discouraged when it comes to jazz lessons.

[rich2k4]

about 1 year ago i decided that i wanted to spice up my playing a little bit. i was tired of doing mostly all pentatonic stuff, and whenever i watched videos like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKYhu2Ka1Qs

or this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH8EbI89xgE the end improv

i wanted to sound like that. i wanted to know exactly what they were doing, the note choices they were doing to make it sound like it does.

i decided that the best way to approach this was to start jazz lessons. I found a good teacher, explained to him my goals about wanting to play a fusion style, being able to mix up some jazz stuff with my main style of blues in order to sound a little more hip and not like everyone else.

fast forward one year later to now. We have got on the route of him teaching me straight ahead jazz. However i am discouraged by it. It's been a year, and i really don't sound jazzy at all, whenever i practice improv, it sounds bad, and i always go back to playing mostly hendrix,srv,mayer style blues.

i learned inversions, and a few different scales, but i still haven't reached my goal of being able to mix this stuff into my main style of blues. i don't want to be a straight ahead jazz guitar player. I just want to learn a few things so that when i do play my regualer pentatonic stuff, i can throw in some curveballs that make people go "what was that?"

i have a friend who after 1 year of lessons, when you heard him solo over a standard, it sounded jazzy and followed the chords pretty well.

when you hear me solo over a standard, you can tell it's a blues/rock guy trying to do it.

it's gotten to the point where practicing jazz to me has become very boring, almost like a chore. i love to listen to it, but maybe i;m not cut out to be playing it.

what do you guys think? should i stick with it and give it one more go? what would you guys do? and what would you guys have done differently, if you had a goal similar to mine?

[jzucker]

Well, I hate to sound crass but a year ago when you asked, I recommended one of the best jazz guitarists in the country (Henry Johnson) and you replied that he was an ass and you didn't want to study with him because he was too closed minded.

So, maybe you need to take a different approach and let the teacher guide you instead of you guiding the teacher. I've always thought it was odd that someone who wants to learn something tries to tell the teacher how they should teach him.

My advice is to find a great player/teacher and learn what you can from the greatest strengths of *THEIR* playing. It's *YOUR* job to adapt it to your own style, not theirs.

[rich2k4]

i only said he was an ass, because of the way i interpreted his reply to my e-mail. but then again you can't always tell when it comes to the internet.

i've never really told him how to teach me, i let him do whatever he thought was best. i am just stating what i feel i have got from it at this point.

[Carl_Tone]

If you are not listening to jazz on regular basis, you won't get it either.

[Swain]

Man, have you asked your instructor what he thinks of your progress? And, do you like your instructor's playing style?

If you like his style, and you're confident in his teaching abilities, then you're probably on the right track. It just takes a long time to learn a style like Jazz. Most studies I've read about, say it takes at least 10,000 hours of focused work to master something. So, you may need a few more hours under your belt.

If you haven't asked for a full-on, honest assessment of your progress/playing yet, you need to. Find out what he really thinks. Another option: Find another instructor you really feel confident about, and schedule an hour with them. Have them give you an assessment. Maybe a different perspective would help. A professional opinion, from fresh ears.

If you don't like your instructor's style, maybe try another instructor. One who does what you want to do. Go check out some live shows, and ask the best players you can find, if they'll give you a few lessons.


Make sure your instructor knows you're real thoughts. He/She's probably not a mind reader. And sometimes hints just don't work. If your instructor hears how you're feeling about the progress, they will probably try to do things a little differently. Most instructors have more than one way to teach. That's the beauty of private instruction: It can be tailored to the individual student.

Good luck! I hope you get the results you want.

[robelinda2]

Transcribing seems like a super way for you to get what you want, at least you are in control of it, and its free to do!

[rockinrob]

...i learned inversions, and a few different scales...


Scales and inversions ain't jazz. If you want to play the music you need to learn the vocabulary. Learning scales and things can help you get familiar with some of the sounds, but sounding "jazzy" is about having a jazzy vocabulary.

Listen to Lala- if you want to sound like the guys in those vids, figure out what they're playing. You have all the time in the world to do it, and you can use a slow-downer if you want. You can even cheat a little and watch what their hands are doing. You don't need a teacher to do this.

