PlayJazz

There's been a lot written recently about a new study that claims that the jazz audience is dying and it looks clear that the music is going to face a challenge in finding new listeners in years to come. Now, more than ever, it is vital that there are players that have something original to say if jazz is not going to become a museum piece with an overwhelming past and no future.

Now I don't believe for one second that jazz is dead and I remain utterly convinced that it is a music that anyone can enjoy. I agree with Terry Treacher in the article I linked to that the challenge is how to market the music to a new generation.

However, I am also equally convinced that 95% of jazz gigs are derivative and boring and not helping the situation at all.

You know those gigs you see, the ones you probably play (I know I certainly do) where you turn out with a scratch band and plough through a load of standards in the usual mainstream way, in the way that you and every other jazz musician on the planet has done a million times before? The gigs where all the arrangements are more or less the same, where the endings of tunes are always either a cliché or a bit of a train wreck? The gigs where mixing it up consists of interchanging swing tunes, bossas and the odd ballad? The gigs that are basically just jam sessions but with the same line up for the whole night?

Those gigs are just boring; and they're killing jazz.

And just in case anyone reading this has been playing these gigs and is having a defensive, knee-jerk reaction that says I'm wrong, let me ask you this: when was the last time you told a load of your friends and family that they should come along to your scratch gig because it was going to be a great night?

Another equally valid question: when was the last time that you saw one of these gigs full of musicians who were there just to listen? Unless there is the opportunity to sit in or a big name is playing, even other jazz musicians can't be bothered to go to gigs most of the time. If the people who love jazz enough to dedicate huge chunks of their lives to absorbing and learning to play this music don’t find most gigs interesting enough to attend, then why should anyone else?

Look, I know as well as anyone how difficult it can be, especially if you're trying to make a living as a musician. So many of the venues are really booking background music and the pay is so bad for many of them that you can't afford to rehearse with a band for a one-off gig that pays you about minimum wage when you factor in travelling time, setting-up and packing-down gear and so on.

So I'm not saying that we shouldn't do the restaurant, function, background, 'wallpaper' gigs - after all, they're bread-and-butter for many of us and put food on the table. I understand all too well that we've got to earn money and pay the bills and, like most working musicians, I'm not in a position to turn away paying work because of some flighty delusion of my own worth as an 'artist'. But that doesn't mean that I have to sell my musical soul, it doesn't mean that I have to surrender my whole musical life for a pay-check, it doesn’t mean that has to be the only music I play.

What I am saying is this: if we want jazz to have a future, we all have a responsibility to pull our fingers out and start trying to come up with something worthwhile that's going to put bums on seats and create an audience. And just to be perfectly clear, this doesn't mean that we have to dumb the music down even further and turn it into bland jazz-pop or 'smooth' jazz. It means we have to start playing music we believe in and it means we’re going to have to start believing in ourselves.

I know too many good players who only ever play generic mainstream gigs with scratch bands – and it's such a huge waste. I do firmly believe that jazz has a future and I also firmly believe that we have the musicians with the creativity and passion and potential to take the music in new directions. I am also equally convinced that we can't just leave it to the 'big names' to do it for us.

Brad Mehldau may well be one of the most unique jazz voices to emerge for years and he has deservedly become a massive name in the music world; E.S.T. were a trio with a unique sound that started to bring jazz to an audience more familiar with rock and pop.

Does it then follow that the success of these artists should automatically make people want to come and listen to me going through the motions on the 'The Girl From Ipanema' in a local wine bar with a load of other jaded musicians who idly dream of getting a 'decent' gig, but who wouldn't have a proper band or any material to play even if they did?

If we are going to find a new audience for jazz then we all need to take responsibility and start playing some music that we are truly passionate about, that moves us and that sounds, not like a pastiche of every mainstream band the world has ever seen, but like us.

Now if it's the case that ploughing that well-established furrow of standards with scratch bands is what really gets your musical juices flowing, if that's what lights your spark and makes you glad to be a musician then you keep doing that and do it to the very best of you ability. But if that doesn't fill you up, if it doesn't satisfy your deepest creative desires then start playing something that does.

Rank-and-file jazz musicians have been musical prostitutes for too long. We have been watering down our music for an imagined audience we perceive as too ignorant, uneducated or uncool to appreciate the Real Thing. The irony is, not only are people who would be blown away by the Real Thing not coming to the gigs anymore - the people we assumed we were pandering too aren't coming either.

