I learned guitar playing with experienced friends (folk/country/reggae). Their sage words (echoed here) were, Stop rushing to meet challenges. Play a simple piece and play it well, then move on. Never forgot that.
Number 3: I swear that some drummers seemed to play like they were my enemy testing my grasp of this skill. While agree with you admonition that the time is every individual’s responsibility, I would also say that I try never to work with anyone who needs to “prove” that they can play polyrhythms, etc so tricky that they can make someone else look bad on a gig. I have always tried to consider the audience, the band leader and whatever limitations or gifts the other players have in order to make music sound as good as we can make it, no matter what the context or style is. Good video Jeff. Thank you.
God bless Jeff Schneider. I mean that sincerely. I didn't grow up in a musical family...never had formal music training, a teacher, or a mentor. All I had was the internet and a passion for music. And I'm so glad I stumbled onto this channel; I've been following it for years, trying to hone whatever talent I had. Thanks to Jeff, I went from rotely learning and playing songs from RUclips tutorials to creating my own. I improved my ear through ear training and singing, learned music theory, and figured out how to harmonize and improvise. I spent years playing music by myself in my room. Now, I'm part of a band and experience the joy of playing and making music with others (so much better than riding solo). I thought it was too late for me to start learning music at age 18, but Jeff helped me grow in ways that made me think otherwise. Honestly, Jeff, from the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU. Thank you for helping me make the most of this love and talent for music. If this were a paper letter, it would be stained with tears of gratitude and joy. You are a godsend. Sincerely, Zipho, South Africa
This is some of the best advice on improvising I've heard. Yes, oddly there is little thinking involved, but lots of boldness purposely creating mistakes, then repeating the ones that sound cool. Thanks, Jeff!
The Autumn Leaves example had me singing the theme from MASH to the chord progression. I had never made that connection before. Thanks for all your lesson points. Great stuff!
yes, yes, and yes.. excellent. thank you. inside of all of this (what comes to mind for me) is that your advice points towards the deep and intimate, and ironically simple, path of finding one's voice. the irony is that each of us actually have (when we speak) a distinct and original voice. That's how our friends identify us easily when they can't see us! yet, we get all mixed up when we try to be someone or do something "special" . Jeff, I really love the insight (wisdom) here. It may sound corny, but the deep path of music is truly a mystic path, which doesn't require paying music. To sink (sync?) into being present in oneself, with all the perceived imperfections and then allow yourself to speak in a way that is the particular tone and cadence that life birthed in you. It's your already, even before you study. It was yours at age 5. And yes, music theory (this is what i'm now trying to catch up on)... seemingly essential or unavoidable (though this is not true across different cultures), it is more easily explained. Perhaps it's like our skeleton, helping to hold us up (and we're amoebas without it), but it is not the "life force" that makes a life come together. It is so easy to feel insufficient, as a musician/artist, not good enough... because we compare so much. We overlook the most obvious gift, which is that no other soul has our particular voice (again, just consider the speaking voice). We all know there are famous singers that, if you really consider, don't have great voices. But we love them because it is "their" voice, like no other. And it is because they have somehow allowed themselves (their life force) to shine through it, to be free. And i think this is what we feel, a sense of total freedom to be. And if we feel this, it doesn't matter what the voice sounds like. Like playing the wrong notes that are out of key, as in your video. It is the intersection of the rhythm, the phrasing, the cadence, the tone (embodying a particular way of being in the world), that we respond to... and all of this is ultimately coming out of, arising out of, a person trying to be no one else but him or herself, and not even trying to be that.. rather its just pure being, at least for a moment, some minutes if lucky. I think i first began to understand this in my early twenties when a Coltrane song came on the radio and, with just three notes, I knew it was him. Like how we recognize a voice recording of a friend with the first hello. Any other competent musician could play those same notes, intending the same effect, but it wouldn't be the same. Ok, please excuse this long sermon! ha ha. But the moral of the story is that the uniqueness of each of us, what would be our "stamp" (as an artist), is actually already present, even before we develop a practice. But no one tells us this, and so we fail to trust it... and sometimes it can take 20-30 years to discover it, only to realize it was right under our nose the whole time. It makes me think of a Miles Davis quote, something to the effect of, "Sometimes it takes a long time to sound like yourself.".
Great advice for youngsters! My Jazz band teacher in H.S. (I'm old...so this was probably around 1960-1961) told me to play the (improvised solo) on an uptempo tune we were playing for an out of town gig for some cotillion or another...when he looked at me he could see I was terrified. He said, "Relax Charlie. No one's listening anyway...they don't know anything anyway...play it how you feel it." Best advice I ever got early on......He had me playing lead 'bone in his "grown-up" band after gettin me into the AF.of M. soon thereafter...BTW - I had a young drummer over to my studio a couple years ago and had him listen to sections of Stravinsky's "Firebird" and "Rites..."...and I told him. "Listen to these. Break them down. Choose a section and instrument, Then play those figures as hoc...you'll be playing a lot of jazz then....he did...and did.....Keep up the good work, Mr. Schneider.........and remember this? ruclips.net/video/DlMCUma7j3g/видео.html
very nice approach and you explained it beautifully. When I was learning to improvise I had the great advantage of studying with Don Cherry (I'm 73). I switched from guitar to cornet and the first thing I learned was that when learning a new song, especially something complex and rather tricky like an Ornette Coleman composition, the most important thing to get was the flow and especially the attack of the notes and the breathing. I would play along to a recording completely ignoring the pitches of the notes I was playing while working on the attack of the note and the flow of the phrases. After getting that aspect settled and comfortable, getting the notes right even without having it written out became pretty easy.
