PlayJazzNow Blog

Jazz Language: Using Transcriptions

2012-01-19T14:10:00.002-06:00

I don't know about you, but I'm tired of people insisting that you can't become a good jazz musician without following whatever methods or rules they happen to favor. As with so many other endeavors, there are many valid paths to achieve the results you desire. (At least, that's the philosophy I favor!) That said, I think there is general agreement among most musicians that using transcriptions is an integral part of learning how to improvise. I'll save a discussion on why this is so for another time. For now, just keep in mind Clark Terry's famous and widely accepted jazz education dictum: Imitate, Integrate, Innovate.

What are transcriptions, anyway? They can take more than one form, but transcriptions are essentially the "records" of the performances of other musicians. There are two main components to working with transcriptions: creating them and learning to play them.

When you learn a lick, a melody, a bassline, a comping rhythm, a drum groove, or all or part of a solo, you are transcribing. You can transcribe by memorizing or by writing down the chunk of music you're working on. Creating your own transcriptions is undoubtedly the most thorough and beneficial way to emulate the playing of the musician whose work has captured your interest. Unless you have extremely advanced ears, transcribing involves repeated, detailed listening. Spending time with a passage of music allows you to absorb all of the subtleties that go beyond the notes and rhythms. Tone, texture, dynamics and the other unnameable qualities are the aspects of the music that are only available to you by this kind of concentrated listening.

On the other hand, not everyone has the inclination or time to put into creating their own transcriptions. If you fall into this category, but want to take advantage of the benefits of studying the work of the artists you admire, there are many transcriptions done by others you can acquire and learn from the page. This, of course, assumes that you are able to read music (or TAB if that applies to your instrument). You have to be wary of mistakes or misprints in published transcriptions. Remember that there is an imperfect human doing the transcribing. The best way to use other people's transcriptions is to do so in conjunction with the specific recording. This way you won't have to do all of the notes and rhythm "grunt work" but you'll still be able to hear the music in context (and check for mistakes).

The following is an annotated list of online transcription resources.

Before I give you the list of resources I want to mention a couple of recent discoveries that might be of some value to you. First, there's Jazz Advice, a website run by two young musicians who have put together some provocative suggestions for aspiring improvisors. Their take on using transcriptions is HERE. And there advice regarding jazz play-alongs is HERE.

Then there's a relatively new site, also run by some young guns, called So Killing Man. This is a transcription site, and they seem to be concentrating on more comtemporary artists. The name of the site (if you don't already get the joke) is taken from the Jazz Robots video that's been making the rounds for the past year or so. If you are one of the few folk who haven't seen it yet, scroll down to the end of this post and have a good laugh.

All of the following websites (except one) offer you the opportunity to freely download transcriptions of jazz solos by a wide variety of artists.

Bert Ligon, jazz pianist and educator, has a nice collection of transcriptions

Bruce Saunders' site has a ton of guitar solos

Lucas Pickford has a wide variety of solo transcriptions for many instruments

Jazz Trumpet Solos is self-explanatory

Digital Trombone ditto

Colin Campbell's site has an emphasis on contemporary players

This is an excellent site in French, but music has no language barriers, right?

Sax Solos is the only pay site on this list but there are some free samples, and he offers custom transcriptions for very reasonable prices.

The Music Zone

2011-11-15T12:35:00.000-06:00

There's an old joke in the music biz: Q: "How do you make a musician complain?" A: "Give him a job." That is as succinct an assessment as I can imagine about this rather subversive business of making art. Even though we love to play, we are constantly struggling with the practicalities of making a living doing this. Just a few of the inconvenient truths are: the unpredictability of a freelance income, dealing with incompetent and/or arrogant colleagues, living on the road, competing for gigs with other players of one's instrument, and so on.

And so the question must be asked: Why do we do it?

There's a form of "addiction" that holds the lives of many musicians in its thrall. I put quotation marks around the word because the "whatever it is that keeps us coming back" isn't a physical or psychological addiction in the AA sense. I think that it's more of an emotional glue that binds us to the experience of making music. I will try to explain this more fully, though it is difficult to put into words.

Performing artists spend inordinate amounts of time, energy and sustained effort to become proficient at our crafts. The investments we make involve the kind of personal commitment that only exist outside of the arts in the most rarefied professions, such as education, health care and politics. The level of psychic, spiritual and emotional effort required goes way beyond the requirements of most other "jobs".

Most musicians, actors, dancers and other performing artists gave little or no thought to the "business" part of being a performer when they started studying, practicing and becoming addicted to expressing themselves in these ways. I did not, for example, learn how to play all the modes, triads, seventh chords, pentatonics and so on in all twelve keys so that I could play Louie Louie at weddings. I gave no thought to the commercial or practical aspects of playing music when I was playing original compositions and tunes by the likes of Wayne Shorter, Charles Mingus and Chick Corea in tiny jazz dives in the late 1970's. I did it because I loved the music and the way it felt to create a literal and figurative groove with my band mates. I worked hard because I wanted to do it well and to (as Mingus would put it) "get it in my soul."

It is indeed rare to see a highly skilled musician walk away from this world voluntarily and permanently. The harsh economic realities and the other stressors associated with a musician's life usually have little sway when it come to separating a player from his horn. So, it's partially this commitment that keeps most of us in the game, but there's more to it than that.

So what exactly are we "addicted" to? Performing for other people is important. We like connecting with an audience, getting that feedback in the form of applause or, for the most part in my niche of the biz, the occasional positive comment like "It probably doesn't seem like we were listening, but you guys were great". Comedian Lenny Bruce summed up the motivation for performing by equating it with the psychological need for attention: "Everything we do is: Look at me, ma!" But I'm more "addicted" to the feeling I alluded to a moment ago. For lack of a better term I'll appropriate one from sports: it is this being in "the zone" that keeps me playing and practicing.