We've got to make a change, and as a global community of jazz musicians we need to do it together. We need to start making music that we would want to go and listen to ourselves. We need to show the world what's so great about this music that we love and we need to start doing it from the grassroots up. We need to get in front of people in our home towns and cities and start playing music we believe in. We've got to get some fire in our bellies, curb our cynicism and frustration and start believing in ourselves and the power of our music.

In other words, we need to start playing proper jazz. And we need to do it now.

The last couple of posts on blog have looked at overplaying as one of the most common pitfalls that jazz musicians of all levels should be wary of. If you want to catch up with those posts before reading this one, first click here and then here. The links will open in a new window so you can come back to this post when you're done.

I’ve mentioned before how ego can impair a musical performance. One of the most common causes of overplaying is a need to impress and demonstrate technical ability to other players.

This isn’t necessarily ‘showing off’, it can often be born out of feelings of inadequacy, or a lack of confidence in phrasing. Either way, if a player can learn to remove (or at least control) these impulses, he will produce a more musical and rounded performance.

Here are a couple of things I try and keep in mind to help keep the ego out of the equation:

Play for the music

A musician I admire a lot said this to me when I was first starting out - and it still ranks as one of the best pieces of advice I have ever been given. It means that every note you play should be in service of the music.

Have you ever been at a gig where somebody is playing or singing the melody of a tune and another player is putting fills in all around it, to the point where it overpowers the melody? Have you ever heard one player in an ensemble playing too loud? Have you ever heard somebody trying to force ‘cool’ licks and tricks into somewhere they really don’t belong?

Anyone doing any of the above isn't playing for the music. Instead they're focused on themselves, about how they sound and about what the audience thinks of them. Unfortunately for the player, this often backfires and has the opposite effect on the audience than they intended!

If you always try and serve the music, if you always keep the sound of the ensemble uppermost in your mind and play to make the group sound better, you should find yourself less prone to overplaying.

Make musical decisions

This goes hand in hand with the last point. Always ask yourself if you’re making a musical decision to play something. Are you playing those cool fourth voicings because they’ll sound great in this context and support the style of the soloist, or are you playing them because you can and everyone should know how hip you are? Are you switching to double time passages because it will take the musical direction of the solo to another level, or do you just want everyone to hear how big your chops are? Always second guess yourself and ask if you are making a decision for musical or egotistical reasons.

Listen

I mean really listen. And not just to yourself! It’s too easy to be aware of what everyone else is playing on an almost subconscious level. This is a particularly easy trap to fall into if you have done a lot of practice with playalongs or band-in-a-box.

When you use backing tracks in your practice, it’s natural to focus mostly on what you're playing but it’s vital you don’t do this on the bandstand. You need to keep your ears open at all times and try and give equal weight to all the instruments in your mind. This way, you’ll have a much better conception of the ensemble sound and will be much closer to perceiving the music as the audience does.

This is also just as true when you’re soloing. Truly listening to the musicians around you will suggest musical ideas and help to shape your solos. Remember, even if you’re soloing, it is still a group improvisation and working in harmony (no pun intended!) with the rhythm section will make you sound a million times better than if you close your ears and blithely try and impose your own, pre-determined musical agenda on the band.

Don’t peak too soon!

If you’re on gig, remember that there will be plenty of tunes and plenty of opportunities to demonstrate your prowess. A common mistake is to try and pack everything you know, all your best material into every solo. You don’t have to get it all into every tune and on a gig you will have ample opportunity to showcase everything you’ve got.

If you nail all your best tricks in your first solo, what will the audience listen to after that? Sometimes it’s wise to hold something back so that your whole set, just like a good arrangement, has a structure and a deliberate climax that the music can build towards. Try and think about your set as a musical whole and see the bigger musical picture outside of one solo in one tune.

Let it go

This is easier said than done, but before you hit your first note, try and let go of all your fears, your hopes, your insecurities, your need to impress, your need for respect and recognition and your desire to play well; all of these things will only hinder you on the bandstand. It can sometimes help to picture all of these things being formed into a ball in your mind, which you can mentally throw away before you play.

However you do it, allowing yourself to acknowledge all of the psychological factors that can get in the way and letting them go before you play, can result in a much more musical performance.

These are just a couple of tips that I’ve found have helped me to control some of the negative psychological factors that can stop me from playing to my best, but this is as much of an ongoing battle for me as for everyone else.

If you have any suggestions of your own for controlling your ego when playing, it’d be great if you could write a comment or send an email so everyone can benefit. If I get enough good tips I might collate them all into a reference-post containing all the best advice.

Until next time…

In my last post, I talked about the widespread problem of overplaying in jazz and suggested some tips for things to do in practice to help us play less but say more. If you didn’t see that article, you can check it out here.

