importance of adding "color" notes to arpeggios

anthon_74

I absolutely disagree with the notion that practicing scales and arps is a waste of time. If you want to sound like a lick regurgitater like many of the "top" gypsy jazz players whose names I' won't mention, then perhaps it is less important, but even still, practicing arps helps you understand the skeleton of a song, helps you internalize all the changes, and gives you the framework for where many of the licks come from, allowing you to create your own licks, and not be so dependent upon the established gypsy jazz vocabulary.

In my experience over the last month, due to my arp practice over 'all of me', my soloing in that song has improved 100 fold. Now I not only do not get lost as easily, I can also fit many more of the licks I've learned over time because I know where I am.

As far as scales go, I hear many instances where players play a scale as a lick, even if they say they're not. They are... So learning your major scale modes in different positions can be very helpful as well.

Anthony

Jazzaferri

Yardbird is reported as saying leRn all your scales and chords and then forget about them and play.

The partial list of those who have said something along the same lines

Dave Leibman, Michael Brecker, John Coltrane, Kenny Burrell, Micky Baker, Sal Salvador, Paul Desmond, Kenny Werner, and a bazillion profs at jazz and classical colleges and universities throughout the world. They ,ay not have it 100% but with that many great players saying that is the right path who am I to argue.

I beleive that if Django had had a formal musical education, not only would he be a giant of jazz (not just gyspy jazz) but big bands and orchestras throughtout the world would be playing symphonic style pieces that he wrote. I beleive that he was a musical genius in the real sense of the word.

One thing to leave this on afore I gets meself in the doghouse.......Fragile indeed is the talent that cant withstand a few years of musical education.

AmundLauritzen

Jazzaferri wrote:

I beleive that if Django had had a formal musical education, not only would he be a giant of jazz (not just gyspy jazz) but big bands and orchestras throughtout the world would be playing symphonic style pieces that he wrote. I beleive that he was a musical genius in the real sense of the word.

One thing to leave this on afore I gets meself in the doghouse.......Fragile indeed is the talent that cant withstand a few years of musical education.

I see no reason why Django should have learned theory. It is said he composed late at night in his bed, having someone notate what he composed. So he got the work done anyway, in his own way. I think if Django learned theory of composing and arrangement, his compositions would sound like everybody elses. The unique thing about Django is that he was completely free of theoretical references. He undoubtely absorbed a lot of influences from the swing players at the time, but still I can't hear any cliches in his playing. You hear him play the same licks sometimes, but they're 100% Django.

If I'm not mistaken, Django couldn't read and could barely write his own name.
As you said, Django was a musical genius, and who can argue with that? To me he is the greatest guitar player that ever lived and undoubtedly a great composer as well. Some of his compositions are extremely simple harmonically, structurally and melodically, but they sound fantastic. Others are more complex, but since he didn't know theory, everything he played and composed was 100% honest and not formulaic, adhering to any rules.

The danger with theory is that it can influence your playing more than you'd like. Many people fall into ruts and sound very "correct" due to theory, and some do not.

It certainly happens to me from time to time, and then I try to completely forget about theory for a while and practice and play purely by ear for extended periods. Sometimes weeks, just to undo the ruts I have fallen into.

Theory can be a great help, but it can also be counterproductive. Depends on how you use it IMO.

My 2 cents.

Hemert

I expected the resistance to my statement about learning scales and arpeggios but let me give an example. I won't mention any names but there's a guitar player who I think started one of the first Internet jazz guitar schools.

There's a video on YouTube where he is explaining his system for major scales and it is very smart and explained in a clear cut way. I was impressed and got my guitar to try it out but soon stopped because it just didn't feel like I was practicing music at all. So, I figured let's watch this master in action and I found a clip of him playing Cherokee. He started playing and...oh my: not a single interesting line to transcribe. Every note fitted on the chords but I'm sorry, the lines just didn't tell a story.

Now contrast: yesterday I was with Stochelo shooting videos for the academy and I suggested Cherokee. I was completely floored after the performance, really really great! I knew every lick but the combinations, perfect timing and impressive technique created something that makes me want to transcribe and lean EVERY note. So I asked him: can you play a Bb major scale? Sure, he could after some thinking and me explaining what a Bb major scale was. Bb major arpeggio? Yes, after me explaining what that was. Trying to play those took much longer than the recording of Cherokee by the way. Then he asked: "...what's the point of this, I would never play this on Cherokee...".

I have a lesson on Sweet Georgia Brown for violin for sale on YouTube. I get mails all the time: "Please, can you tell me which scales yo are using?" There's even a comment like that under the video. But here's the thing: I'm not using any scales on purpose. I'm probably using them but that's just because they're part of some lick.

Of course there are many great jazz players who advocate practicing scales. The question is: are they using them when the play or is it just to explain what they do afterwards? It is convenient to talk and teach in scales. It is something you can talk about, something a student can understand and probably copy reasonably fast.

