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When a kid doesn't eat the vegetables, the parent says: "eat your vegetables!", not "enjoy your vegetables!"
Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note
"have fun" is almost always said with the knowledge that the fun is there to be had. Or, you could say "have fun" with a bit of satire sometimes.
The OP was listing the vegetables. Someone said "have fun with the songs you like". "enjoy!" is just a very pointless cheer and I never did that when I was a teacher.
The enjoyment is for you to figure out, not to ask the student to "enjoy!" - we don't know what they really enjoy. That'd be the "enjoy your vegetables!" situation.
Heh, there's also no "thanks for enjoying the piece!". Would be even more out of place
Anyway, when I hear or read a suggestion like "enjoy!", "have fun", it works the opposite what was intended I guess. Maybe it is just me.
To answer "What drives you if you don't find it enjoyable, emanresu?", if I'm sure it works, something hard and tedious to make something enjoyable to happen in the end, it is enough to get me going.
Those are vegetables.
Btw, I love vegetables. Boiled, baked. Any kind.
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06-15-2024 03:42 PM
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I don't think anyone is saying don't work hard or don't practice, just have fun. But as the OP pointed out, there are a million things that we could be practicing. With all the resources available online, you could practice 5 new topics every day and pretty much never exhaust the possibilities.
But instead of trying to master everything, you have to limit yourself, and probably the most effective way is to focus on things that are going to help you play the music you love. I think that's the point. Don't do exercises for their own sake. Identify how you want to sound, and work towards that.
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I would recommend getting a teacher
I can say this as someone who has had about six jazz guitar lessons in their life haha. I wish I’d been less insistent on working it out myself haha.
That said I have learned the most from playing music, hanging out, talking to players, going to workshops and so on. And of course listening hard.
Even when it comes to education, you don’t need to learn jazz from guitar players or in one to one sessions. Sometimes it’s good to get away from guitar preoccupations. And I don’t think jazz is a pedagogical thing as Paul Desmond famously put it
‘Jazz cannot be taught, but it can be learned.’
You won’t hear anyone say that more than jazz educators haha.
I would say the successful jazz student is the self directed learner who happens to have lessons. A teacher can tell you what to prioritise. That’s helpful. I’ve had input like that.
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At the beginning of ‘the Universal mind’ Bill Evans talks about the difference between approximating things and doing it properly:
“They [students starting out] tend to approximate the product, rather than attacking it in a realistic, true way, at any elementary level – regardless of how elementary – but it must be entirely true, and entirely real, and entirely accurate. They would rather approximate the entire problem, than to take a small part of it and be real and true about it.
You must be satisfied to be very clear, and very real, and to be very analytical at any level. You can’t take the whole thing; and to approximate the whole thing in a vague way, gives one a feeling that they … more or less touched the thing, but in this way you lead yourself more or less toward confusion.”
Despite jazz’s popular image as a free wheeling improvised form this requirement for accuracy, clarity, precision, realness and trueness is something that resonates with me. It is something jazz has in common with all musical traditions. Bill appears to be talking very generally and philosophically here and yet I would say I absolutely recognise on a gut level when I am approximating and when I do have it right.
Ultimately it has to be about music rather than self indulgence. True Self expression arises naturally from this approach to doing things in so much as I can grasp it. You can’t blow smoke up your own prosterior. I’ve done way too much of that …
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Ah that part of that Bill Evans video is great. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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The most clarifying, informative, and motivating path to learning music is to form a band and book paying gigs. When you have an upcoming commitment, equipment, set lists, rehearsals, what to work on, etc. all becomes clear. This is the reason for the periodic recital in the traditional method of music instruction.
It may help to recall the many well known musicians who formed their first bands before they had even decided which instrument they would play... music finds a way.
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I don't know how your parents/mom approached this, but mine (and every other parent I've known) would say that AND do her best to make us enjoy those veggies despite the initial aversion. Originally Posted by emanresu
Usually when parents tell a kid to do this or don't do that there's the unspoken thought "you'll understand later" behind it.
