I guess I'm curious what is a good way for a beginner (as far as jazz and transcribing goes) to go about learning the melody, bass lines, and chord progressions by ear, with checking for accuracy while also not spoiling the process... Or should I even be worrying about that at this phase? I'm just looking for your guys' thoughts I guess.
I will suggest again what I suggested for
Alone Together. Don't worry about learning your first few tunes by ear. There is nothing wrong with learning a tune from a chart. Just get the lead sheets and learn a few tunes you like. Once you have learned a few tunes, you will be in a much better position to learn more tunes by ear.
With that said, from looking over the thread, it sounds like you have some gaps in your knowledge that you are trying to fill. It is not clear to me from reading exactly what those are. If, for example, you can't just
hear the progression in a tune like
Blue Moon, that would be a key skill to work on. Just taking tunes you already know and identifying the progression might be helpful, even if those are 3 or 4 chord rock songs, etc.
It is unclear to me if you know how to harmonize a major scale... another key skill. Do you know the chords that "belong" to a given key? If not... that's also very important. Do you know the notes on the fingerboard, or which notes belong to a given chord? Again, very important if you want to be able to interpret chord changes on a jazz chart.
While learning the melody to a tune is important, from what I've read in this thread, I would suggest you focus on the bass line first. You said you want to come up with your own walking bass lines. Nothing wrong with that, but do you know the common patterns that everyone uses? If not, you will be reinventing the wheel. There are lots of simple, movable patterns that will get you started on walking and form the basic vocabulary for that. Most are based on arpeggios, for example: l: C-E-G-A-Bb-A-G-E :l etc. Learn that pattern in 2nd position and you can move it all over the neck. Basics like that give a lot of bang for the buck and get you started and sounding good.
It sounds like you have a lot going on that you want to work on, which is great. I might suggest you just take a bite out of it for a start: pick a couple of things to concentrate on and get those down really well. For example, while I wouldn't say DON'T do interval ear training, being able to hear and recognize basic chord progressions might be more important right now. Or, you would probably get more out of learning other people's walking bass lines than trying to create your own. Again, for now, not forever.
The problem is, we all want everything right now. So, you've identified a number of skills you want to work on, and that's great. I've been playing the bass for 42 years. Learning jazz, for me, was not like learning rock. For example, when I first learned about pentatonic scales, that just opened up a whole world of music for me and I could suddenly hear and play all kinds of things I couldn't before. So many things in rock became super obvious with that one little bit of information. Boom. A month later, I was a much better player.
Jazz tunes just have a lot more going on. The closest thing to what I described above for me in jazz was learning the movable finger patterns I mentioned. Those gave me a good start at having something to play over changes. Other than that, it's been a constant process. It never ends. Another example, I know
Take The A Train. But how well? Well, I could play it from memory on a wedding gig/cocktail type situation without making mistakes. I could play a chorus or two of a solo. Fine. Would anything I played be at all interesting to a real jazz fan? Probably not. Probably wouldn't even be interesting to me. So, while I may be in a different place than you, I still could work on that tune just as hard. See what I mean? Sure, I can play the tune safely, which is fine if it's background music while someone has a martini and socializes. If people are truly listening? Not so much.
I think the goal for all of us is to hear something in our heads and be able to play it. The problem is, as we learn new things, we start to hear new things in our heads. So it never ends. By the time I could play a bunch of standards safely, I was hearing new things. By the time I can play what I hear
now, I will be hearing new things. The more you learn, the more you see to work on, and the more you realize how much there is to learn.
The only other suggestion I have is singing.
Sing the melody.
Sing the bass lines. Even if you don't have a great voice, if you are honest with yourself, you will know if you are hearing the notes and your voice just wasn't up to it, or if you
weren't hearing them and that's why the singing went off. What you can sing is what you can really hear.
Other than that, I suggest you just get charts for a few tunes you like, maybe 4 or 5, and learn them. After that, revisit this thread and see if anything else appeals. Lots of good advice here. Still, it can be overwhelming to see so many areas that need work, so just pick a couple of things and take small steps to start. As you work on X, you may realize you need a little more work on Y, so do that as it comes up. Then revisit X... maybe move on to Z? Etc.
There are so many resources out there now. Use them. When I was learning, pre-internet etc. either someone had to show you, or tell you, or you had to go see someone play and watch. Other than that, it was you and the record player. And even then you had to
get the records. Yes, this helped me develop my ear, but I am still developing my ear and I use whatever is available now as well. I think it is a positive thing. The only caveat is, there is
so much out there now, I might suggest taking just one thing that interests you and really working with it before moving on. Pointing and clicking is not
practicing.
My $.02. Best of luck on your "Jazz Odyssey."