The "music zone" is the feeling of being wholly in the present moment, of being connected viscerally to the other players, of being subsumed as an individual into the temporary collective mind, of being outside of chronological time and free of bodily sensation. It looks really kooky on paper, but this is where the analytical/rational/linear part of the human mind fails to serve. For a few moments at a time (and it may not last long) I can re-connect with that feeling of living only in the present, without concern for the mundane, for what happened five minutes ago or for what will happen five minutes hence. None of that counts for a hill of beans when I'm in the "zone".

Rather than give that up, many of us diversify. The field of music encompasses not only the act of performing but other potentially remunerative endeavors as well. We can compose or arrange or copy music. We can become conductors, music directors or band leaders. We can go into music history, music theory, music therapy, arts administration. We can teach privately and at every academic level from kindergarten to graduate school.

All of these ancillary fields can serve as ways to augment our performance income or as primary careers. If you are skilled and lucky enough to have a job in a major orchestra or as a member of a major rock or pop act then you probably don't need a second job. But many of us blue collar musicians have to have multiple income streams to satisfy the performing jones.

There is no substitute for the experience of performing in the "zone", which is why I continue to do this crazy thing.

The Problem With Studying The "Jazz Language"

2011-10-17T10:26:00.000-05:00

This piece is a guest post by Bill Plake. Bill is a Los Angeles based professional saxophonist and Alexander Technique teacher whose specialty is helping musicians perform pani free, effortlessly and confidently.

The other morning I was giving a first lesson to a young jazz guitar player and was struck by something I notice quite often: Young jazz students spending a seemingly disproportionate amount of practice time learning and memorizing jazz lines and improvised solos.

When I asked this musician what he practices, he said that most of his practice time is spent learning new tunes, heads (like Donna Lee, Milestones, etc) and transcribing and playing improvised jazz solos by the “masters”.

This is all good stuff to do if you’re studying jazz. It lets you go deeply into the heart of the jazz tradition, giving you perspective and context. It gives you insights about how the musicians formed their ideas. It helps you develop technical skill that you can use as an improviser. It improves your ear. All good stuff.

But then when I asked my student what else he practices, his face went blank. He said, “That’s pretty much it. I want to really absorb the jazz language. All my teachers tell me this is the best way to do that.”

Then I listened to him play. He was very competent, very fluent, had a nice time feel, clearly showing how much, and to whom he had listened.

He was also stunningly unoriginal, and rather disconnected from the improvisational process. Everything he played sounded like an excerpt from one of the lines or solos he’d memorized. I don’t mean he was copying things note for note. It was…well, as if he weren’t really feeling at all what he was playing. It was as if it came from some external source, foreign to him.

As I pressed on in my questioning, he said that he already knew his scales and chords thoroughly. As I sort of tested him on this, he showed great competence with his scaler and harmonic knowledge. So why the disconnect?

Well, as we went further into the lesson, it became clear: He wanted everything he improvised to sound as if it came squarely from the jazz language, the jazz tradition as it were (or at least his conception of those things).

That got me to thinking about what exactly that might mean. Especially, the jazz language. Is there a jazz language? If there is I don’t know how to define it.

Is it certain harmonies used in modern jazz? Nope. All those extended harmonies are found in many different pieces of 20th century classical music.

Is it the chromaticism? No. There’s plenty of chromaticism from other forms of music. Beethoven used it to great effect.

Is it the types of rhythms that are predominantly used in jazz? Not that either. There’s no such thing as “jazz” rhythmic figure. Even syncopation has been around forever.

Is it the time feel? Now at least were getting close. Jazz musicians have a certain way of feeling time and expressing it rhythmically that is immediately palpable.

But what is it exactly? The so called “swing” eighth note feel isn’t even close to being codified. Some musicians (I’m thinking of Clifford Brown here) play jazz eighth notes virtually “straight”. Yet when you here them play, you can easily tell it’s jazz.

And that’s usually the case. You might not be able to define what the jazz language is, but you can sure recognize it when you hear it. But the bottom line is that for every rule or principle of the jazz language there are countless exceptions. So why all the “learning the jazz language” emphasis?

If you examine the work of the great innovators in jazz they all had one thing in common: They redefined, edified and expanded the so called jazz language. Sure they might have spent quite a bit of time copying other players and learning tunes and heads and so forth.

But they also did one very important thing. They spent the vast majority of their time improvising (truly improvising) to find what they had to say as artists. In fact, many had to actually ignore the jazz language of their time. They needed to free themselves from it in order to find a more personal expression.

Miles Davis was famous for this. As was John Coltrane. So was Lester Young for that matter. They was constantly pushing back against the established jazz language of their day. And they were consistently finding newer, more innovative ways to express themselves through what we still call the jazz tradition.

How did they do this? Well, if we take Coltrane as an example, he spent a huge amount of time re-mastering and exploring the elements of music: new ways of stacking chords; new ways of thinking about scales and modes; new ways to imagine rhythm and its relationship to harmonic tension. He in essence stopped looking at jazz and started looking at music in the much broader sense.

It’s important to keep in mind that if you’re an improviser, your also a composer. You compose spontaneously, but you compose nevertheless. So follow the path of great composers. Study the tradition. Absorb and understand what has been created before you. But get down to the business of finding out who you are.

In my experience both as teacher and performer, I’d say you’re best off giving this top priority, even when you’re at the stage of development where you’re mimicking and studying others. Don’t wait for some magic moment of creative maturity. You’re ready right now. Cultivate those moments every single day, no matter what level of proficiency you’re at. Make the music yours.

For you this might mean spending a great deal more time creating and learning your own distinctive scalar, intervalic and harmonic patterns, building your own language. It could mean spending the next few years of your practice life devoted nearly exclusively to broadening your rhythmic conception (polymeter, odd meters, time feel, etc.). Explore the materials of music deeply.

Use your imagination, intellect, musical knowledge and ear to find (as the great jazz pianist and teacher Lennie Tristano would say) “your own melody.” Don’t let an over-emphasis on language limit your self expression.

The Practice Vibe: What, When and How Much?