As I mentioned in that post, overplaying has a lot to do with the way we practice when we're trying to remove any musical constraints caused by technical limitations. However, I’m also convinced that a large part of the problem is to do with psychological factors – perhaps most notably our egos.

There is an innate desire to impress when jazz musicians get together. The first question good players ask about another musician is ‘can he play?’ If you’re playing with musicians for the first time, you want to let them know that you can play, that you know what you’re doing. This often results in overplaying as you try to prove your worth and ability to the rest of the band.

Jam sessions are another minefield if you’re trying to avoid overplaying. They may have a long and noble tradition in the history of jazz, but they’re always full of players who are trying to impress each other as well as the audience. It’s inevitable that overplaying happens when the primary goal of the soloist is to showcase how good he is.

Even if you’re playing with a regular band, the need to impress, to prove your musical worth is never very far away. Have you ever had to take a solo after another player has really torn it up with a lot of high/fast/loud, technically amazing passages?

This is the situation that spawned cutting contests and though they’re unfashionable these days, cutting contests played a hugely important part in the development of jazz improvisation by making players focus on technical mastery and developing new vocabulary.

Many innovations in the music arose from players looking for new sounds to help them ‘cut’ other musicians and these contests no doubt contributed to the standards of technical excellence that modern jazz musicians must reach if they want to be taken seriously.

(Incidentally, the history of classical music contains many examples of similar contests and virtuosos like Pagannini and Liszt were probably involved in as many cutting contests as Oscar Peterson and Louis Armstrong. It’s no surprise that technical excellence is also mandatory in classical music.)

If you have ever followed a particularly brilliant solo, how did that make you feel? Didn’t you feel under pressure to match, or even top the brilliant pyrotechnics your colleague produced? Even if you decided you weren’t going to try and beat them at their own game, you probably played something obviously and deliberately simple to impress upon the listeners that you weren’t trying to compete. Either way, it is highly likely that your ego was dictating what you played - not than your musical mind.

This is the heart of the problem. Whenever ego is involved, we inevitably make poor musical decisions. We play too many notes, or too fast, or too loud, or too high; dynamic contrast is forgotten and it doesn’t normally result in us producing great art.

It’s a personal contention of mine that a lot of jazz can be pretty boring. For every truly great album in the history of jazz, there are probably 30 that are dull as ditchwater. I put this down a combination of the uniquely prolific output of the average jazz musician (nobody can be brilliant all the time) coupled with a slew of technical excellence that often belies the fact that there isn’t a lot of music being made.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting for a moment that the simple and spacious solo is by definition more musically interesting than the complicated and technically demanding one. I’m just pointing out that ego and the need to impress can play a big factor in musical decisions – usually to the detriment of the music.

Our goal as musicians should be to play music for the sake of the music itself, and to make musical decisions with no other considerations. Our ultimate aim should be to produce a performance totally unfettered by technical deficiencies or our own egotistical needs and sensibilities. It’s likely we may never get there, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do all we can in pursuit of that ambition.

The next post will focus on overcoming the psychological factors I’ve mentioned here and look for ways to free us from our egos and allow us to concentrate on making music. I’ll look forward to seeing you then.

Overplaying has got to be the most common mistake in jazz. In the overwhelming majority of jazz solos, there are very few moments when the soloist leaves a rest of more than a couple of beats. I think that overplaying is the biggest challenge we improvising musicians face – whatever level we’re at.

For the great players, overplaying is a purely aesthetical problem – i.e. would a good solo have been improved by leaving more space? However for most of us, overplaying leads to a whole host of problems when our facility doesn’t match our ambition - when our hands aren’t as quick as our brains.

Have you ever tried to execute an idea but had to pull out of it because you knew you weren’t going to pull it off? Of course, you have; everybody has. Even in fairly advanced players, this is more common than you might think – good players are just better at disguising it.

For example, a player may start a semiquaver (16th note) passage that he intends to run for 8 bars. However, he realises that he’s not going to get there and either ends the idea early or switches to triplets to make it easier to cope. If he does this competently, the listener may be none the wiser and assume that this is what he intended all along.

As improvisers, our ultimate goal is to able to play anything that we hear in our heads so, although it might not sound wrong, the player knows that he has fallen short of his original intention.

Most of our practice time is spent trying to get to the stage where our facility allows us to express anything we choose. This is why overplaying can have such a detrimental effect on our playing – and why we nearly all do it!

When we practice improvising over changes, in order to try and get to the stage where we can do anything, we often try and play everything. The goal is to get to the stage where technique doesn’t limit our ideas, our musical mind is in charge and all options are open to us on the bandstand.

