Carol Kaye's approach to improvisation

[gbf]

Originally posted by Steve Lawson
Carol's method would focus on learning the arpeggios of the chords, looking at the notes from one chord that lead into the next, the notest that create tension and heighten the sense of resolution. A far more specific way of approaching harmony. It probably takes a while longer to get there, but by the first hurdle, you're thinking about the function of each note, not just the vague effect of the scale over a set of chords, hopefully...

That's is why i asked what you guys think about carol's books (i know she didn't invented this approach) because she says it's a lot more easy and you have better solos earlier then with the scalar approach.

 

[Dr Steve Lawson]

I guess it comes down to how you define 'better' - if you're happy with running up and down scales in the right key and calling it jazz, then you can get to that point in one key in about an hour.

If your talking about making sense of the chords, sounding like you know what's happening harmonically with the tune, and 'spontaneously composing' a new tune, then Carol's method is fantastic.

I'd say investigate it, get her books, and look at them alongside other material like the Chuck Sher book and Marc Johnson's book on jazz soloing, as well as Mark Levine's 'The Jazz Theory Book - those last two are published by Chuck Sher as well...

Not forgetting Ed Friedland's excellent series of jazz improv books - those are all required reading too.

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

 

[Bruce Lindfield]

Originally posted by Steve Lawson
I guess it comes down to how you define 'better' - if you're happy with running up and down scales in the right key and calling it jazz, then you can get to that point in one key in about an hour.

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That's right - I think you need a balance of both scale approach and functional harmony.

Understanding scales over II-V-Is in Jazz is a good thing for soloists, as I mentioned, because it stops say, a Sax player playing too many notes and starts them thinking about the flow of the solo and playing melodically rather than just runing up and down the chords.

Of course, as bass players in Jazz we are in a bit of a strange or unique position - as it is essential that we do outline each chord with single note lines - whereas Sax players may never have to do this.

So - we quickly get used to the chordal approach if we are playing Jazz - as we do it all the time - endlessly playing quarter notes over the changes, as everybody else solos!!

So - when you do get a chance to solo as a bass player it is quite nice to think about alternate scales - as we have spent all the other time playing single note lines that outline the chords - the scale approach, then becomes a way of breaking out of just playing chords - as we will inevitably go back to this, shortly!!

 

[Bruce Lindfield]

Originally posted by Bassart1


Listen to the Bill Evans Trio to hear a master of improvisation.

Yes , but...


P.S. He hated playing scales.

Where is the evidence for this?

So - the most famous Jazz record of all time is probably Miles' "Kind of Blue" and I think it's quite clear that Bill Evans made a big contribution to the sound and helped Miles prepare the charts and shape the compositions.

So what was that all about - modal playing - using modes or scales , rather than just playing chords - a break away from bebop. In fact Miles deliberately chose Evans because he could play scales and his wide knowledge of music theory and scales in particular, was what Miles wanted - here's a quote from a Miles Interview :

" Bill had this quiet fire that I loved on piano. The way he approached it, the sound he got was like crystal notes or sparkling water cascading down from some clear waterfall. I had to change the way the band sounded again for Bill's style by playing different tunes, softer ones at first. Bill played underneath the rhythm and I liked that, the way he played scales with the band. Red's [Garland] playing had carried the rhythm but Bill underplayed it and for what I was doing now with the modal thing, I liked what Bill was doing better. "

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Of course Bill Evans could do it all :

"...typical Evans traits as moving inner voices, poignant and fleet block chord melodies, rhythmically truncated melodic lines which leave the listener in mid-air, scalar passages-especially diminished scales-in thirds, and his poignant harmonies, including reharmonizations and original tunes with harmonic structures which are similar to those Evans used."

So - I don't hear him as favouring one method or other - he could play scalar passages and chordal - that's why he's great - not because he somehow avoided scales!

 

[Bruce Lindfield]

Originally posted by Steve Lawson
I guess it comes down to how you define 'better' - if you're happy with running up and down scales in the right key and calling it jazz, then you can get to that point in one key in about an hour.

Just to add that I have had lessons/classes with many different Jazz educators over the last 5 years or so and none of them have said anything like this.