2011-09-17T21:15:00.000-05:00

No matter what you play or how well you do it, the one thing that unites all musicians is the necessity of practice. Whether you're a four year old taking Suzuki lessons or a grizzled professional (or any kind of musician in between) you have to work to maintain and improve your musical skills.

Beyond that universal fact, everything else about practicing often seems up for grabs. Disagreements abound regarding what, when and how long you should practice. In the world of jazz, players and teachers can sometimes get into very contentious arguments for or against various aspects of study. How much time and effort should you put into purely technical exercises? Scales and arpeggios? Learning tunes? Transcribing solos (or not) and mastering the language(s) of the great musicians of previous eras? Ear training, keyboard skills, theory and harmony studies. Whew! There's a lot of material to cover and a lot of discord among "the experts" over every bit of it.

It seems to me that jazz is ultimately about self expression. If this is true then "practicing" must mean finding ways to integrate all of the tools you need to be able to express yourself in the language of music: your physical technique, your ability to play what you hear and your innate musical instincts. Each of these areas can be divided into smaller chunks in a variety of ways, and how you do that is really up to you. The best advice I can give you is that you cultivate musical mentors in the form of teachers, band mates and the jazz masters of the past and present. But beware of those who insist that their way is the only way, because it is a demonstrable fact that this notion is false.

I've been playing, listening to and teaching music for 35 years, and PlayJazzNow exists to help make learning to improvise easier, more organized and (hopefully) fun. I've been interested in the "hows" of practicing for a very long time, both as a student and an educator. Lately I've discovered some thought-provoking resources that I want to share with you:

For those interested in a neurological perspective on music, a good starting point is Daniel Levitin's This Is Your Brain On Music. Despite the unfortunate title, Mr. Levitin (a musician/recording engineer/producer turned neuroscientist) offers a serious exploration of the connections between music (from both a listening and playing perspective) and the brain.

The chapter that most interests me presents the venerable talent vs. hard work dichotomy. When it comes to developing true expertise as a musician, is it innate, genetic predisposition that matters most? Or is it what Artur Rubinstein referred to as "sitting power?" I posted a detailed essay about this book HERE.

Dr. Noa Kageyama began life as a violin prodigy and later attained a PhD in psychology. (Hmm, I'm starting to see a trend here.) His blog, The Bullet Proof Musician, is a tremendous resource for advice on practicing, performing and auditioning. A recent post explains how deliberate, conscious, focused practicing is so much more efficient than the more typical mindless "finger-wiggling" variety.

Saxophonist Bill Plake's blog addresses issues directly related to the study of jazz. He makes a lot of wise suggestions about developing healthy physical and mental habits, learning to really hear yourself, the value of making mistakes, having clear musical intentions and so on. One of my favorite (and potentially controversial) pieces is The Problem with Studying the "Jazz Language".

Your opinion and suggestions on other valuable jazz related resources are always welcome.

As a reward for getting through all of these words, here's a fascinating "video transcription" of Miles' game changing recording So What:

Harmonic Analysis: Autumn Leaves

2011-08-16T12:52:00.004-05:00

This month I'm going to take you through a quick harmonic analysis of the beloved jazz standard Autumn Leaves. This is a tune that has been and continues to be played by jazz musicians the world over. It's one that you should have in your repertoire. Autumn Leaves is great to work on if you're fairly new to improvising because the form and chord structures are relatively easy to hear and internalize.

[You can download a FREE chord chart and a FREE play-along track mixed specifically for your instrument by clicking the links at the end of this article. In addition, there are links to a couple of videos by guitarist Dave Onderdonk playing a few choruses and then talking about soloing on these chord changes.]

Let's take a look at Autumn Leaves in the key of G/Em*. A lot of people also play it in Bb/Gm but we'll stick to G for this analysis. When you first look at the chart you might get confused - is this song in G or in G's relative minor Em? In a sense, it doesn't really matter, because the 4 bar phrases bounce back and forth between the two tonics. As long as you know which key you're in for each phrase you'll be on the right track.

The first 4 bars are clearly in G. Am7 D7 GM7 CM7 translates to ii V I IV. So if you improvise using the G major scale for those measures you will be in the right harmonic area. The next 4 bars are ii V i in E minor - F#-7(b5) B7 Em. It seems as though you ought to be able to play E natural minor during these 4 measures, since that is the relative minor scale to G major. But the B7 chord presents a bit of a dilemma because it's all-important 3rd is a D#. There is no D# in the key of G. So many players like to use the E harmonic minor scale in this spot, because it contains all of the notes of G major, except that the D becomes a D#. Play the two scales and you'll hear what I mean.

The next 8 bars are harmonically exactly the same as the first 4, so all the same ideas apply.

The following 8 bars reverse the pattern: The first 4 are in E minor (again ii V i) and the next 4 are in G major (again ii V I IV).

Things get a little more interesting in the last 8 bars of the song. There's a ii V i in E minor, then a couple of bars where the chords descend chromatically from Em down to B7, finally coming to rest on Em for the last two measures. What's really happening in those complicated looking measures? It's really just a sequence of chromatic ii Vs, where Em7 is ii and Eb7 is V, then Dm7 is ii and Db7 is V. Finally the C13 is a chromatic dominant of B7, which is V of Em.

Chromatic dominants, eh? If you're not familiar with tritone substitution we'll cover the larger concept in a future lesson. Suffice it to say that the Eb7 is substituting for A7 and the Db7 is standing in for a G7. In fact, you could play those "circle of fifth" changes instead and the harmony would work just as well. We chose to play the chromatic changes when we recorded the track in order to demonstrate the concept and because many if not most jazz players do use the chromatic variant.

*This analysis is for C instruments. If you play a Bb instrument (like trumpet or tenor sax) you will have to transpose everything up to the key of A/F#m. Players of Eb instruments (like alto sax) will need to transpose this explanation to the key of E/C#m. It's not hard - you can do it!

