Week 6 - Them II, V, I licks

Firstly, the jam was cancelled on Monday, so I have no story for you there. It is almost guaranteed to happen this Monday, so I will hopefully have a story for you then.

I must be honest, this was a difficult week for me to practice. I had no inspiration. I do feel bad about it, but at the same time I am only human. I did cover some ground but not as much as one would hope. A friend of mine reminded me of the importance of learning licks, so, what I did this week was mainly concentrate on learning some II, V, I licks. It has been said that no Jazz artist can create an original solo for every song and every night that he or she may play. Eventually the tap will run dry. In situations like that, they learn licks that they practice and make perfect, then when the time comes to quickly do something cool, they rely on the lick. Its not bad Jazz, its very common. The book I'm reading (will get to that) says that a solo may even be 40-90% just licks. So I learnt some licks. There were like 20 to choose from, but I didn't like them all, it's a personal taste after all. So I chose about 3 or 4 of them. Next week I may do the same. Choose another 4 or so from a batch of 20.

I read through that book by Jerry Coker titled "How to Practice Jazz". It is a good book, it's essentially only 43 pages but it covers a lot of ground. Unfortunately the book came too late for me, so I already have a practice system that works for me, but this book is great for someone who has no idea where to start. It tells you exactly everything you should be practicing and it gives you suggestions on how you should divide up your time to practice it. The downside about it is that it was not written by a guitarist as evident by how he kept saying we had to learn a new scale in every key. Now the beauty about guitar is that you need to just learn the fingering for one key, and then you can play it up and down the fret-board. The book also mentioned a lot of other books that I should get which annoyed me somewhat because I just want this book to tell me everything I need to know and not to spend more money on other stuff. Regardless, its a good buy if you are new to Jazz like me, and I'm sure it will be a great resource to my studies.



I re-learnt "Days of Wine and Roses". I forgot it, but now I know both the chords and melody. Its a really great song. One of my favourites actually. Not too many chord changes so might be a good one to improvise over too. I also got a new scale mode under my belt. The Melodic minor's: Lydian Augmented. This scale sounds great for Dom7+5 chords, which are very very common in Jazz. Well at-least in my version of Jazz.

(This version of Days of Wine and Roses by Wes Montgomery is amazing. He is my favourite guitarist. Love his tone and style)

Next week may once again have more licks to learn, as well as another mode of the Melodic Minor scale. I'd like to start applying some of this stuff I have learnt to some songs. Like that Joe Pass solo I transcribed. I'd like to play it note for note to the song, otherwise what is the point of me spending so much time getting it down if I don't learn from it?

Week 5 - My Prospects of Success

There is some good news, and some bad news. 


Bad news: My chances of playing the Stellenbosch Big Band have slightly diminished (Yes, joke implied ha ha). I was under the impression that I could just audition for the role, and if I get it, great, if not, well that's fair, as it would be a reflection of my playing, and the better guitarist deserves it. It seems now that the Music department will favour its music students over non-music students. Now I am a Law student, and I wont have time nor money to become part of the music course next year. So, the way I understand it, is unless I am a champ at guitar, I will not be chosen due to administrative reasons. I will not let this get me down though, this was my goal, I will practice, and practice harder. I am going to try my utmost best to sight read (they really like that). I will make my presence known to the music faculty, and I will speak to the co-ordinator to see if any type of compromise can be made for a non-music student. I just want a fair chance.


Good news: I am going to be jamming at the Jazz jam on Monday! Quite scary. I have been practicing all week on a few standards that I'd like to give a go, namely: Blue Bossa, Satin Doll, Fly me to the moon, Beautiful love, Footprints etc. So this last week has just been a preparation for this.


 I have been improvising over some of these songs, and at first it was difficult, but I discovered I was going to fast for my own level. I need to slow it down so I can understand and appreciate what I am doing. I was once again dominating my arpeggio's, wow I cannot stress the importance of them. I transcribed a piece by Joe Pass and 92% of the notes he chose were chord tones. So I can definitely get away with just arpeggio's. Fortunately my prior practice of the major scales will come in handy so I will be sure to throw some major/minor licks into the work. I spoke to my mentor about everything and he said I should treat/practice arpeggio's like chords in the sense that when I see a chord symbol just play the arpeggio for it. View them like their own chords (which they are essentially). The thing that sucks is that I got a test on Monday (like a real one) so I have to study for that too, and I was hoping I could prepare for the Jam, but I guess it will be instinctive playing then. I will try remember to record it and post it up here.


