. So, this was a big learning moment for me - besides all of the new background I'm starting to acquire regarding modes and scales and what not. I've always composed on the fly with an instrument in my hands or in front of me. The composition ahead of time was interesting and not entirely unpleasant. I simply didn't have access to my midi controller/DAW since we have out of town guests using the room where all of that is setup.

One of the reasons I had to punch-in that 2nd chorus was that a few of my pre-written out lines sounded AWFUL when I played them against the backing track, which I think did not really follow the written chords too closely. I had to modify my written out parts rather quickly - again, I recorded those both in about a 2 hour time frame one night last week.

Thanks again for taking the time to listen and comment. I have three new songs that I want to learn with skill from taking this course: 500 Miles High, Memories of Tomorrow and Olhos de Gato.

Keep up the exercise of writing out solos and parts without an instrument, Scott.

Two reasons come readily to mind;

*The mistakes made when working in this fashion will also serve to point out hearing foibles, perhaps intervals that are not yet owned but one day will be if you keep working on the writing first.

*Trying to compose with instrument in hand or in front of us doesn't really ever do much more than come up with that which we already know how to play. Sometimes that works, of course, but I know that method hardly ever moves someone towards something new, something a little different, something fun, and, of course, qrowth.

If you keep up with the writing practice, one day you will find that your ear is absolutely infallible.

"When you write a letter to someone, can you hear the words in your head as you write them?"

Same applies to Music, actually.


--Mac

Loved the thread.

Want to echo Mac re writing the solo. Had the awesome experience of attending a jazz camp with Bud Shank, Laurindo Almeida and Ray Brown (many many moons ago).

Learned that Laurindo (God rest his soul - what a talent) wrote almost all his solos!

Cheers.

Just a quick check-in here to thank all of the thread respondents who weighed in on my question.

I made it through the class - and that's what it feels like. Based on my assignment grades and the quizzes, I achieved an 87.6% grade.

However, I did not internalize the learning - yet.

Someone pointed me to the http://www.learnjazzstandards.com/ website which has play-along files and charts.

Plenty of fodder there to help me internalize. I really want to get the modes built-in as brain stem activity type of material. I see where my original posted idea could get in the way of that.

I also see where BIAB/RealBand could be a real boon to learning and internalizing modal approach, as I don't have good access to other folks that would be willing to school me live, at least none that I'm aware of. I can also see where I could enjoy composition in jazz stylings using these tools. I've always been more of a rock, country and folk guy (mainly because I can play guitars and keys in those stylings on my own without much need for support instrumentation).

Several outcomes that were a bit unexpected for me from taking this class:

1. I'm a Keith Jarrett convert. I remember checking out the Köln concert CD from the library perhaps 25 years ago, because I read in Keyboard magazine how cool the dude was at keys. I remember being nonplussed in listening the first time through - if I even made it all the way through. Big change for me having to learn Memories of Tomorrow and listening/watching Keith play that - oh man what a rock star! And I have an appreciation for his drummer and bass player, DeJohnette and Peacock - the abilities of all 3 together are magical. I also found a Youtube of the drummer and bass player talking about the importance of their abilities to sit at the piano and work out parts and melodies.

2. I have a renewed love for Vince Guaraldi - I have always loved 'Christmastime is Here' and the ever popular Charlie Brown theme as well as the other themes in the cartoons, but now I am able to play 'Christmastime is Here', with relative ease for my ear for my own enjoyment, but I hear so much more intelligence in how Vince picks notes and thick yet open chord voicings.

3. Gotta bust out ye olde Weather Report, Chick Corea Elektrik Band and other stuff that I've had gathering dust.

4. I thought that taking the class might help me to appreciate bop/bebop. It did not. I can appreciate the technical mastery needed to play such styles, but dang it if it doesn't just makes me bored and tired of hearing too many 'wrong notes' (to quote Spinal Tap's Nigel Tufnel) "Naima" remains my favorite Coltrane tune by a huge margin. Why? A melody that one can follow through the entire piece. With the note blitzkrieg that happens often in bebop, it's like one is having a nice conversation with someone; on a topic that is shared, and then the soloist decides it's time to become a teenaged girl on the phone and yammer on incessantly and simultaneously about five different boys, the latest teen fashions, 3 different movies, all the while texting and posting messages to facebook. My ears 'glaze over' and I simply lose interest. Maybe I'm just slow! For example, on Giant Steps, I'm in for the first 30 seconds - then after that it's just noise to me. I can follow bits of modal stuff here and there, but I'd much rather hear more development on the melody introduced in the first 30 seconds. I can't wait for it to come back. He takes way to long to come back in my opinion. I realize this is blasphemy to read for some.