Jeff, thank you for putting rhythm in its proper place within our music continuum. I would call phrasing the ability to control the length of a melodic statement within a given space of time. Phrase lengths are usually defined within the framework of measures: 1 bar, 2 bar, 4 bar, 8 bar are all common. Everything we practice, I mean EVERYTHING, should be placed within the context of pulse and rhythm. Music happens in time, and many of us (myself included) practice too much out of time because we prioritize other things. Scales, licks, song forms, melodic development should all be practiced in time. Learn how jazz operates in three dimensional time: layers of polyrhythms and poly meter that can only be approximated on manuscript paper (Mike Longo, RIP). Be your own drummer and drum everyday, even if you don't have a drum set--drum on your body or the table. Harmony and scales are the raw materials, but rhythm is the synthesis and execution of our music--the final delivery to the listener. So live a life ripe of rhythm.
Hi Jeff what a lesson this was for me really.I had no idea how to turn the sound in my to my guitar and I am so pleased you touched that one though I learnt a lot from you in this lesson but that one is tops. Thank you.
Great video. Love number 4. This has been a huge step in my improvement. Putting down the instrument and singing a simple melody has helped me tons. First now I look at a tune as movements instead of arpeggios and scales, second I can’t sing (or shouldn’t) sing 8 bars of 8th notes. I have to breathe, which helps my phrasing. Third not having the instrument in my hands lessen my reliance on easy instrument based (guitar for me) cliches.
Great video ! You are right about every bit of it. I played in the 1998 Syracuse jazz fest using a Cello on my lap like you might a Guitar and I had a blast too.I didn't know a single note on cello other then the tuning.I had been playing Guitar since a child .I was indeed playing with great Jazz musicians and since I didn't know what I was doing I was not scared shitless I would make mistakes. I know it sounds crazy but the years playing in a Church band as a bass player I was white knuckle every service.
This lesson is👌🏽. Listen to Victor Wooten and you will know the power of rhythm. When I realized this I started seeing myself as a drummer 🥁 on the guitar 🎸
This is music to my ears. Rhythm and phrasing! I'm so tired of hearing vacuous solos driven by scales and harmonic principles. In a perfect improvisation, the musician plays exactly the notes/phrases that he/she imagines. So the best improvisations are really played by ear. Being imperfect though (too slow mainly) we musicians sometimes need shortcuts, particularly on the harmonically complex tunes, and so we now we have horizontal and vertical improvising systems. I use these three systems in the same order of preference. I'll never be good at vertical improvisation because I really dislike it - too impersonal. I can hear how bop artists lose their tonal orientation while employing it. They are also very weak on rhythmic variety because of the endless 16th notes they monotonously pump out of their horns. Why play notes/phrases which don't connect with your feeling or with the composer's own inspiration? Well I suspect that the reason is to impress or intimidate others, and it's a bad reason because it has nothing to do with art.
Transcribe by ear. Music is a language, if you want to develop your output, such as improvisation, performance skills and composition, you need some input. Transcribing gives you that. People learn (their native) languages by listening to examples of it spoken and they transcribe it, repeat it, often (as babies and young children) without knowing what they are saying. Over time ... meaning emerges. I am a language teacher. This is also the best (scientifically proven) method for learning a second/third/fourth language .
The effectiveness of transcription depends on what styles your digging into. With regard to the earlier jazz styles, it's much more efficient to listen a lot, then imitate phrases instantly on your instrument. And the rhythms in early jazz are so complex they are sometimes unwriteable. So much rhythm was lost when vertical impro and 16th notes became popular, and musicians became less dependent on their ears.
@@Zoco101 transcribing helps in acquisition of musical notes, ideas and relationships on an intuitive level. Style is irrelevant. And, when you trsnscribe you transcribe to play, NOT write down the music. Music is an aural art.
@@TheCompleteGuitarist To me, transcription is transcription. It means to to write something down which you hear. Listening then copying a motif or effect with your horn, guitar or keyboard is another activity IMO. We all do that, but I seldom write anything down unless it's a hard-to-remember melody or a chord chart. This saves me time for listening, practising and networking.
@@Zoco101 when you learn a language you do it aurally. Most kids have command of the language before they can read and write. Music is an aural art. You write it to keep a record of it but if you want to improve your musical skills then you imitate by transcribing to play. Much the same way we acquire langauge. Musical ideas shapes and concepts form implicitly in the musical language part of your brain and go on to inform and influence your musical abilities including improvising.