[JonR]

i don't want to be a straight ahead jazz guitar player. I just want to learn a few things so that when i do play my regualer pentatonic stuff, i can throw in some curveballs that make people go "what was that?"Revealing comment. You don't want to be a musician. You want people to go "wow", to admire you.
(I mean, OK, we all want that, but most of us are in it for the music too...)
it's gotten to the point where practicing jazz to me has become very boring, almost like a chore. i love to listen to it, but maybe i;m not cut out to be playing it.Maybe.
It may be that - while you "love to listen to it" - you're not really listening properly, in an analytical way. (You're listening like a fan, a non-musician, just enjoying the sound.)
As the others say, you should try learning by ear the stuff you like. It's hard - but it's supposed to be!

And don't forget that all modern jazz players came up through straight-ahead jazz. Contemporary jazz is built solidly on the past. You need to develop a respect (and intimate knowledge) of the greats of the past, such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis - along with guitarists like Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian, Wes Montgomery.
what do you guys think? should i stick with it and give it one more go? what would you guys do? and what would you guys have done differently, if you had a goal similar to mine?You've explained your situation and problem very well: you can't help but slip back into your blues/rock habits. That's because you haven't taken your teacher(s) seriously enough - and haven't taken the music seriously enough.
Rock and blues are like high school, at best (kindergarten at worst ;) ). Jazz is university. It's a whole other level of understanding and approaching music. It isn't just a "style", or a type of music. It's an atittude to music, music of any kind. As one of my jazz heroes said, jazz isn't a noun, it's a verb.
Often what we think of as "jazz music" is popular music of a particular era (30s or 40s usually) that jazz musicians have adopted to mess around with. But you can take any kind of music and "jazz" it. You could play a rock tune and make it jazz by how you treat it. (A few contemporary jazz musicians do this, such as the Bad Plus and Brad Mehldau.)

Take all the other people's comments seriously, and have a re-think. Dont' give up, unless you think it's really not for you (it may not be).
I myself have often adopted a kind of sardonic attitude to jazz (thinking about the straight-ahead jazz that often bores), but that doesn't work. Most other kinds of music you can play quite well with a detached attitude: knowing the rules and applying them. Jazz demands more commitment if it's to work, because it's all about what YOU bring to it. Improvisation is the whole point of jazz. With any other (western) music, improvisation is (at most) an add-on, a bit of decoration. With jazz, it's the be-all and end-all. The composition (tune, song) is not the end of the process, it's the beginning.
And of course, it requires a fundamental understanding of harmony, much deeper than rock requires.

[vhollund]

Theres even a TAB for the Gambale solo
www.mach1guitar.com/gambaleblues.html

Show your teacher and tell him this is what motivates you and that you would like to break the solo down to elements you can use.

Maybe try to learn playing the solo right away

Force yourself to make slides instead of bends for a while
I see these elements in the gambale solo
Double stops
Licks on 5min aroeggio
Melodic minor tensions
edit: theres even a little analyze on the adresse


and then Gambale is really amazing
I have get into learning all the sweeping one of these day

But If you learn the solo he plays there, wich should be easy because it motivates you
and if you learn it really well, and how to detach the different elements
you will have strong jazzelements you can use in your solos

[mike walker]

If you want to learn a new language, you really have to absorb yourself in that language.
It might be good to go and live in that country for awhile, to get the feel of it.
You might be able to get by in a year, order food, pick up a little conversation here and there, etc etc. But saying something interesting, writing poetry, and being creative in that language, with the feel of it, will take many years. You have to want it, for the love of it.

Mike

[Mello Larry]

Force yourself to make slides instead of bends for a while


WOW...talk about an "ah-ha" moment! I was thinking that the other day. "Why do I still sound (sort-of) like Billy Gibbons?" Partly because I bend notes like blues guys...maybe if I play that riff more like Kenny Burrell...duh!

The other ah-ha...and it took me a while to get there...you play what you are familiar with. My teacher told me this a while ago, but sometimes it takes a while for a pearl of wisdom to sink in. I listen to A LOT of Billy Gibbons. If I want to sound more like George Benson, I need to listen to A LOT of George Benson.

Not to hi-jack or restate the obvious...but maybe stop listening to blues and rock for about a month....

