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Old 06-06-2016, 04:22 PM
amyFB amyFB is offline
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Default Memorizing scales - a refreshing perspective.

I am currently rereading the intro pages to Jamey Aebersold's Maiden Voyage music book & CD set of 14 easy to play jazz tunes.

First let me admit my bias in favor of Jamey Aebersold's educational materials, and to acknowledge that what works for me may not work for you.

That out of the way,

I'm struck hard by truths in these excerpts:

"...music is made of tension and release...the improvisor's ability to control the amount and frequency of tension and release will, in large measure , determine whether he is successful in communicating to the listener. Remember you the player are also a listener!..."

"...play the right notes...the notes you hear in your head...the notes you would sing with your mouth. Having the scales and chords in front of you on a piece of paper is merely a guide. They don't provide the actual music that's going to be played. THAT comes from your imagination. If you've got the scales, chords and chord/scale progression memorized it provides courage to your imagination and allows you to operate from a more creative natural basis. It allows you to take some chances. It helps remove fear...."

I'm picking up where I left off two summers ago. If I want to go back to the Summer Jazz workshops and qualify for the intermediate class, I need to learn all 14 of these songs first.

One song a month for fourteen months; that's my current goal.
I've got most of Summertime down, so, let's call it 13.75 to go!

Back to my studying now.

Cheers



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Old 06-06-2016, 04:49 PM
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Unless you are making stuff up on the fly, set up of tension and release is mainly a composer's task. You emphasize what is there with timing and accenting.
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Old 06-06-2016, 04:55 PM
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Originally Posted by rick-slo View Post
Unless you are making stuff up on the fly, set up of tension and release is mainly a composer's task. You emphasize what is there with timing and accenting.


Sure, I agree with that in the context of playing the piece as written.

My point was specific to improvisation.


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Old 06-06-2016, 07:19 PM
MC5C MC5C is offline
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I'm curious - in the context of a jazz tune, how do you define learning a tune? Summertime - melody is quite easy, comping changes is a bit harder, learning ways to play the changes that imply the melody harder yet, learning chord melody solo and being able to play endless choruses is something I aspire to. I've been playing summertime for 25 years but I haven't learned it yet (I still really like to have the fake book sheet up in front of me, for example) - how do you define learning a tune?
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Old 06-07-2016, 04:09 AM
JonPR JonPR is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MC5C View Post
I'm curious - in the context of a jazz tune, how do you define learning a tune? Summertime - melody is quite easy, comping changes is a bit harder, learning ways to play the changes that imply the melody harder yet, learning chord melody solo and being able to play endless choruses is something I aspire to. I've been playing summertime for 25 years but I haven't learned it yet (I still really like to have the fake book sheet up in front of me, for example) - how do you define learning a tune?
I'm amazed you still need the sheet in front of you after 25 years! Summertime is about as simple as they come.
(Mind you, I've been playing it for over 40 years, so maybe it's all in the last 15... )

Although I've been playing jazz for a long time, I've never taken it that seriously (I tend to prefer blues, rock and folk), and I also need the book in front of me to an embarrassing degree. But there are a handful of tunes where I don't need it, so I can offer some advice there:

Essentially you just need to play it over and over. Maybe every day for weeks on end. (Not necessarily constantly in one session, although cramming it like that also works.) And listen and think as you're doing it: imagine the next phrase in your head.

My experience was that - when doing jazz gigs - I'd always have a Real Book with me, plus some lead sheets for other tunes. I used it as a crutch. Some tunes I knew almost 100%, but I still I needed the music there - or thought I did - just in case.

But one night I forgot my pad. Aagh! I persuaded the band to reduce the setlist, add a few more blues in there.... Luckily, as guitar player (rhythm section), I could take a rest now and then on tunes where I wasn't sure of some sections. But I was surprised to find that there were some tunes I could play, all the way.

The point is, I hadn't tried to memorise those tunes. I hadn't made any special effort (because I never felt I needed to - I had the book, didn't I?). But I had just played them enough times (over the years) that they were there in my subconscious. And in muscle memory to some extent, but that's no good if you don't understand the changes and can't hear them (with the melody) in your head. Otherwise, when muscle memory gives out -which it will sooner or later - you're lost.

Still, it will of course help if you do try exercises to consciously commit tunes to memory. The trick is to always try to build the bigger picture. Melodies are formed of phrases, which tend to repeat. Chord changes form into pairs, and fours, which also tend to repeat (sometimes moved up or down). Jazz standards are mostly AABA structures, so you only have two 8-bar sections to learn. Each of those will break down into 4s and 2s, and you can feel the shape of the changes, as it were.

With Summertime, eg, it's 16 bars. Line 1 is the tonic. Line 2 is IV-V. Line 3 is tonic again. Line 4 starts with the III and goes round a faster cycle, including a ii-V back to I. Sing the tune in your head as you play. (It can help to do this really fast, focussing just on the main points in each line, the main changes.) Statement; embellishment/deviation; restatement; resolution - that kind of thinking can make sense of a sequence.