Same for teachers in almost any subject were the material is presented in a way that the kids can enjoy the challenge, relate to it.
We're not talking about kids here, I think.
Or maybe you're a product of French upbringing and culture? (I.e. where "the government knows what's good for you" and people are used to doing what they're told - or, often, not, but enjoying it indeed doesn't factor into the equation...)Anyway, when I hear or read a suggestion like "enjoy!", "have fun", it works the opposite what was intended I guess. Maybe it is just me.
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Making music is making art. The "art" part is what tastes good, what pleases the artist and the audience, what feels right in the doing and the receiving. The "making" part might taste good, too (in real time), but it's also the part that requires effort and skills-acquisition and maybe stuff that doesn't tastes so good, like practicing particular activities so that the art part can happen at all. (Chopping vegetables? Filleting fish?)
Bill Evans I'm not, but I've watched art being made and received, and there's always a part of the process that is effortful and not-fun--generally the off-line, preparatory part. (If performing is unpleasant, I wonder what the point is--except maybe if it's just a job.) I can see a certain satisfaction in woodshedding or even practicing arbitrary skills like scales, but those are not the pleasures of producing art.
As to which skills to work at--I don't think you "learn jazz" all at once, or even necessarily serially, as the result of a set regimen (pace the people who have worked at designing curricula). If it's like, say, learning to write, it's a bundle of skills, some of which are best acquired holistically*. Which might be a fancy way of saying "on the bandstand" or (if you're not at the stage of playing in public) "by just doing it." A teacher, of course, is in a position to identify what areas need to be addressed via practice and mechanical skills acquisition, and a good teacher will understand where to push and where to back off. And not everyone is an ideal student. (I raise my hand here. My teachers have come to understand that I will probably eventually wander to a place where I can apply their lessons.)
* I have to admit: I've been writing professionally for more than 50 years, and I never had a formal writing class (outside of one dessert-course creative-writing class as an undergrad). I learned to write by writing, imitating both the forms and conventions of academic prose and what was all around me in books and magazines. And then by teaching undergrad writing courses that forced me to articulate what I'd come to understand about good prose. I eventually understood that no amount of textbook teaching (and I had some very good textbooks and curricula to work with) will be effective if students have not first read widely enough to have the experience of good prose. Then the various bodies of practical advice--how to organize a project, how to frame an argument, how to draft and rewrite and tighten--make sense. My wife is still teaching, and the primal problem with student writing is the students' impoverished reading experience (and skill-sets). You can't imitate what you've never paid attention to.
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Chopping veggies is an "art" that's fun to practise (until you chop your fingers). Scaling fish or cleaning squid, not so much. Originally Posted by RLetson
But nothing beats peeling onions of course
the primal problem with student writing is the students' impoverished reading experience (and skill-sets). You can't imitate what you've never paid attention to.[/QUOTE]
Hear, hear...
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My experience, and maybe that of most here, is that the character of what you learn and its source changes through time. In the beginning the primary source is practicing. Then there comes a time when you begin to play informally and rehearse with others; the nature of the new things learned change in response to that new environment. Once you and others begin performing, the source of new learning really becomes the act of stage performance and the nature of that learning is further different - all the way through the path the size and scope of the new things learned increase, extend, and expand (you learn faster and more effectively). Originally Posted by jazznylon
I have a problem with regards to learning jazz guitar and its been bugging me for a while. There is just so many facets to jazz guitar, one could spend a lifetime on a single tune and never really be done with it. At least with Classical Guitar (in my experience) once you got the piece of music down you move on to another piece. Sometimes one will go back to the previous piece just so to keep the repertoire intact but with jazz its like...
how do you know you know a tune? What does knowing a tune really mean?
There's melody
- Chords/Form
- improv
- endless amount of solos from great players to transcribe
- 12 keys
- an abundance of different possible string sets one could limit oneself
- Different positional systems
- different improv concepts
- chord melody (sorry I'm evil)
- chord solos
- counterpoint
- Playing with a group
- Reading
- Voice Leading
etc etc
And of course one could mix some of these things with others so there is no end point really. Maybe I should just stick with classical guitar... I'm too dumb for this
There may be better ways to present it, but the reassurance is that you don't have to learn it all up front - just start with the fundamental things and the rest will come naturally as you progress through the different situations.
