Chris Fitzgerald blowing my mind and I’m only half way through the vid. I learned traditional (on piano) but hear or prefer organic. It’s always been a problem brain wise, now explained so well.
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Double Bass Path Metheny: When improvisers don't "get it"?
- Thread starter PauFerro
- Start date
In my first jazz improv lessons, the teacher said "think horizontally. Know the melody, and pay attention to how the melody relates to the chords. If you don't have anything to say, then don't play. Oh, yeah - learn What Miles played.". But we did learn our scales, in a framework of chord progressions, not single chords.
I don't know how far along I am. But I'm definitely thinking about a set of notes that fit nicely with the chords (call it a scale!) and those that will sound more out. You don't have to play them in order, like a scale, but they are there in my mind as the safe notes.
I think of playing like speaking. First we learn words and then we learn sentences and while this is going on we learn to converse. Holding a meaningful conversation is really fulfilling. As musicians ideally we converse with the other people we are playing with but we have to know the language first. I think of soloing like having a monologue in a play , what do you want to say? Why do you want to say it? Is it meaningful? Is it necessary?
Is the goal to play the lines in your head, as you hear them, or to get really good at super imposing scales over certain chords? Decide on the goal and reverse engineer from that. My guess is that Metheny's goal is the former.
"The Map is not the Territory"
This is a famous saying by mathemetician Alfred Koryzbski. This discussion has been rehashed many times before and I have a better description now (after 20 years of wrestling with music and other disciplines).
What Pat is suggesting that the person asking is confusing the map for the territory. The map being music theory and such which orients us in a way that we can reductively analyze any passage of music. But in that reduction, content is lost (as anything does in translation). The map is useful as it helps us navigate complex situations but it's not a replacement for what's actually happening. Music transcends the map, transcends the theory just as poetry transcends the refication of the words into something that is felt. When someone is asking about what scales Pat is using, it's ignoring this understanding that one must transcend the mechanics of playing. An arppegio is just a mechanic but when situated in a larger more complex context of song, drama, and poetry, the arp takes on a different life. It is energized into something unreifiable (something that cannot be put into words).
In the past we've talked about these threads as akin to "Dancing about Architecture". In other ways, Hal Galper comes to mind when bands are playing by coincidence: they are playing the same song, same harmony, same pulse, but otherwise have nothing to do with eachother. To be as one voice is to transcend the mechanics into something that is soulful and heartfelt and moves every part of a listeners being.
I still think Mr. Evans said it best (tho I need to listen to Chris' video)
Talking about scales and mechanical things is a form of approximating the end result; not to actually go at it directly. Theory helps to build skills/competency but it's not a replacement for being able to create poetry.
So you can attack the problem from a methodological way, or you can go right at it from a sense of direct experience. In a way, i argue that we need both but i think the latter often gets lost among new learners thinking that method alone is sufficient. Method by itself carries no context. Feeling is something that direct and full of context.
Poesis and poetry pierces the veils of intellect and concept, and gets directly at the heart of the feeling. Which is why it's always powerful and can't be reduced.
This is a famous saying by mathemetician Alfred Koryzbski. This discussion has been rehashed many times before and I have a better description now (after 20 years of wrestling with music and other disciplines).
What Pat is suggesting that the person asking is confusing the map for the territory. The map being music theory and such which orients us in a way that we can reductively analyze any passage of music. But in that reduction, content is lost (as anything does in translation). The map is useful as it helps us navigate complex situations but it's not a replacement for what's actually happening. Music transcends the map, transcends the theory just as poetry transcends the refication of the words into something that is felt. When someone is asking about what scales Pat is using, it's ignoring this understanding that one must transcend the mechanics of playing. An arppegio is just a mechanic but when situated in a larger more complex context of song, drama, and poetry, the arp takes on a different life. It is energized into something unreifiable (something that cannot be put into words).
In the past we've talked about these threads as akin to "Dancing about Architecture". In other ways, Hal Galper comes to mind when bands are playing by coincidence: they are playing the same song, same harmony, same pulse, but otherwise have nothing to do with eachother. To be as one voice is to transcend the mechanics into something that is soulful and heartfelt and moves every part of a listeners being.
I still think Mr. Evans said it best (tho I need to listen to Chris' video)
Talking about scales and mechanical things is a form of approximating the end result; not to actually go at it directly. Theory helps to build skills/competency but it's not a replacement for being able to create poetry.
So you can attack the problem from a methodological way, or you can go right at it from a sense of direct experience. In a way, i argue that we need both but i think the latter often gets lost among new learners thinking that method alone is sufficient. Method by itself carries no context. Feeling is something that direct and full of context.