[arthur rotfeld]

Scales and inversions ain't jazz. If you want to play the music you need to learn the vocabulary. Learning scales and things can help you get familiar with some of the sounds, but sounding "jazzy" is about having a jazzy vocabulary.


:agree

[brad347]

There is a very easy answer to this.

Listening! Jazz has a vernacular like any language. It's all about immersion if you want to learn in a meaningful way.

Seek out some records that you really like. You don't even have to find a bunch. Maybe for starters just find ONE great jazz record that you like and really get into it. Listen to it over and over. You don't have to worry about learning to play any of it for now. Just listen to it with pleasure. When it gets to the point where you are singing along with all the solos, you're getting to the point where the record is starting to have meaning for you.

Something like "Smokin' at the Half Note" would be a good choice for you, I think.

I have a little story: At a local jam session, there is an older guy that comes every week to play drums. I think he might be homeless or something, he's mostly deaf, and definitely has a screw loose. He has obviously never practiced drum set a day in his life. He loves the music, so I'm happy to have him come by the sessions I host, but he can barely play time and is just in general a mess. He doesn't own a drum set, as far as I know. But here's the kicker... he has been coming to area jam sessions every week for about 15-20 years. This part of the country of course has some really great jazz musicians, and he's been hearing these guys every week for a decade or two. Guess what? Even though he is half-crazy and half-deaf, and obviously never practices, the stuff he tries to play makes way more sense in terms of being appropriate for the jazz style than half of the talented young drummers that come through. In other words, from immersion alone, he has learned the language and the style even if he never practiced the skills. Occasionally he surprises me by playing some really great stuff, and it has even got to swinging pretty good once or twice! All from being around and listening.

So sometimes I think people make this harder than it has to be. Saying "I've been taking jazz lessons for a year and I still don't sound like I'm playing jazz" is sort-of like saying "I've owned a spanish-english dictionary for a year, and yet I still speak English most of the time." It's unsurprising. Now if you said "I lived in Spain for a year and still can't speak a lick of Spanish," THEN I would be surprised!

Best of luck! :)

[KRosser]

How much time are you spending playing jazz with other people, even if they're at your current level as well?

Not only is that what eventually made it come together for me, but maybe it wouldn't feel so discouraging...

[Jahn]

Well we all know the true secret foundation of beating the Devil at his own game- it's not Jazz, it's Classical:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSJv_apyIR4

[derekd]

Looking at those two vids you posted, I wouldn't consider either one of them jazz. The first, certainly takes the blues a step further than a simple I IV V progression, but it still is squarely in the traditional blues genre. Frank is just taking a very elementary triad idea, adding one more note, and then sweeping at the speed of light. Pretty boring stuff imo, but he seems to be able to find musical ways to use it.

Reading your post a couple of times, seeing the vids you posted, and reading responses, perhaps you should just concentrate on using the stuff you already know in more creative ways. There is a ton of stuff out there on subbing pentatonics in ways like you would modes of the major scale.

Jazz is a bunch of work and literally takes several years, depending on how good a player you are starting, before you can play convincingly in that genre. Scales and inversions is only a small part. Sounds like you aren't motivated to do the work. Not a bad thing, just why force yourself to do something you really don't like? I would find someone with a more advanced knowledge of the blues and go from there. Good luck

[JamminJeff]

Your quest is valid and one many guitarist go through and some just don't or can't invest the TIME in jazz improvisation. Jazz Standards require even more TIME. It's really an evolutionary process and no one advances at the same rate. No one !

If you ask a really good fuzion guy, jazzer, etc. "how he got so good" an honest one will tell you the MASSIVE HOURS spent "alone" honing his craft. The real honest one's will tell you they have a long way to go compared to (insert famous name here). You may think they are the King of Jazz, but they don't. See how that works.

It's universal among all honest guitarist and the guys that excell at jazz really invest some serious alone time to not only understand jazz vocab, fuzion, etc. but also play for hourzzzzzzzz to perfect it. It's my personal opinion that true jazz comes from someone with a natural bent for it thru DNA but only after spending years to make it happen. Fertilize it if you so dare. Those with forced jazz chops via only the learned process never sound smooth and natural.

