Jazz piano listening, learning or both

[16251]

As I get to focus more on listening to learn since retiring from office day jobs and I have more time. (Full disclosure: I had the time while I worked a day gig, but I spent too much time in a TV haze after eight hours of customer service/ admin work.) What has happened is I kind of separated the great players I listening to and the equally great players I listen to but IMHO, because they use more traditional bebop phrasing

 

A few examples of those I prefer to listen to are: Brad Mehldau, Keith Jarrett, McCoy Tyner.

 

A few that I listen to more that inspire me to learn and transcribe are: Wynton Kelly, Sonny Clark, Cedar Walton.

 

Some piano masters that fall in between and I prefer their early works vs. later works: Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock.

 

 

Curious how others use their listening and transcribing time to their best advantage.

[Stokely]

Not really the same ballpark, but I'll mention that as a "rock hack", anything approaching jazz is really intimidating. I'm very comfortable jumping around with inversions and passing notes for basic chords, triads, 9ths and 7ths. Then our band decided to learn "Peg" by Steely Dan. Very few simple rock chords in that song!

 

I had to get on youtube to find some tutorials and there are a few good ones, including one where you can see Donald Fagen playing it. They differ but between those and listening myself to the song I've got it down.

 

Not a single one of the chords is hard to play--the hard part is getting my brain to remember *what* to play as these to a large degree are chords I've *never* played on purpose in my life Most songs we do, if you tell me the key of the song my ear can do the rest, well not with this one. For some of them I have to resort to "play a Gmajor over a C" instead of calling the chord what it might actually be, in order to remember it.

 

It's a lot of fun though to see how chords and melodies that perhaps shouldn't work, do (again, that's my straight-ahead simple rock brain at work).

[Tusker]

I am not expert enough to suggest a course of action, but I agree that I am more likely to learn identifiably jazz vocabulary by studying Cedar Walton than Chick, even though for me, Chick is the complete package.

 

Some of this has to do with how much jazz is changing. The young kids have vocabulary in spades. They are going back to old masters and finding connections to fresh new music.

 

Come to think of it, maybe I do have some advice. What if music has this ability to surround us and get directly into our bodies and our subconscious, without needing to go through the analytical brain? That would take the pressure off our listening habits wouldn't it? Listen to what moves you and that will come out in your music. Someone else will recognize your music as beautiful and they may hear in your music, what you may not be conscious of. Since you already have the training, maybe you should trust your taste and your journey? Perhaps that is the way to find your voice...

[Morrissey]

Not really the same ballpark, but I'll mention that as a "rock hack", anything approaching jazz is really intimidating. I'm very comfortable jumping around with inversions and passing notes for basic chords, triads, 9ths and 7ths. Then our band decided to learn "Peg" by Steely Dan. Very few simple rock chords in that song!

 

I had to get on youtube to find some tutorials and there are a few good ones, including one where you can see Donald Fagen playing it. They differ but between those and listening myself to the song I've got it down.

 

Not a single one of the chords is hard to play--the hard part is getting my brain to remember *what* to play as these to a large degree are chords I've *never* played on purpose in my life Most songs we do, if you tell me the key of the song my ear can do the rest, well not with this one. For some of them I have to resort to "play a Gmajor over a C" instead of calling the chord what it might actually be, in order to remember it.

 

It's a lot of fun though to see how chords and melodies that perhaps shouldn't work, do (again, that's my straight-ahead simple rock brain at work).

 

That Fagen video explaining Peg is great. Of course, he oversimplifies things by describing Peg as just a "major blues" (as opposed to a typical dominant blues). But Fagen shows you everything you need to know in that video to play Peg. At least one forumite has made a good tutorial video, too: https://forums.musicplayer.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/3104588/re-i-made-a-keyboard-tutorial-for-peg

[Morrissey]

 

 

Curious how others use their listening and transcribing time to their best advantage.

 

Coincidence in timing, here is Open Studio's recommendations yesterday for four solos to transcribe in 2022:

 

[video:youtube]

[16251]

 

 

Curious how others use their listening and transcribing time to their best advantage.

 

Coincidence in timing, here is Open Studio's recommendations yesterday for four solos to transcribe in 2022:

 

[video

 

Prophetic, I haven't seen or heard about that Open Studio YT yet, but I will -hehe

[pinkfloydcramer]

 

 

Curious how others use their listening and transcribing time to their best advantage.

 

Coincidence in timing, here is Open Studio's recommendations yesterday for four solos to transcribe in 2022:

 

[video:youtube]

 

Clicked on this, 2 guys having a blast jamming together, great funky stuff!