Unfortunately, this means that we overplay all the time when practicing because we are trying to prepare for every contingency. However, what we play on the bandstand tends to mirror what we play in our practice time and, as a result, so many of us play too much.

I personally believe that even the great players are guilty of overplaying much of the time and that many solos would be improved with more space – it’s just that the great players are great at nailing everything they play so they still sound pretty awesome! If great players can be guilty of overplaying, and we’re all copying them, it’s not surprising that the problem is endemic.

Alas, I’m as guilty of playing too many notes as anyone, but I have been trying to address the problem recently in my own practice and I thought would share a couple of things I’ve found helpful.

The first comes from Randy Halberstadt’s excellent book Metaphors for the Musician. He suggests this exercise: When you start a solo an idea will pop into your musical brain. Ignore it. Shortly, if not instantly, another idea will occur. Ignore that one too. When the third idea pops up, that’s the one that you should play. Do this before starting every phrase. By waiting for the third idea, you automatically leave more space in your solos and the phrases are more separated.

(Incidentally this exercise is also a great one to use if you feel like you’re playing the same old ideas all the time as it forces you out of that technical autopilot that jazz musicians can get stuck on from time to time.)


My next suggestion is simply to spend some time practicing playing less. At first, it will feel really strange to leave so much space when you’re used to playing all the time, but it’s important to remember that your perception as a player of how much space you are leaving will often be very different to that of the listener. It may feel like you’re hardly playing anything at all and yet the listener will just hear some nicely spaced phrases.

This is why recording your practicing is invaluable and if you haven’t done it before you will be amazed at how little you can play without it sounding empty. For some reason, a rest always sounds longer when you’re playing it than when you’re listening to it!

Another good tip if you can record is to play a ‘normal’ solo on a tune you know well and use the recording to transcribe and ‘edit’ your solo – in the same way that a writer will go back and edit a draft of something he’s written. Throw out anything that sounds like overplaying and focus on retaining only the strongest phrases and ideas. Once you’ve done this, record the edited solo and compare the two. Chances are you’ll sound like a much better player on the edited version – even though you’re playing a lot less!

I hope that these tips are useful, but the physical causes of overplaying are only one contributing factor to this problem cropping up so often. The others are all in our minds and I’m currently drafting a couple of posts which will focus on the psychological causes of overplaying and see what can be done to overcome them.

Thanks for reading, and happy practicing!

I've set up a new email address specifically for the blog if anyone has questions, queries, remarks or other feedback that they don't want to leave in the comments section. You can now email me at:

playjazzblog@yahoo.co.uk

Thanks!

Barry

PS Spouses/sons/associates of deposed/deceased African Kings/Princes shouldn't bother emailing - even if we are 'Brothers in Christ'.

PPS I know I haven't won any kind of lottery/prize draw by the simple virtue of not having entered any. Don't bother trying to tell me otherwise.

PPPS I'm really not interested in increasing my length or girth, nor do I require any kind of boner pills - regardless of how unbelievable the price is.

Over the summer, I’ve been going to quite a few local gigs and making a real effort to support the grassroots jazz scene after reading some research done by the Musician’s Union which shows a fall in the number of small venues in the UK featuring live music.

Two things have become abundantly clear to me over the last couple of months:

1. There are plenty of talented musicians around who aren’t getting the recognition they deserve.
2. There are plenty of talented musicians around who just don’t help themselves.

To save you the bother of having to go to any gigs yourself, I have compiled my research into the following, free and incredibly handy guide...

The Free And Incredibly Handy PlayJazz Five Point Guide On How To Put People Off Coming To Any More Of Your Gigs

1. Don’t decide what you’re going to play in advance

It always looks really cool if everyone can tell you haven't spent any time thinking about what tunes you’re going to play. It’s even better if you spend 3 or 4 minutes between each song debating what you should do next with the rest of the band and flicking though fake books. If you can turn your back on the audience, that’s even better.

Make sure the gap between songs is always long enough for the audience to start getting bored and begin chattering. This way, the people who don’t take the opportunity to slip out the door won’t be listening when you do eventually start your next tune.

There is no such thing as taking too long to pick a tune, but however long it takes, never, ever, discuss the ending of that tune so it’s always a bit of a train wreck when you get there.

2. Make sure you look a mess

Wear the oldest, scruffiest clothes you can. Ideally, you’ll look like you’ve just crawled out of a hedge to start playing. Shorts and flip-flops in the summer months are hugely appropriate (especially on evening gigs) and the audience will think you must be super-hip and cool not to care about what they think you look like.