Being able to play solo chord melody - especially if you want to re-harmonise on the fly - is a much more advanced skill, but it starts from embedding the basics in your brain first: so you have a secure foundation to build from. If you know the main marker points (cadences) in the tune, it's easier construct different lines to lead between them - because you're just joining the dots.

Repetition, repetition, repetition - it all comes down to that. That's the "work" you have to put in. Don't start by trying to memorise something complicated all at once. Strip it down, repeat; as the simple skeleton of the tune gets laid down, you can start to add detail.
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Old 06-07-2016, 05:12 AM
JonPR JonPR is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by amyFB View Post
I am currently rereading the intro pages to Jamey Aebersold's Maiden Voyage music book & CD set of 14 easy to play jazz tunes.

First let me admit my bias in favor of Jamey Aebersold's educational materials, and to acknowledge that what works for me may not work for you.
Personally I'm not a great fan of his chord-scale bias, but that's a good set of tunes for any jazz beginner, and the quotes you mention are all good....
Quote:
Originally Posted by amyFB View Post
"...music is made of tension and release...the improvisor's ability to control the amount and frequency of tension and release will, in large measure , determine whether he is successful in communicating to the listener. Remember you the player are also a listener!..."

"...play the right notes...the notes you hear in your head...the notes you would sing with your mouth. Having the scales and chords in front of you on a piece of paper is merely a guide. They don't provide the actual music that's going to be played. THAT comes from your imagination."
Reminds me of a famous conductor's saying when rehearsing a piece with an orchestra (NOT jazz!). He held up the score and said: "This is not the music. It is merely some information about the music."

IOW, the music is what happens when you play - a sequence of sounds in real time, a process. Not dots on a page. The latter is just "some information" (and not all of it by any means).

Of course, with jazz, that's even more the case than with a classical score. With jazz, you're expected to improvise in some way, even when playing a written tune and chord sequence - not necessarily any fancy invention, but loose variations in phrasing or timing, as you feel it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by amyFB View Post
If you've got the scales, chords and chord/scale progression memorized it provides courage to your imagination and allows you to operate from a more creative natural basis. It allows you to take some chances. It helps remove fear...."
Yes, I'm not totally behind that. Personally I'd say the melody and chord sequence are the fundamentals, which you absolutely need memorised.
That's because if you have to read them from a book, you can't feel the bigger picture, you can't plan ahead. And your conscious brain is taken up with reading and making sense of what you're seeing. You need your consciousness to be devoted to invention, to decisions about how to construct melodic phrases, to apply rhythm and dynamics - so the basics (chord sequence at least) need to be in your subconscious.

How much you need to memorise associated scales will vary. With a lot of jazz standards (maybe most) all the information you need is in the melody and chords. No external scale knowledge is needed. The scale will be the scale of the key, with occasional chromatic alterations if and when chromatic chords appear. You rarely need a different scale on each chord.

With modal jazz it's different (and Maiden Voyage is one example). There you do need a different scale for each chord - but then there aren't many chords, so it's not hard.
In that book, the modal tunes are Maiden Voyage, Impressions... and er that's it. The rest are mixture of blues and functional pieces.
You do usually need scale changes in these tunes, but you shouldn't need to learn all that chord-scale stuff at the bottom of each page - it makes it look more complicated than it is. Take each chord arpeggio; add any additional notes in the melody; and if that doesn't give you a complete scale, either add notes from the next chord - or just add any note you like.
If you look at most of those listed chord scales for each tune, you'll see that more notes are shared than differ. You can see them all as the same scale, with variations caused by non-diatonic chords.

To be fair, on the blues tunes he does say you can use blues scale or minor pentatonic (of the key) at any point. It wouldn't be "jazz" to do that exclusively, of course , but blues scale combined with chord tones will do the trick. It will probably sound more "authentic" than mixolydian mode of each chord, which is a kind of "cookie cutter" approach. (The other problem with chord-scale theory is it can make you think you have to explore the whole scale on each chord; that leads to noodling, to using too many notes. Great jazz players don't do that. Well, maybe with one or two exceptions.... )

Look at Blue Bossa. The melody employs the C natural minor scale for the whole first 8 bars. And yet the chord-scales listed for improvisation are different: C dorian, F dorian (= C minor), D locrian natural 2 (F melodic minor!), G altered (Ab melodic minor!). No doubt somewhere in Aebersold's literature he explains why. But it's important to know why, and to know you have a choice. It will sound perfectly OK to use the C minor scale all the way through the first 8 bars. You just might not pass your jazz exams doing that . It will sound OK (probably) to use C dorian instead on the Cm. But do you really want that E natural on the Dm7b5? The key is C minor, not major. The melody uses Eb on that chord. (I'm not saying there is no reason for E be there; it's not a mistake. But it's a jazz theory stipulation; a piece of chord-scale theory irrelevant to the context outside of this chord. It's highly debatable at best. Try it and use it if you like the sound of it; but not if you don't.)

