A Jazz Guitar Learning Journey

Easy Trick for Better Use of Licks While Improvising

Someone mentioned to me that the toughest thing to them about using licks was remembering where to use them and then turning them into something bigger than a short lick (otherwise, you turn into one of those that just plays for 10 seconds at a time). This simple approach works if you have learned all your scales and arpeggios by patterns and degrees (and if you haven’t, do so now before doing anything else).

Instead of learning them by pattern or note, learn then by degree. You’ll immediately recognize where a lick is simply a specific rhythm and pattern based on a scale or arpeggion pattern you already know. This makes them far easier to remember. You’ll then be able to easily work them into any standard you’re playing, regardless of key, and build far longer improvisations off a short lick.

And this comes with my now more common disclaimer that I don’t do this often enough, but the little I do makes a huge difference.

PS, if you need a good collection of basic licks to get started on, try Frank Vignola’s 50 Jazz Licks app or CD at http://truefire.com/50jazzlicks/50jazzlicks_frank.html

Tips on learning new licks (bluesurfdogz.com)

Jazz Guitar App Reviews: Amazing Slow Downer and SightRhythmRead

Two apps I’ve been using a lot lately are worth noting as they solve some everyday, important problems.

Reading Rhythm – as any classical training I had went out the door with 8th grade graduation (let’s just say I was watching the solid gold dancers back then…), my ability read rhythm is basic at best. This is a fantastic and very easy app to learn how to read rhythm again. Unlike sight reading trainers, which are no replacement for actually practice (so your fingers go where your eyes read), this does give you skills you can practice on the go and take back to your planning. It simply has you tap to the rhythm you read…and as that reading-rythm tapping becomes second nature, it will show up in your playing/sight reading as well – info at https://sites.google.com/site/sightreadrhythm/home

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Slow down music to transcribe it – The second challenge I had was transcribing by ear by favorite versions of standard…in particular, Frank Vignola pieces. He has an incredibly melodic approach to improvisation (yeah yeah, all those greats are melodic, but some more than others). But given that he plays faster than a bat out of hell, it’s hard to follow long. The Amazing Slow Downer is a great app that imports a tune and lets you slow it down while also marketing stop and start points (so you can’t listen and practice to particularly difficult parts. It does a decent job keeping pitch though when you slow it to about 60% or less it does start to slur like a drunken player. But just take a drink yourself and it will sound normal again. http://www.ronimusic.com/

Practice: Scales, Arpeggios, Chords

A few thoughts on approaches to practicing so that it’s not as painful as I found it in the first year (perhaps others know this and I should finally get a teacher…but why give up on stubbornness)

Scales & arpeggios – Learning the scales by pattern, degree and note (but all in patterns) is just a fundamental strength everyone needs. But I’ve found that learning as many arpeggio patterns with all possible extensions can make a huge difference not only in improvising but in picking up new tunes by ear. Too often you’ll try to figure out a melody only to find you know it…it’s simply a various on a scale and/or arpeggio that’s already in your memory muscle.

Chords, inversions, substitutions and more – Open up The Real Book and practice chords by just planing through some favorite lead sheets…but then replay it over and over using different inversions, substitutions, throw in some back cycling.

Combine the two – Take the lead sheets for some tunes you enjoy and want to improvise two and play through the chords as arpeggios starting/ending on different appropriate degrees (hear when it might sound good to start on a3rd end on a fifth or a root et), inversions and throwing in extensions, back cycling and so forth. You’ll be hearing whole new melodies to use in your playing.

You get the picture. By the way, I’m terrible at practicing this way but even doing this a little (and, sadly, I mean little has greatly improved my mental chord library. Do as I say, not as…

Transcribing and Creating Sheet Music with Symphony Pro

One critical area of learning jazz guitar is listening and transcribing what you hear. But holding a guitar, hitting play and stop on a music device (stereo, iPad etc) and then writing notes on blank sheet music is a real pain….especially the last part where my handwriting (yes, even for filling in a little hole and line for a note) wouldn’t pass the first grade. Symphony Pro to the rescue.

In short, Symphony Pro gives me a virtual piano that sounds like a variety of instruments. Play the note, and the note appears on sheet music. So now I can sit at home, or on a train, and transcribe. I simply switch between a piece of music where I listen to a few notes and this app where I find the notes on the keyboard, whereupon they appear in the sheet music. Here are some of the key features:

? 95 high quality instruments including a drum kit
? Edit compositions with the 88-key keyboard or by tapping directly on the score.
? Import MIDI, ABC, or Symphony files
? Export compositions as MP3, PDF, MIDI, MusicXML, LilyPond, or Symphony files.
? Up to 6 tracks and 4 voices per composition
? Advanced editing support, such as copy/paste & undo/redo
? Score displays in full screen, like sheet music, when the iPad is in portrait mode
? Playback can be looped to refine specific measures
? Play piano without entering any notes to test out phrases
? Text tool allows you to add lyrics or annotations to your pieces

The iPad version is a first version so there are still a few kinks (such as a skimpy manual) but this is a great app for $13 that makes transcribing music easier and more portable than ever.

