Jazz Advice

We spend a lot of time thinking about what we want to play, but how often do we think about what we don’t want to play?

I’m sure if you spent some time recording yourself or simply observing what you play, you’d find you’re playing some things that you actually do not want to play. Rather than continue to ingrain these things you don’t want to play, why not consciously decide that you’re not going to play them anymore?

Unfortunately it’s not that easy. Just like a golfer who picks up a bad habit early on spends the rest of his career fixing it, any poor playing habits that we pick up, whether they be crappy lines or undesirable stylistic nuances, getting rid of them is difficult. But even before you start ditching stuff, some self-reflection is in order to figure out what you don’t want to play.

Determine what you don’t want to play

To clarify, what you don’t want to play doesn’t have to be something that you already play; it could actually just be something that you don’t want to ever play in the future. For instance, there’s a famous line called “Indiana Bebop” as illustrated below:

It’s not a terrible line and you do hear people play it, but perhaps you think it’s very generic and boring, or because many people play it, you consciously decide that you’re not going to play it.

Or, perhaps what you don’t want to play is not a line, but … Read More

A magical thing happens when you listen to a recording of your favorite player and begin to play along with the record. It’s almost as if an unconscious transformation takes place, an instant instruction through aural osmosis. Simply by sitting by the speakers with your instrument and taking in those sound waves, you can instantly imitate that player’s unique musical style.

Ironically though, many of us miss this connection because we have tunnel vision on the music theory. Somewhere along the way, we’ve picked up this mentality that you learn the notes in one place and get the style from another.

Chances are you’ve even heard someone describe musical style with words while teaching improvisation: “bend that note, lay back on the time there, ghost those notes, play with a brighter sound, tongue those notes shorter, put some edge on it!”

These phrases give you a general target to aim at, but when compared with the actual sound, these verbal descriptions continually fall short of the intended target. To truly grasp style, it must be experienced and understood on a deep emotional level. This is where the benefits of transcription and serious listening come into play.

The majority of improvisers have a set definition and goal when it comes to transcribing, which usually begins and ends with figuring out the specific notes of line or solo. But think about it, once you’ve learned those notes, do you sound like that player from the record when you’re by yourself? Is that … Read More

How creative are you each time you play your instrument?

Think about it for a second…are you truly free when you improvise?

As creative improvising musicians, these are questions that we should all ask ourselves from time to time. We all know that hours of repetition, memorization, and imitation are the groundwork for learning improvisation, but there is a catch here. This essential process that we stoically endure each day in the practice room doesn’t naturally lend itself to free, spontaneous thinking.

In fact, it’s quite easy to get boxed into the safe confines of our daily routine; the same tunes, the same language, even the same practice schedule.

In our improvised solos, supposedly our most free and creative moment as musicians, we rely all too often on the “musical crutches” of playing within a group. The drummer will keep the time, the pianist will play the changes, the horn player has the melody, and someone else will keep track of the form, right?

We get away with not using our ears, with not counting or knowing the form of the tune, with “kind of” knowing the changes, and with relying on our good old licks to get us through a solo. Sounds like someone who’s trying to survive a performance instead of someone that’s aiming for creativity.

Rarely do we hold ourselves responsible for each and every aspect of the music. This all too common fact, however, doesn’t mean that we can’t change things.

Here are four exercises to … Read More

What if you could approach something in a completely new way than you’ve ever done before? What would happen? Perhaps an entire world of possibility exists from this new angle, but how do you get there?

Trying completely outlandish, almost silly techniques can spawn immense creativity and improvement in one’s ability. In all art-forms, it’s those who were willing to try something new and go against the grain that defined a new level, pushing the art-form to new heights. Not only in art, but also in sports, entertainment, and even in science this holds true.

The only way to make these new discoveries is to take on a new perspective. Implementing techniques that seem slightly bizarre is one way to remove your current filters, and give a 180 to your entire concept.

Being influenced by objects

I remember one afternoon in a combo rehearsal, Cecil Bridgewater suddenly stopped the entire group, starkly looked at me and said, “Forrest. Play your shirt.” I gazed back in confusion. Play my shirt? What the heck does that mean? Seriously, what does he want me to play??!!

I looked down at my shirt. It displayed two silhouetted figures in the night. A dark yet vibrant magenta light emanated from the edge of each outline.

I looked back up at Cecil and the band, counted them off, and began to play. I didn’t think about chords, although I knew perfectly where I was in the form. I didn’t focus on any sort of harmonic concept. … Read More

Many times when we’re soloing we get boxed in so to speak. We think that when we’re on a particular chord, we must play that chord and that chord only. We have tunnel vision and there exists little possibility.

One technique that dramatically relieves this boxed in sound and mindset is harmonic anticipation.

Anticipating a chord is quite easy: you simply anticipate the chord that you’re moving to by playing it before you arrive at it:

Anticipation is such a powerful technique because it achieves so much with so little. Just by playing the chord that you’re going to a little earlier, you’ll create a sense of forward motion, over the bar-line phrasing, and a feeling of excitement in your lines

How anticipation can help you

Like I was saying, we often feel boxed in by the chord changes. For example, here’s a sample of how someone playing over a Bird Blues may solo.

Pretty boring, huh? It sounds unnatural and boxy. Now, let’s take that same example and throw in some anticipation:

This is the same example except for the slightly modified resolution at the end of the line from G7 to C major. Now it’s a bit extreme to anticipate every chord, but you should hear and understand right away how much more exciting this line became from simply anticipating each chord by a beat.

Utilizing anticipation within your lines yields a more natural feel that can be heard and felt right away. And it’s easy to start … Read More

Time and again, we’ve stressed on this site that scales are not the secret to jazz improvisation.

