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This was the first Charlie Christian solo that I learned all the way through, granted with help from Sean McGowan's Views of the Blues course. That's when I really started to appreciate his unreal sense of swing feel, and where he chooses to pause.
I also realized he likes to insert the 9th a lot when playing arpeggios over dominant 7th chords. Yet another thing I don't really notice until I start learning a real song and a real solo in detail, not just trying to work off exercises.
I know what you mean. I don't want to say too much as I have no idea but right now it seems a lot of jazz sounds like a mess while others sound beautiful. Like this guitar solo above just sounds so perfect and like you said the timing is superb.
And then Wes took that concept and took it to: start the arpeggio on the 5th or 7th...which leads one to using the maj7 chord a whole step below...for example, an Fmajor7 arpeggio (often starting on its 7) over a G dominant 7 or dmin7 over G7. It adds a cool flavor to the blues. Larry Carlton does it tons.
I got the FMaj7 over Dmin7 idea from Frank Gambale Technique Book 1. I think Gambale writes that he got it from analyzing the playing of George Benson, who of course was influenced by Wes. I gave away my first copy of Gambale's book when I quit playing guitar. I took up guitar again years later, and bought new copies of both volumes of Gambale's book after realizing that they are really useful reference books, for looking up possibilities for improving over each type of chord. Gambale categorizes the Dom7 chord into Unaltered and Altered subcategories, then further splits those two into yet two more. This is a much more thorough analysis than "bro, check out the altered scale - use it with altered dominant chords, except when it don't sound good... just play what you feel, bro!"
I believe Pat Martino and some other players do the "convert to minor" thing. Barry Harris does it the other way - in a ii-V progression, he pretends the ii chord doesn't exist, for improv purposes.
In that case you should probably hold off listening to his album ‘Song X’ with Ornette Coleman.
Just when everyone thought PM had gone all soft he unleashed that.
(No you should definitely listen to it)
Benson was heavily influenced by Wes. Just like Wes went to school Charlie Christian and took it to the next level, Benson at an early age learned Wes’s solos note for note and added a bunch of new stuff as he developed...his approach to chromaticism and sweep picking were big influences on the next generation. Fun fact: as a teenager Pat Metheny started as something of a Wes clone and when he started gigging (playing with adults while still in high school) they let him know that it was disrespectful to Wes to be so slavish in his imitation. So, he worked hard on not sounding like Wes. Apparently he was doing the whole only use your thumb approach and everything.
Oh yeah I remember that interview. I think he was talking about the tune "5-5-7", explaining why he avoided using that technique.. He busted out his Wes thumb technique for the first time in years when Pat Metheny Group recorded that song for the Letter From Home interview.
I have the Pat Metheny Interviews book now, but did a paper on him in for junior college Jazz History class. Spent quite a bit of time looking up old Metheny articles and interviews on microfiche at the college library, but i didn't mind because it was interesting and fun.
The pro guitarist Ed Degenarro that I mentioned earlier signed up for lessons with Peter Farrell, a guy who has been selling his instructional materials on the George Benson method. I don't know how much Farrell charges for lessons, but his books are not cheap. You've got to be a hardcore Benson fan, and or be suffering from jazz theory FOMO to spend that kind of money. I have to admit though that Benson superimposes some interesting rhythmic devices on top of a 4/4 swing beat. It's also interesting that while some guitarists have devoted considerable time and effort to emulating how Benson holds and uses the pick, it seems that Benson himself has been using just his thumb more often these days - the ad that he did for his signature model Fender Twin for example.
Farrell has put a ton of instructional videos in YouTube. I think intermediate to advanced players and intense beginners will get a lot out of them. I have. Tons of good info about analysis, technique, practicing.
Benson switched from the pick years ago. I recently restrained myself to use his pick technique (which is also how Hendrix and Santana hold a pick as well as others) and it has been liberating. But it took about six weeks of being a beginner again. Tuck Andress tried to convince me to do that almost 40 years ago..l wish I had listened.
Oh cool, didn't realize you were already studying the stuff Farrell put out.
His instructionals look like they require a serious investment in time, not just money. I'm sure those who can spare the time are reaping the benefits. Ed reported lots of transcription assignments.
I have an off-again, on-again relationship with soloing. I go through phases where I lose all interest in lead guitar work and just want to play chord-melody and rhythm guitar.
This is one of the chord-melody tunes I'm working on at the moment.
Farrell’s videos are also relevant for chords and rhythm. I recommend checking them out ... as well as Tuck’s Tips for Guitar on YouTube...be prepared to fast forward...the videos are largely his responses to submitted questions , not all of which will be of interest. Tuck is an amazing rhythm guitar player and great comper.
How does this relate to anything said prior in the thread?
I've watched several of Farrell's videos. That's is how I know that working with his stuff is a serious time commitment.
Thank's for the pointer to Tuck's Tips for Guitar. I think this will complement the Sean McGowan fingerstyle stuff that I've been studying. I adopted Sean's fingerstyle technique just last year. It's kind of a unique method, especially for single note lines. Other fingerstylists tend to use thumb and index for single-note lines, arpeggios, etc.. Sean doesn't. Sean knows Tuck and studied a little with him, as well as other teachers.
I'm still revisiting Fareed Haque's comping courses, and there's still Sean's own comping course, which is separate from his two solo fingerstyle jazz courses, and his walking bass + comping course which is an extension of the solo fingerstyle courses.. Between all these teachers, I've got a lot of material to work through.
But right now... Christmas is coming, so working on holiday tunes takes priority over all other guitar related studies.
