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Now I Remember Why I Stopped Trying To Walk...
- Thread starter Matthew_84
- Start date
Listen to jazz. A lot of jazz.
Listen in particular to Paul Chambers. You will hear wonderful timing, simplicity, and supportive musicality in his lines.
Try to jam along with records -- maybe start with the song "So What" by Miles Davis. It has just 2 scales to work off of. Pretend YOU are PC playing with Miles. What notes can you play to make Miles, Trane, Adderly, and Evans sound better?
Also try to transcribe or at the very least get a book of walking basslines and play along with the book and the recording wherever possible.
Trust your blessed ears and your musical intuition. It will happen for you!
Listen in particular to Paul Chambers. You will hear wonderful timing, simplicity, and supportive musicality in his lines.
Try to jam along with records -- maybe start with the song "So What" by Miles Davis. It has just 2 scales to work off of. Pretend YOU are PC playing with Miles. What notes can you play to make Miles, Trane, Adderly, and Evans sound better?
Also try to transcribe or at the very least get a book of walking basslines and play along with the book and the recording wherever possible.
Trust your blessed ears and your musical intuition. It will happen for you!
Hey, thanks, Wasnex...I didn't know the proper chords (dorian) ......I'd first need to learn those patterns and then I might have a chance. I'll also try those other versions to help me through it..
I am only ear-trained and learn everything by ear. Don't know how to read, theory, anything...so that kind of puts a dent into learning this kind of stuff...
I don't need to learn it for any band thing, I'd just like to know how to play that style...
Formal music background a long time ago would have paid off with this....
My problem was that I had difficulty understanding the language of music..learning everything by ear so well that my teacher (this is back in 1982) told me that it's OK not to read if I can learn that fast...well, to a certain extent..he's right...then I want to play this stuff.. Hmmmmm......
I can tell you the names of the notes on the staff but there's no way I could read standard notation through a tune and know what everything means. I cannot look at sheet music and "hear" what I'm reading before even ever hearing or playing it.....some people have that gift and I think that is incredible and quite valuable....
Playing this kind of stuff is also a wicked 180 from what I normally like to play but I love the precision of the horn arrangements and the overall dynamics of some of that material...
I blame Neil Peart for getting me into The Buddy Rich Big Band !!
...and...Neil isn't a big band drummer, he doesn't "swing" like Buddy can, but he does a fine job with his skills anyways....
That's my problem... I know basic ones but more difficult it gets, I have no clue...It's just like math was for me...I understood all the four basic things ...but algebra and other more advanced stuff...forget it.
I'm sure this was just a typo, since Wasnex has it right in the preceding paragraph, but for the sake of avoid any confusion, the chord in the B section is Ebmin7, not Emin7.
Friedland's book is fantastic. I utilize that book with my students all the time. He has a follow up book also, Expanding Walking Bass lines, which is even better but definitely not stand alone. Get through Building Walking Bass Lines first. Friedland's Bass Improvisation is also really good for learning to solo in jazz.
Take your time going through the book, and make sure you understand everything you're reading. It's easy to try to push forward too fast. You need to "know" one section before moving onto the next.
Take your time going through the book, and make sure you understand everything you're reading. It's easy to try to push forward too fast. You need to "know" one section before moving onto the next.
Pretty sure "scales" in your walking is what got you in trouble with your grumpy piano player.
Chords will keep you in line with other musicians - unless you're playing Middle-Age or Medieval music. ;-) and it's a lot less math to build a good walking bass line out of chords.
Chords will keep you in line with other musicians - unless you're playing Middle-Age or Medieval music. ;-) and it's a lot less math to build a good walking bass line out of chords.
Just to clear up any confusion, I’m the OP who had the issue with the keyboardist (4001 is another player interested in this journey, which I’m excited for because he does the best Geddy Lee covers I’ve ever heard. Good luck @4001, feel free to reach out to me and I can share some of the tips I’m picking up, if you think it’d help).
Anyways @frankie5string, a lot of my problem that day was playing scales, but also there were two 2-beat chords in that tune, and I was so focused on walking (and was more used to 4-beats to a chord) that I kept extending the 2-beat chords into 4-beats and just jumbling everything up.