What they generally tend to do - is take a 32 bar tune (say) and get the class to analyse it - so what key is each part in - what function are the chords taking in each of these 'sections' - then discussing what different scales could possibly be used over each part, how they would sound...etc. etc.

 

[Dr Steve Lawson]

Of course they haven't said that - you're on a 'proper' jazz course, so they are going to teach the scale based approach in a way that has worthwhile musical results, and will take a lot longer than an hour to get fluent in.

I have certainly seen articles on line, and has students who've come to me before now having learnt 'jazz' before, who could blaze up and down the modes in a particular key but had no idea what the notes were doing, and weren't listening to what they were doing. Two hours looking at how the notes in one chord resolve to the notes in another, and they were playing far more considered lines, considerably slower, and making a far stronger connection between their line and the harmony.

As has been said, the eventual point is that theory doesn't make you a good player. Whatever method you learn, you can't theorise artistic choices. In the same way that some people can follow the ingredients of a recipe to the letter and still make a complete balls-up of it, some people no matter what method they learn are going to sound mechanistic.

What any approach to any area of music does, hopefully, is remove obstacles between you and the music. Over-simplifying can create obstacles in that you have no mental or theoretical process for dealing with a particular sound that appears and troubles you, and over-complicating things can lead to you having far to much to think about for your ideas to be able to 'flow' - that's the essence of good teaching - finding the balance between information and ispiration.

If someone learns a load of chord tones with the aim of playing them as fast as they can to blow someone else off the stage, it's going to sound as mindless as someone blazing up and down scales. It's just that they'll be using thirds instead.

Vice versa, someone thinking 'ah, this is in C, I'll follow my ear, and see where it leads me' is just as likely to come up with something musically wonderful, as someone thinking 'that B in the G7 chord would resolve beatifully up to the root of the CMaj7 chord'. There's no way to map out inspiration, there are just different ways of writing out the music language phrase book...

steve
www.stevelawson.net

 

[Bruce Lindfield]

Originally posted by Steve Lawson

Vice versa, someone thinking 'ah, this is in C, I'll follow my ear, and see where it leads me' is just as likely to come up with something musically wonderful, as someone thinking 'that B in the G7 chord would resolve beatifully up to the root of the CMaj7 chord'. There's no way to map out inspiration, there are just different ways of writing out the music language phrase book...

Of course I agree with all you said..up to about this point, where I'm not sure? This is for me the crucial point - but just based on my personal eperience - and it may be that I have no real musical talent and am no musical genius, whereas somebody else may be different on this score.

So - I played in pop/rock bands throughout the 1980s and wrote loads of songs that now seem very simplistic to me - although at the time I thought I was being original and inspired.

So - I never had any lessons and just used my ear - no written music no dicussiosn of theory.

But in a few months of taking Jazz classes with Geoff Simkins - I had discovered scale choices for chords, that I never dreamt of in decades of playing "by ear" - and I honestly believe that I could have gone on playing for several more decades without discovering these things, if I hadn't had classes on Jazz and studied the scale possibilities.

 

[Dr Steve Lawson]

Originally posted by Bruce Lindfield


Of course I agree with all you said..up to about this point, where I'm not sure? This is for me the crucial point - but just based on my personal eperience - and it may be that I have no real musical talent and am no musical genius, whereas somebody else may be different on this score.

talent and genius have no bearing on whether what someone writes is valid or not - I've heard wise words from bad players, and dreadful advice from legends... Whether or not I have any talent or genius is not for me to say...

So - I played in pop/rock bands throughout the 1980s and wrote loads of songs that now seem very simplistic to me - although at the time I thought I was being original and inspired.

Simple or simplistic? Neil Young writes great music, Bob Dylan writes great music, Motorhead write great music - jazz theory doesn't come into it, and the belief that more complex music would be better would probably ruin any of their sounds...

It may be that your band were rubbish, it may be that you were great. The simplicity or complexity of the harmony you employed is not the mitigating factor...

however...

So - I never had any lessons and just used my ear - no written music no dicussiosn of theory.