TrueFire finally put up the holiday tune lesson I've been waiting for - my favorite out of all the Charlie Brown Christmas songs. I'm challenging myself to learn this and Frank Vignola's White Christmas by.... Christmas!
I don't see how your comment relates to the conversation. It almost seems like you are saying that jazz is people randomly choosing to play whatever notes they want -- but I can't imagine that is what you mean.
So, I want to understand how your comment relates to the conversation but I don't understand what point you are trying to make.
When I read advice from the people that I respect the most they usually say "don't think of scales or chords... play what sounds right." Which means they did the work to connect their
conception of sound to the instrument without any additional mental steps.
But you have to develop a vocabulary to construct sentences and words come from letters...
each layer of abstraction must become automatic to get to the "just play what you feel".
I think I'm at a level where I can predict something will sound right and stay within a scale or
chordal context to see what it might produce. With enough work I'll be closer to pre-hearing
what will come out and make those real-time edits on the possible choices.
I've got to put a word in here for one of my fellow countrymen, now sadly departed: Lennie Breau. This b/w film dates from 1966 when Lennie had a TV show out of Winnipeg, Canada. It's a mixed show with jazz vocals mixed with Lennie's stellar playing. This is what cool looked and sounded like at the time...still cool for me now.
@McD: a couple of things can help with the 'pre-hearing' things (which by the accounts of great improvisers is key):
Even when just doing exercises and warming up try to "hear" the notes before you play them. Be really focused. Focus and concentration are more important than the hours you put it. For years, I kind of thought of practice being somewhat mechanical -- developing muscle memory. Events at some point (after an embarrassing number of years developing what superficial facility) caused me to start practicing very focused at unchallenging tempos -- but only for relatively short periods (not the multi-hour practice sessions I did when I was younger and a more serious musician). I was a lot more focused and really worked on the 'hearing what I play'. And over a few months, the impact was pretty dramatic. I think by being focused, you not only develop dexterity but more importantly, your brain is making associations between the sounds you are making, the sounds you are imagining, and the physical motions associated with the production of those sounds. What was a laborious process isn't so laborious. When I sit at the guitar and hear something in my head, I am much more able to play what I heard straight away. And when I jam by myself, I try to be in the habit of stopping myself when what I heard in my head isn't what came out.
When I dove back into playing again, I listened to a lot of interviews and lessons with players whose playing I liked and all of them mentioned the importance of hearing what you are going to play and practicing that away from your instrument. Playing by knowing the scales tends to be improvising so as not to sound bad as opposed to improvising to say something.
That is the important part to me and is what I have really trying to work on. As you said it's about developing that connection between knowing what you want to play and then playing it. For years I did it the other way around and only now after a very long time of (most likely) doing many things the wrong way and I trying this methodology. I am a long long long way off but it feels more fruitful.
When I first started studying this stuff, I also fell into the trap of thinking that I only need the "magical scales" to improvise with jazz tunes. I didn't think ear training or understanding harmony was relevant.
Also, i thought learning more scales would be a shortcut around acquiring jazz vocabulary through listening to the greats, and stealing bits from their solos.
Boy was I wrong. On all counts.
My composition teacher who wrote for the LA studio and tv scene back in the 60s (Dick Grove) recommended not using triangles and circles. They are slightly more difficult to sight-read, and time is money in the studios so you try to minimize the potential for errors. Instead use MAJ, min, and dim. If you want specific notes beyond the seventh, put them in parentheses: DMAJ7(9), Bbmin7(13), Adim7, etc.
It might not be as far off as you think. One of the surprise to me was that while it has been a slog to force myself to abandon bad habits developed over decades -- once I committed myself, new habits started to form. One of the big benefits of focusing more on figuring out how to play things is that trying to figure them out forces you to internalize them as you slog through getting the notes -- and without realizing it, your brain is adding that stuff to your vocabulary -- very different from sitting down with a ready-made transcript.
Even if you can't put a name on what you are internalizing -- and might not even be able to explain -- you start finding yourself knowing what you want to play and being able to find it.
Tuck talks about a game to play with yourself. Sing or hum a phrase and then try to play it. And keep singing that phrase and then trying to play it. Or play a couple of notes on the guitar without looking at them and then try to play those notes an octave up. Things that cause you to really focus on listening (so you know what you are aiming for) and then playing. Even if you do it for just five or ten minutes a day on most days, after days or weeks or months, you'll realize that it has gotten a lot easier and you'll notice what you do it when you solo.
The other thing is being brutally honest with yourself. When you play a lick, even if it works, stop yourself if it isn't what you heard in your mind's ear.
Learning lots of melodies is useful to. They all train your mind to connect those sounds with the actions that produced them. Playing other people's melodies also adds to your vocabulary.
Depends on the soloist’s style. Behind Lester Young you’d play basic voicings. A more contemporary player might prefer more harmonic stimulation. You can always ask him what he wants.
It’s a creative choice, that you can theorize after the fact if you want to.
I would disagree. It is very common for jazz players to play a major third over a minor chord. Very common. A cliche, even. Usually as a passing tone descending from the fourth to the min3rd. A more contemporary approach is to play an arpeggio stacking thirds until you get to the MAJ3rd. This will sound good over a minor chord vamp, as in So What. It’s so natural in that context that you can even sustain the MAJ3rd for a while without it sounding wrong.
On the first point, that is an error I've practiced for decades. Even now I still do it. I'll try to change that habit. On the second, my daughter has started violin so I have been playing her songs with her to show the rhythm and melody. Surprising how hard it can be with poor brain to fretboard transfer. I think this is what has triggered my desire to stop old habits, develop new skills, and learn or practice some better ways to approach my playing.