I grew up in a house of music with jazz and have the DNA jazz bone. I once headed down the road of jazz lessons with mind bending theory, standards, great teacher, etc. and as much as I love it, I don't have the discipline to make it over the hump. So, I was honest with myself and now use some jazz chops for both improv in the cover band, jamming with people and with my own music. It made blues and rock more interesting for me.

I stopped fighting myself and I'm a much happier, productive and active musician because of it. If you REALLLLLLYYYYYYY want to be good at jazz-fuzion, you best buckle down for the long haul. You will hit the proverbial wall atleast 1000 times or more and it's not for the timid. Jazz is a blind love like no other.

If it doesn't consume you, and you it, nod with respect and move on. Jazz is dying and it makes me sad either way. It hard stuff and my hats off to those who made and make it happen.

Now I want to go back to it after this way too long post but then again, I'm having more fun playing music in my middle age then ever before. Just keep playing something...............

[funkycam]

I guess the relevant question is what do you want to achieve now.

If you want to become an all out jazz player, it's gotta be because you love jazz.

If you only want to add some harmonic color to your playing ala jazz players, you need to be able to hear certain chord tones, be able to hear phrasing a certain way. To add that color convincingly you need to be able to connect the blues lines you play comfortably right now with the new stuff you are learning from jazz.

A great way to do this is to listen to jazz that does it for you & work out short segments (eg 7 or 8 note lick) that really catch your ear.

Then try to deconstruct why it works, or what you like about it, then (& this is the important part) try & relate or connect it to lines or shapes you use now.

here's an example:
I like the sound of a minor major arpeggio over a minor 7 chord.

I realized this from listening to Cannonball Adderly & working out some lines of his that caught my ear. (Somethin' else is a great record & very accessible to the ear)

Much of my improvisation is rooted in pentatonic playing & blues phrasing, so I tried to connect the notes of a minor major arp to my home plate: a blues scale. Initially this was just a fretboard shape relation (eg how does the minor major arp "fit in" between the notes of a a minor pentatonic on the top 3 strings)

When I practiced, I would try & blur the edges between the new line & normal lines until eventually it was a tonal color that I could add when I pleased.

The beauty of this approach is you don't need to know theoretically how something works. You play it because you hear it.

[rich2k4]

I guess the relevant question is what do you want to achieve now.

If you want to become an all out jazz player, it's gotta be because you love jazz.

If you only want to add some harmonic color to your playing ala jazz players, you need to be able to hear certain chord tones, be able to hear phrasing a certain way. To add that color convincingly you need to be able to connect the blues lines you play comfortably right now with the new stuff you are learning from jazz.

A great way to do this is to listen to jazz that does it for you & work out short segments (eg 7 or 8 note lick) that really catch your ear.

Then try to deconstruct why it works, or what you like about it, then (& this is the important part) try & relate or connect it to lines or shapes you use now.

here's an example:
I like the sound of a minor major arpeggio over a minor 7 chord.

I realized this from listening to Cannonball Adderly & working out some lines of his that caught my ear. (Somethin' else is a great record & very accessible to the ear)

Much of my improvisation is rooted in pentatonic playing & blues phrasing, so I tried to connect the notes of a minor major arp to my home plate: a blues scale. Initially this was just a fretboard shape relation (eg how does the minor major arp "fit in" between the notes of a a minor pentatonic on the top 3 strings)

When I practiced, I would try & blur the edges between the new line & normal lines until eventually it was a tonal color that I could add when I pleased.

The beauty of this approach is you don't need to know theoretically how something works. You play it because you hear it.

this is the approach i have been taking somewhat. a lot of the stuff i play, i don't know why it works. i just know that when i play those notes, over that chord, that it sounds good to me. that's good enough for me.

[OlAndrew]

What the folks said.

Can you hear what you want in your head? If not, listen to things that sound like what you want, really listen...think of intervals and phrasing and stuff....until you start to hear it in your head.

Then start to figure it out on the guitar. That's sitting down and plucking and twanging until you get the 1st note right, then 2 in a row, then a phrase...burns time like there's no tomorrow, BUT, the more you do it ,the better you get at it. You'll also find that all those obscure scales, modes and chords come in handy to help you find your way.