However, scales can be beneficial if you practice and apply them in the right way. Once you aurally understand and ingrain the vital aspects of the jazz language (i.e. phrasing, melodic construction, expression, harmonic application, time, articulation, etc.) the scales and theory that you study in the practice room can substantially improve your technique.

Not only that, scales coupled with a deep harmonic knowledge can infinitely expand your options for musical expression.

Whoa, wait a second! So scales are horrible and to be avoided at all costs, but they’re also invaluable for musical expression? I know it’s sounds contradictory, but consider how music is presented in most educational settings. The crux of this matter lies in the way that the majority of musicians view scales.

Most beginning players, amateur improvisers, and even some accomplished musicians see scales as 8 notes that either ascend and descend. That’s it. Not related to musicality or harmonic application, just another exercise to be practiced in all 12 keys because someone told them to. What’s worse, many frustrated improvisers use this limited view of scales as the basis for creating solos over chord progressions.

One of the major problems that people have in learning to improvise is that they turn of their ears and only think of scales in order to come up with a solo. This simply doesn’t work. Scales are for the practice room and should … Read More

Do you find yourself having trouble remembering the solos you’ve transcribed?

Have you ever memorized the melody to a tune only to forget it a week later?

Do you have trouble recalling the chord progressions to your favorite standards?

If you are screaming “Yes, that’s me!”at the computer screen, then the solution to your problems can be summed up in one word: repetition. It’s not your lack of intelligence, your lack of motivation, or bad luck, it’s simply because you are not spending enough time to ingrain those things that you’re trying learn.

Now you might be saying, “Wait a minute, I repeat stuff in my practice all the time!” Yes, maybe for five or ten minutes, but are you repeating those lines, techniques, and progressions to the point that they are permanently ingrained in your brain and muscle memory? Will you be able to remember them a week or a month from now?

The underlying problem here is that we get bored very easily and the second we hear a hip sound, we can’t wait to jump ship and figure it out. This is a trap that every musician falls into at one point or another. We learn a new tune, pick up a new ii-V line, or work on our technique, and once we’ve got the basic idea we abandon it for the next best thing.

This simply won’t work if you want to make meaningful improvement as an improviser. The deceptive thing about the unfocused practicing … Read More

Amateurs phrase in a way that sounds boring and boxy. In contrast, professionals phrase in a way that gives excitement and forward motion to their playing.

In this article I’ll explore some tendencies that I’ve observed in the recordings of my heroes. Of course, your personal observations would result in different conclusions, which is why I highly suggest you transcribe and find tendencies that you observe. One thing to remember as well: These are not rules. They’re just things to be aware of and experiment with.

To illustrate the techniques, I’ll use the following example:

This is not a “bad” line and you will find similar lines throughout the jazz vocabulary, however, what we’re concerned with today is how to phrase in an exciting way and this line in isolation, as depicted, is quite boring. If you were to tag on an idea in front of it, or connect it to something else, immediately it would take on a new life, and that’s exactly what we’ll be talking about: how to take the ordinary and use it like a pro.

Avoid starting phrases on beat one

Amateurs constantly start phrases on beat one. This common way of starting a line allows the listener to easily predict where the next line will start. Consequently, there’s no interest to hold their attention and they stop listening.

Pros, while occasionally starting phrases on beat one, will more often than not start phrases on beats other than one. Instead of the original line, they … Read More

A reader writes:

It seems like everyone is taught the standard “off beat” articulation of swing eighth notes, but I feel that swing is really much more complicated. Why is it that some players seem to swing so hard while others do not? What’s the secret to swinging hard?

Yes, everyone is taught the standard “off beat” articulation of swing eighth notes, and you’re right, swing is much more complicated than that. It’s not even that it’s more complicated. It’s that swing cannot be defined by anything that you can write down.

Let’s try to write some swing down

Listen to Cannonball and Trane play over Grand Central: Cannonball swings so hard! He even comes right out of the gates with an incredible swinging line. Here it is notated below:

No matter what you do to better notate this example, add any articulation marking you like, there’s no way it will ever resemble the hard-swinging-in-your-face concept performed on the recording. The magic of swing is an aural experience and that’s where it will stay. Trying to write down swing and learn it from paper, or trying to learn it from concepts and exercises described in a book is a fruitless pursuit.

Variables in swing

Listening to different players swing, you can observe a number of variables that each player uniquely expresses with respect to their style of swing:

• The ratio between the lengths of adjacent notes.
• The accent of specific notes.
• The articulation of adjacent notes.
• The precise placement

… Read More

Every so often we make a musical discovery that drastically changes the way we approach improvisation. One day we are struggling over the same tunes, growing more and more frustrated with our own predictable patterns and then it hits us – we suddenly discover a secret that was hidden right before our eyes.

A subtle mental, aural, or physical shift occurs and we are able to approach improvisation in an entirely new way. From then on, our eyes (and ears) are opened to a wealth of new possibilities.

Looking back at the last fifteen years or so of my own journey to learn improvisation, I have made some very important musical discoveries that have changed the way I look at the music. Some of these discoveries came rather quickly, with a small amount of practice and others I had to struggle with for years before I had control of them.

Regardless of how long the discovery took, the result was the same: from that point on my ears changed and I took on a deeper understanding of the music. Most importantly, I now went into the practice room with a renewed excitement for improvising.

On my journey to find these breakthroughs, I looked for information in all sorts of places. Some of this information I found in books on how to improvise and some of it, in contrast, was not mentioned in any texts, videos, or lessons. Some of it was handed to me numerous times while I foolishly ignored … Read More