I learnt "Fly me to the Moon" and the melody for "Nature Boy" the chords all seem different according to the different sheets. Perhaps I should try work them out myself, but I am not really good with chords yet.


That book of mine came, it looks great. Better than I imagined. I will read it and let you know if its worth its penny.

Some proof that I am actually playing. The bassist is my good friend Joshua. This was the informal jam I had last week with him.

Week 4 - End of Arpeggio's

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!

Week 3 - More on Arpeggio's

This week was surprisingly phenomenal. I thought I would just be doing mindless exercises on all the different arpeggio's, and although that did happen, I achieved so much more. 

For the arpeggio's, what I did was write down every one I would need and for which chord, then I proceeded to practicing them and becoming familiar with them.  Jamie Aebersold says that "knowing your chord tones is like knowing where the kitchen, bathroom, front-door and telephone are". Needless to say, arpeggio's are important. All in all there are about 22 new arpeggio fingerings I have been practicing all week and becoming familiar with, that includes major, minor, dominant and half diminished. I've also gone one step further and added the 9th note in just to give them some flavour. For the next week to follow I am again going to drill these arpeggio's in me, the fingerings are still new, and I NEED to know them on the fly. I have a vision to play at the jazz jam soon, like real soon, but I know my solo's will be 90% arpeggio's, and for now I am fine with that, because its progress!

I also got 3 more standards under my belt. Victor Young's "Beautiful love", Wayne Shorter's "Footprints" and Ellington's "In a Mellow tone", in all fairness though, my mentor had shown me that song before, I just forgot it. I don't think "Beautiful love" is such a popular standard, the only reason I learnt it was because the jazz jam I hope to play at soon plays it often, and what better way to gell with the musicians then to know the same repertoire they do.

I also surprised myself with my 'swing' technique, sure its not perfect, but I definitely got something going there, and it just came so naturally, I didn't even have to think about it. Its from all that listening. I put lots of Jazz on my iPod so whenever I walk to and from campus (or just walk in general) I am (as I like to say) "indoctrinating my mind with jazz". I really feel I have progressed so much, and its only been 3 weeks. I can't wait to see the end result. 

Week 2 - Arpeggio's Arpeggio's Arpeggio's

As the title suggests, this week was all about them Arpeggio's. I wont lie, this week did feel slower and I dont feel I assimilated as much knowledge as I did last week, BUT, this knowledge needs to be taken in slowly and carefully so that I dont disregard it quickly. It needs to become part of me. Another quote that Parker said was "You gotta learn all the theory, then forget it", so I need to make everything I learn part of me. I also had a bit more work to do this week for my studies, but none the less I made progress towards my Arpeggio's.

My Guitar teacher/mentor had always told me the importance of apreggio's, but I guess one never really appreciates the value of something untill you dont have it or need it. Most of the Greats (Parker, Davis, Gilliespie etc) use Arpeggio's left right and centre, they are so important as they allow you to know where in the song you are and also to tell your listeners where you are. So, what I have done was write down all the apreggio's I am going to need, and well now its just a process of getting them down. Fortunately because I have been playing guitar for a while, and my guitar mentor had drilled some apreggio's into my system so far, I know like 50% of all the 'new' arpeggio's I come across.

So, how I am deciding to tackle this new (but so fundamental) challenge, is to learn all the apreggios for all the different chord shapes, and secondly, to play them in fourths i.e. R 3 5 7, 3 5 7 R, 5 7 R 3 (Playing four notes and then moving up to the next degree of the arpeggio). Im doing this because I realised I only know the scales and Apreggio's from their roots. If I see a Dm7, I automatically play the root then the rest of the Arpeggio. I GOTTA BREAK THIS HABBIT. Im hoping through time, I will just see the arpeggio's all over my neck so I can smoothly connect the notes between the chords correctly. So yea, Arpeggio's are the future, scales come next.