 

RE Steely Dan and Peg I highly recommend this book https://www.amazon.com/Best-Steely-Dan/dp/0793525314/ref=asc_df_0793525314?tag=bingshoppinga-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=80264400726147&hvnetw=o&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4583863992528013&psc=1

[16251]

 

 

Curious how others use their listening and transcribing time to their best advantage.

 

Coincidence in timing, here is Open Studio's recommendations yesterday for four solos to transcribe in 2022:

 

[video

 

Prophetic, I haven't seen or heard about that Open Studio YT yet, but I will -hehe

 

I'm quoting myself as I just skimmed the Open Studio four must learn solos for 2022. Those, for me, would all be on the listening side. No doubt, important learning but IMHO, those don't move me enough to put in the work. I love Open Studio and some of their videos I refer back to often.

[El Lobo]

It's not jazz piano, but the ones I listen to learn are Professor Longhair, Dr. John, Allen Toussaint, James Booker, and our own Josh Paxton. You might notice a theme in there.

 

For pure jazz piano listening, I'm still with Oscar Peterson.

[GovernorSilver]

When I was taking jazz guitar lessons, among my multiple struggles was the same one that the OP mentioned - assigned listening to swing and bebop era players for learning purposes, while preferring to listen to Holdsworth, Metheny, Scofield - all players with what I perceived to have a more "modern" sound.

 

This quandary sort of took care of itself as my understanding and tastes evolved over time. I started to be able to discern which players relied more heavily upon exercises for their improvisations and which relied more on what Open Studio calls "transcription" - learning great solos note for note, digesting this information, and gradually embedding it into one's own vocabulary. Some players sound like they only practice exercises and don't do anything even close to "transcribing". I have admittedly not sussed out players from the other extreme - who only transcribe and rarely practice exercises.

 

I started learning the Clifford Brown solo referenced below, on keyboard and electric violin. Very nice of them to put up the solo in Soundslice to make the process even easier! Fun times!

 

[video:youtube]

[Al Quinn]

In my experience I get the most out of transcribing by:

1) transcribing something that I love; something that really moves me

2) analyzing / dissecting small amounts of material; usually no longer than a phrase

3) figuring out what it is about that material that makes it sound and feel special to me; I try to determine the essence of the underlying concept that makes the material sound so good

4) taking the concept and creating my own ideas based on it; at this point, it often doesn't sound like the original thing I transcribed and becomes my own material

 

As a example, I remember transcribing some Chick lines from the Romantic Warrior album and saw that he was sometimes playing lines that were based on the minor pentatonic scale built on the fifth of a minor cord (e.g., playing b minor pentatonic lines over an e minor cord). At this point I don't remember how to play the Chick lines I transcribed 40+ years ago but I remember the concept and use it often. I also took it further by playing minor pentatonic scales over other chords built on other scale degrees (e.g., g minor pentatonic over Eb major 7 is a nice sound). For me, understanding and incorporating the concept into my own playing in the goal. Too many times I've transcribed and have not persisted to the end goal, which seems to be of limited value. I'm trying to get better at this by being more disciplined with a practice log.

[Docbop]

When reading about and talking to old Jazz musicians the common thread in learning listen and transcribe. Something Open Studio talks about is transcribing mean you have to write it down it's about getting it into your ear and under your fingers. Transcribing by as Open Studio teaches listen, sing it, and transcribe from your singing really grows your ears. So the old cats it was to their benefit there was all the tools we have today they had to listen, sing, transcribe. That's part of the reason they were known for not answering questions because their attitude was... if you heard then that was the answer. Old story about Monk and some piano player kept pestering him with a question and Monk wouldn't even acknowledge the guy was even there. The guy kept asking so Monk went to the piano, played a couple bars and said there's your answer and walked out. Then the Bill Evan story about him and his pianist brother. Bill's brother kept asking Bill over and over to explain this one thing Bill used to do and Bill would never say a word. After this had gone on forever Bill's brother finally asks Bill... why won't you answer my question? Bill said I don't want to deprive you of the joy you'll get when you finally figure it out yourself.

 

As they say... You are your own best teacher.

[GovernorSilver]

I really like what Adam is saying about adjusting your goals towards reality in the 4 Solos You Must Learn video.

[El Lobo]

... Monty Alexander.

I like it to be uplifting, melodic and swinging.

Oh, I forgot Monty Alexander. He's my current fave. It's very accessible but inventive at the same time. I love his playing on reggae tunes. This is one of my fave albums.

[Josh Paxton]

Here's a transcribing trick that I stumbled on accidentally a few years ago, and turned out to be incredibly helpful. It won't help you do a transcription, but it'll help you get the most out of it once it's done...