I've been finding out this very thing that you're talking about while making music in my daw. I'm not a great piano player, but I do know how to lay down notes in a piano roll in FL Studio. I always find that it's more important how notes are laid down horizontally rather than what the notes are. Note length and rhythm cones first for me, then note choice
YES Jeff, so important and so wrongfully overlooked by most! Every young student I've had has absolutely no clue that "rhythmic phrasing" should always come first in improvising. I don't think you can really separate those two terms btw. I think usually we think of "phrasing" not as dynamics or expression so much, but rather the way we create a phrase using rhythm, right? Personally that's been my one strong point while I've usually been able to squeak by- being too lazy to learn almost any theory and that's not good either. So we surely need both but rhythmic phrasing comes first can we say?
Regarding the first point: As a bass player, I have played a whole lot of dead notes; some on purpose, but a lot when I was trying to hide that I didn't know the part, or just by accident. If you have the rhythm right, you can get a long long way without any notes at all.
I'm far from being a good improviser but what I noticed is that, although theory helps a lot, the biggest heavy lifter is playing with your ear, or just trusting how you sound instead of what notes you are picking in your instrument (stop looking to it all the time!). and that's because just playing and paying attention to what you are playing triggers your positive reinforcement, or, in other words, triggers your learning. your brain is actually unbelievably skilled in creating habits and muscular memory of what intervals sounds good with each other, and in what harmonic contexts. and the more you play, the easier it gets. it's not as time effective as learning the theory behind what goes with what, but in the other hand it makes you able to sound good naturally without having to study theory. of course, eventually you will plateau and theory will be needed to take you off your comfort zone and make you improve with new ideas. but you can get REALLY good with just developing your ear and, most important of all, developing that love for playing your instrument, that craving that goes away for some days, weeks or even months but always come back, to just pick it up and play
I agree that time is everyone's responsibility but it's also cool to play with drummers who are not trying to trick you into getting it wrong with poly rythms 🤣
Good video. The "notes don't matter" blurb is a little clickbaity, but the video itself is excellent advice. As far as the blurb... I think target notes, and the signature notes of your tonality, matter, but as far as the in-between notes, go with whatever feels right. I don't believe in "avoid notes", but there ARE notes that will make people laugh or side-eye in that specific context, and if you aren't going for that effect, then they're the wrong notes.
Dizzy Gillespie said this very thing: Rhythm is much more important than note choices. "Throw a great rhythm out there and hang some notes on it." (paraphrase)
I'm an adult beginner and I have no ear or talent, so I rely a lot on theory. Any tips on how to change that? I'm doing exactly the opposite of what you recommend right now.
The sentiment that music is like a language is definitely relevant here - there is jazz "vocabulary" that many musicians pull from in order to create cohesive phrases. It might be beneficial for you to practice certain licks in a variety of keys. There's also truly nothing wrong with inprovising over chord tones only, because that's where the foundation of our understanding for improvising is. Cant play "out" if you dont know what's "in" 🤷♂️
Listen! Listen listen listen listen - I can not stress this enough. The single most important thing you can do if you feel like you have no ear is just listening to a LOT of music. Get it into your mind and body. You need input to produce output.
Adult teacher here. In order to follow the advice of using your ear, you have to develop your ears first. And contrary to what people say about listening to lots of music, there is a more necessary step. And that step is to become familiar with the jazz structures by ear. How to do this is to practice a lot of most popular jazz chord progressions (like the 2-5-1s or 1-6-2-5 or the blues changes or the rhythm changes or if you can manage it, the Coltrane changes) consistently until it becomes a part of your aural memory. It is this practice that creates the familiarity that your ears need to eventually be able to pick up these same familiar structures in Jazz music to the point that you can now use your ears alone to hear music. For now, I will say that you are on the right path using theory. The transition from theory to practice will eventually lead to you towards having an open ear. Then you can come back to this video and follow what is being advised here. None of this works however if you do not spend the necessary time on your instrument working on getting familiar with these sounds.
Wait a minute, how did we get to lesson two, I don't know what to do in lesson one. I understand what you said. You gave the destination but didn't give me directions to get there.
Yeah it takes forever to realize this…it is easy to learn a scale but if you try to play like your heroes you can’t do it because it is the timing that’s hard to copy. If I was a kid and starting over I would play the drums for a few years first.
I often thank God so few people have perfect pitch, otherwise they would have found out what a shit soloist I am ....and they all think I'm brilliant!!!
There are SO MANY absurdities in your video that I don't know where to begin. This is perhaps the biggest of all, as if somehow you've discovered fire: "...to improvise, you'll need to know your theory really, really...[a couple more really(ies)]....well" DUH!!
Yeah, while it's true that a lot of players struggle to play interestingly and don't think to practice playing melodically and rhythmically, it's kind of extremely hyperbolic to say that notes don't matter, and in fact it's sort of, well.... bullshit. The problem was I think, that no one taught you how to practice properly.
