----- Original Message -----
From: L.A. Freeman
To: Alan Heckle ; Amy Owen ; Anita Sutton ; Armand Sent: Wednesday, September
02, 2009 3:00 PM
Subject: FW: Guide to Playing Jazz
Subject: Guide to Playing Jazz
Guide to Playing Jazz
Notes about playing jazz; a fun guide to this inventive music.
Yup, notes are the problem. How many to play, which ones, and at what time.
Guitars
Guitarists are known by their desire to play one or two extra notes on
their instrument after the song has ended. This works well in the early part of
the gig, but sooner or later the drummer notices what happens and will cover
their final odd notes with a short flourish on the drums. Later still, the alto
player joins in. In the hands of professionals this becomes an extended
improvised coda which surprises everyone since it bears no relation to the song
at all. Guitarists try to sit next to drummers but a long way from pianists.
There is no known reason why. Perhaps it is because pianists can use all ten
fingers at the same time.
Ending songs
This is one of the most difficult bits in jazz to do properly. Some bands
are on record as not knowing how to do it at all, and once the final melody has
been played out, someone then strikes up with another solo. (True) This makes
for fascinating and meaningful social interaction within the group. This is one
reason why audiences prefer to watch jazz players rather than listen to them.
Starting solos
Knowing where the 1 is, tests the mettle of all soloists. For some of them,
listening to the music itself is of little help, and they need someone to nod
them in on time. Singers are particularly prone to starting problems and
frequently offer themselves to band leaders who look after them in this regard.
Playing duff solos
If you play a duff solo it is because you have forgotten where you are in
the song, or forgotten what key you are supposed to be playing at that moment,
or because you are out of it anyway. After you have finished everyone goes
quiet - although everyone knows where you went wrong and will talk about it
behind your back. The thing to do is to ask the band loudly, “Did someone cross
the beat at bar 23?” The band will look at the drummer, who will say “Sorry”
and you are off the hook.
Drummers
Drummers usually take up the instrument as part of an anger management
course. You can't play as many notes as a drummer plays and worry about what
key you are in as well. There are too many jokes about drummers, too often told
in public announcements for them to feel totally at ease at all times. A bit of
tlc to drummers pays off.
Double bass
Double bass players have feelings of insecurity, and carry their
instruments to gigs as self-abasement. They feel bad because they always play
far fewer notes than anyone else but receive the same money. They are given
occasional solos to play because the rest of the band want a lift in the van
going home afterwards. The bassist will love it and will smile shyly if you
tell him that his is the most important instrument in the band. This has the
advantage of being true, unlike everything you say to everyone else about how
good they sound. Sincerity needs to be practiced.
Classical musicians playing jazz
Jazz players all have feelings of self-doubt when they play with
classically trained players. Jazz workshop groups sometimes attack classical
newcomers immediately by advising “Just follow the 2-5-1 progressions, dropping
down to a minor third in the bridge. ” They then destroy the classical player
by taking their music away from them, and immediately starting in the count in.
Professionals raise their game here by saying, “Let's do it in Gb” and then
starting the count in, in double time.
The way for classical musicians to get their own back is to suggest that
the piano or guitar player plays the melody. These people can only read chords
and not dots so they are cooked.
Pianists
Pianists are up against time. They know too much. They know about harmony
and chord progressions. They have to make a decision between 786 different
chords and voicings, plus substitute chords, they have ten fingers to use and
the possibility of using any of seventy-four scales. They are also the only
people who can see every note they are going to play, which somehow contrives
to make the problem worse. A fast swing piece at 240 bpm with two chords in
each bar means they have 0.5 of a second to decide whether to play the altered
chord, or the diminished chord, or the straightforward dominant 7th or maybe
even a flat sixth triad in the upper structure and how to voice it and which
inversion to use. (Which fingers on which notes) In addition they have to do
something interesting with the fingers of their right hand. This all may seem a
bit technical but it indicates why there is so much turmoil going on inside
pianists heads and why they all end up playing by ear like everyone else after
the first four bars. It is little wonder that they are bald and introverted. It
is also the reason why they are so condescending to the rest of the group.