 

It's an alternate form of notation that makes it easier to compare what the player is doing at a given point in the form from one chorus to the next. (This is assuming the tune has a regular, repeated form â blues, AABA, A1A2, etc. â and the solo goes for a few choruses of the form.) Say the solo is five choruses of a 12-bar blues. What you'll do is, instead of having a score for one piano that's 60 bars long, you'll have a score for five pianos that's 12 bars long. So when you look at a page from top to bottom, you're looking at Piano 1, Piano 2, Piano 3, Piano 4 and Piano 5. Then you put the first chorus of the solo into the first bar of the Piano 1 staff, the second chorus into the first bar of the Piano 2 staff, and so on, with the fifth chorus in the Piano 5 staff. What that gives you is, when you look at the first page, you're looking at what the player played in the first couple bars of the form, every time the top of the form came around. So if you want to approach a solo from the standpoint of "How did they deal with this particular chord change or turnaround?", you just go to that point in the form and you can see what they did in that spot every time. So you can see, "Okay, the first time they played this 8th-note line based on this scale. When they got to that same point in the second chorus, they played a more intricate line with this other scale. The third time they were just leaning on one note to build tension. The fourth time they played a blues lick," and so on. It lets you see things like when they do and don't tend to repeat the same lick at a certain point, or how often they play a given spot inside or outside.

 

Of course if your goal is simply to get the notes under your fingers and be able to play back the solo from beginning to end, this won't help at all. But if you're more interested in getting inside a player's head and getting a sense of all the different ways they might approach a given section of music, this has been a game-changer for me.

 

One thing to be prepared for: depending on the player and the solo, you may end up getting very few bars per page â like, sometimes only one. That's because between all the different choruses, you may end up with every possible sixteenth-note and triplet space within any given bar being filled with either a note or a rest, all of which take up space and have to line up vertically. So I don't lay out a solo this way as I'm transcribing it; while I'm getting it down, I just do it the normal, linear way. Then once that's done I create a separate document with the needed number of parts (Piano 1 through Piano whatever) and copy and paste the different sections into place. Of course this is assuming you're using a notation program. If you're writing by hand and you want to try this, I'd suggest transcribing it this way from the start with only two bars per page, and just laying out the notes as best you can (and if they don't line up exactly perfectly, no one's going to care).

[Adan]

In my experience I get the most out of transcribing by:

1) transcribing something that I love; something that really moves me

2) analyzing / dissecting small amounts of material; usually no longer than a phrase

3) figuring out what it is about that material that makes it sound and feel special to me; I try to determine the essence of the underlying concept that makes the material sound so good

4) taking the concept and creating my own ideas based on it; at this point, it often doesn't sound like the original thing I transcribed and becomes my own material

 

.

 

This resonates with me as valuable advice, which is not surprising as it was penned by the always compactly sage Al Quinn. To state the obvious, jazz is not memorization. I never transcribe a full solo. Rather, I'll take a few ideas that jump out at me, plant them, fertilize, see what they grow into. I'd like to say I do this because it's proven most effective. Closer to the truth to say I'm lazy and undisciplined.

 

As for who's on my listen to learn list, I'm more likely to pick someone who plays with concise intent rather than lots of flourishes and stylistic fireworks. Sonny Clark is a good example.

[16251]

To state the obvious, jazz is not memorization. I never transcribe a full solo. Rather, I'll take a few ideas that jump out at me, plant them, fertilize, see what they grow into. I'd like to say I do this because it's proven most effective. Closer to the truth to say I'm lazy and undisciplined.

 

As for who's on my listen to learn list, I'm more likely to pick someone who plays with concise intent rather than lots of flourishes and stylistic fireworks. Sonny Clark is a good example.

 

I find value in memorization without paper or pencil. I've done plenty of written ones and for both, I agree it's how you figure out intent that makes them useful.

[Al Quinn]

Memorizing vs. knowing something as explained by Chick. I find the distinction very helpful. I used to get frustrated that material I memorized didn"t show itself during performance. Turns out the only material that actually comes out during performance is the material I know.

 

[video:youtube]

[Docbop]

Memorizing vs. knowing something as explained by Chick. I find the distinction very helpful. I used to get frustrated that material I memorized didn"t show itself during performance. Turns out the only material that actually comes out during performance is the material I know.

 

I was talking to my Jazz guitar teacher of many years Sheryl Bailey about this and she said... That she will work in new ideas, but it might be three to six months before she notices it come out on a gig.

 

To me you can hear when some player is trying to shoehorn a riff into song or solo versus it just coming out as part of playing.

[16251]

Memorizing vs. knowing something as explained by Chick. I find the distinction very helpful. I used to get frustrated that material I memorized didn"t show itself during performance. Turns out the only material that actually comes out during performance is the material I know.