Annotated CHORD CHART

Play-along track TRIO
Play-along track PIANO/DRUMS
Play-along track BASS/DRUMS

Here's a video of a sample solo on Autumn Leaves:

Here's a lesson on this tune (NOT just for guitarists):

Jazz Listening 102: Trio of Oz Opens My Ears (and Eyes)

2011-08-13T14:08:00.003-05:00

A few months ago my drummer pal Nick Coconato handed me a CD to check out. On it he’d written the words Trio of Oz, and that’s all I knew about it. I had no clue that this disk was going to lead to a couple of significant realizations about how I listen to and evaluate music.

I could tell right away that this is a drummer-led band. The drums are quite hot in the mix for a trio with piano and upright bass, and this player has a great feel for the nice variety of grooves and lots of room to stretch. The pianist is strong too – someone who’s obviously absorbed the jazz language of Herbie and Chick, and who has a great touch and lots of chops. The trio has a very good bass player as well, with a well-balanced sound and excellent groove.

I didn’t recognize any of the music. The Trio of Oz doesn’t play any jazz standards or tunes that use standard chord progressions on this CD. I had a vague feeling that I’d heard some of the melodies before, but it wasn’t until I heard the last track that I actually knew the song – King of Pain by The Police, which is not exactly normal fare for an acoustic jazz trio album.

Somewhere along the line I found out that the drummer for this project is Omar Hakim, who I’d heard with Sting, but had never thought of as a “jazz” musician. I was spinning this CD in my car all the time and really enjoying the freshness of the tunes and the playing. I thought to myself that, whoever these other guys are, they sure sound great.

I finally Googled Trio of Oz and wasn’t too surprised to learn that the tunes are all arrangements of pop/rock tracks, since King of Pain is in the mix. It turned out that I was somewhat familiar with the songs by Coldplay, Death Cab for Cutie and Stone Temple Pilots. There’s also music by Alice in Chains, The Killers, Depeche Mode, New Order and a couple of other bands whose music I’m not familiar with.

But I was shocked to find out who the other musicians are. The pianist is Rachel Z and the bassist is Maeve Royce. Not only had I never heard of either one of them, but they are both women! It just never entered my mind that the other two members of this band are not “guys” at all. I like to think of myself as a highly evolved, egalitarian kind of guy – and it didn’t even occur to me that the other players in Omar’s trio could be women. Your Trackmeister hangs his head in shame.

Listening to The Trio of Oz has got me challenging a lot of assumptions I make when I choose what to listen to and how I respond to what I hear.

When I decide whether or not to attend a live gig or buy a particular recording, I usually do so based on my previously formed opinion of the artist(s). I’m much more likely to spend money on a “product” or experience that I can safely predict I will enjoy, according to how I’ve reacted to the particular artist or style of music in the past. But following this strategy severely limits the range of musical experiences I will have, because it’s fairly certain that a performance by an artist I know will bear many similarities to their previous work. I’m more comfortable spending money on a relatively sure thing; I don’t necessarily want to take the risk of “wasting” my precious resources on something I may not enjoy.

It’s very unlikely, for example, that I would have purchased The Trio of Oz CD based solely on the song titles or personnel. And that would have been a real shame, because the music this trio makes is very satisfying.

So perhaps my criteria for choosing what music to investigate should change. Even though I have eclectic taste, I’ve gotten out of the habit of taking chances on new artists and genres that are outside my comfort zone. With the advent of internet radio, Pandora, Spotify, Lastfm and the many other online sources of streaming music, the risk factor is very low. All I need to do is open my ears.

If you’re experiencing a similar malaise, here’s a short list of contemporary jazz artists I can wholeheartedly recommend to you. I've tried to be gender neutral and ethnicity inclusive while leaving out some artists you have probably already heard. Let me know who you think I should be listening to as well.

Bass: Ben Allison, Avishai Cohen, Esperanza Spalding

Guitar: Bill Frisell, Mary Halvorsen, Julian Lage, Adam Rogers, Jeff Parker

Saxophone/Flute: Anat Cohen, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Nicole Mitchell, Greg Osby, Joshua Redman

Piano: Robert Glasper, Vijay Iyer, Brad Mehldau, Jason Moran, Danilo Perez

Trumpet: Brian Lynch, Dave Douglas, Roy Hargrove

Trombone: Robin Eubanks, Steve Turre

Drums/Percussion: Brian Blade, Antonio Sanchez, Matt Wilson, Steve Nelson

Vocal: Sheila Jordan, Mark Murphy, Cassandra Wilson

Ensemble: The Bad Plus, Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra, Trio of Oz

Jazz Improv: The KISS Method

2011-07-12T11:18:00.004-05:00

"I never have any trouble playing anything I can think of. The trouble is thinking of what to play." - Stan Getz

If you've seen it once, you've seen it a hundred times. If you want to play on this chord change, use this scale or that scale. Or, use this one scale to play over this two or four bar phrase. Or, here are the "target tones" you can use to indicate that the chords have changed.

Good advice. All true. But not so easy to actually DO if you really aren't HEARING how the scale(s) or target tones sound in the context of the harmony.

When a beginning improviser says something like "I just can't play what I'm hearing" what they most often mean is "I'm not hearing anything specific enough to play". Most of the time, an inexperienced player can make some notes on their instrument but they aren't yet able to generate anything in their "mind's ear" and then re-create that sound on their instrument.

A 7 or 8 note scale contains far too many choices for the untrained ear. It can be very intimidating for a neophyte to pick something - anything - to actually play when she has very little idea what any of those notes will sound like in relation to the underlying harmony. Talk about "free jazz"!

So I propose using the KISS method. No, I'm not nominating Gene Simmons to be our musical mentor. Keep It Simple (and) Swinging is the idea. Start with an easy to hear, repetitive chord progression and experiment with playing one note at a time and listening carefully to how it sounds with each of the chords.

Chameleon Changes, one of the progressions in our new collection Jazz Funk Trax, is an excellent choice for this exercise. It's a basic ii/V in the key of Ab. (Bb-7/Eb7) set in an easy, loping straight eighth note groove. If you prefer a swing feel, any one of our Major ii/V sets would work just as well.

