Jazz Advice

Everybody talks about learning tunes. I mean everybody. It’s the one common thread that you hear about at jam sessions, in music schools, and conversations with great players. So much emphasis is placed upon the need for more tunes it’s not surprising that most players have this burgeoning mental complex about knowing and learning tunes that hangs over their heads day after day like a black cloud.

With this ominous mindset, the simple act of learning a tune becomes a painful, long, drawn-out process that we try to avoid at all costs.

For years, I was stuck in this mental box and would force myself to try to learn tunes by pure memorization, from a piece of paper. Hours were spent in fruitless pursuit and it became easier to read tunes than to actually learn them. When it came time to perform these tunes, I was hanging onto these mental facts like a stranded swimmer holding on to a life preserver.

If I couldn’t think of those note names I memorized or that sequence of fingerings, I had nothing to play and worse, no aural skills to keep me afloat.

When you are learning in a situation like this, building a solid repertoire can seem like an impossible task. Even when you do manage to learn a tune, are you sure that you truly know it and will remember it?

If this sounds familiar, you’ve probably had the same thought I often had: There has to be a better … Read More

1. Nobody’s checking for your music degree

Just because you graduated with a degree in jazz studies and minored in Coltrane licks doesn’t mean that you know how to play. Music school has its benefits, but it’s not the end of the road for your musical education – in fact, if you picked up the right skills, it’s just the beginning.

On the flip side, if you’ve never went to music school it doesn’t mean that you can’t play. Becoming a great player takes the same type of work, whether you’re enrolled in a music school or learning on your own with the records. In the end, here’s what matters: Can you play?

2. Keep going back to the fundamentals

When it comes to improvisation, your improvement stems from the basic building blocks of musicianship. Still can’t hear a ii-V progression and rusty on your major scales, but continually trying to improvise over difficult tunes? That’s like trying to be a world-class olympic swimmer and not knowing how to do the back-stroke. Stop setting yourself up for frustration of failure. Start by building a solid foundation of technique, ear training, and language and go from there.

3. Talent is great, but skill and perseverance win every time

Not every person has the same kinds of talents, so you discover what yours are and work with them.~Frank Gehry

A natural affinity or ability for something is great, but to succeed at improvisation you need to tirelessly develop your skills day … Read More

The extreme ranges of any instrument express extreme emotion, but they’re not easy to tackle. The high register is notoriously difficult on most instruments and the low register is often under-developed and under-utilized.

The standard approach towards these registers is to extend your scales and arpeggio exercises as high and as low as you can. Yes, this is a great start, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t do that, however, if you think by simply playing scales and arpeggios in these registers that you’re going to suddenly be using them creatively while you improvise, you better guess again.

And furthermore, the idea of “extending your range” does not simply mean you can play one note really high. That’s useless.How interesting is it really to hear some trumpet player squeaking out the highest note he can in the most un-musical and look-at-me manner?

Get over it. Nobody cares how high you can play. Well, not true; the same crowd that loves Kenny G, probably would love to hear you play high too. But seriously…the high and low registers can be used musically and with purpose.

Once you learn the fingerings and proper relaxed technique to achieve the sound you desire in these registers, there are some obvious but rarely used tactics to explore, which will help you become fluid in using the extreme ranges while improvising.

Apply language to extreme ranges

This is the most obvious concept, yet the most overlooked. We probably sound like a broken record. Language, language, … Read More

Let’s face it, improvisation is hard enough as it is, even when we do spend the time in the practice room. But however much we study or practice, there are some key factors that can destroy our creativity and ability to improvise in seconds.

We’ve all experienced this feeling before in performance. You hear an idea or a line in your head and for some reason or another it doesn’t come out of your instrument. It seems that something is preventing you from playing over those chord changes with ease. Sometimes it’s even hard just to find a good idea to play!

All too often we think the excuse lies in some area that we have no control over or we look for some hidden problem that is keeping us from playing the way we envision.

We get questions all the time from people encountering these issues with improvising. Most of the time people are looking for some hidden problem that is holding them back. I totally relate with this experience and remember looking to advanced harmonic concepts and special techniques to solve my problems.

Nine times out of ten however, the issue lies with one of 5 key areas of musicianship that I’ve listed below. Think of this list as the 5 pre-requisites that you need to have down before you graduate to improvising on the stage.

