Another slow week, but one that was so fundamental. I have finished off my work with the arpeggio's. I am feeling more and more comfortable with them, and everyday I was "playing with them". I would have one chord looping in the back, and I would solo all over that chord using all the arpeggio's I know for that respective chord. This is important (and I highly recommend this practice) as it allowed me to 'connect the dots'. Connecting the dots is a term I use to illustrate how all the notes (of a respective scale/arpeggio) work together all over the neck. I ALWAYS had the problem of only being limited to box playing. I would know a scale and I would only play that scale within the 4/5 frets I knew it in. Not anymore, I have now reached further horizons. I mix all the patterns, go up, go down, sideways, go from fret 1 to fret 18 in one swift motion. I want to be able to see All my options when soloing and not just the next note in the box. My mentor (a page should be dedicated to him, ha ha) always said to me when soloing you must see your fret-board like a map. This annoyed me in the past cause I knew what he was talking about, but could never see the map, I was always stuck in the box. I am now finally seeing 'the map'. This is a great achievement for me personally, as it means when I see a Fm7 chord, I can play all across the neck without sticking to 4 frets only. So my advice to you all, upon learning the required scales/licks/arpeggio's etc. PLAY WITH THEM. Take a chord, loop it, and jam it to hell (within the confine of the scales etc you have learnt).
A friend of mine (Joshua Prinsloo) is one of the go-to jazz bassists of Stellenbosch, needless to say, he is a great resource for my studies. I went to him on Monday night (the jam was cancelled, so we decided to have our own little jam). One thing that I never quite understood was how 'trading fours' worked. Often in a jazz jam, you will hear the drummer playing for 4 bars, followed by a soloist and accompanist for 4 bars, and then back to drummer and so forth and so forth. I didn't know when it would start, and for how long, so I got those questions answered. It would be quite embarrassing if I missed the cues all the time.
I got yet another 2 standards down. "My Funny Valentine", which surprisingly is quite a happy song, I always imagined it to be sad (and who can blame me), but the lyrics are quite romantic actually. Another song, which I could not find in any real book, or in the Aebersold series was Grant Green's "Sookie, Sookie". This came onto my iPod, and it just had such a killer groove to it. I worked out the chords, which is pretty much only Fm7. The turn around is Gm7♭5, Fm7♭5 and I dont know the last one, but I suspect it may be a Eb7#9. Anyway, 95% of the song is in Fm, so great for my arpeggio practice (well for minor atleast). I transcribed over a minute of the Green's solo, but got bored after a while cause he kept using the same lick over and over again. But it is a good lick, and one I will be using for sure. He uses in such a way as to still make the solo fresh. But after spending a few hours transcribing the solo in slow motion, you can see that he is looping a lot of this stuff, but just with a different approach.
Whats in store for me next week? To be honest, I'm not exactly sure. My routine has been really chiseled since the beginning when I had an exhaustive list of things to do. My jazz improvisational studies really comes down to five things :
1) Listening
2) Aural testing/Sing and play on guitar what you hear in your head
3) Arpeggio's (which I now have sorted)
4) Scales (I guess this is the next step)
5) Chromatism > The jazz sound!
I guess I will be dabbing in all of these next week, maybe have a more general structured practice. I'd like to transcribe some Joe Pass. He is great!
I finished 2 books - 1) Jamie Aebersold "How to play and improvise Jazz"
2) Jody Fisher "Intermediate Jazz Guitar"
Both are great resources, and I highly recommend them. The Aebersold one I find quite old fashioned, and cheesy at times, but he offers great advice and encouragement. Fisher is the reason I was gunning for my arpeggio's. There must have been like 20 pages on arpeggio practices, patterns etc. Although I mapped out my own arpeggio, Fisher highlighted the importance of it to me. I find this book somewhat incomplete, and perhaps too general, I skipped a few sections that where not relevant, but its still worth its money. I'm expecting another book in the post any day soon titled "How to practice Jazz" could be helpful!
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