Anyways, I'm already hoping to waitlist for the next run through the class. I'm hoping to nail Memories of Tomorrow and 500 Miles High with aplomb between now and then.

Enough rambling - thank you all again for your advice given in this thread. And for those of you interested to give jazz improvisation a crack - can't go wrong signing up for the free Berklee online course: https://www.coursera.org/course/improvisation

Takes a bit of time, Scott, and dedication of disclipline, of course.

Think of it this way - if this was something that could be easily mastered in a day, a week, or even a month, it wouldn't be worth the bother.

My advice as to approach is to take it one mode at a time in daily practice. Find a tune in which working that one mode is apropos, and work it. Then find another tune and do it again.

Familiarity happens with repetition.

Working to internalize these kind of things one at a time, rather than skipping around from one to the other, gets most people "there" a lot faster overall.

Keep it up!


--Mac

How to make a Solo "Talk"--

Think of a phrase of words in your native language.

PLAY the timing of those words, using the chosen mode or scale.


Repeat, using another word phrase.


Don't try to think up grandiose big words. KISS


--Mac

Rockstar, you're living in a great area for jazz instruction. There are many active and retired military musicians around the Springs. Check some of them out. The union would probably be a good place to start. Later, Ray

Ray and Mac, thanks for the encouragement. Ray, I'm from Detroit originally and there, there is basically one union. Which union are you referring to?

Mac, this is the list of standards at learnjazzstandards.com

http://learnjazzstandards.com/index-of-jazz-standards/

Would there be some that jump out at you as obvious songs to go through and learn individual modes by playing along/soloing? I'm up for transposing to learn the modes for different keys.

Quit looking for others to do your homework for you.

That is, if you really want to learn what's up.

The Jamie Aebersold Chord/Scale syllablus, plus other materials, likely stuff you got from your recent course, will show you which chords allow for which modes and scales.

Look through the songs for those chords and chord groups, govern your practicing around that.

This is the only way I know to start envisualizing "songs" as groups of chord changes and that is where total improvisational ability and thus freedom is derived.

*Pick ANY song out of that Standards book.

*Find a good performance of that song on the web, places such as Youtube.

*LISTEN to the greats play the song a few times, then pick up the chart and look at it while you listen to them play the song again and again.

*Even (and especially!) if you are an instrumentalist, find the lyrics for the target song and LEARN THEM AS WELL. Internalizing a Melody around its Lyrics is so important, actually, and should be something done with every jazz tune encountered. This helps so much, not only in the phrasing when playing the Melody part, but also in deriving phrasing that makes sense when soloing.

*Pick up your instrument and start learning the song, chords first, scales and modes after that.

*Stick with that song until you have *internalized* it and can blow it in at least several different keys.

*Find someone's recorded solo that really strikes you, even and especially if done on an instrument different from yours, and transcribe that solo. Spend as much time on this as it takes, knowing that each time we transcribe the task will indeed get to be that much easier and will take less time than the previous transcription.

*Finally, force your feet to DANCE while you play. Seated or standing, at least the one foot tapping or patting in perfect time.


--Mac

Hey, I realize that for me to learn this, it is for me to learn it. I'm much farther down the road through the effort that the Berklee course required. It was not easy for this guy who has 30+ years of bad habits to unlearn.

I was asking about your comment in a couple posts above where it sounded like there may be songs where a single mode method dominates. This quote right here:



We didn't have that in the standards that were used in the course, in my opinion. The individual songs had many instances of 1 mode per bar and in my opinion, 1 bar is not enough to get a flow going in the mode. So, I thought your quote meant that there are songs where even though there might be chord changes, a single mode dominates. I'm not skilled enough, yet, to see that outright. I had to work, measure by measure, writing out my solos, after I had figured out which mode matched a measure (and I didn't always get this right) etc.

The course and it's forums, and the comments in this thread are all of the jazz instruction I've had. The forum is basically dead for the course. So, I'm back asking questions here because I continue to work on what little I learned even though the course has been done for a month now. I have the Aebersold chord lexicon laminated and keep it in my backpack and haul it out for study. Time at the axe/keyboard is often spent learning what I'm required to play for the band at church; 4-5 new songs every 2 weeks, and we strive to match radio cuts of the songs so that it's not distracting to the congregation and gets them singing.

If there might be songs in that big list of over 100 where certain modes dominate, I would appreciate knowing what those are if they simply jump to mind. That's all. I would like to avoid those that have too many change-ups of modal approach. I have Dorian and Aeolian down from years of rock playing and not knowing that's what they were called.