Great video and super interesting topic. Would love to see/hear more on these levels. Could easily see each level being a full video. Thanks for such interesting discussions. Really makes us think.
I always love your discussions, but this one was particularly interesting. I just don’t find discussions like this anywhere else on TH-cam. Gets me to really think about what I’m doing and how I learn.
Words can't express how strongly I agree with this. My take on it is perhaps amplified by living in Poland, where right across the educational spectrum they try very hard not to let the messy joy of empirical, real-life discovery get in the way of a cold, dead axiom delivered from on high. In mainstream music ed., this is amplified still further. "Good morning, second-graders! Theory first! Do not pass go until you've internalised the scales and modes. Still with me? Only 3 out of 25 of you? OK, well, that's the dead wood gone. Onwards!" And so on, in ever decreasing circles. With the result, of course, that not only are scores of students who might otherwise have made a positive contribution to music, but for this rigid mindset, falling by the wayside; but also, the ability of the survivors to conduct a fruitful dialogue with the listening public is severely compromised. The social theorist Claude Levi-Strauss once described abstract painting as "the way in which an artist might go about painting a picture, where he ever to paint one." And so it largely is - with a few noble exceptions - in music ed. here. Without having a clue about music pedagogy at the time, I sort of stumbled across the approach you've outlined here when my two kids started playing guitar and drums at the outset of the pandemic in around February 2020. God knows, we had time on our hands. And good, because it allowed them to just listen to stuff, find out what moved and motivated them. And gaze at the guitars on their wall hangings in the front room: after a while, the guitars started gazing back. Then came a phase of just luxuriating in the sound of the first simple chord, or basic percussion groove. Slow beginnings; but without the added freight of theory, you accelerate - fast. It's a similar process to learning a first language. Native speakers are to all intents and purposes lexically and grammatically fluent before they can tell anyone what an inflection or part of speech is. The 'lexical' approach of the Sinti (Manouche) jazz players is a musical equivalent. Anyway, to cut a long story short: fast forward two-and-a-half years to September 2022, when the clip linked to below was recorded. The boys are now 11 and 13 years old. We're not under (I hope) too many illusions: we're at the start of our musical journey, this is not improvisation - yet - and yes: we've all got or listened to *that* record. But I think it serves as a good document of how far young players can get without unnecessary (at that stage of their musical development) encumbrances, and a foundation on which later explorations of theory, the 'internalise' and 'innovate' stages, will bed in all the more solidly. Thank you again. THE BROMBERGERS PLAY BARNEY KESSEL'S VERSION OF 'ON GREEN DOLPHIN STREET' th-cam.com/video/Fk2Bi57iq5Q/w-d-xo.html
Wow. Well I’d say the results speak for themselves. Moments like your son quoting Charlie Christian’s solo on Rose Room on Djangology shows already at his young age a command of jazz tradition and the ability to apply that knowledge musically. This connects in my mind much more with the elements of jazz I’ve always enjoyed from what we may call the Golden era than the theory inspired meanderings of most young jazz students. It’s a hugely impressive and inspiring start - I just hope it’s not too late for me haha.
And … of course the theory is always out there, and can be used. That always the intention before jazz musicians stopped being in the business of selling music and started having to sell information instead. There’s nothing wrong with theory, but you have to be a musican first and foremost.
The older dudes were always hard on the kids. On one of the first Mingus CDs they added a clip of Charlie talking about his band. He said that he told a sax player in his band 'Bird is dead - find your own thing!' Coming from a guy who played with Bird, that was a slap. Good advice, but hard to hear. Regarding pedagogy: Ran Blake taught improvising at the New England Conservatory. His class started with students singing only. He said if you couldn't sing it, there was no point picking up an instrument. A very different take from the standard.
@@JazzGuitarScrapbook Ran was a babysitter for Monk's children at one time. Got to hang out, made himself useful, and studied a little. Worth a listen. Cat followed a different drummer.
This is a great and very clear explanation of different ways into improvising. It baffles me that I still often come across players, even great ones, who insist that only one of these exists, and either dismiss lick playing entirely, or claim that no one ever truly improvises, and all improvisation is licks. I went through these levels kind of backwards, and didn't start to understand how to string together licks until long after I finished my master's degree in jazz guitar. I still find it much harder than "pure" improvisation. But that also means that I often fall flat on my face when the tempo gets fast enough that I can't hear one note at a time.
Thanks for this. I think I’m in between 2 and 3 or so. I’m finding a lot of value in transcribing whole choruses of material from my favorite players but not just single note lines. I’m doing it as a tune-based approach. So I’ll transcribe comping through a chorus or a walking bass line as well. It’s easier to see how everything fits on the guitar doing it this way. And it’s also natural to start comparing the different ways a player will navigate the same 4 bars of a tune by transcribing multiple choruses. Eventually you break it down to chunks that work over set chords progressions and then try to weave your own lines in and around these phrases. It’s been helping me anyway
Always the BEST content. Thank you. From Brooklyn, NY
trust the process ❤
I like PB art of repetition, single notes or short motifs.
Great video - I enjoyed the Barry Harris story about Monk.