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I have Estonian upbringing with bland food. We do have a kind of expression of "enjoy something" and that is used in advertisement (exactly like "enjoy cocacola"). We do have the word but it never gets used any other way really - that would be hm.. looking for endorsement. Originally Posted by RJVB
At a dinner table we have "good appetite!". But never anything like "enjoy your meal."
And the government doesn't know gosh darn
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Learn tune
Steal lines
Make those lines your own
Repeat
Die
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I would not be too structural... it is music.
Structural approach is important with the basics (like you have to play basic chord shapes, or basic scales and intervals) but really about defining the basic thing and do it.
But I would not make a structure too big, it makes many things very abstract.
After basic things are in the hands/ears the rest is just being added to it here and there.
You like particular pieces or songs or solos or ideas... you try to play a few using your basic vocabulary.
You notice what does not work out and put in some concious routine to fix it or to extend your vocabulary.
Nothing really big or too serious: just a color, a small feature to add, something you can handle in a few days or a week, short term goals, focus on on one-two things..
It makes life easier and practice more pleasurable.
But I also understand that not everyone can organize it without a guide from outside
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or maybe not dumb enough. like most folks you seem to overthink the matter. i'll go out on a limb and say you're an adult. so you'll most likely not make it in the professional world. which doesnt say that you wont be playing gigs. but there is a lot of baggage that you dont have to concern yourself with. in th eend all it takes is love and dedication. love for the music and dedication to put in the work. most teachers will hate this sentence: if you cant tell me your favourite song, player, record and solo, you shouldnt bother in the first place. learning jazz is a process with an undetermined outcome and not a linear accumulation of skills. in the 40s civilians could sing the solos of bird, prez, arnett cobb et. al. because they loved the music so much. today? meh. the jazz i like is folk music. what jazz do you like? of your list, these are the important items to start the process afaiac. Originally Posted by jazznylon
I have a problem with regards to learning jazz guitar and its been bugging me for a while. There is just so many facets to jazz guitar, one could spend a lifetime on a single tune and never really be done with it. At least with Classical Guitar (in my experience) once you got the piece of music down you move on to another piece. Sometimes one will go back to the previous piece just so to keep the repertoire intact but with jazz its like...
how do you know you know a tune? What does knowing a tune really mean?
There's melody
- Chords/Form
- improv
- endless amount of solos from great players to transcribe
- 12 keys
- an abundance of different possible string sets one could limit oneself
- Different positional systems
- different improv concepts
- chord melody (sorry I'm evil)
- chord solos
- counterpoint
- Playing with a group
- Reading
- Voice Leading
etc etc
And of course one could mix some of these things with others so there is no end point really. Maybe I should just stick with classical guitar... I'm too dumb for this
- melody
- Chords/Form/rhythm
- endless amount of solos and comping from great players to listen to, sing, and transcribe
- Playing with a group/other people
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so, jazznylon how is it going?
me too, I come from a classical guitar background and I totally share your thoughts, experiences and frustrations
please tell me you have found the solution
this stuff is too complex, especially when you try to figure it out on your own. and the web with all its online "tutors" is NOT your friend
my typical "practice" routine (when I have the time, after work and kids etc) goes like this:
- pick up the guitar
- start playing drop 2s (or melodic minor scale, or something technical, whatever)
- brain numbness, wondering how to apply all this information to something useful
- start transcribing something to see how can all this be applied to a song and get new vocabulary
- getting lost, because the guitarist I'm transcribing is a music God and mixes everything up
- go on YouTube and waste time watching "tutorials"
- end up confused and fed up
- put the guitar down
it's just not funny anymore
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I am missing one thing here that is a very important one for me: Listening to the music just for fun. And thereby absorbing the "language". Originally Posted by Grigoris
so, jazznylon how is it going?
