MJ5150 said:
What is wrong with me? Do I need to learn more theory to play this kind of music?
-Mike
Hey Mike,
Get the first Jamey Aebersold book "Anyone Can Improvise". If you are meant to play jazz, that book will have everything in it that you could need.
Don't sweat the theory stuff, the bulk of the theory that you're going to need to know to play jazz is the circle of fifths. When you memorize it, you'll know how to read key signatures and you'll automatically know the notes of any major or minor scale, which also means that you know the notes in most chords you'll come across in standards.
When you get that book, you'll find out right away you'll have to learn to read, get the first Mel Bay bass book or something to help you with fingerings and counting.
The way most people I know have started into jazz is via the Aebersold books (
http://www.jazzbooks.com/) combined with listening to a lot of jazz. A grasp of theory will allow you to intepret more about what is going on in a piece of music, or to understand why what you are doing instinctively is "good" or "bad", but you will have a hard time trying to play jazz if its phrases do not come naturally to you and you are thinking about your theory while you are trying to improvise.
Take the first book, Anyone Can Improvise. There are going to be about a million scales in there, but take one of the first modal examples (It's F dorian iirc), learn that scale. Then do the warm up excercises where he talks about learning a chord, play the 1 3 5 7 9 up and down until you get the sound of that chord in your head. Then solo over that track for a long time. Find the notes that are shared between adjacent chords and listen to how they sound when you use them over a chord change. I think there are 12 and 24 bar forms, play over them both so that you get the feel of the way they turn around. Don't bother playing bass lines yet or trying to walk, it's a lot easier if you learn to improvise over chord changes first than to try and remember rules about walking.
As you run out of phrases, try the longer tracks on that playalong where you do a call and response with Aebersold and try copping a few of them on the other examples.
When you can hear a blues/minor blues in your head, and your fingers know the shapes of those chords, you will not need to think of theory to play them. If you try to learn the theory before you know the "language" you will probably not get anywhere. You will pick up the rudimentary theory as you go along.
The other thing I think you have to do to play jazz is start a record collection, which is unquestionably the most expensive part of playing this music, and I bet I've spent 3 times over what i spent on instruments buying recordings. Buy everything, as indiscriminately as possible. If you don't have anything already, go buy Kind of Blue and Giant Steps, if you don't like those, you should quit now while you're ahead