As an added bonus, the person who has booked you will be really happy that you’re more casually dressed than even his scruffiest customers because everyone will be able to tell who is in the band.

What’s more, he will then recognise the fact that you are artists forced to jump through his corporate-bullshit hoops to pay the bills and he’ll respect you for not comforming to any bourgeois ideas about the ‘tone of the place’. If he wants your genius, he gets it on your terms, right?

3. Ignore the audience

Try not to talk to or otherwise engage the audience in any way whatsoever. Ignore them as much as possible and pretend you’re just rehearsing in a garage somewhere. If the audience isn’t hip enough to realise how awesome your music is then that’s their loss isn’t it?

Don’t announce tunes or explain anything about what you’re doing – if it’s a standard, they should know it and if it’s an original, the music should speak for itself, man.

If it’s a particularly quiet night, then some kind of snotty, knowingly ironic remark about the size of the audience will always go down well.

And if you absolutely must say something over the mic, make sure it’s one positioned at the bell of a saxophone so you have to crouch down or bend double to talk into it. When you do talk, make sure you mumble unintelligibly and never look directly into the audience or they’ll know you’re selling out.

4. Don’t vary your set

If you want to be really hip, make sure all your tunes are mid to up-tempo numbers and play them at full-volume. Make sure everybody solos on every tune and that solos follow in the same order. For example, the correct arrangement for all quintet tunes is:

• Head
• Horn solo
• Other horn solo
• Piano solo
• Bass solo
• Drum solo or trading 4’s
• Out head

This should never be deviated from. If you have funny ideas about 'variety' then you are allowed to have the drums solo only on every third tune - but the rest remains unaltered.

Play the same solo on every tune if you can. The correct formula is to start with some token short phrases (so it’s clear you’re ‘telling a story’) for a couple a bars before launching into a frenzy of double-timing for the remaining 98% of the solo.

If you’re a horn player, you should get up to the top end of your range as soon as you can and stay there. The dynamic marking should never fall below fffffffffffffffffffffffffff - unless you have a collapsed lung. ffffffffffffff is acceptable in such cases.

Make sure you never leave a silence longer than two beats and, particularly if you’re a horn player, make sure that all that pesky space around the melodic phrases of the out-head gets filled with gems of improvisational genius.

Make sure everybody plays all the time; Never create space, texture or dynamic by letting instruments sit out.

If you must ignore the earlier advice and play a ballad, make sure it always ends with a Sonny Rollins-esque unaccompanied saxophone cadenza before the final chord.

5. Drink (lots) on stage

Let's face it, this is a terrible gig isn’t it? You don’t want to be playing in some crappy bar or restaurant, you should at the very least be in a proper jazz club – if not a concert hall, so why shouldn’t you have a drink?

Besides, as soon as you start playing, the audience will recognise your musical genius for what it is and understand the only way you can stand to play here is by numbing the pain with alcohol. I mean, they might be here voluntarily but you have no choice – you have to be here. They’ll understand that this place may be alright for them, but they’re not tortured geniuses are they?

It’s perfectly acceptable to use the lengthy down-time between songs to acquire more alcohol – just unhook your instrument and go to the bar. If you’re already some kind of sell-out and are worried it may look unprofessional, then simply ask someone to bring you more drink over the microphone.

Besides, drink never affected your ability to play and you’re probably looser after a couple. In fact, if Branford called you up tomorrow to play at the Royal Festival Hall, you wouldn’t go on stage without a pint in your hand would you?

_________________________

Stick with the advice above and you’ll go far. Always remember, jazz is not entertainment, it’s art and you should do everything in your power to make people understand that, being a jazz musician, you’re more cultured, sensitive, intelligent, hip and creative than they are.

If the world’s not yet smart enough for your unique genius or society has dumbed down too much to appreciate jazz - that’s not your problem is it? You stick to your guns my friend and don’t think of doing anything differently. After all, as Frank Zappa famously said ‘Jazz isn’t dead, it just smells funny’.

I went round to a bass player's house the other day for a bit of a jam. I'm always interested in how other musicians practice and the way they approach their music. As I sat at the piano, I noticed a piece of paper pinned to the wall outlining a list of things to practice. It said something like:

• Scales& Arpeggios
• Major & minor ii-V-I's in all keys
• Rhythm changes (all keys)
• New tunes
• Maintaining existing repertoire

"Interesting routine" I said "Do you manage to stick to it?"
"No" he said with a laugh "does anyone?"

I've written before about practice routines and how they're not as useful as people may tell you, but something has occurred to me recently in structuring my own practice that I thought may be worth discussing.