Gotta hear it in your head, though..first

[EJW]

I have a little story: At a local jam session, there is an older guy that comes every week to play drums. I think he might be homeless or something, he's mostly deaf, and definitely has a screw loose. He has obviously never practiced drum set a day in his life. He loves the music, so I'm happy to have him come by the sessions I host, but he can barely play time and is just in general a mess. He doesn't own a drum set, as far as I know. But here's the kicker... he has been coming to area jam sessions every week for about 15-20 years. This part of the country of course has some really great jazz musicians, and he's been hearing these guys every week for a decade or two. Guess what? Even though he is half-crazy and half-deaf, and obviously never practices, the stuff he tries to play makes way more sense in terms of being appropriate for the jazz style than half of the talented young drummers that come through. In other words, from immersion alone, he has learned the language and the style even if he never practiced the skills. Occasionally he surprises me by playing some really great stuff, and it has even got to swinging pretty good once or twice! All from being around and listening.

Best music story I've ever heard!

[JimmyD]

this is the approach i have been taking somewhat. a lot of the stuff i play, i don't know why it works. i just know that when i play those notes, over that chord, that it sounds good to me. that's good enough for me.

That good enough for me attitude reminds me of myself 30 years ago. I would like to tell you that it is a dead end. It has been my studied opinion that those guys and gals playing all those pretty notes have a real good understanding of why those notes work over various chords. There is no short cut. Jazz guitar is near the pinnacle of guitar playing, it's freaking hard to do well.

I think you are trying to do to much stylistically scattered based on this post and others I have read. I have a pretty good idea what you want to do based on your post and it's a worthy goal. It's gonna take some serious work to get there. You need a firm grasp of theory, good to great technique, firm grasp of rhythmic ideas. You also need to know many melodic ideas and should be able to read music.

There is a book that Wolf Marshall published several years back where he transcribed the solos to various jazz guitar standards. You should get that book and learn those solos one at a time until you can play them better then Wolf or the original artist. Analyze the lines one measure at a time till it begins to make sense to you. It ain't rocket science, but someone needs to help you make sense of it. Once it starts rolling for you it just picks up and snowballs.

Playing killer guitar is hard work. Especially if you are not a natural. I'm not a natural and I have to work hard to keep what skills I got. Good luck to you on your journey.

Jim

[Sadhaka]

Well we all know the true secret foundation of beating the Devil at his own game- it's not Jazz, it's Classical:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSJv_apyIR4

Man, I wonder how much they had to pay Maestro Vai to concede defeat at the hands of a young whipper-snapper - even in the land of pretend. It must have been before Maestro Zappa sent him away to practice!!!

[Ken Ho]

There is only one four-letter word tha offends me............."want".

You belong to the "me want, me have now" generation. Not everyone your age does. You choose.

[♫♪♫]

Take your dorian scale in jazz...superimpose it over your minor pentatonic starting on the same root...voila...



a very tasty minor pentatonic with dorian flavors to it...try bending that dorian Major6 up to the minor 7....yum....


then....do some classic blues licks and add that major 6 the dorian has injected...



like this...


A Minor Pentatonic

---5------8---------------
---5----7-----------------
---5----7-----------------
---5----7-----------------
---5----7-----------------
---5------8---------------


A Dorian

---5---------------------
---5--6-7-----------------
-4-5----7-----------------
-4-5----7-----------------
---5----7-----------------
---5----7-8---------------

The bold underlined notes are the roots of the two scales, and the blue italicized notes are the raised (major) 6 in dorian as compared to the natural minor scale which has a minor (flat) 6. (Natural Minor scale b3, b6, b7)


Another neat thing jazzy peoples do, is they slide into notes. It sounds prohibitively easy, but seriously. Try it. Also, add a bit of swing to your timing...play behind the beat a bit...

The best way to add chromaticism is in sliding/hammering onto chord tones sometimes...

[Flyin' Brian]

Since I know and work with your teacher, I'm well aware that he can take you wherever you want to go. He plays any style from straight ahead be bop to electronic jazz to funk and more importantly he's an excellent communicator. He has taught me more than anyone else ever has, so you might reconsider what your real goals are.
All that said, you need to listen...really listen to people you want to emulate.
iTunes makes it cheap and easy, so does YouTube.
You can't play jazz without listening.