Poesis and poetry pierces the veils of intellect and concept, and gets directly at the heart of the feeling. Which is why it's always powerful and can't be reduced.
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I think what Pat Metheny is trying to highlight is that someone asking about individual components of music isn't quite to the level where they are really free to express themselves yet. I heard Victor Wooten talk about improvisation being like speech, he said basically when you're talking to someone you aren't thinking of the rules of sentence construction like "I need a noun, then a verb, then adjective, etc" because you already learned and internalized all that stuff. You just say what's on your mind. Pat is on a level where he is well past learning the vocabulary and mechanics of music construction, and it is all internalized to the point where he is able to just "speak" freely whatever is on his mind at any time.
I think I watch this interview maybe every three months. I love it!!! "You can't build on confusion."
It's not the what but how that really distinguishes players.
The Bill Evans video is great. When he plays what he calls “Simple, honest, and real” at 2:25, he is playing what I call organic harmony in the video I linked. The repeated F notes he plays are the anchor of his line, showing that in spite of the shifting changes underneath, the solo is still very key- centric. Later, that F anchor shifts to E when the progression modulates to A Major, but the E is still part of F major and he changes the notes around it to match the modulation while still keeping the anchor in the central key.
What he plays immediately after that, which he calls “overplaying”, is what I think of as “chasing changes”. It’s not that one is right and the other is wrong, but more that in every endeavor, the complex rests on the foundation of the simple, and that without that foundation, it is likely to be full of holes at best.
What he plays immediately after that, which he calls “overplaying”, is what I think of as “chasing changes”. It’s not that one is right and the other is wrong, but more that in every endeavor, the complex rests on the foundation of the simple, and that without that foundation, it is likely to be full of holes at best.
No argument here, Dylan.
But memorizing is one small step away from forgetting, and forgetting is one small step away from a train-wreck. My goal is "internalizing."
When we hear it so clearly that we don't have to think about it, an error is no more and no less than a chance to visit a new, cool, unexpected place.
What they're ALSO not getting is that melody is more than notes. It's rhythm, it's syncopation, it's density, it's dynamics, it's emotional intensity, it's counterpoint, it's consonance and dissonance and so much more. It is everything that forms context, and note-choice is only one part of the context.
A great musician can play a solo using nothing but "wrong" notes that will move people to tears (for the right reasons).
People who focus on, "What are the right notes?" don't get that.
Well yes, you can do that.
It's not the only way for most of us to learn.
But yah, that's fun and helpful.
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I asked Pat “what frets do you use when you improvise?”. He looked at me and said “you really get it, man”.
And yet here we are, sitting down at our instrument, a blank page. What are we gonna DO? Stumble around making all sorts of noises until we make some that sound good to us based on what we’ve HEARD from our music listening. Trial and error is ultimately how anything gets done in the arts. It’s messy. Embrace it. Don’t be afraid of “bum notes” - they’re a necessary part of the process. A scalar approach is an attempt to avoid bum notes - to play safe - but you gotta sound bad before you can sound good. It’s a universal law of creativity that can’t be bypassed… not if you ULTIMATELY wanna sound good anyways. OP: go thrash about in the privacy of your practice room and stop worrying about making “mistakes”. They’re essential. They're the guard rails that are actually keeping you on the right path.
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Joy to the World is the notable exception - a simple descending scale, albeit wit a bit of rhythmic interest.
Dude, me too! Even when I wasn't playing a whole lot of bass. There some deep deep wisdom in his words that applies to many fields.
over 10 years ago i chartered a class at the JazzSchool (aka California Jazz Conservatory) with my teacher Glenn Richman in a class he does every now and then: Tunes in 12 Keys. You can guess what the class is about. Transposition on sight is a doozy and with harder tunes it wasn't just chasing changes it was basically just trying to keep ones place in the form.
I liken it to the metaphor of being a paddler when going river rafting. You're not just listening to the guide telling you when to paddle and the paddling does more than just move the boat forward; paddling actually creates force to keep you in the raft. Otherwise, you easily bump out of the boat and go for a swim.
In strange tunes, it's more than just chasing them, it's just trying to almost stay alive.
And also that's what i'm referring to poetry, stuff in which little is said, but what is said speaks volumes. What's that Mingues quote?
"Making the simple sublime, that's creativity"
I think that Metheny might be getting at the idea that music is a mode of communication, and you aren't receiving the content of the communication fully if you're focusing on scale theory. When I attended the jazz program at U.Miami (Metheny had just left -- my bad luck!) the jazz improv courses started out with scale/chord theory, and we all had to practice our scales and modes. Very useful. But that is beginner stuff, right? I'm still using that knowledge when I improvise, but ideally I'm not really thinking about that stuff much any more. I'm' developing melodic motifs, using dynamics, interacting with the other players, etc. That question also misses the mark in another way. Some great improvisers may not know much of the theory behind what they do at all! But they still make deeply meaningful music.