Maybe playing the wrong notes works in jazz but it doesn’t work in anything else. If everybody behind you is playing in A and you’re playing in B-flat it’s gonna sound like crap no matter how good your phrasing and rhythm is.
I watched/listened to your Sick Licks and it's all saxophone, and that's great, but as a piano player, it would have been better to hear piano, not sax.
Nonsense. If your were exposed to music when you were young and had a love and propensity for making music, and put in 10,000 hours of study and another 10,000 hours of practice - then you would be able to solo and sound good. I overheard a young girl’s coversation with a concert violinist once. She said, “I would give anything to play like you”. The violinist replied, “would you”? “Would you give up friends, vacations , hobbies, money, marriage, and leisure time? If not, you wouldn’t be able to play like me”. Seemed a bit rude but the truth is you have to put in the effort and study to sound good.
Honestly, I’m not sure you need ANY music theory. You NEVER learned rammer/language syntax. You did, but it was subconscious. The best way to be is to play music with no understanding of how your e doing it. Just like catching a ball….you don’t care about the muscles firing…you are doing it without knowing. It’s all subconscious. Forget about anything in music..just grab the instrument and learn to use it like you use your mouth when you whistle a tune in your head.
The problem is uncovered in the first two chords. You say what notes you are playing. You don't say what the space between the chords is, how they are accented, are they staccato, on and on. I'm not saying you, Mr. Schneider, but all the yous, and that includes all the mes. We all do it, pretty much all the time. We make darn sure people know what the notes are. Even people who don't read music know a ton about note selection and those relationships. When has anyone ever said to play to two chords and only described how they should feel in time and not what they should be composed of. Take a color photo, then put a black and white filter on it, how did the emotional quality of the photo change? Yes it changed, how much, not much I'd say, the subject matter is still the same. No wonder being a good drummer is so hard. You got two or three other guys that don't get it, and your job is to baby sit their dumb asses while they play around in their sandbox of colors. The point was never made so clear as when I saw "Little Dragon" back in the day, they toured with a live drummer and the two dudes on synth. A good drummer could make a band of peacocks sound good. Watching videos on drumming is a good start. Then you hear a band play and the drummer is late on the one and your like, F this dude. All instruments are just a variety of drums, which sounds ridiculous, but how far off is it?
Do you have to know and think of the notes as you go or know the positions and sound by finger and ears? I'm a guitar player but this resonates! Of course I'm always trying to learn more and memorize the keys and notes!
I learned guitar playing with experienced friends (folk/country/reggae). Their sage words (echoed here) were, Stop rushing to meet challenges. Play a simple piece and play it well, then move on.
Never forgot that.
Number 3: I swear that some drummers seemed to play like they were my enemy testing my grasp of this skill. While agree with you admonition that the time is every individual’s responsibility, I would also say that I try never to work with anyone who needs to “prove” that they can play polyrhythms, etc so tricky that they can make someone else look bad on a gig. I have always tried to consider the audience, the band leader and whatever limitations or gifts the other players have in order to make music sound as good as we can make it, no matter what the context or style is.
Good video Jeff. Thank you.
God bless Jeff Schneider. I mean that sincerely.
I didn't grow up in a musical family...never had formal music training, a teacher, or a mentor. All I had was the internet and a passion for music.
And I'm so glad I stumbled onto this channel; I've been following it for years, trying to hone whatever talent I had.
Thanks to Jeff, I went from rotely learning and playing songs from RUclips tutorials to creating my own. I improved my ear through ear training and singing, learned music theory, and figured out how to harmonize and improvise.
I spent years playing music by myself in my room. Now, I'm part of a band and experience the joy of playing and making music with others (so much better than riding solo).
I thought it was too late for me to start learning music at age 18, but Jeff helped me grow in ways that made me think otherwise.
Honestly, Jeff, from the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU. Thank you for helping me make the most of this love and talent for music. If this were a paper letter, it would be stained with tears of gratitude and joy. You are a godsend.
Sincerely,
Zipho, South Africa
I love the clarity of your second point. I've been frustrated many times with musician putting theory before ear.
How did he know it was 3 though for the first note? Why not 1?
This is some of the best advice on improvising I've heard. Yes, oddly there is little thinking involved, but lots of boldness purposely creating mistakes, then repeating the ones that sound cool. Thanks, Jeff!
The Autumn Leaves example had me singing the theme from MASH to the chord progression. I had never made that connection before. Thanks for all your lesson points. Great stuff!