P.S., don’t worry if you don’t play piano. I haven’t since I was 9 but it was easy to pick up. Unlike guitar, there is only one note in each octave per key and they all follow the same patters. So, just learn the C scale in the middle and move up or down for different octaves.

Listening Break: Frank Vignola’s Scheherazade

I went to a Frank Vignola Trio concert the other week – Frank is one of my two favorite guiatrists (the other being Stochelo Rosenberg). The trio basic took us on a world tour of music, applying their style of jazz guitar to standards, blues, rock and classical. It was his take on classical that reminded me how a jazz approach to other genres can create amazing music. Here’s Frank Vignola and Vinny Raniolo playing Scheherazade. Hit play, sit back, and enjoy.

Improvising – Arpeggios, Approach Notes and Tetrachords

Of the course of my 18 month (so far) learning journey, I’ve read a lot of about the benefit and importance of arpeggios but have not made practical use of them. The simple, inexcusable reason highlights a problem with self-learning…it can be difficult to simplify things you don’t fully understand. So a quick lesson with a professional jazz guitarist followed by a few pages from a great book by Andrew Green on Jazz guitar structures (here) solved that problem. The professional player simply gave me one single form Arpeggiated Maj7 form to use starting on the D string and ending on the B string. The form was a bit of a stretch but allowed me to simply move up and down the fretboard, creating Min7, Dominant and others by simply lowering/raising the 3rds, 5ths and 7ths. Once you get the idea, you can simply choose other three string forms that work well in improvisation and start on other strings (Andrew Green’s book gave me some good ideas here). For complete runs using all strings I simply use areggio forms from within the Major chord forms.

Example: Arpeggio form I use starting on the D string.

There’s plenty you can do with arpeggios but by adding in a few others short-learning curve tricks, I’m able to throw in a few suprises into improvised melodies. For example, throwing in an approach note at the start of a melody can add some interesting color. From the same Jazz Structures book, I learned a bit about using Tetrachords and started mixing in the first four notes of the chord scale. With all that, on top of improvising just using the appropriate scale mode, I have an expanding tool set that just makes improvising all the more enjoyable.

The Neuroscience of Improvisation (innovationclearandsimple.com)

Throw Away Your Backing Tracks – the iReal Book App

Throw away your backing tracks and open up the iReal Book (http://irealbook.net/app) on your iPhone/iPod, iPad or Android (iTunes link here). I originally bought this for its nice collection of chords for jazz standards. But without the melody notation (they can’t include it for copyright reasons), I stuck with using my printed Real Book. Then I opened the player. Man, was that fun.

iReal Book doesn’t simply play the chords, it lets you choose the style, tempo and key. They have a great range of styles, from modern jazz to bossa nova to gypsy jazz, so you can try standards in any style you want. You can set your own tempo or choose presents (upbeat etc). When you hit play you find they aren’t simply playing chords, but providing drums as well. A full backing track.

There are plenty of other features that let you edit songs, create your own, create and share playlists with others. But I find it’s the player that makes all those other features far more valuable. Think of Band-in-the-Box stripped down to the critical essentials, put in an easy, iReal Book interface, and delivered with a fantastic pre-loaded collection. My major beef is the lack of intros, endings or space to just improvise against chords but rumor is that’s coming.

Note only does it have a ton of songs (listed here on their site) but they are adding more collections all the times in the forums. I recently downloaded a collection of over 300 gypsy jazz songs all nicely organized into a playlist (here). Here’s the video demo.

Bottom line: At $10 is a simple, useful, app that lets you play against backing tracks in a style of your choosing. If it seems like it was designed by a jazz player, it was (check out the creator http://www.massimobiolcati.com/). The lack of intros and endings is a problem that hopefully will be fixed. I’d also like to see an improvising section and a zero learning curve editor. But, again, at $10, I’ll just shut up and play.

Flip the Standard and Improvise on Chords Against the Melody

I just flipped what I thought was the standard way of practicing standards – record the chords as the backing track (I use a looper) and then play the melody and improvise.