I've been thinking a lot about this topic lately and this video comes up. Thank you a lot, it was a very interesting one.
Great video and super interesting topic. Would love to see/hear more on these levels. Could easily see each level being a full video. Thanks for such interesting discussions. Really makes us think.
I always love your discussions, but this one was particularly interesting. I just don’t find discussions like this anywhere else on TH-cam. Gets me to really think about what I’m doing and how I learn.
Thanks!
Words can't express how strongly I agree with this. My take on it is perhaps amplified by living in Poland, where right across the educational spectrum they try very hard not to let the messy joy of empirical, real-life discovery get in the way of a cold, dead axiom delivered from on high.
In mainstream music ed., this is amplified still further. "Good morning, second-graders! Theory first! Do not pass go until you've internalised the scales and modes. Still with me? Only 3 out of 25 of you? OK, well, that's the dead wood gone. Onwards!" And so on, in ever decreasing circles. With the result, of course, that not only are scores of students who might otherwise have made a positive contribution to music, but for this rigid mindset, falling by the wayside; but also, the ability of the survivors to conduct a fruitful dialogue with the listening public is severely compromised. The social theorist Claude Levi-Strauss once described abstract painting as "the way in which an artist might go about painting a picture, where he ever to paint one." And so it largely is - with a few noble exceptions - in music ed. here.
Without having a clue about music pedagogy at the time, I sort of stumbled across the approach you've outlined here when my two kids started playing guitar and drums at the outset of the pandemic in around February 2020. God knows, we had time on our hands. And good, because it allowed them to just listen to stuff, find out what moved and motivated them. And gaze at the guitars on their wall hangings in the front room: after a while, the guitars started gazing back. Then came a phase of just luxuriating in the sound of the first simple chord, or basic percussion groove. Slow beginnings; but without the added freight of theory, you accelerate - fast.
It's a similar process to learning a first language. Native speakers are to all intents and purposes lexically and grammatically fluent before they can tell anyone what an inflection or part of speech is. The 'lexical' approach of the Sinti (Manouche) jazz players is a musical equivalent.
Anyway, to cut a long story short: fast forward two-and-a-half years to September 2022, when the clip linked to below was recorded. The boys are now 11 and 13 years old. We're not under (I hope) too many illusions: we're at the start of our musical journey, this is not improvisation - yet - and yes: we've all got or listened to *that* record. But I think it serves as a good document of how far young players can get without unnecessary (at that stage of their musical development) encumbrances, and a foundation on which later explorations of theory, the 'internalise' and 'innovate' stages, will bed in all the more solidly.
Thank you again.
THE BROMBERGERS PLAY BARNEY KESSEL'S VERSION OF 'ON GREEN DOLPHIN STREET'
th-cam.com/video/Fk2Bi57iq5Q/w-d-xo.html
Wow. Well I’d say the results speak for themselves. Moments like your son quoting Charlie Christian’s solo on Rose Room on Djangology shows already at his young age a command of jazz tradition and the ability to apply that knowledge musically. This connects in my mind much more with the elements of jazz I’ve always enjoyed from what we may call the Golden era than the theory inspired meanderings of most young jazz students. It’s a hugely impressive and inspiring start - I just hope it’s not too late for me haha.
And … of course the theory is always out there, and can be used. That always the intention before jazz musicians stopped being in the business of selling music and started having to sell information instead. There’s nothing wrong with theory, but you have to be a musican first and foremost.
The older dudes were always hard on the kids. On one of the first Mingus CDs they added a clip of Charlie talking about his band. He said that he told a sax player in his band 'Bird is dead - find your own thing!' Coming from a guy who played with Bird, that was a slap. Good advice, but hard to hear.
Regarding pedagogy: Ran Blake taught improvising at the New England Conservatory. His class started with students singing only. He said if you couldn't sing it, there was no point picking up an instrument. A very different take from the standard.
Similar to Tristano! Was he a student?
@@JazzGuitarScrapbook Ran was a babysitter for Monk's children at one time. Got to hang out, made himself useful, and studied a little. Worth a listen. Cat followed a different drummer.
This is a great and very clear explanation of different ways into improvising. It baffles me that I still often come across players, even great ones, who insist that only one of these exists, and either dismiss lick playing entirely, or claim that no one ever truly improvises, and all improvisation is licks. I went through these levels kind of backwards, and didn't start to understand how to string together licks until long after I finished my master's degree in jazz guitar. I still find it much harder than "pure" improvisation. But that also means that I often fall flat on my face when the tempo gets fast enough that I can't hear one note at a time.
Thanks for this. I think I’m in between 2 and 3 or so. I’m finding a lot of value in transcribing whole choruses of material from my favorite players but not just single note lines. I’m doing it as a tune-based approach. So I’ll transcribe comping through a chorus or a walking bass line as well. It’s easier to see how everything fits on the guitar doing it this way. And it’s also natural to start comparing the different ways a player will navigate the same 4 bars of a tune by transcribing multiple choruses. Eventually you break it down to chunks that work over set chords progressions and then try to weave your own lines in and around these phrases. It’s been helping me anyway
The 5 stages are....Denial, anger, bargaining, grieving and acceptance.
Haha brilliant!