Choose one note to start with. Play your note in any octave(s) using whatever rhythms feel good to you. When you stop, imagine how that note will sound internally before you play again. Do this for awhile, until it gets really easy.

Then add another note, preferably close by the first. If you chose a C, for example, try adding a Bb, Db or Eb. Do the same thing with the new note: play it alone against both chord changes. Stop. Imagine that note and play it to prove to yourself that you're really hearing it. Now mess around with the two notes for awhile. How many different ways can you think of to phrase between your two notes? Change octaves, change rhythms. Again, do it until you're bored. Then add a note and start again.

The more notes you add into your vocabulary, the more choices you will have to HEAR and execute. Now's not the time to stop listening. By the time you get up to 4 notes you're in pretty sophisticated territory. Some musicians have built their careers using primarily 5 notes (pentatonics). There are a ton of rhythmic and melodic variations you can come up with, but remember that the primary goal is to hear it before you play it.

Once you get to it, here are some suggested 4 note groupings that should be relatively easy to hear and execute: Ab, Bb, Db, Eb / Bb C Eb F / F Ab Bb C / Bb Db Eb F / C Eb F G /. Of course, invent your own - that's the whole idea of improvising!

You've got to get these sounds in your ears before you can move on to using more complex combinations. Michael Brecker didn't learn how to play his amazing stuff without putting in a ton of time developing both his ears and his vocabulary. But I'm sure he started out by using his version of Keeping It Simple and Swinging.

Jazz Listening 101

2011-06-08T20:08:00.002-05:00

Many people, musicians and civilians alike, have a tendency to get "lost" when listening to jazz. I'm talking about standard song form jazz here, not the more complicated, through-composed or "free" types of jazz. Once the melody of the song has been stated, the rest of the performance sounds like cacophony to some folks. Since improvising is the body and soul of jazz (and what most interests us players, creative beings that we are), I'd like to offer a little assistance to those who don't understand what "all that noise" is about. And if you're just getting started playing jazz, this advice will help you too.

Let's take a simple song, like Pop Goes the Weasel. It's a silly example perhaps, but I think that most of us can easily sing the melody internally, using our "inner" ear. The ability to internalize a melody like this is the key to being able to enjoy a jazz performance (if you're a listener) or to keep your place in the form* of a tune (if you're a player).

A typical performance of Pop Goes the Weasel, say, by the ice cream truck parked in front of your home, plays over and over again, without variation of any kind. You hear the same melody, harmony and form ad nauseam. In a jazz context, all of the elements of a song keep repeating, except for the melody. Everything about the music keeps recurring as if in a loop, but each soloist uses their imagination, experience and skills to superimpose a new melody over the harmony and form of the original song.

In classical music, we refer to this type of composition as "theme and variations", the only difference is that, during a jazz performance, the variations are being spontaneously composed and played in real time as you're listening. It's pretty cool when you think about it.

Endless repetition of every aspect of a piece of music is both boring and grating to most people past the age of 4. This is why I have to suppress my homicidal urges when the ice cream man overstays his welcome. But how does understanding this theme and variations concept help you listen to or play real jazz (as opposed to something as simple as Pop Goes The Weasel)?

Start by listening to a jazz version of a song you already know, because your task is to keep the melody (or theme) playing in your mind during the improvised choruses (variations). So, while the solos are unfolding, you are using the melody as an internal backdrop for what the soloist is doing. This, by the way, is how many jazz musicians keep their place in the music as it is being realized. If you have the melody playing in your inner ear you will be able to hear the soloist's new melody as a variation of the one you already know. Try it - it works.

Find a recording of a familiar tune by a master jazz artist (Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson, Sarah Vaughn, Bill Evans, Stan Getz, you get the idea). To begin with, notice the individual way the artist you've chosen states the melody; that in itself can be a lesson in listening, because jazz musicians put their own spin on whatever music they're playing from the first note onward. Then keep singing the melody to yourself internally while you observe how each soloist on the track composes their take on the given elements of the song. Later on you might want to transcribe (write down) and learn to play someone's solo on familiar songs; that's a great way to teach yourself how to improvise.

This is the point at which play-along tracks can really help you. I've done some of the legwork for you by posting links at PlayJazzNow from all of our tracks to recordings by jazz masters. You can easily go from learning the melody to using the strategy outlined above to working on your own spontaneous composition by making use of the empty space left for you to experiment with on our tracks.

As a listener and a player, you'll have to practice this technique if you want to get it, but it's a gratifying way to open yourself to a whole world of beautiful music that is by no means cacophonous!

*By "form" I mean the organization of the large, recognizable chunks of a song. Terms like verse, chorus and bridge (and the order in which each of these sections appear) describe the form of a song.

New Resource for Jazz Piano Students

2011-06-06T21:13:00.000-05:00

I've been very fortunate to have been able to work with a lot of very smart and talented people throughout my career. One of them is Chicago area pianist Frank Caruso, who has just released a new book, Piano Improvisation: A Powerful Practical System. Along with his co-author Karl Mollison, Frank has crafted a very interesting new method that uses both art and science to address the needs of students who are relatively new to jazz and perhaps to the piano as well.

The book emphasizes four basic ingredients that the authors consider to be essential for developing one's potential:

1. A system of practical chord voicings and scale fingerings in all 12 keys, to be ingrained at both a conscious (intellectual) level and in the student's muscle memory.

2. Enough music theory to provide an understanding of pop and jazz harmony without complicating matters with unnecessary jargon.

3. Tips and tricks used by professional level musicians to quickly analyze new material and apply your theoretical knowledge to construct effective solos.

4. A solid technical foundation that will allow you to "find your sound".

As many jazz methods do, Frank begins with the basic blues. He provides practical fingerings for both scale patterns (in this case the blues scale) and functional left hand chord voicings. Here's a sample page from early in the book:

Then there are numerous written out solos on the 12 bar blues, two of which are reproduced below:

As a non-pianist, I'm at a little bit of a disadvantage in terms of comparing Piano Improvisation to other methods, but it does seem like Caruso and Mollison make a convincing case. The book is certainly very thorough, and presents a lot of material in all 12 keys - and you know I like that!