 

[video:youtube]

 

It was prophetic that Chick spent the end of his life inspiring musicians from his home every night. One of my most memorable parts of the lockdown. I remember his take on memorization vs. knowing and IMHO, they are closely related in that you're kind of forced to first memorize and then proceed to knowing it. (Please challenge this assumption as I would like to learn from different perspectives.)

 

When I talk about learning an improvisation without writing down IMHO,I am not just memorizing. It takes me many, many repeats of listening and getting frustrated, but I've noticed the end result, I have the ability to sing the solo, in my head and I can visualize the piano keys and my fingers playing the solo. I have had that happen with some solos I have written and played through but without paper, you can reach "knowing," more quickly. Although maybe I full of it - very possible.

[timwat]

The little I can add to this conversation - there are countless little saying, quotes, and quips that all sort of get at the same trajectory - everyone is trying to get to the point of facility where it's no longer about thinking about notes and phrases, but about singing and saying what you want to "say".

 

On the cognitive side, there is pedagogical theory (both in music and in other domains) that suggests beginning with a set of fundamentals which are repeated until they become second nature. Then larger challenges are worked on with specifically designed exercises, practice, and techniques to build upon the foundation - but the end goal is the same - relatively effortless mastery (to quote the book title we reference here from time to time) so that the other elements - emotional, psychological - become more the drivers of our playing than the mental and physical technical demands. And the book Effortless Mastery deals with, at least, the other human aspects of getting out of our own way, getting out of our "head" and recapturing joy and adventure and such.

 

But we all sort of agree on this, don't we?

 

I was taught to transcribe solos as a means to an end. My instructor at the time had me start with Miles solos. Then my assignment was Stolen Moments - we studied all of them, although I only transcribed Freddie Hubbard's.

 

Part of what was learned was the discipline. Part of it was ear training. And then part of it was "what did he play, and why does my ear like it?" - or, "why did he do that over those changes, and is there something for me to take away from that?" And it's far more than the notes. It's the rhythm, and the feel, and the spaces, and the breathing, and the emotional content. To steal another quote, "'It's like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.'

 

And then incorporating that into the vocabulary so it's not just a lick in a toolbox I go to all the time, but an actual part of emotional vocabulary. Well, I'm still working on that, and probably always will be.

[Josh Paxton]

Chick's description of memorizing versus knowing definitely resonates with me. The number of tunes I have memorized dwarfs the number of tunes I Really Know⢠by probably 10 to 1.

[GovernorSilver]

One of the reasons I started listening to older-school improvisers is they did thing rhythmically that I don't hear so much from more "modern" players:

 

1. Incorporating triplets into swinging lines.

2. Triplets used anywhere the measure, not just starting the measure

3. Swinging line can start anywhere in the measure, not just the first beat of a 4-beat phrase - can even start on the "and" of the 2nd or 3rd beat.

4. Hard swinging lines in general.

 

I'm sure more examples can be identified. Modern stylists tend to use evenly spaced rhythmic divisions, and not as much variation in dynamics - accents are more predictably placed as well.

[David R]

Going back to the OP's question of pianists I listen to vs. what I transcribe: I listen to a pretty wide variety of what one would call jazz, from the more electric side of things like Butcher Brown and Kneebody to fairly "avant-garde" players like Vijay Iyer, Matt Mitchell and Craig Taborn. What I feel compelled to transcribe are things that are missing in my playing, which is generally the pre-bebop generations (and that's where everything comes from).

 

I just transcribed Hank Mobley's tenor solo on "Remember," because the language is so clear and well-constructed and there's some tricky as hell doubletime in Ab major that is a major technical challenge.

 

I think next up on my docket is Kenny Barron on "Segment" in duo with Dave Holland â I've never really checked out much Kenny Barron and there were some mysteries in that performance I'd like to unlock.

 

[video:youtube]

[Docbop]

One of the reasons I started listening to older-school improvisers is they did thing rhythmically that I don't hear so much from more "modern" players:

 

1. Incorporating triplets into swinging lines.

2. Triplets used anywhere the measure, not just starting the measure

3. Swinging line can start anywhere in the measure, not just the first beat of a 4-beat phrase - can even start on the "and" of the 2nd or 3rd beat.

4. Hard swinging lines in general.

 

I'm sure more examples can be identified. Modern stylists tend to use evenly spaced rhythmic divisions, and not as much variation in dynamics - accents are more predictably placed as well.

 

Along this same line I like improvisors that still include Blues phrases in their playing. Examples would be Benny Green and Emmet Cohen others do it with just tiny bits but it adds so much more overall feeling to me. I forget whose I listened to clinic recently who said end chorus or solo with some Blues to really grabs the audience with a sound they are familiar with.

[GovernorSilver]

Yup, gaining belated respect for the blues greats opened the door to studying the old-school jazz greats for me.