Noice hint, sir!
yes, yes, and yes.. excellent. thank you. inside of all of this (what comes to mind for me) is that your advice points towards the deep and intimate, and ironically simple, path of finding one's voice. the irony is that each of us actually have (when we speak) a distinct and original voice. That's how our friends identify us easily when they can't see us! yet, we get all mixed up when we try to be someone or do something "special" . Jeff, I really love the insight (wisdom) here. It may sound corny, but the deep path of music is truly a mystic path, which doesn't require paying music. To sink (sync?) into being present in oneself, with all the perceived imperfections and then allow yourself to speak in a way that is the particular tone and cadence that life birthed in you. It's your already, even before you study. It was yours at age 5. And yes, music theory (this is what i'm now trying to catch up on)... seemingly essential or unavoidable (though this is not true across different cultures), it is more easily explained. Perhaps it's like our skeleton, helping to hold us up (and we're amoebas without it), but it is not the "life force" that makes a life come together. It is so easy to feel insufficient, as a musician/artist, not good enough... because we compare so much. We overlook the most obvious gift, which is that no other soul has our particular voice (again, just consider the speaking voice). We all know there are famous singers that, if you really consider, don't have great voices. But we love them because it is "their" voice, like no other. And it is because they have somehow allowed themselves (their life force) to shine through it, to be free. And i think this is what we feel, a sense of total freedom to be. And if we feel this, it doesn't matter what the voice sounds like. Like playing the wrong notes that are out of key, as in your video. It is the intersection of the rhythm, the phrasing, the cadence, the tone (embodying a particular way of being in the world), that we respond to... and all of this is ultimately coming out of, arising out of, a person trying to be no one else but him or herself, and not even trying to be that.. rather its just pure being, at least for a moment, some minutes if lucky. I think i first began to understand this in my early twenties when a Coltrane song came on the radio and, with just three notes, I knew it was him. Like how we recognize a voice recording of a friend with the first hello. Any other competent musician could play those same notes, intending the same effect, but it wouldn't be the same. Ok, please excuse this long sermon! ha ha. But the moral of the story is that the uniqueness of each of us, what would be our "stamp" (as an artist), is actually already present, even before we develop a practice. But no one tells us this, and so we fail to trust it... and sometimes it can take 20-30 years to discover it, only to realize it was right under our nose the whole time. It makes me think of a Miles Davis quote, something to the effect of, "Sometimes it takes a long time to sound like yourself.".
Great advice for youngsters! My Jazz band teacher in H.S. (I'm old...so this was probably around 1960-1961) told me to play the (improvised solo) on an uptempo tune we were playing for an out of town gig for some cotillion or another...when he looked at me he could see I was terrified. He said, "Relax Charlie. No one's listening anyway...they don't know anything anyway...play it how you feel it." Best advice I ever got early on......He had me playing lead 'bone in his "grown-up" band after gettin me into the AF.of M. soon thereafter...BTW - I had a young drummer over to my studio a couple years ago and had him listen to sections of Stravinsky's "Firebird" and "Rites..."...and I told him. "Listen to these. Break them down. Choose a section and instrument, Then play those figures as hoc...you'll be playing a lot of jazz then....he did...and did.....Keep up the good work, Mr. Schneider.........and remember this? ruclips.net/video/DlMCUma7j3g/видео.html
I've been touting this excu...er, Logic for years and NOW, finally I will be Vindicated! I am Handi- Capable.
Thanks Jeff. Love the way you teach. I’ve been playing piano for 60 years, but I suck at phrasing and syncopation. I think, mire than feel.
This is all excellent advice. Worth every second listening to it.
Rhythm, phrasing, articulation and dynamics, feel and groove
very nice approach and you explained it beautifully. When I was learning to improvise I had the great advantage of studying with Don Cherry (I'm 73). I switched from guitar to cornet and the first thing I learned was that when learning a new song, especially something complex and rather tricky like an Ornette Coleman composition, the most important thing to get was the flow and especially the attack of the notes and the breathing. I would play along to a recording completely ignoring the pitches of the notes I was playing while working on the attack of the note and the flow of the phrases. After getting that aspect settled and comfortable, getting the notes right even without having it written out became pretty easy.
Numbers 1 & 5 were the biggest realizations for me and I wish I knew them 14 years ago lol. But great topic Jeff!
Excellent lessons Jeff.
I found these tips surprisingly helpful.
Cheers Jeff, great ideas. I'll give them a try. Hoping you are well. Best wishes, Joe
Yeah man, I like how you explained that, its the first video of yours I've seen but certainly will be watching more.
Thank you. I think maybe the best lesson video I've ever viewed
Great stuff, so obvious that it is often underestimated or simply forgotten!
❤
Jeff, thank you for putting rhythm in its proper place within our music continuum. I would call phrasing the ability to control the length of a melodic statement within a given space of time. Phrase lengths are usually defined within the framework of measures: 1 bar, 2 bar, 4 bar, 8 bar are all common.
Everything we practice, I mean EVERYTHING, should be placed within the context of pulse and rhythm. Music happens in time, and many of us (myself included) practice too much out of time because we prioritize other things. Scales, licks, song forms, melodic development should all be practiced in time. Learn how jazz operates in three dimensional time: layers of polyrhythms and poly meter that can only be approximated on manuscript paper (Mike Longo, RIP). Be your own drummer and drum everyday, even if you don't have a drum set--drum on your body or the table.