Instead, I just started putting down the melody down on the looper first and improvising with the chords instead. I just did this with The Saga of Harrison Crabfeathers and it sounds a lot better as well as being a lot more enjoyable to play – I felt like there’s more room with improvising the chord progressions (mainly arpeggiating them in different ways and throwing in a few full chords) than there was with the melody (which is beautiful…so maybe I just don’t like messing with it).

I’m finding this approach works best with standards where you want to let the melody notes site and not try to fill in the spaces with improvising (this particular piece can be beautiful with held melody notes).

As always, the folks at Jazzguitar.be forums were helpful in their feedback. See the discussion here. http://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/comping-chords-chord-progressions/12086-practicing-chords-improvising-against-melody.html

One person also pointed otu a great link to an Ed Byrne article on improvising on a tune – http://www.freejazzinstitute.org/showposts.php?dept=lji&topic=20081111080252_EdByrne

iShred LIVE iPhone or iPad App review – A great practice tool

UPDATED: With Amplitude

I often find myself in a play-around improvisation practice mood. Basically, I make loops for a few standards and play around to those standards. My problem has been that I don’t stick to a metronome based practice, my loops are not well timed (and are only one instrument) and I tend to stick to a single tone. If you have an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, iShred LIVE is a great tool for this type of practice session. It’s basically an effects box, loop player, metronome, personal amp, all rolled into one.

The app itself is free get it to work you have to order a special cable to connect the iPhone to your guitar and a stereo headset. I ordered the Guitar Connect cable for $30. In other words, for only $30, I had a complete practice tool set on my iPhone. So instead of disturbing the house with my playing, I can practice to backing tracks and a metronome in silence.

Basically, you plug in, choose your effects (if you want some, it comes with three free virtual pedals and you can purchase more for $1-2 each). I tend to play with a clean tone. You can then load a backing track and turn on the metronome. Start playing and listen through your headphones. No other equipment needed.

Pros: Cheap, easy way to private practice. Even if all it had was a virtual amp it would still be a good deal. With effects, a metronome and backing tracks, it makes it a great deal.

Cons: I like to record my own loops and play against them. There is no recording function but, according to the message board, they are looking at including this function.

Overall: For $30, this is a steal. I don’t know any other way to properly practice in private (or public) with backing tracks, different sounds and a metronome all in one and in a portable device. Once they add in the ability to record my own loops, it will make a great product better.

Update: iShred Live does not have an iPad version so I tried Amplitude. I found it easeier to use mainly because of the iPad screen size. It also combines both virtual amps and pedals for more effects and tones. They both use the same cable (Amplitude is also packaged with the iRig cable). Here are the pros and cons of Amplitude.

Pros: Pedals and amps for more sounds; nice integration of a tuner and backing track player.

Cons: Backing track player requires web browser loading (it’s not integrated with the iTunes player); no loop recorder.

Overall, I probably like Amplitude a bit more for serious headphone practice though the iPhone means more portability (for TV watching practice). Both are great deals and work with the same cables. Both have the same weakness in the lack of loop recording.

Here’s their site for information – http://www.frontierdesign.com/iShredLIVE/. Here’s their demo video.

App: AmpliTube + iRig (timeoutny.com)

A short Ibanez AF75 review

After the spending the first year of learning jazz guitar on a few instruments (my Ibanez Articore AS73, borrowed Gibson 135 and Epiphone Joe Pass Emperor) I went out and purchased my own proper Jazz box – the Ibanez AF75. In short, it looks great, feels great and sounds…well, I’m still learning but it sounds pretty good even with my playing.

The Ibanez AF75 is a full size, hollow body Jazz guitar. It sounds great both unplugged (for quiet practice) or in my Line 6 Spider amp with mainly clean settings. I have played much in other styles like blues or distortion but it seems to handle that well. Still, I bought this for that Joe Pass style I’m pursuing. For that, it’s a great value and great quality.

Price paid – $360 (good price from a local dealer; usually retails at about $400).

Size and Feel – Feels great to hold. Not too light or heavy (I loved the AF73 but it was a weight). The local guitar shop recommended D-Addario nickel wound strings (.011 to .049) and they feel great. The cutaway makes it very easy to reach the high frets. It’s comfortable to hold high or low.

Sound – The main problem is that the low E has a little buzzing once in a while. This may be me as it’s been a problem on the other guitars – but it’s the leas buzz of the others (including the Gibson). So it gets high marks there. Great sound when I’m really playing properly.

Look - Great! I got the transparent red sunburst and it looks great. You can see it here. http://www.ibanez.com/HollowBodyGuitars/model-AF75

Overall, a great purchase and I’m enjoying it immensely.

A Jazz Guitar Learning Journey

Mastering Mickey Baker