The Hours of Listening

[equenda]

Hello everyone and sorry for my English.

I see and listen to various performances (especially on YouTube) of young Jazz guitarists.
I have to say that I appreciate their efforts and sometimes admire their technique.
But in my opinion there is often an underlying problem.
The problem is the same as that of many other musicians (piano, sax, trumpet...) who have the desire to play Jazz: the hours of listening.

To give an example, a 5-year-old child is often able to speak a language acceptably. He can't say complicated things but he manages to make himself understood.
How many listening hours does it have?
5 years x approximately 6 hours of listening per day (parents, brothers or sisters, radio, TV, friends...) = 10,950 hours.

This is a simplified count but you get the idea.

Same thing for Jazz: how many hours of listening do you have behind you?

I believe a professional Jazz musician certainly exceeds 40,000 hours of listening.

Personally, I have been a collector of jazz albums for over 40 years and given that I have recorded hundreds of jazz concerts from 1980 to today, probably have around 30,000 hours of listening time.
I see so many good jazz guitarists who have excellent technique but I IMMEDIATELY realize that they don't have "listening hours".

In conclusion, the exercise to do is very easy: try to listen to Jazz recordings for as many hours as possible a day, perhaps driving, cleaning the house or doing other things that allow you to listen to music. The process is long but in my opinion it is the only way to learn to play Jazz WELL.

It takes a long time but it's not that difficult.

Ettore
Quenda.it - Jazz Guitar - Chitarra Jazz

[Bop Head]

Hello everyone and sorry for my English.

I see and listen to various performances (especially on YouTube) of young Jazz guitarists.
I have to say that I appreciate their efforts and sometimes admire their technique.
But in my opinion there is often an underlying problem.
The problem is the same as that of many other musicians (piano, sax, trumpet...) who have the desire to play Jazz: the hours of listening.

To give an example, a 5-year-old child is often able to speak a language acceptably. He can't say complicated things but he manages to make himself understood.
How many listening hours does it have?
5 years x approximately 6 hours of listening per day (parents, brothers or sisters, radio, TV, friends...) = 10,950 hours.

This is a simplified count but you get the idea.

Same thing for Jazz: how many hours of listening do you have behind you?

I believe a professional Jazz musician certainly exceeds 40,000 hours of listening.

Personally, I have been a collector of jazz albums for over 40 years and given that I have recorded hundreds of jazz concerts from 1980 to today, probably have around 30,000 hours of listening time.
I see so many good jazz guitarists who have excellent technique but I IMMEDIATELY realize that they don't have "listening hours".

In conclusion, the exercise to do is very easy: try to listen to Jazz recordings for as many hours as possible a day, perhaps driving, cleaning the house or doing other things that allow you to listen to music. The process is long but in my opinion it is the only way to learn to play Jazz WELL.

It takes a long time but it's not that difficult.

Ettore
Quenda.it - Jazz Guitar - Chitarra Jazz

A lot of jazz masters say that active listening time should be at least half of the practice time for a beginner (my source are the many masterclasses/workshops/clinics I have found and watched/listened to on YouTube recently).

[Jimmy blue note]

Those hours cannot be counted but you're right, it's a process of immersion. People who have the music around them, by design or by circumstance, can pick up on many things that can't be taught.
I'm surprised when I ask students when, or even if they're listening to the music and I am surprised when someone says they want to play jazz but they don't listen to it.
Some things I considered essential that can't only be understood by immersion in the music: (my opinion)

It's not the notes, it's the feeling. Jazz can be masterful through fewer notes, but you know the notes are there, even though there's no need to play them.

There is a historical evolution of swing. Different eras' players heard different things, played different things, played them in different dialects and each era had the highest levels of mastery on par with any of the players today. Modern is not better.

Older recordings are full of music, though the recordings may be of different standards. Students don't listen to old recordings because they hear lack of fidelity. Big mistake. Listen for the music and what it can teach you, get past the fact that they're not recorded with the latest studio digital technology. Learn to hear music.

Realize that these were human beings and some recordings are not the artists on their best days. Learn from or more from a recording your teacher might never recommend to you. In a live situation, even in a studio, it's how you connect with the moments of the past and the future that determine the validity of what you play now. Listen for the process and the decisions. This is what brings you closer to other players.
There is so much more than Miles, Trane and Herbie and Wayne Shorter. They're but a fraction of what is in the rich soundscape of jazz history.

Know Lee Knonitz, Joe Henderson, Elmo Hope, Don Byas... there is an ocean of unique voices and each had a unique style you can learn from.

You can stream jazz programming if you have a computer. Countless college stations have jazz programming for at least part of the day. WKCR, WBGO, WPKN, WHRB all have programs that are a masterclass in knowledgeable hosts and riches in the excitement of discovery.

You hear it, and you can pick up one piece of dust of inspiration and knowledge. It accumulates. As you change as an evolving player, your ears get bigger, you hear more, you play deeper, you drive yourself to develop skills you cannot do alone.
Listening is essential. If you want to play living music. It's arguably more significant than anything you can get from a teacher, book or forum.
Learn to love the music. See live music at every opportunity. Learn from your and others' mistakes and learn what it's about. That's a unique experience and it's what you want to play.

