importance of adding "color" notes to arpeggios

Passacaglia · April 2013

Thanks, Christiaan, makes sense. Setting the metronome to click on 2 and 4, and my beats 1 and 3 are in the silence, is how I do it. But hadn't thought of the things in your terms, as a kind of bandmate. I hear you, really interesting. Thanks.

Jazzaferri wrote:

In jazz the beat emphasis is on beats 2 and 4

Da DAH da DAH kinda thing. Most modern metronomes shpuld have a srtong and weak beat settings .

Jay, mine is able to make subdivisions as far as 16hs, and there are "strong" and "weak' tones; so effectively I can get a strong/weak beat by setting it to click on eighth notes. Makes it easy to keep time, but then I think I'm sort of "cheating". I set it to "0" subdivisions or mods, and it clicks on 4th notes. I make the click 2 and 4, the silence in between is my 1 and 3.

Jazzaferri wrote:

One thing that helps my practice immensely is to work on stuff that I can't play....really slowly at first....I have a tendancy to keep reworking the stuff I can play...different emphasis and iterations to be sure ...and that is helpful...but nearly as efficient as working on stuff I can' t do well.

Great post, Jay. My tendency too.

Jazzaferri wrote:

The other thing I have found, courtesy of Kenny Werner,is to work on small amounts of material until mastered, effortlessly.

I hear this.

Jazzaferri wrote:

However, I have to disagree with Christiaan.....completely and utterly...on the scales and arps......that way works as well, but then one has to make up one's own lines. Scales, arps and short phrases(less than 2 bars) or memorize solos and others lines. Choose one path and go down that road....unless you are willing to put in a few years of 8-10 hours a day...then learn the alphabet,...and the words and the sentence structure......and do your own transcribing...do not use someone elses....

Jay, when you say "that way works as well," do you mean, learning by pursuing arps and scales, or in the way Christiaan and Denis advocate - listen, watch, transcribe; mine the solos for phrases, motifs to put in a billion other tunes.

Via some help from some goodhearted friends, a sensible plan seems to me to do it all. In other words, warmup, technical exercises (acquiring and working arps), couple hours on rhythm; waltzes; a tune solo - transcription. The arp training, from what little I've done (this comes from Stephane's book), gives me a good visual map of the board. The tunes shows me the idiom. I like Christiaan's point - many genres share the same arps and scales. But gj has it's own manipulation of these things, in rhythm, approach notes, technical flourishes.

Something that interested me when I first worked Dolores, from Denis's Stochelo waltz DVD. Stochelo talks about hammer ons on that first few notes, as not really being a gypsy way...a pull off and slide down. It's this stuff that, I think, gives the genre it's imprint, it's style. So I guess I'm saying that for me, arps without working tunes gives me a roadmap, but not the style; tunes without knowing the visual map on the board, has felt, in the past, kind of ad hoc; couldn't make sense of things, which I think is Anthony's point.

On the other hand, I hear Christiaan and Denis...do enough transcription, transpose everything in a billion ways, and it all just starts to connect.

As usual, there's no one way in. I could be completely wrong (I often am), but it just seems to me what's important is to choose a way, and go with it 100%, learning everything you can from it. My martial analogy would be "1000 cuts." It's a morning tradition of rising, and doing just what it says - a morning routine of 1000 "classic" Japanese sword cuts. Sometime around 600 you start to think you're going to die...and then true learning takes over. Your body eases, you realize muscle tension alone will fail, and you have to draw from a deeper resource, the entirety of your being.

AmundLauritzen · April 2013

You don't have to even make the metronome emphasize any beats. Set it to half the tempo you want to play and "imagine" beats 1 and 3 between the beats that are actually played by the metronome. See how that works? By having to imagine those beats inbetween, you are forced to establish the rhyhtm in your mind and you have to pay close attention because of this because the only beats the metronome actually gives you are the 2 and 4s.

By having the metronome play all of the beats and emphasize 2 and 4, you are given a lot of help and this takes away from your involvement in the rhythm. It's not wrong per se, but not nearly as beneficial.

Passacaglia · April 2013

AmundLauritzen wrote:

You don't have to even make the metronome emphasize any beats. Set it to half the tempo you want to play and "imagine" beats 1 and 3 between the beats that are actually played by the metronome. See how that works? By having to imagine those beats inbetween, you are forced to establish the rhyhtm in your mind and you have to pay close attention because of this because the only beats the metronome actually gives you are the 2 and 4s.

By having the metronome play all of the beats and emphasize 2 and 4, you are given a lot of help and this takes away from your involvement in the rhythm. It's not wrong per se, but not nearly as beneficial.

Amund, I think I must not be saying it clearly. What you're describing is how I do it. This is what I meant with:

I set it to "0" subdivisions or mods, and it clicks on 4th notes. I make the click 2 and 4, the silence in between is my 1 and 3.