Here in Liverpool, there's a very good gig and jam session that takes place on a Tuesday night. Sometimes, when I'm practicing on a Tuesday afternoon I think about learning a new tune to play at the session that night.

So I pick out a tune and start working on it. I play the head through a couple of times and then start blowing over the changes. Now, improvising is by far my favourite part of playing jazz and once I get into this, this inevitably takes up the majority of the session.

Unfortunately, several times I've got to the jam and not been able to call the tune because, whilst I know the changes and can blow over them perfectly competently, I realise I can't remember the melody!

For me, improvising is the icing on my musical cake. It's the tastiest, most exciting bit that makes it interesting and appealing and delicious! Unfortunately, the basic melody is the cake itself and if you don't have that, you have nothing to put the icing on!

I don't know if this is a common experience or it's just me, but I do know that I can avoid this situation by simply deciding exactly what it is I want to achieve at the start of the session and making sure that all the bases are covered by the time I finish.

You see, if I don't consciously direct myself to do things that need to be done, the creative part of my brain takes over and just drags all my attention to whatever is the most fun at the moment – in my case, that's blowing over the changes, not learning the melody.

I think that the creative nature and desire to express that musicians naturally have makes it hard for us to stick to regimented regimes such as the one my friend had pinned up in his practice room. However, this doesn't mean that we can't take care of all the details in our playing if we want to improve.

I have found it helpful to think about my practice as consisting of two distinct disciplines - Big Picture Practice and Detail Practice.

Big Picture Practice relates to the music as a whole. It could just involve sight-reading the melody or ploughing through the changes and getting from the top of the chart to the bottom. When learning an uptempo tune, it could involve ramping the tempo up and simply trying to exist on the tune at that speed.

Whatever it involves, Big Picture Practice deals with a thing in its entirety and is useful for two reasons.

1. It helps you to conceive a tune as a whole and not a series of sections bolted together. Understanding the 'big picture' always makes for a more musical performance when it's time to play live.
2. It helps you learn how to cope with music you haven't had a lot of time to prepare – an essential skill at any gig or jam session.

Detail practice is just the opposite. It involves breaking things down and working on the...well...details! For different players, that will involve different things; for me that could be making sure I have memorised the pesky melody properly! For somebody else, it may be something different. Whatever it is, Detail Practice involves perfecting things you have been fudging in Big Picture practice

To take a different example, let's say you're learning to blow on "All The Things You Are" (or All The Chords There Are as it's sometimes called!). You have been doing Big Picture Practice for a while and can get through the tune, making all the correct key changes and staying in the right key. People listening may not realise there are any details that need work.

However, when you switch to Detail Practice, you now go into more depth. For example, you may be fine on the 'A' section but what about the 'B' – especially that tricky bit in E major? Are you always playing the same ideas in that part to get by?

Big picture Practice may have helped you to cope in that section, but in Detail Practice you now go into depth and make sure you can really nail it.

Generally this involves working on expanding your options – it could be working on different scales you could use in your improvisation or coming up with more chord voicings instead of the default ones you have used to get by in Big Picture Practice.

Whatever it is, you narrow the focus, expand your possibilities and take care of the details.

This way of thinking doesn't only apply to tunes either. Let's say you're trying to learn a new scale for improvising over ii-V-I progressions. You may start with detail practice, getting the basic scale under your fingers.

Then, once you have it down, you may put on a playalong and try to take it through all the keys.

Finally you would note the keys that aren't as fluent as some of the others (because there's always a couple isn't there?), switch back to Detail Practice and iron out the flaws.

The beauty of this way of thinking is that you don't have to do Big Picture and Detail Practice one after the other or even in the same session - just do whichever you're in the mood for. However, I would advise you to keep a written record of what you need to work on when it's time for Detail Practice so you don't forget.

Sometimes, you can feel really motivated to do Detail Practice – this is what lets you stick to that rigid regime on the wall for a few days before you give in! If you are in that mood then definitely go to town on the details. If not, work on the Big Picture for something else and do details another day.

As long as you make sure you have done both kinds of practice before trying something new on the bandstand and you'll almost certainly give a good account of yourself.

By thinking in this way, you can add structure your practice sessions whilst still being creative and flexible. What's more, you can avoid the guilt and frustration that comes from setting yourself impossible practice goals that you can't and won't stick to.

Give it a try and let me know if it works for you.

Here’s a quick tip for adding a touch of the unexpected to the ending of a tune and holding the audience’s attention until the very last bar.