[pingu]

you can learn the notes from a book

but you can’t learn the feel and vibe
swinging , funky , blue , bouncy
etc etc

you have to listen and let it into your
body ….

[JazzPadd]

Totally agreed on the listening, thank you for bringing this up.

I listen to selected playlists on Spotify perhaps an hour a day while driving, sometimes two.

Aside from some world music, that’s all the listening I ever do.

Faves now are Hard Bop, early Grant Green and Barney Kessel.

And even though it might seem minuscule, after several years I noticed improvement. It gets the tunes into my ears and memory.

Once I realized that, I altered my approach to learning tunes.

When hear a tune I like, I get the chart from the book in use at jams here, since I’ve no patience to transcribe. I find ten versions on YT somewhat randomly from different eras and listen to them.

Using iReal, I get the tune up to tempo, both theme and changes, in the common chart key. I’m in Japan, so it’s the Jazz Standard Bible. Then head to open jams to get some practical playing done.

And repeat as needed for the next tune, or those I’d forgot.

I should add that for me this is quite enough to improve doing what I love, which is playing jazz live and just for fun with others.

Listening to others at jams is another thing, but also has its moments. If I count that, then maybe listening is half the time that I have spend learning jazz.

[RJVB]

I am surprised when someone says they want to play jazz but they don't listen to it.
Some things I considered essential that can't only be understood by immersion in the music: (my opinion)

I'd say the latter goes for any kind of music, and the former seems ... impossible.

That said, back when I was young and absorbing everything I could of my kind of music I was surprised that the players I sought lessons from seemed to prefer silence. I think I understand that much better nowadays, despite playing a helluva lot less than I used to do.

[mr. beaumont]

Not that I'm an authority on it, but I really think you can't play jazz until it's the music you hear in your head.

And that takes a LOT of listening.

[Bop Head]

I watched an Interview with Bruce Forman recently saying he listened more to piano and horn players than to guitarists and I thought to myself that's what I do, too.

[Enlightened Rogue]

I don’t think jazz is the only genre of music you have to immerse your listening habits in, in order to become a proficient musician in the genre. There are others such as blues, flamenco, and bluegrass. Jazz, like these three examples contains many sub-genres that one must immerse themselves in also, in order to go deeper and learn more.

In my opinion(YOMV) the one element that these four musics do share is the art of improvisation. The music teaches us to listen to the players we are playing with, listen to what is around us, knowing when to play and knowing when NOT to play is just as important. To know the rules of a genre well enough to know when you can break them. Without improvisation and listening these musics would be lifeless and dead. Like a fossil behind glass in a museum.

[Otterfan]

Jazz has it worse than other improvisatory genres because there's a non-empty contingent of guitarists who play jazz without caring much for it—or even while actively disliking it.

For example, there's the young metal guitarist who has been told that if they want to get better they'll have to "learn music theory" and that "jazz = music theory", so they're going to learn jazz. If they're lucky, they'll develop a taste for the stuff. Some never do.

Recently I met a kid who said he couldn't imagine being anything other than a guitarist for a living, but his parents said he had to go to college. In music school you gotta study either classical or jazz. While he hated them both, he hated jazz a little bit less; so he was going to learn jazz and become a professional jazz guitarist.

For some people, playing jazz is the eating-your-vegetables of the music world. People are less likely to be told to choke down some bluegrass guitar to help them get better at the music they really want to play.

(Of course you'd have to be a pretty misanthropic guitarist to hate playing bluegrass.)

[RJVB]

My path started with the blues, to jam band music, jazz, surf, to Arabic and India musics.

Are you implying that there's a continuum here? (In which case surf music really cannot have anything to do with the BeeGees except maybe their jammering )

(Of course you'd have to be a pretty misanthropic guitarist to hate playing bluegrass.)

Isn't bluegrass often looked down upon?

[StoneWaller]

Not that I'm an authority on it, but I really think you can't play jazz until it's the music you hear in your head.

And that takes a LOT of listening.

Reminds me of one of my favorite "bad" movies, 13th Warrior.
"How do you speak our language?"
-"I llllllistened!" (Antonio Banderas voice)

That's something I have repeatedly read and taken to heart while dipping my toes into jazz ( although those of us with brains wired like mine don't really dip our toes, we jump in to the deep end and revel in the drowning ) Working alone and usually isolated from other humans , I can sometimes take in 5/6 hours a day of hard listening.... put Donna Lee in the earbuds on repeat for a long as tolerable, and not only will it drive oneself delightfully mad, eventually you wake up at 2 am subconsciously humming lines that previously sounded like a cacophony of notes...which is very cool.

Problem is I like other music, in my case heavy music, and that interferes if I take in too much of it. An afternoon listening through Yob's doomy discography, and sure enough my evening practice session working through Stompin at the Savoy will be greatly impacted. That jazz sound and feel just starting to take root gets wiped clear.

Lesson: see Mr. Beaumonts above quote. Truth. Maybe after years of playing it's not so absolute, but early on, "Jazz, it's what's for breakfast."