[Swain]

Take your dorian scale in jazz...superimpose it over your minor pentatonic starting on the same root...voila...



a very tasty minor pentatonic with dorian flavors to it...try bending that dorian Major6 up to the minor 7....yum....


then....do some classic blues licks and add that major 6 the dorian has injected...



like this...


A Minor Pentatonic

---5------8---------------
---5----7-----------------
---5----7-----------------
---5----7-----------------
---5----7-----------------
---5------8---------------


A Dorian

---5---------------------
---5--6-7-----------------
-4-5----7-----------------
-4-5----7-----------------
---5----7-----------------
---5----7-8---------------

The bold underlined notes are the roots of the two scales, and the blue italicized notes are the raised (major) 6 in dorian as compared to the natural minor scale which has a minor (flat) 6. (Natural Minor scale b3, b6, b7)


Another neat thing jazzy peoples do, is they slide into notes. It sounds prohibitively easy, but seriously. Try it. Also, add a bit of swing to your timing...play behind the beat a bit...

The best way to add chromaticism is in sliding/hammering onto chord tones sometimes...


Oops. Check the B String, in the Dorian Example. Frets 5 7 8 are the ones you want. The E(5th.) F#(6th.) G(b7th.).


Great advice, by the way! There's a lot of good info on this thread.

Phrasing is so crucial, I think. So, maybe try to find a "bridge" from Blues to Jazz? Like "Chitlins Con Carne". I find Kenny Burrell's playing on this tune, to be a great way for Bluesier players to cop some Jazz type phrasing. Not a be-all-end-all, for sure. But, it does get some Jazz-Blues feel with simple phrasing.

[arnie65]

I understand your discouragement, although is hard to believe you've turned down Henry Johnson for a teacher! You need to understand that if your goal is to improvise over any kind of music, weather Jazz, Rock, Fusion etc.,there are certain concepts you need to learn, this takes both, time and hard work on your behalf and it seems that you expected results in a year. You need to have the basics of theory, harmony and develop comping, a sense of timing as well as ear training with the intervals. Inversions and chords are only a small part of this goal, but important as well. Even musical geniuses like Pat Martino, Pat Metheny, Mike Stern and others had to take lessons for more than a year to get to where they're at. So don't feel bad because you can't still improvise after a year of lessons. When I was studying music back in the late 70's, there wasn't any of the tools you have today, instructional videos, tons of books with cd's and tab, phrase loop machines, and of course the internet. Here's my tip, keep studying and practicing, learn the triads well and the disciplines mentioned above, rent/buy videos related to the styles you're into and make sure your teacher understands your goals.



Cheers..

[rich2k4]

that gambale video. i spent the last few days learning it on guitar. i don't have it up to speed yet, but i know how to play all of it.

i might bring it in to my next lesson and have my teacher go over it with me. i'd tell him this is the direction that i mostly would want to go in.

here is another example of the direction i'd like to go in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj78PPVElMI

i know it is mostly blues, but he has some stuff in there that sounds really good to me where he seems to be mixing jazzy lines in there.

so my next task, would be to try to figure out what he's playing there. then take a listen to blue benson, and learn solo's there.

[JimmyD]

here is another example of the direction i'd like to go in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj78PPVElMI

i know it is mostly blues, but he has some stuff in there that sounds really good to me where he seems to be mixing jazzy lines in there.


I watched that Brent Mason short. I suspected he could play in that style, but that's the first I had heard. Pretty darn authentic. He is definitely what I would call a natural player. Us mortals have to work in a fairly concentrated manner to do that. Theory and technique are your friends to go there. Refer to my earlier post in this thread.

Good luck transcribing Benson, alot of those notes go by in a flurry. Might want to check out Grant Green first.

Jim

[JimmyD]

Here is an example of why theory is your friend if you want to start sounding more mature or less pedestrian.

Take your basic garden variety maj7th chord say Fmaj7. Build a major pentatonic from the fifth of F. That is C, D, E, G and A or the 5th, 6th, 7th, 9th and 3rd of the major chord. Plenty of music within that pentatonic shape.

Now build a major pentatonic from the 9th of the original chord. What intervals are now going on? Pretty interesting stuff is happening and it isn't that hard to interject into your playing.

Theory plus creativity equals what you want to hear.

Jim