To be fair, I was terrible, and didn't deserve to be playing where I was. Anyways, lesson learned! Lol
okcrum
in your chest
There are tiers of open mics/jams of all genres. It's unfortunate when a beginner walks into a pro jam, since it's usually a buzzsaw, and feelings get hurt. Learning is sometimes painful. Reconnaissance is often useful. I generally visit these things before bringing an instrument, unless I'm invited.
It's just as sad when the situation is reversed.
Either way, ridicule and humiliation are not effective teaching methods if the goal actually is to educate as most jazzers will claim their goal is.
I would think a more experienced and real jazzer would have just cut the song short, announced a short break, beckoned the offending player over, and quietly told him he didn’t know how to walk a proper line, and, as a courtesy to the other players and the audience, to stick to the basics and refrain from trying to do it in a performance setting until he learned more.
That might have been equally crushing on a personal level. But it would be far less publicly humiliating for the player than that jive bit of posturing he was subjected to.
I’ve seen far too of that sort of scene go down over the years to know it isn’t helping jazz very much. And it’s the one big reason why I don’t sympathize with jazzers who bemoan how “the kids” aren’t going into to jazz these days. Why would they want to when the message is: “Play jazz! But don’t try to play it until you can.” That’s like saying: Don’t go in the water until you know how to swim.
Too much ego tripping and inner anger for my gut. Especially with many of the jazz jams I’ve seen. Those were mostly about the local self-nominated jazz clique struttin’ their stuff and not being very educational or acting at all welcoming to the newbs and hopefuls. With those the message was loud and clear: “Know your place, boy!”
Maybe it’s completely different today, or elsewhere. But I doubt it.
Way too common, I believe.Too much ego tripping and inner anger for my gut. Especially with many of the jazz jams I’ve seen. Those were mostly about the local self-nominated jazz clique struttin’ their stuff and not being very educational or acting at all welcoming to the newbs and hopefuls. With those the message was loud and clear: “Know your place, boy!”
Maybe it’s completely different today, or elsewhere. But I doubt it.
okcrum
in your chest
Either way, ridicule and humiliation are not effective teaching methods if the goal actually is to educate as most jazzers will claim their goal is.
I would think a more experienced and real jazzer would have just cut the song short, announced a short break, beckoned the offending player over, and quietly told him he didn’t know how to walk a proper line, and, as a courtesy to the other players and the audience, to stick to the basics and refrain from trying to do it in a performance setting until he learned more.
That might have been equally crushing on a personal level. But it would be far less publicly humiliating for the player than that jive bit of posturing he was subjected to.
I’ve seen far too of that sort of scene go down over the years to know it isn’t helping jazz very much. And it’s the one big reason why I don’t sympathize with jazzers who bemoan how “the kids” aren’t going into to jazz these days. Why would they want to when the message is: “Play jazz! But don’t try to play it until you can.” That’s like saying: Don’t go in the water until you know how to swim.
Too much ego tripping and inner anger for my gut. Especially with many of the jazz jams I’ve seen. Those were mostly about the local self-nominated jazz clique struttin’ their stuff and not being very educational or acting at all welcoming to the newbs and hopefuls. With those the message was loud and clear: “Know your place, boy!”
Maybe it’s completely different today, or elsewhere. But I doubt it.
It's true that tact and musical ability are not always found together. Such is the stochastic nature of people. I've run into both, myself. Do the middle and high schools still teach music, and have organized ensembles? That was the breeding ground for the kids at one point.
I do take issue with the assumption in your first sentence. Some types of extreme training most certainly violate your maxim re: effective teaching methods. If you take that kind of thing personally, it devours you. If you don't, you learn to conquer it.
EDIT: I can tell you from experience that there's no feeling like going back to a situation like that and smoking it.
Sometimes you have to experience the lows before you get the highs, in the real world. Dennis Conner wrote a book about it called "Comeback". His gig was winning the America's Cup, after he lost it.
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The pianist is a clod. Find better humans to jam with. That's getting easier these days as blues jams and the like seem to be proliferating.
Just because such antisocial behavior may be fairly common among musicians, that still neither excuses it not argues for its continued tolerance.
Fair enough. We’ll just have to agree to disagree on that particular point then.