Harmony and scales are the raw materials, but rhythm is the synthesis and execution of our music--the final delivery to the listener. So live a life ripe of rhythm.
One of the best videos for improvisers
Very good. You come close to my laws of improvisation
Your simple melody to autumn leaves reminds me of Gary Moore’s Still Got the Blues. Good tips here, thanks!
How do you practice to become crazy good at rhythm and phrasing?
Play with a metronome. Play along with music you enjoy
Great advise on all counts.
Hi Jeff what a lesson this was for me really.I had no idea how to turn the sound in my to my guitar and I am so pleased you touched that one though I learnt a lot from you in this lesson but that one is tops.
Thank you.
Great video. Love number 4. This has been a huge step in my improvement. Putting down the instrument and singing a simple melody has helped me tons. First now I look at a tune as movements instead of arpeggios and scales, second I can’t sing (or shouldn’t) sing 8 bars of 8th notes. I have to breathe, which helps my phrasing. Third not having the instrument in my hands lessen my reliance on easy instrument based (guitar for me) cliches.
Great video ! You are right about every bit of it. I played in the 1998 Syracuse jazz fest using a Cello on my lap like you might a Guitar and I had a blast too.I didn't know a single note on cello other then the tuning.I had been playing Guitar since a child .I was indeed playing with great Jazz musicians and since I didn't know what I was doing I was not scared shitless I would make mistakes. I know it sounds crazy but the years playing in a Church band as a bass player I was white knuckle every service.
This is a great video, thanks!
Thank God for number 5!!! 💕💕💕💕💕
Thanks for your video, I've been soloing for about 13 years - your message sounds well worth pursuing
This lesson is👌🏽. Listen to Victor Wooten and you will know the power of rhythm. When I realized this I started seeing myself as a drummer 🥁 on the guitar 🎸
Brilliant and thx. One shall not forget the piano itself is a percussion instrument.
This is music to my ears. Rhythm and phrasing! I'm so tired of hearing vacuous solos driven by scales and harmonic principles.
In a perfect improvisation, the musician plays exactly the notes/phrases that he/she imagines. So the best improvisations are really played by ear. Being imperfect though (too slow mainly) we musicians sometimes need shortcuts, particularly on the harmonically complex tunes, and so we now we have horizontal and vertical improvising systems.
I use these three systems in the same order of preference. I'll never be good at vertical improvisation because I really dislike it - too impersonal. I can hear how bop artists lose their tonal orientation while employing it. They are also very weak on rhythmic variety because of the endless 16th notes they monotonously pump out of their horns. Why play notes/phrases which don't connect with your feeling or with the composer's own inspiration? Well I suspect that the reason is to impress or intimidate others, and it's a bad reason because it has nothing to do with art.
Transcribe by ear. Music is a language, if you want to develop your output, such as improvisation, performance skills and composition, you need some input. Transcribing gives you that. People learn (their native) languages by listening to examples of it spoken and they transcribe it, repeat it, often (as babies and young children) without knowing what they are saying. Over time ... meaning emerges. I am a language teacher. This is also the best (scientifically proven) method for learning a second/third/fourth language .
The effectiveness of transcription depends on what styles your digging into. With regard to the earlier jazz styles, it's much more efficient to listen a lot, then imitate phrases instantly on your instrument. And the rhythms in early jazz are so complex they are sometimes unwriteable. So much rhythm was lost when vertical impro and 16th notes became popular, and musicians became less dependent on their ears.
@@Zoco101 transcribing helps in acquisition of musical notes, ideas and relationships on an intuitive level. Style is irrelevant. And, when you trsnscribe you transcribe to play, NOT write down the music. Music is an aural art.
@@TheCompleteGuitarist To me, transcription is transcription. It means to to write something down which you hear. Listening then copying a motif or effect with your horn, guitar or keyboard is another activity IMO. We all do that, but I seldom write anything down unless it's a hard-to-remember melody or a chord chart. This saves me time for listening, practising and networking.
@@Zoco101 when you learn a language you do it aurally. Most kids have command of the language before they can read and write. Music is an aural art. You write it to keep a record of it but if you want to improve your musical skills then you imitate by transcribing to play. Much the same way we acquire langauge. Musical ideas shapes and concepts form implicitly in the musical language part of your brain and go on to inform and influence your musical abilities including improvising.
I think that’s the best argument for transcribing by ear that I’ve heard.
Good sensible advice. Thank you very much.
Very good!
Most of your videos are good but some are great. The little nuggets are where it's at. Cheers Jeff! ✊🎶
Great lesson! Thanks Jeff!
I've been finding out this very thing that you're talking about while making music in my daw. I'm not a great piano player, but I do know how to lay down notes in a piano roll in FL Studio. I always find that it's more important how notes are laid down horizontally rather than what the notes are. Note length and rhythm cones first for me, then note choice
Spot on 👏👏👏
#5 😮 makes so much sense!