I guess this next week to follow will have more arpeggio's, it will take me a while to get them down, but they are the building blocks to good soloing. I also learned 2 new standards. The first is called "Witchcraft". This is not such a popular standard, but I heard the guitarist Jimmy Bruno play it, and  wow I was impressed, he had some walking bass lines, some chromatism, some weird chords. I had to learn his version of the song, and so I did, the bonus is that this is part of my transcribing/aural development process. The second song is well known, its Herbie Hancock's "Cantaloupe Island". Alright, well, onto week 3!!!

Week 1

I officially got my first week of thorough Jazz playing behind me, and I must say it was better than I thought it would be. I imagined it to be pain and endurance, but really the 5 hour limit I set myself was a joke, its not enough, I want more jazz :-) I read that Charlie Parker used to practice 11 to 15 hours a day for 4 years. I know that Charlie Parker didn't practice cause he needed to, but because he wanted to. This week excited me because I wanted to practice more, and not because I felt I had to stick to a framework. On Thursday I practiced for 9 hours! And still crave more haha. My schedule pretty much consisted of waking up, going to class (like 2 hours a day) in-between class I play, then eat food, then play, then eat supper than play. I covered a lot of ground this week, to give it to you in a top 10 list, I:

1) Learnt the standard "All the things you are"
2) Got the melody and chords down for "Night in Tunisia"
3) Transcribed a Great piece from Dizzy (and understood it)
4) Learnt the Altered Scale (7th mode of Melodic minor)
5) Transcribed some Charlie Parker licks, wow that was a challenge.
6) Practiced my 'swing feel'
7)Went to a Jazz Jam (although did not play myself, that is the goal)
8) Practiced some sight/music reading
9) Learnt some epic new theory (it blows your mind)
10) Most importantly. I LISTENED.

This week empowered me as I know what my target for next week will be. I GOT to learn new scales but more importantly I must apply them to the music. Its one thing knowing a gazillion scales its another knowing when and how to use them. I am also gunning for my aural development, I cant stress the importance of that. Lastly, I am going to try know as many arpeggio's around the neck as possible. I read that I must be able to solo unaccompanied by a rhythm section and still be able to let the people know where in the song I am. It goes without saying that I will get 2 more standards added to my repertoire. Rather learn them properly so that I dont have to come back to them later on.

Thats enough for now. Will return with more good news

Week 0 - This idea

I have this recurring idea, that I must become good at Jazz. I love jazz, and I am constantly surrounded by jazz musicians. I attend enough jam sessions to see how skilled and phenomenal this 'language' really is. Jazz is a language. Some can speak it just enough to get on by, and some are fluent. Although I don't think one can ever be 100% fluent in jazz. We are always learning.

Anyway, so I study Law, which keeps me busy. Fortunately I have been granted more time, as 3 of my bigger subjects come to an end, so I thought I'd use this time to do something constructive. Why not become a better musician and just learn jazz! I am now seeing it is easier said than done. Regardless, I have about 6 months available to me, so why not try learn this language. I wont be fluent in jazz, but I'd like to be comfortable in my musical expressions and conversations with other jazzists.

I'm not quite sure how I am going to organize and systematically manage to learn what it is I need to learn, I suppose I will figure that out as the weeks progress. For now, this is a super rough idea of what my schedule may look like: 

Ø  1 hour – Theory – Jody Fisher                                                                               

Ø  1 hour – Learn Standards

Ø  3 hour – Practice

      1hr – New scale and Technique

      1hr – New chords and voicing’s

      1hr – Practice learnt theory

Scales

·         Harmonic minor (7)

·         Melodic minor (7)

·         Whole tone (2)

·         Diminished

·         Arpeggio’s

·         Bebop scale (5)

Standards

·         Sight reading

·         Transposing/All keys – what scale fits with what chords

·         Chords vocabulary

·         Melody – consider its scale in relation to chords

Technique

·         Speed Synchronization

·         8^th Feel

·         String skipping

·         Triplet

Theory

Notes on fretboard

Notes in scales

Notes in chords

Looking at it, it seems rather short, but 5 hours, well for me at least, is intense. Yet some may argue it is not enough. We will see. Ok, well I start tomorrow. It will be the time that I am sussing out what must be done. I will be sure to update you all on a week to week basis. Can I really learn jazz in 6 months?