Quite simply, if a tune in a major key finishes on chord I, delay the resolution by playing a maj7 chord a half-step above the tonic before you finally hit the I chord. In other words, if the piece finishes on an F chord, hit a Gb first.

Let’s look at a notated example to give you an idea of the sound. Many pieces end using a standard ii-V-I progression.

We can delay the resolution temporarily by hitting a Gbmaj7 chord before ending on the Fmaj7. Remember, Gbmaj7 is a half-step above the final chord of this piece. Our ending could now look this:

Don’t worry if you can’t reach the tenths in the left hand in the above examples. You can always play the top note on the lower stave with your right hand if you wish and feel free to voice the chords however you like once you have grasped the basic principle.

This technique is particularly effective if the melody ends on the keynote as that will be the major 7th of the penultimate chord and the root of the final one. In the key of F major, the note of ‘F’ is both the major 7th in a Gbmaj7 chord and the root of an Fmaj7 chord.

There are a probably millions of tunes that end on the tonic but here are a couple of suggestions for common tunes to get you started. I’ve tried to ensure the copy/commonly played keys are all different so you can master the technique in different tonalities:

• I Should Care (C major)
• Stardust (Db Major)
• Blue Daniel (D major)
• Misty (Eb Major)
• Georgia On My Mind (E major)
• I Thought About You (F major)
• Here’s That Rainy Day (G major)
• All The Things You Are (Ab major)
• Triste (A major)
• Everything Happens To Me (Bb Major)

That should cover 10 out of the 12 keys! If anyone has any suggestions for tunes that end on the keynote in Gb or B major, please let me know.

Enjoy!

Last time, I talked about backing tracks, playalongs and the increasingly common role they play in musicians’ development. Whilst I believe that playalongs are a fantastic tool, there are some things I think it important to keep in mind if you intend to use them in your practice. Here is the PlayJazz guide to getting the most from Playalongs.

Listen!

The thing that makes working with playalongs different from real musicians is that playalongs are always the same. Even if you’re using a program like Band-in-a-box, which is capable of providing some variation in the rhythm section parts, the ‘backing’ is consistent but broadly unchanging.

You must be careful that using playalongs doesn’t result in you teaching yourself to ignore a rhythm section. If you’re shredding changes with a frequently used playalong, it can be easy to focus almost exclusively on what you are doing – after all, you know exactly how the rhythm section will play; exactly the same as always.

Focusing only on your playing is a bad habit that you don’t want to take onto the bandstand. The best jazz performances are ones where the musicians are really listening to each other, feeding each other ideas and improvising as a group.

Even when one musician is soloing, the others aren’t there to provide ‘backing’. They are also improvising, working with the soloist to provide counterpoint to his ideas and give him suggestions and options about the direction of the music.

The repetitive and predictable nature of playalongs means it can be easy to relegate the rhythm section to your subconscious and make it all about you. Don’t let this happen.

Variety is the spice of life

It is also important not to use playalongs exclusively for practicing tunes or progressions. One of the delights of playing jazz is that you never play a tune the same way twice. If you sit in at a session to play ‘Stella’ and have only ever played it as medium swing (because that’s how it is on your playalong), you’re going to struggle if the rest of the band decides to do it as a blistering Samba.

You should practice tunes in different styles, at different tempos and with different changes, aiming to become becoming flexible and versatile – two hallmarks of a good jazz player.

Don’t stop making music

Playalongs are often used in technical practice when learning how to navigate through certain changes. Often, the goal in these sessions is to be able to shred through these changes without stopping. After all, on the bandstand, you don’t want to be limited by technical deficiencies and if you can shred through chorus after chorus of a tune without stopping, you will have the facility to play much more of what you hear in your head.

There’s nothing wrong with this; but if you do this kind of practice with playalongs, you must make sure you balance it with other, more musical playing. Don’t fall into the trap of playing with a band as you would with a playalong.

On stage, what you practice most tends to come out in your playing and if all you’ve have been doing for the last fortnight is unmusically shredding with a playalong, guess what you’ll sound like on the gig?

Practice not just shredding changes, but spend time working on how to structure a solo, developing thematic ideas, phrasing and all the other things that make a great jazz solo more than a technical exercise

Turn off the piano channel

Another potential downfall with the repetitive nature of a playalong is that you can allow your phrasing on a tune to be dictated by what the pianist plays on the record – especially if you have worked with the record a lot and know what it’s going to sound like.

Turn off the piano channel every now and again so you have the freedom to direct your lines anywhere you wish. In a live situation, the piano (or any chordal instrument) will work with the soloist, but ultimately, the soloist should have the ultimate say on where the music goes next.