Some people of a more masochistic nature may secretly enjoy being humiliated as part of their learning process. Or need such external stimuli to become sufficiently motivated to accomplish something. But from what I’ve seen, that also invariably leads to suppressed anger (“Oh yeah? I’ll show you!”) and ultimately plays into the ‘chip on the shoulder’ attitude you see in a lot of successful people who were brutalized early as part of their student days.
One thing has emerged from numerous clinical studies however. Brutality, incivility, callousness, and casual cruelty begets the same behavior from its victims more often than not should the tables ever be turned. Which makes for a good argument that, contrary to popular opinion, antisocial behavior is a conditioned (i.e. learned) response rather than something “intrinsic to human nature” whatever that may supposedly mean.
My own experience tells me that the only thing insulting and belittling a student reliably accomplishes is driving away the most intelligent and talented. People with brains and talent don’t usually stick around if they feel they're being abused or treated shabbily.
Feel free to disagree. But that’s about all I have to say on that particular topic.
okcrum
in your chest
Just because such antisocial behavior may be fairly common among musicians, that still neither excuses it not argues for its continued tolerance.
Fair enough. We’ll just have to agree to disagree on that particular point then.
Some people of a more masochistic nature may secretly enjoy being humiliated as part of their learning process. Or need such external stimuli to become sufficiently motivated to accomplish something. But from what I’ve seen, that also invariably leads to suppressed anger (“Oh yeah? I’ll show you!”) and ultimately plays into the ‘chip on the shoulder’ attitude you see in a lot of successful people who were brutalized early as part of their student days.
One thing has emerged from numerous clinical studies however. Brutality, incivility, callousness, and casual cruelty begets the same behavior from its victims more often than not should the tables ever be turned. Which makes for a good argument that, contrary to popular opinion, antisocial behavior is a conditioned (i.e. learned) response rather than something “intrinsic to human nature” whatever that may supposedly mean.
My own experience tells me that the only thing insulting and belittling a student reliably accomplishes is driving away the most intelligent and talented. People with brains and talent don’t usually stick around if they feel they're being abused or treated shabbily.
Feel free to disagree. But that’s about all I have to say on that particular topic.
Sure, we can agree to disagree. Usually, what you're trying to separate with hard training are two type of personalities, those that will, and those that won't. It gets pretty primal when you confront basic instincts, as when you rescue someone in a burning building. I also agree with you that, while such things are all too common on the bandstand, they have no place there. As I hope I implied, you might as well learn from the experience, and return ready if/when you do.
The college I went to had an elective jazz improvisation class, and there were some people in the class who did not read music. Obviously they were not music majors, but they benefited from the class. One of the senior jazz guitar instructors taught the class, and it looked like a big group lesson. The instructor had his guitar, and all of the students also had a guitar or bass and a little amp if necessary. There may have been other instruments as well. It's been a long time and I never took the class.
I started learning to read music in the fifth grade on viola. I remember it was slow and frustrating, and little progress was made for the first couple of years. I think I switched to bass around the 8th grade. The bass uses different strings, different fingerings, and a different cleff. I picked up playing by ear pretty quickly, but it was very frustrating trying to read for the first couple of weeks.
I think learning to read music is even more frustrating for someone who has developed significant skill on an instrument. It's like being a bird flying effortlessly, and suddenly you can't even stand on your own two feet. I do think reading notation and chord symbols is extremely valuable if you want to learn and play jazz. A lot of the greats did not read music, but most people who play this music today do.
The tune "So What" is modal. Most tunes in the Real Book don't mention anything about modes because they are tonal. But Dorian is written right next to the chords in "So What."
I think of Dorian mode as the natural minor scale with a raised 6th. So basically when you are playing over the Dmin7 chord, if you decide to play a B, it needs to be B natural instead of Bb. The natural D minor scale has only one accidental (Bb), so playing B natural gives the tune a unique sound. As you may know, the Dorian mode is built on the second note of the C Major scale. In other words, D Dorian has the exact same notes as the C Major scale or Ionian mode.
Thanks for the correction; definitely a typo
. I would fix the original post if I could 
.
No, I don't know that. If you tell me to play a major or minor scale I could demonstrate that in a second, in any key..duh, that is pretty easy but if you start telling me to play a (you name it, diminished this, flat seventh that, augmented whatever... etc..) I'll be like...
I really love the intro to this one.... wish I could just peel this one off like I play other things I have learned by ear....and that is where I hit the wall full stop.
