Finding the Way In

Scoredog

anthon_74 wrote: »

This is the formula that helped put me "in" so to speak - 1) I believe the key is creating phrase connecting ideas of your own, rather than learning others ideas, as it forces you to figure out how to connect one idea to another.

Cheers,

Anthony

totally agree with this...and also what Jay said.

anthon_74

BIG PLUS 1 to noodling ! I don't know why it gets a bad rap. Noodling, in my opinion, is a great way to evolve your phrases, and create your language. I call it "Noodling with a purpose".

Scoredog

The band I am in encourages me to noodle as much as possible, especially while they are having seemingly important conversations.

Chiefbigeasy

Hey Stuart, thanks so much for your detailed response to my question. You generously put a lot of thought and time into it, and I really do appreciate it.

I'm old enough to have actually experienced seeing Keith Jarrett on a number of occasions (including the petulant years), and have personally heard him humming along to solos while playing solo piano and while playing in a group. That is to say, I'm an older guy. I’m also a long-time musician and student of all kinds of music from the grittiest blues, to flamenco, to out-there free jazz. In the end, I’m rooted in New Orleans (my hometown and current residence) traditional jazz, but I do love the more modern New Orleans funk sound of John Cleary, as well as the Neville Brothers, Allen Toussaint, Ernie K. Doe, Snooks Eaglin, to name a few. What that New Orleans music has in common is some form of improvisation, even within the forms of traditional jazz, to the more modern funk of today's brass bands.

My problem is coming from a different direction. I can, to my great good fortune, already do what you have suggested as far as scat singing and humming, improvising solos over changes with no instrument in hand. And I don't really need to hear backing tracks to do it; I can hear them in my head and can scat just driving down the street. Lucky me, indeed.

I sometimes think I should just record myself scatting some improvisations and then go back and translate them to my instrument. The thing is, I do want to stay within the form of gypsy jazz. Sounding like Muddy Waters or Keb Mo playing “Minor Blues” is not going to cut it for me.

I've always been attracted Django’s music—what guitarist wouldn’t be--and it's now my life's dedication to play it. I’ve even had the great good fortune of seeing Stephane Grappelli play live, in a small club. My approach so far stems from some advice of the old gypsies players: to imitate them and to get the sound down. I’ve learned how to rest-stroke pick from Michael Horowitz's book and watching Stochello and others. I’ve learned rhythm from Denis Chang and others. I’ve committed to memory and performance entire Django and Stochello solos and portions of others. Within two years, I’ve been able to at least sound like the real thing. It's imitation, yes, but walking the walk in the shoes of those masters is a tall order, and it feels pretty good to boot. And, occasionally, I do manage to pull off some original solos within the idiom that sound pretty good.

I guess the model I’m striving for is to be able to approach what I’ve seen some of the greats do: play the classic tunes and the original solo (I’ve seen them do it in unison!), and then follow with my own solo ideas.

Finally, I didn’t mean to dis “noodling” per se. I’ve “noodled” my way to a pretty good solo for “Nuages” over this past year. It’s just that, for me, it can be a distraction because I can fall back on too much material in my background that will draw me away from something recognizable as Gypsy Jazz.

So, Stuart, thanks again for the great advice and the time you took to write it. There’s much there for me to ponder and execute. Christiaane, I look forward to the next videos. As I said, your instruction and insight is top notch. Scoredog, Buco, Jazzaferri, thanks for chiming in with your observations.

Anthony, if you’re the guy who wrote “Manifesting Manouche,” then it’s already on its way to me as I write this. I’ve tried a version of your suggestion by purchasing a comprehensive course from Yaakov Hoter that he based around the tune “Tu Djaial.” It suddenly got pretty difficult when he directed us to learn all the arpeggios for the tune all the way up and down the neck. But, maybe I just need to buckle down and do it.

What I really need to do is retire and spend my time on focused practice and study like Amund. That guy is going to be a monster one day. He’s already sounding pretty amazing.

Thanks again, guys.

Jazzaferri

GJ requires a lot of technique to pull off solo's that are authentic. Ya gotta do the Arps and scales in all the keys, and be able to play them from all positions deter ting on third fifth and seventh in order to not be bumping into a lack of technique ceiling.

Shemi

Really interesting thread, and lots of responses to mull over. I'm really quite new to improvising apart from a bit of blues, or improvising cello lines over relatively simple chord progressions where I always just felt my way. I'm at the point now where I have two distinct ways of improvising.

I have found that I can sing and play what I'm singing quite well and that my lines are flowing and melodic (to a degree!lol) but not authentic sounding... Or I can improvise using the licks I have learnt but I feel like I'm just stringing a bunch of ideas together in a way I find much less satisfying than in my first example. Then again, I also understand that in time and with a greater sense of familiarity in regards to these licks, I will be able to mould them in different ways in the moment and achieve a greater feeling of spontaneity.

The more I play, the more I feel these two approaches coming together so even though I know I have a long road to travel, I feel I have a real sense of how to get there. I know in my heart it's a matter of time and perseverance.

anthon_74

As far as feeling like one is "stringing licks together"... Yes that is a trap you can fall into, and you can really hear it when a player does that. Even some of the highest regarded players do that.
I find the way out of that is treating every new lick more as a note map than just a lick to throw in. Understand how the lick works, and then tweek it a bunch of different ways. If you do that kind of thing enough, you'll start to see the ideas of the phrases come out into your playing in new and different ways.
That said, you still have to find ways to connect the licks to one another, no matter how you tweek them, or they'll never find their way into your playing.

Buco

Something like this has been mentioned a couple of time in this thread but also before: "I come from a different background so my solos don't sound authentic in this style".
Well my take on this is to make it authentic your ideas is what matters less. What's important, I think, is the tone. If you've got the tone, if you can nail the percussive pick attack and make your notes fly off the soundboard you're going to sound way more authentic than someone playing genre correct phrasing but with weak sound.

So I wouldn't worry about it.
At least I don't.

My goal is to work on and polish my tone that's genre specific which is what I think makes this music instantly recognizable. And also learn to improvise, being able to come up with good music that follows the changes. That will involve working on a lot of the things that are common in the genre as well but I don't go about it as "I wanna learn to improvise in Gypsy Jazz".
My thinking is "I wanna learn to improvise well." and also "I wanna get my tone to sound well like I hear on the recordings from the best in the genre".
Two separate goals you could say.

Jazzaferri

I agree with part of what @Buco says and disagree with part. To use a language metaphor:

It's kinda like speaking French a la québécois rather than a Parisienne. It's a matter of accent, (attack, picking, downstrokes and double downs, sweep etc) and the colloquialisms (phrasing) that make for "authentic" GJ. That means listening to lots and lots of it, understanding the music, the culture, ....the " soul" of the music.

Buco

@Jazzaferri yeah I completely agree, you just said it better/clearer. Another way to look at what I mean is you can take a blues pentatonic scale and make it sound Gypsy Jazz authentic if you get the "soul" of the music right.
But maybe that's exactly what @Chiefbigeasy was asking in the first place

But as @stuart aptly pointed out, we are talking talking about Django who's own personal style in part stems from New Orleans scene or Louis A.