Don’t EVER use playalongs live

This is a personal bugbear of mine, but I have had the misfortune a couple of times to come across solos or duos in pubs and restaurants using playalongs as backing tracks. Please don’t do this. It sounds rubbish and it’s tacky.

Apart from anything else, many jazz fans are also players and as soon as they hear Jamey Aebersold counting off the tune they’ll know exactly what you’re up to, how little effort you’ve put into the gig and they won’t be impressed. I don’t care if your favourite music of all time really is “ii-V-I in all keys”, leave the playalongs in the practice room where they belong!

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In summary, whilst playalongs are undoubtedly a great resource, they are no substitute for interacting with real musicians. Jazz is at it’s finest when a group of players are all working together, improvising as a group and driving the music forward (and at it’s worst when they’re ignoring each other and going through the motions).

If I had to condense the post to one point it would be this: Playalongs are useful and should be used as one part of your practice routine. However, relying too much on them, or using them exclusively can lead to bad habits which will lead to you coming unstuck when it’s time to play real music in the real world.

PlayJazz, with a PlayAlong? By all means, but PlayMusic - always.

Generally, I think that studying with a good teacher is the best way to learn jazz. However, good teachers can be hard to find. Fortunately, there are lots of resources on the market that can help the improving jazzer on his/her quest.

In the previous post, we looked at some of the books that I've found useful in the past, and today I want to talk about the best way to use another potentially fabulous learning tool – the playalong.

In recent times, The playalong has become an increasingly common tool amongst students of jazz. With the advent of digital media, the ubiquity of portable audio players and the ability to offer specialist products to the whole world via the internet, there has never been a wider range of playalong material to choose from.

The most famous playalongs are probably the Jamey Aebersold series of recordings. These have been around for a long time; they were initially released in the era of records and tapes (you may have to google those terms if you're under a certain age!) and the range has continued to expand over the years. Today there are well over a hundred volumes in the series.

An Aebersold playalong is essentially a recording of real musicians providing backing tracks for improvisation. The CDs come with books containing lead sheets and instructional material concerning improvisation. There are three main categories of Aebersold playalong:

1. Collections of standards (such as Autumn Leaves, Girl from Ipanema, Stella etc.)

2. Recordings of tunes by a particular artist or composer eg (Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington etc.)

3. Records dealing with specific study topics such as the ii-V-I progression, turnarounds, blues, rhythm changes etc.

The recordings have the bass and piano tracks panned fully to left or right channel so musicians that play those instruments can effectively mute a part with the balance control on their hi-fi.

A more recent option for generating backing tracks is the Band-in-a-Box software from PG Music. Unlike a pre-recorded playalong, here you simply enter a chord progression using standard chord symbols (like Bbmaj7, G7#5 etc) select a style and a backing track is generated for you to work with.

As you are essentially dealing with midi information, you have a whole host of options you don't have with audio playalongs, such as altering the tempo, changing the key, muting any instrument or changing the style. For example, you could punch in the chords to Nature Boy, practice it as a slow bossa and, with a couple of mouse clicks, transform it to an up-tempo swinger.

The flexibility of midi files makes them a popular choice for providing backing tracks and there are many you can find free on the web which naturally vary in quality. However, as a tuition aid, I can heartily recommend the excellent and FREE midi files of Doug McKenzie.

Doug is a very talented pianist and is passionate about helping others to learn jazz. Many of the free files on his site contain markers embedded in the song which describe some of the techniques he is using at that particular point in the music.

The great advantage of this is you can hear a cool sound and instantly find out how it's being made: It's like sitting next to someone while they're playing and getting them to stop and show you what they did when something grabs your attention!

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In recent years, the playalong has become an increasingly important tool for learning jazz as the opportunities to play live on a regular basis have been dramatically reduced.

Before being replaced by DJs and recorded music, live bands were pretty much everywhere. In those now long-gone halcyon days, if you wanted music in a venue you hired a band and demand for live music meant that making your living solely from gigging was not only possible, but normal. This contrasts dramatically with the current situation when even the finest musicians often have to rely on other sources of income (such as teaching) to make a living in the field.

In practical terms, the improving musician no longer gets to ‘go to school on the bandstand’ and this means that a lot of a musician's development must happen in the practice room.

As a result, playalongs have become increasingly popular and, used in the correct way, they can be an invaluable practice tool. However, there are some pitfalls that you need to be aware of so the next post on this blog will talk specifically about the best way to work with playalongs, what to keep in mind when using them and how to make sure that they aid, not damage your development.

I hope you'll check it out.