But in a few months of taking Jazz classes with Geoff Simkins - I had discovered scale choices for chords, that I never dreamt of in decades of playing "by ear" - and I honestly believe that I could have gone on playing for several more decades without discovering these things, if I hadn't had classes on Jazz and studied the scale possibilities.

So your lack of theory knowledge was an obstacle to you speaking the language of jazz. Learning it won't make you a great jazz player, but it will give you the linguistic tools to start speaking the language. In the same way that i can't write french poetry til I learn french, but learning french won't mean I automatically have something poetic I want to say in french... That's a whole different kind of study, one which gets precious little attention in the academic world - the need for something to say, something to inspire you and therefor inspire your audience. The need to listen to people not to learn the notes they play but to pay attention to how their music makes you feel. That's the way to develop a voice, to work on having the same effect with your music that others have on you. In the same way that if you learn a language you don't memorise chunks of poetry and prose in that language, you get a handle on the vocab, the grammar and the coloquialisms, the subtlety of the useage, and speak it.

cheers



steve
www.stevelawson.net

 

[Bruce Lindfield]

I was just trying to explain though - that I can't imagine how I would ever have got this knowledge - just by listening to other artists, playing and writing songs - playing "by ear" as you put it.

I can imagine getting very familiar with chords by doing this - but I can't imagine ever working out the differnet scales that fit with chords that are not immediately obvious - as in,the scale is actually the chord with extensions?

So my point was that I could have worked out the chordal approach myself - just from listening and playing a lot - but I cannot imagine working the scalar approach out on my own. But as I say that may just be me....?

 

[Howard K]

Hmmm... do you mean extensions or altered extensions?

cant remember. i read it in book and hadnt played about with it yet..

 

[Dr Steve Lawson]

Originally posted by Bruce Lindfield
I was just trying to explain though - that I can't imagine how I would ever have got this knowledge - just by listening to other artists, playing and writing songs - playing "by ear" as you put it.

I can imagine getting very familiar with chords by doing this - but I can't imagine ever working out the differnet scales that fit with chords that are not immediately obvious - as in,the scale is actually the chord with extensions?

So my point was that I could have worked out the chordal approach myself - just from listening and playing a lot - but I cannot imagine working the scalar approach out on my own. But as I say that may just be me....?

Hi Bruce,

I think in some ways we're working at crossed purposes - my point (perhaps not expressed as well as it might be had this been an essay rather than in response to a specifically worded question) is that whichever method you choose, the method itself does not result in musical significance, any more than learning a language teaches you lofty concepts. The method will no doubt have a dispensation towards certain kinds of playing, in the same way that a more poetic metaphorical language like French or Italian is going to facilitate a different kind of thought process to a more concrete language like German, but learning the language doesn't automatically give you the music, however you learn it. Scales, chord tones, 'just playing by ear' - all can lead to great music or mindless noodling. Your learning altered scales isn't going to make what you do amazing, astounding, and isn't going to make you a better musician than someone who can only deal with diatonic playing. What it will do is open doors. how you choose to interpret and process that material is to do with HOW you think about music, not the specifics of what you think about.

there are endless books about approaches to improv/reading/writing/playing/technique. Most of them contain elements of good thinking. Many contain some unhelpful nonsense as well. The really good method books steer away from telling you that if you learn this way it'll make you a great jazz player, or rock player... The information is just that - information. It's not creativity. Creativity can be practiced - this isn't mojo we're talking about. But it isn't practiced by running up and down scales. It's practiced by contextualising whatever bit of musical information you are working on and playing something that sounds good/worthy/nice/expressive with it. Making aesthetic judgements about what you are playing in relation to whatever else is going on. That's got very little to do with how many scales you know, and a lot to do with how in touch you are with what one note can do, and what the effect of adding another note to that will do.

This is not to say that studying scales and chord tones etc is worthless - of course it's not, in the same way that you need to learn french to express your lofty ideas in french, you need to learn the jazz vocabulary to 'speak' jazz. But endless study of increasingly complex harmonic ideas VERY OFTEN (not always, but often) leads to what James Brown so eloquently described as 'talkin' loud and saying nothing'.

To answer your question about accessing the material in a different way - the scale approach gives you a note set - an altered scale against a dominant7 chord or whatever.