YES Jeff, so important and so wrongfully overlooked by most! Every young student I've had has absolutely no clue that "rhythmic phrasing" should always come first in improvising. I don't think you can really separate those two terms btw. I think usually we think of "phrasing" not as dynamics or expression so much, but rather the way we create a phrase using rhythm, right? Personally that's been my one strong point while I've usually been able to squeak by- being too lazy to learn almost any theory and that's not good either. So we surely need both but rhythmic phrasing comes first can we say?
Regarding the first point: As a bass player, I have played a whole lot of dead notes; some on purpose, but a lot when I was trying to hide that I didn't know the part, or just by accident. If you have the rhythm right, you can get a long long way without any notes at all.
very very good. Thanks.
Have you seen the Vic Wooten "Groove Workshop" video? He has a section of deliberately being off-scale and it continues to amaze me.
Very, very good tips.
Good advice.
Wisdom shared! Woww
I'm far from being a good improviser but what I noticed is that, although theory helps a lot, the biggest heavy lifter is playing with your ear, or just trusting how you sound instead of what notes you are picking in your instrument (stop looking to it all the time!). and that's because just playing and paying attention to what you are playing triggers your positive reinforcement, or, in other words, triggers your learning. your brain is actually unbelievably skilled in creating habits and muscular memory of what intervals sounds good with each other, and in what harmonic contexts. and the more you play, the easier it gets. it's not as time effective as learning the theory behind what goes with what, but in the other hand it makes you able to sound good naturally without having to study theory. of course, eventually you will plateau and theory will be needed to take you off your comfort zone and make you improve with new ideas. but you can get REALLY good with just developing your ear and, most important of all, developing that love for playing your instrument, that craving that goes away for some days, weeks or even months but always come back, to just pick it up and play
1:23 I kinda liked it😅 Sounds like some underground cool hip hop is about to play
GREAT LESSON...that melody sounds like Mash
Great video - subbed.
Love these, so truuuuuuuu
Great stuff
Really helpful--especial, for me, the tip that rhythm and phrasing are more important than correct notes. A HUGE insight.
It's rhythm that makes people move, not note choice :)
Cool perspective. It sounded like a jazzy MASH theme over Autumn Leaves 😅
Have you got a video that specifically covers rhythm and phrasing?
Dang number three hit close to home! ;-)
Sage advice!
I agree that time is everyone's responsibility but it's also cool to play with drummers who are not trying to trick you into getting it wrong with poly rythms 🤣
8:49 I read “improvisation is spontaneous combustion”
Lustiges T-Shirt Logo! :-)
That's interesting material and subject
Good video. The "notes don't matter" blurb is a little clickbaity, but the video itself is excellent advice.
As far as the blurb... I think target notes, and the signature notes of your tonality, matter, but as far as the in-between notes, go with whatever feels right. I don't believe in "avoid notes", but there ARE notes that will make people laugh or side-eye in that specific context, and if you aren't going for that effect, then they're the wrong notes.
Exactly!!!
Autumn Leaves: You melody sample is a simplified version of the Theme from M.A.S.H. LOL!
Why can't I give TEN thumbs up?
Mary had a little lamb
His fleece was black as soot
And everywhere that Mary went
His sooty foot he put
Dizzy Gillespie said this very thing: Rhythm is much more important than note choices. "Throw a great rhythm out there and hang some notes on it." (paraphrase)
Black out of keys notes sound serious jazz over C6 9 chord? There’s NO (C) in C6 9 chord?
I'm an adult beginner and I have no ear or talent, so I rely a lot on theory. Any tips on how to change that? I'm doing exactly the opposite of what you recommend right now.
The sentiment that music is like a language is definitely relevant here - there is jazz "vocabulary" that many musicians pull from in order to create cohesive phrases. It might be beneficial for you to practice certain licks in a variety of keys. There's also truly nothing wrong with inprovising over chord tones only, because that's where the foundation of our understanding for improvising is. Cant play "out" if you dont know what's "in" 🤷♂️
Listen! Listen listen listen listen - I can not stress this enough. The single most important thing you can do if you feel like you have no ear is just listening to a LOT of music. Get it into your mind and body. You need input to produce output.
Adult teacher here. In order to follow the advice of using your ear, you have to develop your ears first. And contrary to what people say about listening to lots of music, there is a more necessary step. And that step is to become familiar with the jazz structures by ear.
How to do this is to practice a lot of most popular jazz chord progressions (like the 2-5-1s or 1-6-2-5 or the blues changes or the rhythm changes or if you can manage it, the Coltrane changes) consistently until it becomes a part of your aural memory. It is this practice that creates the familiarity that your ears need to eventually be able to pick up these same familiar structures in Jazz music to the point that you can now use your ears alone to hear music.
For now, I will say that you are on the right path using theory. The transition from theory to practice will eventually lead to you towards having an open ear. Then you can come back to this video and follow what is being advised here.
None of this works however if you do not spend the necessary time on your instrument working on getting familiar with these sounds.
@pjbpiano That makes a lot of sense! Thank you for taking the time to write all that, that's so helpful! I'll follow your advice.