[mr. beaumont]

those of us with brains wired like mine don't really dip our toes, we jump in to the deep end and revel in the drowning

Only way.

Only reason to learn jazz or even listen to it is because you love it. One thing I CAN say for certain, from 15 years of teaching guitar: if you dabble in jazz because you think it will help with some other style, you will fail. There's no dabbling in jazz.

It's like Satanism. You want the benefits, you gotta go all in.

[Bobby Timmons]

^ Oh dear lord lol! You know when people say things like that they're half serious.

I was watching one of my Christian videos and the dude said Satan can bless his followers too. The catch to committing to Satanism or being fallen to reap secondary gains is.. IT DESTROYS YOU.

[mr. beaumont]

Lol, you gotta belive in jebus to believe that.

[Bobby Timmons]

^ Ur mad at JC!

[RJVB]

I may be starting to understand the comparison to cats. They learn through imitation too.

but early on, "Jazz, it's what's for breakfast."

Well, that settles it then. I could imagine light jazz with a ditto continental breakfast but I need something hearthier than that. Somebody mentioned Stomping at the Savoy ... serving that for breakfast conjures up a very different image

^ Ur mad at JC!

Who, the last son? Na, just at WF, for not having left more (playable) repertoire, he was probably as much a genius as his father. ^^

[ruger9]

Isn't bluegrass often looked down upon?

Only by ignorant people who don't know the skill it takes to play it.

[RJVB]

Only by ignorant people who don't know the skill it takes to play it.

There's that (and at least they've been listening to proper players ), but technical skill required without something to back it up isn't necessarily more than a circus act (I had a more subtle formulation but then lost it ).

To be clear: I love bluegrass, for its harmonies and (often) lyrics which are often a little bit more than predictable love songs (and when not ditto gospel BS). But as music it's mostly what I call "simple but effective" and as such it usually doesn't take long before I feel I've heard it all before already.

[ruger9]

There's that (and at least they've been listening to proper players ), but technical skill required without something to back it up isn't necessarily more than a circus act (I had a more subtle formulation but then lost it ).

To be clear: I love bluegrass, for its harmonies and (often) lyrics which are often a little bit more than predictable love songs (and when not ditto gospel BS). But as music it's mostly what I call "simple but effective" and as such it usually doesn't take long before I feel I've heard it all before already.

I could see that... there are some more unique bluegrassers out there, but you'd have to look for them.

However- the exact same thing could be said about jazz by the casual listener "all sounds same"... whether they are listening to Sirius XM's Watercolors or a Charlie Parker record.

[RJVB]

I think my point was that I'm not just talking about casual listeners.

(But yes, technical skills can be both physical/mechanical and intellectual.)

EDIT:

I could see that... there are some more unique bluegrassers out there, but you'd have to look for them.

Or just stumble across one of them; the rest will follow either because they flock together or thanks to "algorithms". I have been lucky to discover people like Tony Rice and Tim O'Brien early on, and from there e.g. Jerry Douglas, Molly Tuttle or Darrell Scott (if you can still call his music bluegrass). That's a lot of technical skill combined, but at the service of music(ality) and with a certain self-negating nonchalance that was known as sprezzatura in Renaissance Italy. As it should be.

[Enlightened Rogue]

@mr. beaumont wrote “if you dabble in jazz because you think it will help with some other style, you will fail. There's no dabbling in jazz.”

I disagree with this statement. Players such as Robben Ford, Dickey Betts, Danny Gatton, Roy Clark, Hank Garland, etc. are all examples of players who “dabbled” in jazz. None of these players and others like them have failed in their styles and music. As a musician you learn and retain from a musical genre what you like and is useful to the music you play. You leave what you don’t need. All musicians I know, have met, and read interviews given to do this. This is how a musician develops one’s own style.

I love some jazz players and genres. My study of jazz music has been the parts of jazz that interest me. I am not a “jazz” player. I am a guitar player and I try to learn and use what I like from all musics to help inform my music. It works for me and the music I play.

[RJVB]

Seconded (I'd generalise satanism to religion, though).

I didn't really want to get into that on here, but I think that even simply studying written-out partitions can be enrichening.

[mr. beaumont]

I disagree with this statement. Players such as Robben Ford, Dickey Betts, Danny Gatton, Roy Clark, Hank Garland, etc. are all players who “dabbled” in jazz.

To say “if you dabble in jazz bc you think it will help with some other style, you will fail” is a false/gatekeeper statement. It is like satanism. False and afraid of the Truth.

I wouldn't call any of those players dabblers. And they studied jazz because they liked it.

I'm talking specifically of the people who don't actually like jazz but they think they should learn it because it'll help with some other style.

That's not gatekeeping. That's truth. Jazz isn't some special thing you graduate to. It's just a type of music.

And the Satanism line is just a joke. I don't believe in Satan.

[Jimmy blue note]

I don't believe in Satan.

Duke Ellington's pre-spell-check composition.
Satan Doll. Anybody have the TAB for this hellish chart? Maybe a medley for Speak No Evil. Or Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.