The chord tone approach would by and large be more concerned with what each note within that would do - what effect would the #5 have compared to the b5? what about the b13, or using the b9 and the #9? what does that do to the harmony and the voice leading? how does that effect how people hear the changes.

You can think of this as a cluster or scale, or you can focus on each note, and develop your vocab from the combination of those. Depending on your own learning style, where you've come from and where you're going, either way may work for you. The end result is hopefully that you have an awareness of how particular tensions make you feel, and what they do to the music you're playing, rather than just 'what are the hip licks that player X tends to use'...

As a teacher, I try to store up as many ways of explaining any one concept as I possibly can, rather than peddling one approach to harmony or technique. Mainly because people conceptualise music in many different ways - for some it's linear, for some it's visual, others visceral etc. The keys is finding that which works for you...

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

 

[Bruce Lindfield]

Originally posted by Steve Lawson

The keys is finding that which works for you...

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

I think this is the key and a lot about why I stay around at TB - initialy talking to Ed Fuqua, who felt the same way.

So - I regret that it has taken me until I was approaching 40 years old, to discover the way that worked and made a huge difference to me.

So - I tend to feel I wasted a lot of my 20s and 30s - concentrating on the concept of "not compromising my individuality" and trying to "make it" in the music business - when there was so much to learn about playing music, that I was missing out on.

I feel that if I had had lessons and learned about Jazz Theory earlier, I would be so much better a musician now and so much less dissatisfied with my playing...

Surpisingly this has been confimed to me, while watching the BBCTV series "Fame Academy" - I've caught a few programmes !! . But you can see that some are caught up in fame for its own sake and are doomed to failure...but some are looking at it as an opportunity to learn and grow...

I think that while you keep learning about music it becomes a satisfying end in itself and a very rewarding way to pursue music - but when you stop doing this and concentrate on 'fame or making it' then it is when you are wasting your time....

I'm waffling a bit now..but I think my aim on TB is to try to get people to keep learning and keep working on the music - and to stop focusing on the distractions and peripheral things - as my view is you will regret it later...

So - I try to hold up my experience as a negative example - what not to do!!

 

[Dr Steve Lawson]

Originally posted by Bruce Lindfield
I'm waffling a bit now..but I think my aim on TB is to try to get people to keep learning and keep working on the music - and to stop focusing on the distractions and peripheral things - as my view is you will regret it later...

So - I try to hold up my experience as a negative example - what not to do!!

I think you do that rather well!

The problem with somewhere like TB is one of perception, so the fact that your chosen path to musical enlightenment is through the jazz pedagogy will make some people interpret the path to that musical freedom you're heading towards to involve years of jazz study before it means anything.

Truth is, along with your growth in terms of knowledge, a maturing process has taken place in your outlook. That outlook combined with the musical knowledge you had back in the 80s would probably have yielded very different results from the stuff you were doing that you dismiss as mindless... it wasn't the simplicity of it that was the problem, it seems it was more about lack of focus and direction...

So while music education is clearly an exceedingly valuable and worthwhile thing (of course it is, I'm a teacher! ), gaining that maturity, the outlook, the willingness and desire to contextualise the simplest of ideas and make something of value from it is even more important than the theory stuff...

Once you've got that in place, every new idea that you get is fed right into the stream, which is already flowing in the right direction, so then it really a matter of soaking up new bits of harmonic and melodic information, as well as listening to stuff to focus on how it makes you feel, and then working on doing that with your own music...

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

 

[moley]

Originally posted by Bruce Lindfield
Surpisingly this has been confimed to me, while watching the BBCTV series "Fame Academy" - I've caught a few programmes !! . But you can see that some are caught up in fame for its own sake and are doomed to failure...but some are looking at it as an opportunity to learn and grow...

Actually I do find Fame Academy (and to a lesser extent Pop Idol & Popstars) interesting. But you're right - the clue is in the title - Fame Academy, Pop Idol... The emphasis seems to be on the fame bit, rather than musicality.

But what gets me is the lack of emphasis on songwriting/composing in Fame Academy, even though they do purport to include songwriting as part of it. Last year at least, they did have a songwriting coach, but we didn't see much of her, and I wasn't particularly impressed by the students' songs.