There's a lot of information and more sample pages available at their website, which is the only outlet for purchasing as well.

Pianists and piano instructors, leave a comment here and let the rest of us know what you think.

12 Keys, Joe Daley and Practicing the Jazz Vocabulary

2011-05-10T17:32:00.001-05:00

One of the fundamental principles of PlayJazzNow is that musicians who want to reach their highest potential as improvisors need to work on material in all 12 keys. Every aspect of your playing improves with 12 key facility: technique, harmonic knowledge, the ability to play by ear and so on. My belief in this principal is based upon 30+ years of experience as a bassist. Whether accompanying singers or playing with instrumentalists who prefer non-standard keys, my ability to transpose tunes on the fly has proven to be an essential skill. I've had the pleasure of working with some extraordinary musicians during my career, including a few who like to play tunes in a variety of keys without telling the bass player. Yes, it can be annoying, but it's also challenging and fun.

There are some well-known jazz masters who have stressed 12 key fluency, among them Bill Evans and Jim Hall. I remember reading the liner notes for a live duo recording by Hall and Red Mitchell ("Embraceable You" on the Artists House label) in which the bassist remarked that they would often ascend the bandstand without knowing what tunes or keys they might play in the next set. Red also wrote that he and Jim would decide in the moment which one of them would play the melody, so for them it wasn't just a matter of transposing chord changes; they had the ears and experience to be able to play melodies and improvise regardless of key.

The other musician who influenced me in this regard was the legendary Joe Daley, the highly skilled and well respected saxophonist who spent his career playing and teaching in Chicago. I was fortunate enough to play in Joe's quartet for about a year around 1980. Though I never formally studied with him, I was in The Joe Daley Academy every Monday night on the bandstand. I often play with some of his students, who are among the best players in the Chicago jazz community and beyond. Joe stressed three things: physical technique (chops), relying on your ears and practicing everything in all 12 keys.

Recently I was delighted to discover that Dan Hesler, one of Joe's students, had published a book. If you've ever begun a practice session with the thought "what do I do now?," Dan's Practicing the Jazz Vocabulary may have the answers you're looking for. This book is not for beginners. It is written for creative musicians who already have some chops, know some tunes and have a good understanding of how jazz harmony works. Practicing the Jazz Vocabulary contains some great material that will keep you busy for a long while. Dan's got a wicked wit, so you'll be entertained along the way as well. The book uses some of Joe Daley's ideas as a starting point, most notably with Dan's insistence that the examples must be practiced in all 12 keys.

In the Introduction, Dan defines jazz as a musical language, a description I like very much. Although jazz is only a century or so old, it's practitioners have created a deep, varied way of arranging musical materials, with many dialects and sub-genres. At the risk of pushing the metaphor to it's limits, then, to master the art of jazz improvisation one must first learn the jazz vocabulary. I've had potential students contact me and say they want to learn how to play but don't want to work on scales or chords. That's like telling me you want to be a poet without knowing any words.

Dan also puts to rest the misconception that every jazz musician must strive to re-invent the musical wheel. He makes the point that there is really no such thing as "originality" in music, in the sense that we all have to work with the same 12 notes. Since we're operating within a specific language, there are also rhythmic, textural and formal constraints. He writes that "this is a book about vocabulary; it wouldn't make much sense to feature only things that people have never played before. Would you buy an Italian phrase book that advertised "guaranteed not to contain anything that anyone has ever said in Italian before?" I didn't think so." Well put, Mr. Hesler.

The first 30 pages of Practicing the Jazz Vocabulary are taken up with fundamentals - scales, arpeggios, and all things mainly diatonic. Much of this material is covered elsewhere in the jazz ed literature, but perhaps not quite so succinctly and certainly without Dan's sly sense of humor. The teaching methods of the aforementioned Joe Daley figure prominently in this section of the book. After that, things get interesting in a hurry. As they do, Dan offers this advice: "Now that we've covered the academic stuff, let's look at some melodic phrases used by actual real live jazz musicians. (Keep your windows rolled up, and whatever you do, do not feed them.)"

The next chunk of the book presents many examples of melodic shapes you can play on the infamous two-five-one progression, in major and minor. Here's an excerpt:

(click these images for a closer look)

You can get a lot of mileage out of the material Dan presents here. These pages also happen to go extremely well with the following sets of PlayJazzNow tracks: Major ii/V, Major Turnaround, Minor Turnaround, Bossa Turnaround, Samba Turnaround. These play-alongs will help you run these phrases, as Dan regularly admonishes, in all 12 keys. Just sayin'.

Ensuing chapters contain a lot of cool material based on the jazz language as "spoken" by Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Clifford Brown, John Coltrane, Chick Corea, Michael Brecker, et al. There's a couple of pages of material by the ingenious guitarist Neal Alger, who is certainly talent deserving wider recognition. Here's a sample from Dan's chapter called Fun with #9 Chords (which, by the way, I think would make a great title for a movie):

There's a section on cycles of dominant chords that would be tasty with PJN tracks Dominant Cycles. Then there's a chapter on Trane changes (excellent with a side order of Trane Trax) and a chapter with another great title - Slippery Stuff - containing a wealth of melodic material that doesn't necessarily make reference to specific harmonic contexts.

In short, if you're looking for a great new resource to delve into, I highly recommend Dan Hesler's Practicing the Jazz Vocabulary. Joe Daley would be proud. Oh, and pick up some appropriate play-along tracks to go with it.

(The book is only available at Dan's website)

Let It Breathe

2011-04-04T23:51:00.001-05:00

What makes a jazz solo great? Why do musicians keep coming back to certain master players for inspiration in developing their own skills and style? Is there any single quality common to the most admired (and most transcribed) solos in the jazz tradition?

Rhythm, whether it is a sense of swing or groove or an individual player's use of rhythmic elements, is crucial, of course. Note choices (the "melody" or pitch content) is also critically important. Dynamics, articulation, style... all of these factors contribute to the overall quality of a jazz performance. But I would argue that none of these elements, taken separately, inevitably makes for a great, memorable solo.