me too, I come from a classical guitar background and I totally share your thoughts, experiences and frustrations
please tell me you have found the solution
this stuff is too complex, especially when you try to figure it out on your own. and the web with all its online "tutors" is NOT your friend
my typical "practice" routine (when I have the time, after work and kids etc) goes like this:
- pick up the guitar
- start playing drop 2s (or melodic minor scale, or something technical, whatever)
- brain numbness, wondering how to apply all this information to something useful
- start transcribing something to see how can all this be applied to a song and get new vocabulary
- getting lost, because the guitarist I'm transcribing is a music God and mixes everything up
- go on YouTube and waste time watching "tutorials"
- end up confused and fed up
- put the guitar down
it's just not funny anymore
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It seems that every time I try to learn jazz, or sit down to work on the modes of the melodic minor, run interval studies I hit a wall. That stuff wont stick in any meaningful way. Whenever I give up and just learn the damn songs, appropriate licks from recordings of same, and try to figure out the principles of those, I make a bit of headway. Incremental, sometimes glacial, almost always slower than I'd like. But progress.
So for me it seems that the path is to disregard wilfully learning jazz, and just play jazz to the best of my ability
Also, playing with others is a great motivator. It sounds more like music than what I play on my own; I love the community of playing together whether pop jazz or rock; and it imparts discipline that I have to have these songs down by next tuesday.
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OK, so that matches my experience, which is: nothing sticks in any meaningful way Originally Posted by Average Joe
But then, is it all learning by ear?
on a very practical note: I mean, do you consciously know what notes you're playing when you're playing them? Do you see patterns "light up" on the fingerboard?
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It's more a matter of "nothing sticks if I try to learn it as rules". Or as theory. If I learn of the concept as part of a song, then it'll sorta kinda stick. At least to the extend where I can learn to navigate that song. And some part of that might be transferable to other songs, where I learn another little corner of a principle. and so on. I figure, if I learn a song I can at least play a song, music. Nobody have time for me running the seventh mode of the melodic minor in sixths - certainly not me. Originally Posted by Grigoris
And no, it's not just by ear. Notated music, explanations found here or other places online or in books, ears, recordings. It's whatever works
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I’ve found some time to run melodic minor in sixths. And fifths and whatever else.
Something that I think slips through the cracks in threads like this is that music is not something you know, it’s something you do.
You can learn a lot about music but it has to work its way into muscle memory for it to do any good. You don’t learn a thing and then try to recall it later. You play it a bazillion times and then trust it to come out in whatever form it comes out.
I tend to think learning vocabulary gets you more bang for you buck, but it’s not meaningfully different than the things we write about here with a sort of sarcastic tone and disparage as rules or “theory” (gasp)—the interval studies, the chord voicings through melodic minor, whatever.
You sit and work with these things and they start to seep into your playing in odd ways. If you’re expecting these things to pop out in your playing, fully formed, after practicing them for a while, then the issue is probably expectations rather than the material itself. The same goes for working on licks and vocabulary. We have to be patient with this stuff.
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To keep my sanity I need to structure my practice routine in a way which is productive and keeps me motivated.
I would appreciate any suggestions
(a breakthrough for me was working on Pat Martino's Linear Expressions, where he uses a kind of CAGED system of bebop vocabulary - rather long lines; that felt like I was doing something of value)
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Well, what things do we think of as important for playing jazz?
Id say chords, lines, improvising. Broadly, anyway.
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So pick one thing in each of those groups to work on.
Chords … shell voicings over a tune you like.
Lines … a single line transcribed from a tune you like.
Improvising … try improvising over that tune you like, using the line you’re learning
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But were you doing something of value? Did you get better? Why? Originally Posted by Grigoris
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It helped that the long bebop lines were linked to a particular CAGED position on the neck, played after the chord that fits that position. I found myself using some segments (not the whole line) in other situations when playing with a group, and it worked for that moment only because the vocabulary was legit. It didn't help with playing the changes, it was mostly on a static chord situation. It felt good because the vocabulary made it sound authentic. Did I get better? Not much... Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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