I think there are some talented folks in Fame Academy, some good singers. But Alistair's song (which he performed last night) was supposedly the best of the bunch, but I thought it was bland and boring. Typical amateur songwriter stuff, maybe easy to listen to, but not original, and not very interesting. I dread to think what the others were like.

I could be wrong, but it seems to me that the people who really make it big, and stick around for a long time in the pop music industry, are mostly the songwriters - like Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Sting, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Elton John, Prince, even Michael Jackson. The people who have been able to turn out good material for a good stretch of time. There are those who have made it big solely on their vocal talent - Sinatra and Diana Ross for example, but they seem to me like the minority.

Surely Fame Academy are looking for someone like those in the first category - i.e. someone who will carry on making the label a lot of money for many years to come. So why pay so little attention to songwriting? I can't see that any of those Fame Academy people are songwriters on anything like the level of the people I mentioned above.

Anyway, rant over, back to the thread

 

[Howard K]

Surely Fame Academy are looking for someone like those in the first category - i.e. someone who will carry on making the label a lot of money for many years to come.

Are you cuing yourself up for the role moley?

I'd vote for you, as long as you wear one of those rasta hats with the fake dreads sewn into it

 

[moley]

Originally posted by Howard K


Are you cuing yourself up for the role moley?

I'd vote for you, as long as you wear one of those rasta hats with the fake dreads sewn into it

LMFAO! Yeah, sounds like a deal to me

 

[Howard K]

Q) What is the ONE thing all the artists you mentioned above have in common?

A) Artistic integrity*

BUT programs like pop idol and fame academy rob people of the tiny amount of integrity they have before they even release a single!

No matter how good and artist that 'makesit' through one of these shows is, they have been stripped of any chance of lasting because they 'made it' through a tv show - it's not just a credible beginning is it.


* Michael Jackson is exempt for the past ten years of his career. Safe to say he was credible when he was REALLY selling records!

 

[gbf]

Hey guys,
the hole idea around this thread that i made was to help me get into the magic world of jazz.
but after all these arguments i fell like i've been kicked out even before i entered
Now i'm really clueless about what to do. My major goal is to make some music with emotion if you know what i mean, like blues or those beautiful miles davis songs. Should i stick with ed freidland's book (chords/scales relations)? or should i look for carol kaye's method?
My motivation is really down right now so i guess the way that gives me the fastest results would be the best. i'm not saying that i would like to take the easy way out you know? it's just that everybody i've talked too seemed to find carol's method so much easier and you can make some good solos up front with it. I won't complain about studing hard because i love music more than anything BUT i want to jazz

please give the desperate guy some help

ps: sorry for the english, it is not my primary language.

 

[Dr Steve Lawson]

GBF,

don't be put off by this thread - this was about way more than just a method, and the end result was that we agreed neither is intrinsically better. As it is, you're looking at the work of two very fine teachers. Ed Friedland is one of the best bass method authors around at the moment, and Carol Kaye has been teaching quality jazz stuff for decades. Either of their methods is going to get you where you want to be if you follow it dilligently and put in the home work.

If you're having fun with Ed's books, leave Carol's for now, and come back to it when you hit a brick wall with ed's books. Then you can get carol's method to take you in a new direction.

Have fun!

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

 

[ConU]

Originally posted by gbf

Now i'm really clueless about what to do. My major goal is to make some music with emotion if you know what i mean, like blues or those beautiful miles davis songs. Should i stick with ed freidland's book (chords/scales relations)? or should i look for carol kaye's method?

IMO,you should leave the "method's" for awhile and do some serious listening.If you want to play beautiful miles' tunes and real blues,learn them.Backwards,forwards,down,up.Sing them,play them,bring them inside yourself.If you can't do it by ear yet,there are transcriptions everywhere of them.Use those to follow along with tunes at first.Then try doing small passages on your own.Supplement this with some standard musical study for awhile,you'll start to get it.
Miles said:"I'll play it first,then I'll tell you what it is".
Jazz is an aural music,you have to hear it to speak it.
All the methods in the world,won't help you if you don't have the music in your head,heart and soul.