Wait a minute, how did we get to lesson two, I don't know what to do in lesson one. I understand what you said. You gave the destination but didn't give me directions to get there.
soooooooooo true
Yeah it takes forever to realize this…it is easy to learn a scale but if you try to play like your heroes you can’t do it because it is the timing that’s hard to copy. If I was a kid and starting over I would play the drums for a few years first.
1. Notes don’t matter. 2. Play melodically. 😂
"notes don't matter"
proceeds to play on pentatonic 😅
Don't play scales!!!
Play super locrian!!!
I often thank God so few people have perfect pitch, otherwise they would have found out what a shit soloist I am ....and they all think I'm brilliant!!!
So helpful, I’m learning this thing about rhythm being more important, but it’s hard work, it feels like it goes against everything I’ve been taught!
So true, but it really is the gateway to soloing. It works immediately! 🎼🎵🎶🎹
If you want to get better at playing rhythmically, listen to Thelonious Monk for a few weeks
as a pitch, I’m offended
Pitch, please
Jeff has 99 problems, but a pitch is not one of them.
I've heard many a musician talking about playing by ear. I used to wonder what they mean. Afterall music is about ear. maybe this is what they mean 🤔
There are SO MANY absurdities in your video that I don't know where to begin.
This is perhaps the biggest of all, as if somehow you've discovered fire:
"...to improvise, you'll need to know your theory really, really...[a couple more really(ies)]....well"
DUH!!
Yeah, while it's true that a lot of players struggle to play interestingly and don't think to practice playing melodically and rhythmically, it's kind of extremely hyperbolic to say that notes don't matter, and in fact it's sort of, well.... bullshit. The problem was I think, that no one taught you how to practice properly.
‘I’ve never practised scales on my life’…..Paul McCartney.
Maybe playing the wrong notes works in jazz but it doesn’t work in anything else. If everybody behind you is playing in A and you’re playing in B-flat it’s gonna sound like crap no matter how good your phrasing and rhythm is.
I watched/listened to your Sick Licks and it's all saxophone, and that's great, but as a piano player, it would have been better to hear piano, not sax.
Nonsense. If your were exposed to music when you were young and had a love and propensity for making music, and put in 10,000 hours of study and another 10,000 hours of practice - then you would be able to solo and sound good.
I overheard a young girl’s coversation with a concert violinist once. She said, “I would give anything to play like you”. The violinist replied, “would you”? “Would you give up friends, vacations , hobbies, money, marriage, and leisure time? If not, you wouldn’t be able to play like me”. Seemed a bit rude but the truth is you have to put in the effort and study to sound good.
Might have been a little harsh but was likely a great lesson for the girl. This applies to most people that are great in their domain
Unfortunately (or fortunately) we need to impress a teacher (or an examiner).
Click to get the charts = sign up for a subscription?
Ever heard of truth-in- advertising?
... WON'T BE BACK
Misleading title.
Drop the marketing bonuses and charge me 253$. Then I'll join. Bonues? Nah.
Cmon, Jeff! Stop devaluing pitches!
Honestly, I’m not sure you need ANY music theory. You NEVER learned rammer/language syntax. You did, but it was subconscious. The best way to be is to play music with no understanding of how your e doing it. Just like catching a ball….you don’t care about the muscles firing…you are doing it without knowing. It’s all subconscious. Forget about anything in music..just grab the instrument and learn to use it like you use your mouth when you whistle a tune in your head.
Can't spell "theory" without "eor"
Lesson 1. Er. Playing black keys on C does not sound good. It sounded terrible as it clearly would.
Why do you have a VW automobil shirt? :D
The problem is uncovered in the first two chords. You say what notes you are playing. You don't say what the space between the chords is, how they are accented, are they staccato, on and on. I'm not saying you, Mr. Schneider, but all the yous, and that includes all the mes. We all do it, pretty much all the time. We make darn sure people know what the notes are. Even people who don't read music know a ton about note selection and those relationships. When has anyone ever said to play to two chords and only described how they should feel in time and not what they should be composed of. Take a color photo, then put a black and white filter on it, how did the emotional quality of the photo change? Yes it changed, how much, not much I'd say, the subject matter is still the same. No wonder being a good drummer is so hard. You got two or three other guys that don't get it, and your job is to baby sit their dumb asses while they play around in their sandbox of colors. The point was never made so clear as when I saw "Little Dragon" back in the day, they toured with a live drummer and the two dudes on synth. A good drummer could make a band of peacocks sound good. Watching videos on drumming is a good start. Then you hear a band play and the drummer is late on the one and your like, F this dude. All instruments are just a variety of drums, which sounds ridiculous, but how far off is it?
I didn't think the black keys played over the C chords sounded cool at all so I didn't watch the rest of the video. Notes matter.
Blah. Bla bla bla. Another awful tutorial.
Do you have to know and think of the notes as you go or know the positions and sound by finger and ears? I'm a guitar player but this resonates! Of course I'm always trying to learn more and memorize the keys and notes!