Without them, improvising is like trying to take the final exam after you’ve skipped all the classes – you’re going to be … 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

Oftentimes, we get pushed down a very narrow, prescribed path when it comes to learning and performing jazz. Without question, we get complacent with the established rules of others whether it’s the guidelines of an educational program, the expectations of the people around us, or the limits of a label for the music.

We get sucked into a mindset that is not particularly true and one that’s not our own. After years of this, it can be eye opening just to remember that you can determine what it is that you want to get out of this music.

“What are my goals with improvisation?” Do you want to sound good at the local jam session, to play like Charlie Parker, to express yourself creatively, to develop your own voice in this music, to simply play music with others?

The possibilities are endless and we all have our reasons and goals when it comes to learning improvisation. Some of us have very high ambitions and work diligently everyday to improve, while some of us pursue improvisation as a hobby, simply for the fun of it.

If you look very closely, however, the true reason that we’re all drawn to this form of expression is not merely an external one. From the professional to the layman, there is an inherent satisfaction in creating in the moment; creating your own sound, expressing your personal view, and playing the sound of your time.

The music that is created in the moment. This is … Read More

In talking, practicing, and performing with many musicians over the years, it seems that a number of players are having trouble getting started with improvisation. Even more have a hard time moving forward, but can’t seem to figure out why.

Time is spent in the practice room day after day, yet no results.

There seems to be a hidden trap that many musicians unconsciously enter each day they step into the practice room. It’s something that we’re all susceptible to and a trap that we enter willingly time after time.

We can’t see it because it’s disguised as ambition. It develops as a result of our attempts to uphold an image as a serious improviser and even though we know better, we fall victim to the lure of this pitfall again and again.

Start simple, stay simple

So what is this trap? Why, it’s so simple that it doesn’t even seem like that big of a deal: skipping over the basics.

The main reason that so many players have trouble learning or progressing with improvisation year after year is that they continue to skip over the fundamentals. It’s as simple as that. It doesn’t have anything to do with talent or a willingness to get into the practice room, the problem lies with the actual content the practice session itself.

Go to any practice room in any music school and you’ll hear players trying to play as fast as they can on the hardest tunes that they can find. … 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

There’s one important idea that we must remember as musicians: When you practice, you create habits.

Think about it, this is essentially the reason that we set out to practice in the first place. By consciously focusing on a single exercise or technique for hours at a time, we ingrain these skills on an unconscious level. Then when the time comes for us to play, we don’t have to think to perform these actions, they’re produced naturally out of habit.

However, like many things in life, this process is not as cut and dry as it appears. For every habit that we consciously set out to create, we also create habits that we’re unaware of, and these habits are the ones that get us into trouble.

Losing your mental focus

In the practice room, it is surprisingly easy to lose focus and to let some bad habits creep in, especially when we’re improvising. At times like this, we are concentrating so hard on making the changes that we forget about playing our instrument. If this sounds all too familiar, don’t worry, this is something that all players struggle with and must learn to overcome.

Over the years, I’ve heard numerous accomplished players sound completely different when they try to improvise. In the practice room they have a great sound and poise as they play their instrument, but when they are faced with improvising a solo over a chord progression they fall apart. Their sound goes out the window, they … Read More

As the article last Wednesday discussed, learning to apply language to tunes is crucial because it puts the language into context, allowing your ears and fingers to gain an understanding of how to integrate the language into your overarching concept. Over time, the language you practice this way will spontaneously materialize in new form, surprising even you.

You’ll naturally change the language, combine it with other things you know, or even use it in a totally different spot than it was originally. That’s what we’re talking about today: using language in a different place than its original harmonic context. There exist many formulas, which once known will seem obvious, that will assist you in transferring a musical idea to a variety of new situations.

Of course you cannot use these formulas blindly. You must fully understand the melodic material you’re working with and experiment with what works best with those specific lines. Some lines will work perfectly with a particular formula, whereas others won’t work at all.

These formulas are intended to get you thinking about common places that you can take a piece of language. Use them as a starting point to discover other transformation points for your language that you can continue to draw from as you acquire more and more language.

Major line: use over the minor chord a minor 3rd down

This would be: F major to D minor. This is one of my favorites because it is so simple and so effective. It works well … Read More