So yo can learn a pentatonic scale. The basis for both blues and bluegrass and used often in jazz. Why is it then that most excellent blues players -arguably masters of the pentatonic scale - cannot play bluegrass convincingly and the other way around? It is because the scale itself does not contain the essence of a style. What does: the order and rhythm you play those notes of the scale in.

So in the end it is much faster to learn the scales WHILE learning the note orders and rhythms of the style (i.e.: practicing licks). If you know enough licks, ironically you can break free from them and start coming up with phrases on the spot while not sounding completely random or out of style.

dennis

hehe i know exactly who christiaan is talking about (Shape 6, shape 3, etc.. haha), but anyway, i think it's very subjective. Like Christiaan, I am a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge fan of Stochelo and I have nothing but respect for him , but there are tons of people who don't enjoy the Dutch style, because for them, it sounds mechanical... Apples and oranges.. i had one very famous player tell me once : "whatever you do, don't play like the Dutch!"

I consider myself quite open minded so I enjoy all the different styles; sometimes I will be in the mood for some Stochelo, other times Bireli, other times Django, or whatever other style of music, not always guitar.

Over the years , i've also learned to tone down on taking extreme sides; I perfectly understand what Christiaan is saying and I also understand what Jazz is saying too. I think the most important thing is not to get trapped by one thing, whether it's the licks approach or the scales approach, both can sound stale. The important thing is to train your ears to play what you hear in your head. There are players who learn nothing but licks and are good at chaining them up like a puzzle, but that' s all they know how to do, they can improvise variations on them, nor can they reduce them to smaller musical chunks. Likewise there are players who are great at playing perfectly over changes but unable to make a decent musical statement because everything is just mathematically calculated.

The ultimate musician in my opinion is somehow who has absorbed the sound and hears things in his/her head, and is then able to reproduce it on his/her instrument... django is the perfect example of complete control over music

Lango-Django

I beleive that if Django had had a formal musical education, not only would he be a giant of jazz (not just gyspy jazz) but big bands and orchestras throughtout the world would be playing symphonic style pieces that he wrote.

Yeah, man, what if, in Django's formal music school... he could've been Bix's room mate---!!!

And what if, like, George Gershwin and Art Tatum could've been in the next dorm room? Because none of those cats really had much formal musical education.

But what a fan-@#$%- tastic music school THAT would have been!

AmundLauritzen

I am a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge fan of Stochelo and I have nothing but respect for him , but there are tons of people who don't enjoy the Dutch style, because for them, it sounds mechanical... Apples and oranges.. i had one very famous player tell me once : "whatever you do, don't play like the Dutch!"

I can't for the life of me imagine how anyone could think of Stochelos playing as mechanical. To my ears, the Dutch sound is the most expressive and dynamic there is. The little ornamentations and articulations, tiny details, some impossible to even notate.
But then again some people just have this knee-jerk reaction when they hear fast lines, and then they go on about some guy who plays slow pentatonics which allegedly is playing with "feeling".

I think having such preconceptions is a sad thing because it limits ones perspective. But I also think there is some envy behind it all, the inability to enjoy and recognize something that they can't do themselves.

dennis

I know a lot of people who don't like the Dutch style; it's like I said , apples and oranges... The "who's better than who" thing doesn't interest me. I like em all, Stochelo, Dorado, Tchavolo, Bireli, etc.. all for different reasons. There are some I listen more than others, but I really like em all. BTW the person who told me not to play like the Dutch is very very famous , I don't think there's any kind of envy, but that's just his opinion. I smiled and let it be. At any rate, besides Django, I think Stochelo is the most influential GJ guitarist; probably even moreso than Bireli! That says enough doesn't it???

I went through the academic path myself and believe me when I say there are people who think Django's music is annoying; they respect his talent but don't find any (or very little anyway) beauty in it. It used to piss me off when I was younger, but well... whatever. The point is, everything is subjective.

In the end, I stand by what I say: learn to absorb the sounds of everything you play, don't rely just on muscle memory... There are Dutch players who fall into that trap, and there are others, such as Stochelo, who don't. Likewise, there are academic players who go up and down the scale bing bang boom and others like Julian Lage who swing like hell because they ve learned to absorb the sound of what they practice, and hear music in their heads...

dennis

Btw back, when I used to teach (I need to get back into it, I miss it!), I used a hybrid approach; I emphasized ear training and vocabulary, and whatever theory I taught was minimal and always to support the ear approach... I definitely talked about scales and arpeggios, but just enough for the student to understand what he/she needed to do

i think the results are pretty good. Most of these guys are hobbyists as well so they didn't always have time to practice as some of my younger students. I'm quite happy with how they turned out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADT9LStdZWg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6gGlU6Vea8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj9EPsel6JA

Some of these videos are a few years old too, they had only been playing GJ for maybe less than 2 years??? They're much better now! I haven't really taught privately in maybe 5 yrs now, time to get back into it somehow!

Jazzaferri

Will. Art Tatum had extensive formal musical education...and given that he was a child prodigy with perfect pitch and being nearly completely blind spent much of his day playing.