[tbeltrans]

This has been quite an interesting thread. As I have read this, I am wondering if there are really two (or more) conceptual threads going on here. One can pursue jazz by total immersion in it, and I think the point about that have been well made. One can also (and maybe this is where the "dabbling" applies) learn certain aspects of harmoony that are used in jazz, without really becoming a "jazz" player. I have been enjoying the journey of learning to play "chord melody", but would not consider myself a "jazz" player, though I do participate to some degree in the chord melody forum on the jazz guitar site. Instead, I am using certain types of harmony (color tones, bass line movements) to present the melody. I am, in a sense, borrowing from the jazz idiom, but am not making any claims to playing "jazz". Also, I have recently started playing with a group of musicians that plays the standards and seem to be able to present reasonable rhythm guitar for them, but again, I am NOT a "jazz" player.

I think there is a distinction here. Musicians "borrow" from different musical styles without having to delve deeply, as in total immersion", into any one particular style. Considering what it takes to truly be a "jazz" guitarist, I would not consider myself even close to that just because I use color tones and certain bass line movements to derive the underlying harmony for my chord melody playing. When I say "chord melody", I am referring to playing the melody and supporting it with chordal harmony. I am not implying the kind of improv artistry that somebody such as Joe Pass brought to it. I think that, especially in a forum such as this, the terms we use wiill be interpreted by others in ways we did not intend, and that can lead to miscommunication. I am possibly seeing that with some parts of this thread.

It may well be that my use of the term "chord melody" is incorrect. If so, then if there is a more accurate term for what I am doing, I would certainly use it instead. Basically, I see "chord melody" as the guitar equivalent of playing tunes as solos on the piano, regardless of the stylings used. Some do it in a cocktail piano style, and others make a real art form of it, just as is done on the guitar. I tend more toward the cocktail piano styling, with the melody clearly presented at all times. I really enjoy exploring what I can do with the underlying harmony while staying true to the melody (i.e. not melodic improv), and do it for my own enjoyment, though opportunities do come along to do some of it in public.

Though I am addressing chord melody here because it is what I am personally doing, my point is related to the discussion in that there is the "real" jazz musician and then there are those who borrow from the jazz idiom, but are not jazz musicians as described in this thread. I am definitely NOT a jazz musician, though I do have a very large collection of jazz and do listen to it almost exclusively. It has taken me quite some time to really learn to appreciate what is going on in those recordings. You can't, unfortunately, get that from a book.

I have a blog site in which I talk to adults who want to pursue the guitar as a hobby/avocation, with the chord melody style being a good, enjoyable way to do that. People do it all the time on piano, so why not guitar? It is a lifetime pursuit in which one will never run out of new things to learn and apply, new directions to go. It can be as inexpensive or expensive as one wants to take it. Hopefully, I am not implying that what I present there is "jazz" guitar, though true jazz players do make quite an art form of chord melody playing.

Anyway, I see truly being a jazz musician and borrowing a few ideas from the jazz idiom as being very different things.

Tony