It seems to me that, to be effective in a deep way, a solo must breathe. There must be a dynamic sense of phrasing where all of the individual musical elements converge in a convincing way. The oft-mentioned balance between the expected and the unexpected is certainly a part of this, but it is more than toying with the listener's expectations that gives a solo that certain something that makes it all but unforgettable.

Jazz musicians spend a lot of time working on fundamentals - scales, arpeggios, transcribing, ear training etc. If you're reading this you no doubt know exactly what I'm talking about. Becoming an effective soloist with something to say takes a lot of effort and time.

Here's a suggestion for the coming year's practice sessions: put some of your attention on phrasing and breathing regardless of what instrument you play. Listen not only to the great instrumentalists but also to the great vocalists. Pay attention not only to when they breathe, but also why they chose to start or end a phrase where they did. Experiment with varying lengths of your phrases. You can do this while working on your fundamentals as well as when you're soloing.

Let it breathe.

Jazz Video Contest Winners

2011-01-14T09:33:00.000-06:00

PlayJazzNow happily received many fine entries to our Jazz Video Contest. Thanks to all who submitted videos. Here are the winners and their videos:

GRAND PRIZE ($250): Roger Friedman "F Blues Tutorial"

2nd PRIZE ($50): Boris Lebron: "For All We Know" (Vocal)

2nd PRIZE ($50): Alex Hoffman: "Giant Steps Lesson"

RUNNERS UP ($50 in PJN Play-along Tracks):

Anthony Cresci: "Autumn Leaves (harmonica)"

Nathan Hanna: "14 Year Old On Jazz Banjo (Blues)"

Simon LeHaye: "3 and 5 Years Old Samba Dancing Girls and Cuica Dad - "A Felicidade"

Marcio Garcia Sanchez: "Desafinado (piano)"

Kennda Varnum: "Wee Small Hours of the Morning (vocal)"

Congratulations to all!

Recording Sessions 1/10

2010-01-30T15:09:00.005-06:00

We spent 2.5 days this past week in the recording studio, working on a couple of new sets of backing tracks. I'm thrilled with the performances of all the fine musicians who played and I think you will have a very good time playing along with the tracks (once we get 'em up and running). Here are a couple of pics:

For more, please visit our Facebook page.

PJN Recording Session 9/09

2009-09-28T22:10:00.004-05:00

We just spent a good long day in our favorite studio here in Chicago working on some new tracks. There'll be some jazz standards (including Doxy, Half Nelson and Groovin High), some challenging tunes and progressions in 5/4, 7/4 and 7/8, and a wacky sounding (but very helpful) 12 key trip through all the M7 #5 chords.

We'll be mixing and getting things ready for the release of these new playalongs sometime around Halloween.

For more pix of the trio hard at work, please go HERE.

More Jazz Poetry: Sonny and Joe

2009-08-05T11:28:00.005-05:00

I've just posted a couple of wonderful poems by Illinoisian Paul Freidinger HERE. The first piece references the life of Sonny Rollins; the second Joe Henderson.

Jazz Education Network

2009-07-28T23:42:00.000-05:00

I am certainly not one to get all weepy over the demise of the International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE). For a variety of reasons I was not a big fan of that organization, which, it seems to me, had outlived its usefulness and grown far too unwieldy for its britches.

However, I do have reasons to believe that IAJE's successor organization, the Jazz Education Network, will do a far better job for all of us who play, teach and love jazz. JEN's mission statement reads:

The Jazz Education Network is dedicated to building the jazz arts community by advancing education, promoting performance and developing new audiences.

It seems like the folks behind the Jazz Education Network have the right idea, in terms of starting small and using the experiences gleaned from IAJE to do things a better way. There are some excellent people involved in the new project, which is just over one year old.

PlayJazzNow is a proud member of JEN, and I invite you to visit their website and join with your fellow musicians in making this organization a success.

Jazz Humor: You Don't Know Where One Is

2009-05-23T14:20:00.002-05:00

If you know who wrote this please let us know. We like to give credit where its due.

[Sung to the tune "You Don't Know What Love Is"]

You Don't Know Where One Is

You don't know where one is.
You never know the changes or the form.
Your playing is so far below the norm.
You don't know where one is.

You don't know what beats are.
You cannot tell beat one from that of three.
Just how lame can one poor fellow be?
You don't know where one is.

Don't you know the key or chords
For tunes that you claim you are knowin'?
No wonder you sound so lost
Once you've started blowin'.

I can't tell from your line
Whether you're in three or in five four.
I tell you this and tell you one thing more,
You don't know where one is.

More Giant Steps stuff

2009-05-04T22:21:00.003-05:00

Here's a nice post celebrating the 50th anniversary of the release of John Coltrane's Giant Steps. There are links to some entertaining and enlightening videos plus some cool info to go along with my previous posts regarding this wonderful, challenging tune.

Watch, Listen and Learn

2009-03-04T22:37:00.003-06:00

Despite all of the challenges facing us politically and economically, we are living in a fine time to enjoy expressing ourselves as jazz musicians. There's a wealth of great new music being created at this very moment and, because of contemporary technology, we have almost instant access to it. We can listen across a broad spectrum of genres and styles as I pointed out in my post about Pandora.

We are also fortunate in that we have easy access to the great tradition of jazz history. Jazz enthusiasts used to have to haunt record shops and spend a fortune collecting LPs of favorite artists. Now I can go to iTunes and purchase 70 minutes of great music for under $10 without putting on my shoes. We could certainly have a heated discussion about many aspects of the current paradigm, but there's no ignoring the fact that, as students of jazz, we have it much easier than did previous generations of players.

Along with easy access to audio, there is also a rich assortment of historic video footage available online. It is very enlightening to see the masters performing, not to mention a huge kick. There is a great benefit in actually seeing your favorite players doing what they do. Listening and transcribing is essential, of course, but the visual component can add a whole new dimension to your understanding of a musician's technique.