So, for a BPM of 200, I set the metronome to 100, and 1 and 3 is in the imagined beat, 2 and 4 is on the actual click. Agreed, setting it so I get a click each time I play a beat, isn't helpful. I think I somewhere called this "cheating." That's what I meant, if you set the machine to click every beat, you're not really keeping time with your mind-body.

Jazzaferri · April 2013

Paul, there are two paths on the road to mastering improvisation

One is to master scales arps patterns in all keys and all positions.. Learning the harmony and the heads to several hndred songs, and transcribing solos, actually listening to them and writing the notes down

The other path is to learn a whole bunch of songs and memorize a whole bunch of solos a la Django and Stochelo etc.

If one has a good ear for harmony, and a good musical memory and masters one of the ways it doesn't seem to make much difference in the end.

anthon_74 · April 2013

Hey there !

Wow, I'm glad my post created such a lively discussion...

So, on the topic of "what is best to practice", which is what this post was all about in the first place, here is what I'm personally doing, based to some extent upon your responses. Please feel free to to try it or comment on it, etc.

I am still practicing arps over the changes for songs, but not spending as much time on that. Now, I am taking a page out of Gonzalos book, and basically creating a bunch of my own practice etudes. I'm currently doing them only over All of me (I believe that mastering one song has a huge carry over effect for others and all of me is a great one because it has both dom7th in major and minor tonalities, plus a cool turn around section). I'm basically taking licks and phrases I've learned from Gonzalo's books, the Daniel givone book, Dennis chang's dvd's, and a few I've concocted on my own. With these etudes, I'm focusing on connecting one lick to another, keeping a nearly continuous phrase of notes going, and trying to make sure that I re-use licks in different spots, but trying to never have an etude use the SAME LICK or PHRASE in the SAME place as done in one of the other etudes.
DOES IT WORK ????

WELL ---- Yesterday I had a Jam with some buddies, and I found that I was able to access licks I'd never been able to access before, and execute them better, and connect them to other phrases better.

So, in short - YES, this particular path is working (for now). My intention is to practice basic arps over a few new songs every week until I know them well enough to begin creating etudes with both licks I've known for some time, and occasionally learning some new ones and putting them in (fortunately , I have Dennis changs 4 DVD set, and have yet to make it through the first one).

In general though, I THINK this is the way gonzalo learned... He talks about creating your own etudes where you keep the notes coming, as once you can play licks and phrases without stopping, then you can use those "note maps" to create musical ideas and so on.

oh, and ONE mORE thing --- one more reason for why guitar players who played rock can greatly benefit from arps is to retrain their picking hand to the gypsy rest stroke style. In the time I've been practicing my arps, my rest stroke picking has improved greatly. Unlike licks, arps are very easy to play on an infinite loop, which trains your hands even better.

Cheers !
Anthony

Lango-Django · April 2013

Rock on, Anthony!.. Oops, I mean SWING on!

With your determination and work ethic, you are bound to get where you want to go.

Me, I've decided to give the Rosenberg Academy a three-month trial, inspired by some of Hemert's postings here. I'm starting with Stochelo's version of "I'll see you in my dreams", which as far as I can tell is a note-for-note transcription of Django's famous work of genius.

I've also been working on learning Stochelo's first chorus of "In a Sentimental Mood" from the Djangologists CD... Wonderful stuff!

It remains to be seen how much of this imitative stuff will filter down into my own playing. it's a lot easier to copy guys like Django and Stochelo than it is to THINK like them!

anthon_74 · April 2013

Awesome Will !

Let me know in a month how you like the rosenberg academy. I've considered trying it for a long time. In the meantime, I will TRY to write a few of the etudes I've created down to share with others.
just over 2 months until Django in june !!
Anthony

Passacaglia · April 2013

Jazzaferri wrote:

Paul, there are two paths on the road to mastering improvisation

One is to master scales arps patterns in all keys and all positions.. Learning the harmony and the heads to several hndred songs, and transcribing solos, actually listening to them and writing the notes down

The other path is to learn a whole bunch of songs and memorize a whole bunch of solos a la Django and Stochelo etc.

If one has a good ear for harmony, and a good musical memory and masters one of the ways it doesn't seem to make much difference in the end.

Thanks, Jay.

Jim Kaznosky · April 2013

Jon's first post in the following thread really resonated with me.

viewtopic.php?f=24&t=9612

I do something similar, with arpeggio work as a warmup (20-30 minutes depending on the day). The majority of my time is spent on waltzes and solos. I learn the solos by rote with a transcription program. Then, I work on these with just a metronome for most of the week and with a playalong or with the original recording one or two days a week. Jon's 9 step process is a good one to work on.
I alternate a solo and waltz a day.
To give an example:
- Warmup exercise 10 minutes
-Minor arpeggios with upper approaches 20 minutes
-Waltz - 30-45 minutes. Play the solo and work on the "hard" licks as a benchmark for speed. Move some of the licks to other keys.
-Django solo 30 - 45 minutes. Play the solo at increasing tempos. take apart the solo and divide into licks. Move the licks into different keys.
-Free time - 10-30 minutes.

Something like that.