By memorizing, I mean internalizing- the ability to sing it at any time as well as playing it.
YES! I think that if you internalize all aspects of these things, you are getting it.
I don’t know Metheny personally, but I can imagine his take was that approaching a song with a scale in mind is a little robotic. Even if the scale (or arpeggio) is technically correct for the passage, a certain caliber of player might only use that as a rough guideline but be able to work outside the boundary of the chord if the note(s) generate the right emotive result.
Might be the same as having an informed conversation about a topic. If you’re really comfortable talking about something, you’re more able to make an unexpected or provocative point about that thing and have it still feel like that belongs in the conversation.
Might be the same as having an informed conversation about a topic. If you’re really comfortable talking about something, you’re more able to make an unexpected or provocative point about that thing and have it still feel like that belongs in the conversation.
Didn't we have a thread about Metheny that Pau Ferro started years ago? I don't see a lot of the real explanations for this quote in the thread yet.
Let's start with a key thing about Pat's music: One of his concepts is "radical consonance". This can mean Major chords and sounds right next to each other which is technically atonal but does not have that "clashing" feel.
Next:
The biggest concept in music people have trouble with when and where the melody and harmony connect and the fact that it is not constantly connected. This causes the really, really misguided idea of trying to harmonically justify every note in a line.
We have the chords played on instruments that decay for a reason. Good lines are constantly connecting and disconnecting to the harmony.
A good line, solo, melody or bass line is a mix of harmonic notes, melodic/ornamental notes and notes that create movement and direction.
Finally:
The issue with improvising with a scale for your harmonic effects is that a 7 notes scale contains 7 harmonic effects. A line aimed at effecting the harmony tends to have 2 or 3 harmonic effects.
Pat knows what all 12 notes do in pretty much all harmonic situations so he picks more the ones he wants with more precision if and when he wants to alter the harmony. As I say above, many "out of key" notes do not cause dissonance.
Let's start with a key thing about Pat's music: One of his concepts is "radical consonance". This can mean Major chords and sounds right next to each other which is technically atonal but does not have that "clashing" feel.
Next:
The biggest concept in music people have trouble with when and where the melody and harmony connect and the fact that it is not constantly connected. This causes the really, really misguided idea of trying to harmonically justify every note in a line.
We have the chords played on instruments that decay for a reason. Good lines are constantly connecting and disconnecting to the harmony.
A good line, solo, melody or bass line is a mix of harmonic notes, melodic/ornamental notes and notes that create movement and direction.
Finally:
The issue with improvising with a scale for your harmonic effects is that a 7 notes scale contains 7 harmonic effects. A line aimed at effecting the harmony tends to have 2 or 3 harmonic effects.
Pat knows what all 12 notes do in pretty much all harmonic situations so he picks more the ones he wants with more precision if and when he wants to alter the harmony. As I say above, many "out of key" notes do not cause dissonance.
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There's definitely a lot that the questioners aren't "getting" -- much of which has already been addressed in this thread -- but I'll also offer this:
Pat is mistaken if he believes that "getting it" [sic] is even an attainable goal...for listeners or for players.
"What scales do you use?" is way too granular and/or specific a question to ask an improvisor. But so is "What are you thinking about?" Arguably "What's your process when improvising?" is still too specific a query.
But the idea that *if* any of those questions could be answered, then someone would "get it" is completely misguided:
THERE IS NO "GETTING"
...you hear it. It resonates with you. Or it doesn't. Or it doesn't yet...but then eventually it does. Did you "get it" then"? I would argue that the temporal displacement -- the At First I Didn't Get It But Then I Did aspect -- points to the flaw in the whole concept of "getting"
Pat is mistaken if he believes that "getting it" [sic] is even an attainable goal...for listeners or for players.
"What scales do you use?" is way too granular and/or specific a question to ask an improvisor. But so is "What are you thinking about?" Arguably "What's your process when improvising?" is still too specific a query.
But the idea that *if* any of those questions could be answered, then someone would "get it" is completely misguided:
THERE IS NO "GETTING"
...you hear it. It resonates with you. Or it doesn't. Or it doesn't yet...but then eventually it does. Did you "get it" then"? I would argue that the temporal displacement -- the At First I Didn't Get It But Then I Did aspect -- points to the flaw in the whole concept of "getting"