Musician and educator Brad Sharp has spent some time scooping up links to jazz videos at YouTube. His Jazz Video Search page has a ton of links, organized by instrument and then by musician. He's got the musicians listed chronologically by date of birth, a very interesting way to view the history of jazz. I don't remember ever seeing a list that includes both Buddy Bolden and Chris Potter. If you're in the mood to do some research on your instrument, Brad's links are really helpful. You'll probably see some names you don't recognize, so it's a great way to expand your knowledge of styles, techniques and different ways of approaching improvising.

Warning: Only go there if you have some time to burn, because there are many hundreds of jazz videos represented on that page. And you WILL get mesmerized, I guarantee.

Here's some rare footage of Charles Mingus' Quartet I found via Brad's list. The band is Clifford Jordan-tenor, Jaki Byard-piano, Mingus-bass and Danny Richmond-drums.

ii/V/I Lesson by Randy Hunter

2009-01-12T19:55:00.004-06:00

Saxophonist and teacher extraordinaire Randy Hunter has kindly allowed PJN to post a very informative lesson on playing the most common jazz progression: ii/V/I. This lesson explains very simply what the progression does and how to go about internalizing the sound of it. Randy also gets into some basic chord/scale applications that work with the ii/V/I. If you're just getting started improvising I highly recommend that you check it out.

Randy Hunter's ii/V/I Lesson (audio)
(PC users right click, Mac users option click to download)

Randy Hunter's ii/V/I Lesson (pdf examples)

PJN's very first two sets of tracks were created to help you learn the ii/V and the ii/V/I/VI progressions in all 12 keys. Please visit our HOME PAGE and click on your instrument to put some of Randy's concepts into practice.

More Giant Steps Resources

2009-01-12T19:36:00.003-06:00

Our compatriot Evan Tate has written a couple of etudes based on the chord progression from Coltrane's Giant Steps. The two versions, for tenor and alto saxophones, are NOT identical. I'm sure any instrumentalist would derive great benefit from studying and learning these etudes:

HERE are the Bb choruses.

HERE is the Eb study.

Of course you can use these etudes with our newly released TRANE TRAX, featuring Giant Steps changes at three tempos (slow bossa, medium swing and uptempo swing).

Giant Steps (One Step at a Time)

2008-12-03T10:40:00.005-06:00

The January 2009 issue of Downbeat magazine has a nice introductory article on practicing John Coltrane's seminal tune Giant Steps. The piece is called Making the Connections and was written by saxophonist David Demsey.

Demsey's article got me thinking about approaches to studying Trane's famous chord sequence. These changes have become integral to modern jazz playing and are an essential ingredient to any serious study of improvisation. Please see the end of this post for a brief list of transcriptions and other material available to musicians who want to explore Giant Steps.

PlayJazzNow just released a set of playalong tracks that will help you work on this chord sequence. We call it TRANE TRAX, and it contains Giant Steps changes at three different tempos, plus the changes to Countdown, 26-2 and Trane's version of Body and Soul. There are no shortcuts to mastering Coltrane's harmonic language of this period. You just have to take it one step at a time.

Giant Steps Resources:

This Song Trellis post is a good place to start.

Here is Lucas Pickford's online transcription of Coltrane's solo.

A nice descriptive piece from JazzStandards.com placing Giant Steps in its historical context.

A sound clip and transcription of Tom Harrell's solo from JazzTrumpetSolos.com.

Michael Brecker and Bob Mintzer solo transcriptions from ibrecker.com.

Dan Adler's exhaustive "cycles" study of Giant Steps changes in 12 keys.

Jazz Etude Books

2008-11-11T14:11:00.005-06:00

Evan Tate, tenor saxophonist and instructor, has published a couple of excellent jazz texts, both of which will benefit beginning and intermediate level jazz musicians. They also happen to be great resources to use with our tracks.

250 Jazz Patterns is available in print and digital editions. The exercises are very hip and musical, unlike some other pattern books out there. Here's a list of contents:

• Preliminary exercises
• Major Patterns
• Minor Patterns
• ii-V7-I Patterns
• iim7b5 - V7b9 - i Patterns
• Tritone Substitutions
• iv - bVII7 – I
• Turnarounds
• Pentatonic Scales
• "Bebop" Scales
• Blues Scales
• Symmetrical Scales & Patterns
• Jazz Solo Etudes on: Blues, "Rhythm" Changes,
Cherokee, Giant Steps and Lady Bird for Bb and Eb instruments
• 5 Solo Transcriptions

Tate's other excellent book is Blues and Rhythm Changes in All Keys. In this one he writes out a full two choruses of solo material in each key for two of the most used jazz progressions.

Listen, Listen, Listen

2008-10-25T08:36:00.003-05:00

It may seem obvious, but one of the most "educational" things you can do to become a better musician is to listen to the kind of music you want to master. I'm not talking about having some music on while you do something else. The most important kind of listening you can do is to actively engage with what you're hearing. Listen analytically. Listen creatively. Listen critically. Try to really hear the shape of the melody, the harmonic motion, the rhythmic underpinning. Whatever you are working on in your practicing is a good thing to focus on in your listening.

We are living in a great era in terms of the availability of music. No longer do you have to venture out to your local record store (are there any of those left?) or search your FM dial for a station that might play a little jazz once in awhile. Now all you have to do is go to Pandora on your computer and set up a personal "radio station" for yourself. In fact, you can set up many different stations as you like. Each will call up tracks directly related to the artist or specific genre you identify. I've got my "Bill Evans" station playing as I write this. I've already heard great sides by Oscar Peterson, Keith Jarrett, Hank Jones, Billy Childs, Monk and, of course, Mr. Evans himself.

I also have a bebop channel, a Dave Holland channel, and one devoted to the music of Stravinsky. I'm getting to hear stuff I've never heard in addition to tracks I haven't checked out in years.

It won't cost you a nickel. No yakking DJs, no commercials. It's a beautiful thing. Listen.