You should certainly pay attention to chord tones - so when the G7#9 appears you should maybe think about the B natural. Combined with the #9 (Bb) and the Ab that also appears in the melody, that may well give pause for thought about the scale, if you didn't know what to play. I.e., the chord gives you G Bb B D F. The melody adds Ab. That's 6 notes; how much more do you need? (Maybe add a C passing note between B and D? If you have time to squeeze it in...)
The scale specified (G altered) sounds good - if you don't use a D natural in the chord itself, because the scale has Db and Eb (and no C) - but to make it work you have to resolve it on to the C minor. The point of the scale is not to sound cool on G7#9 - it's to provide chromatic voice-leading to the next chord. Noodle around on the G altered scale and you will earn points in your jazz exam - but it won't sound very musical, unless you resolve it properly.

Quote:
Originally Posted by amyFB View Post
I'm picking up where I left off two summers ago. If I want to go back to the Summer Jazz workshops and qualify for the intermediate class, I need to learn all 14 of these songs first.

One song a month for fourteen months; that's my current goal.
I've got most of Summertime down, so, let's call it 13.75 to go!

Back to my studying now.

Cheers
Great plan! I really don't mean to put you off with a big lecture!

My point about the altered scale is that I studied all the same stuff as you at jazz workshops and summer schools - I even attended a summer school run by Aebersold himself, in London around 20 years ago - and I understood (from Mark Levine) the principle of "avoid notes" which underlies most chord-scale theory. But the altered scale was merely an academic entity, intellectually interesting but not part of my vocabulary - until I saw the point of it; which none of Aebersold's literature (AFAIK) explained. I worked out that chromatic voice-leading idea myself: once I saw that, it became usable, it made sense.

The memorising of tunes and chord sequences IS important. Focus on that. Get to the chord-scales once you have the tune and chords internalised and (IMO) after you've tried messing around improvising on the tune and chords yourself, using ear and instinct. See if the scales offer you interesting notes you hadn't considered. That's their value. (Like any music theory, it should provide interesting sounds you might not discover for yourself.)

You might also find this inspiring (I almost leapt out of my seat at the first 30 seconds - he's saying what it took me years to realise! no one told me, I worked it out!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NehOx1JsuT4
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Old 06-07-2016, 05:26 AM
amyFB amyFB is offline
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Originally Posted by MC5C View Post
I'm curious - in the context of a jazz tune, how do you define learning a tune? Summertime - melody is quite easy, comping changes is a bit harder, learning ways to play the changes that imply the melody harder yet, learning chord melody solo and being able to play endless choruses is something I aspire to. I've been playing summertime for 25 years but I haven't learned it yet (I still really like to have the fake book sheet up in front of me, for example) - how do you define learning a tune?

I listen to the song a lot first so it gets into my inner self and learn the lyrics if any.
I learn the chord progression next.
Then the single note melody line.
I find the chord voicings that include the melody notes.
I practice all that until I know it cold.
Then I record a rhythm track and work on the embellishments. Which sometimes includes finding different voicings of the chords .
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Old 06-07-2016, 07:45 AM
MC5C MC5C is offline
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My process is very similar, I think we all tend to get to the same places. I usually know the tune, in terms of the melody, and I focus on the harmonic structure. I look at the chords as written out, and see what the basic structure of the thing is - II/IV's, key, AABA, etc. I look for tonal centers. I try to arrange a chord melody version that would be enough to get me through a first cycle the "head", and then I try to find ways to improvise over the changes. I figure I've learned a tune if I can play the chord/melody head, and a couple of choruses and out. I almost never get that far these days, my "memorizer" has started to fail me. I find a lot of the fake book arrangements, in particular the chords, are way too complex, there seemed to be a requirement to write chords that incorporated every nuance of the melody structure. Sometimes playing that flat nine is key to the harmony, other times it just reflects an unimportant passing tone and a plain old V chord will do fine.

Brian
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Old 06-08-2016, 03:29 PM
jseth jseth is offline
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The most valuable lesson that I was given, many years ago, was to "sing" the lines I played, to keep my soloing more melodic and original, as opposed to just running scales or playing "everything I know' every time I play!

still remember that, at first, I had to "fake it", meaning I would actually sing what I played, rather than PLAYING what I sang (or heard inside myself)... after all these years (40-ish), I still have to relax and focus my thoughts to do this... and, when I tap into that "inner voice" of mine, the lines are fresh and melodic and never sound "canned" or rehearsed. A bit like an athlete "getting into the zone", it's not always easy to do, but it's ALWAYS worth the effort!

Learning different scales and patterns of same helps to develop the memory of those scales and sounds, as is developing a strong sense of harmony and theory - you know, the "Why it works" part of the equation... but these things are simply fore-runners, or practice for "The Big Game", i.e. playing the notes that come from inside of me, my head and heart...

Good for you, going back to this after a few years off... have fun, and enjoy the ride!
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