Saxophone players
The problem here is that they are recruited and trained by other saxophone
players. Personality tests show that they are exhibitionists, first and
foremost. Some of them are social contrarians who will play in a scruffy
T-shirt with We Love Atlantic City on the front. These people will always play
with a very dirty instrument. But a dirty instrument many also be a much loved
archaeological find. They are taught that their aim in soloing is to play as
many different scales as possible at a very fast pace and never to acknowledge
that the rhythm section is telling the audience, and them, where the music is
in reality. Later on in life, saxophone player s realise that they really need
to know more about chords and progressions so they buy a small keyboard in
order to see the notes. Then they find that there is a lot of mental effort
involved in learning about progressions and so on, so they end up playing the
blues scale 99.9% of the time.
Trumpeters
Trumpeters are nearly always male and are in it only for the sex. If they
play loudly, and very high they can attract women from miles around. Not for
nothing was triple tonguing invented by a trumpeter.
Jazz singers
No one in a band can make the musicians change the usual key of the song
except a female singer!
If the singer smiles at them and says thank you then the rhythm section
will forgive her for not coming in on time, not finding the right note and20for
talking to the audience while the soloists are playing. Male singers have to
stick with the key the music was written in.
Playing simple jazz.
The simplest way an amateur can play a jazz solo is to turn down the sound
control on the amplifier. Afterwards you should ask if there was something
amiss with the sound balance. Experienced amateurs realise that there are seven
notes in each scale. (Actually there are eight notes in the diminished scale
but only pianists know that.) Players can cut down the amount of notes they
have to think about by 28% if they only use the pentatonic scales. (5 notes in
each pentatonic scale, saving 2 notes. 2 notes saved out of 7 equals 28%. Music
is very mathematical)
Theoretically, you can cut the number of notes used in a solo to four if
you just use tetratonic groups. (This is the pentatonic scale minus one note).
But very few people know this, and it has never been tried in anger. It is
mentioned only by clever dicks who want to get one back on the pianist.
(Actually the chromatic scale has 12 notes in it - but this is so obvious
that even Rover Scouts can work it out, and no one can use it for long before
being thrown out of the band.)
Jazz teaching
Jazz teachers will tell you that there are no bad notes in jazz only “poor”
choices. They say that if you can play immediately a semi-tone below or above
your bum note you will get out of trouble. In theory this may or may not be
true but by the time you've tried it the band has gone ahead with another
couple of bars by which time the “corrected note” will now have become a bum
note so no one has ever found out. Look behind at the motives of jazz teachers
who say this kind of thing. Jazz teachers want you to like them and keep hiring
them which is why they tell you this crap. You are their living after all. It
is possible to make so many poor choices, that you get thrown out of the band.
Deps
This heading is to test you, to see if you know the “in” words in jazz.
Band leaders hate it when people can't turn up for the gig. People always claim
illness but it is usually because they have got another gig that night which
pays a bit more. Sometimes band leaders insist on you providing and rehearsing
your own deputy. (”Dep” - see it now?) Never ever bring a dep who is better at
playing jazz than you are. Otherwise, in the long run you will have to go back
to looking at the small ad cards in musical instrument shops. By the way the
yanks don't say dep but sub (substitute) but that could be confused with
tritone sub so stick with the English.
Avoiding copyright fees
No copyright exists if you wait 70 years after the death of the last
surviving composer. You can bring this event forward by several years if you
let the composer hear you improvising on his music. Jerome Kern hated jazz.
Copyright exists only in the melody, no one can copyright chords. This is
how bebop was started by a bunch of crafty but poor musicians. They took the
chords used in standard songs and then invented new melodies over the top of
them. This is how Ornithology sounds so much like How High the Moon. You still
have to pay the estate of the composer of Ornithology a copyright fee. I don't
know who he was or when he died but no doubt several million jazz ancestor
worshippers will e-mail in and tell me and I'd reply that any nerd can look it
up in seconds.* *before you clever dicks start it was Charlie “the Bird”
Parker, d 1955, the bird, ornithology, Birdland the famous New York jazz club,
geddit? Did you know that they put a flock of birds into Birdland as a
decorative feature, but they all died of smoke inhalation when a fire broke
out. Laugh a minute jazz is.
Real Books
For about £35 you can buy a Real book consisting of about 500 jazz song
manuscripts with the words. This costs you 7p per song and looks like a
bargain. But you'll never play about 450 of them in your lifetime. So it
actually costs you about 70p per usable song. Still a bargain when compared to
paying for downloaded music scripts.
Bandleaders have to buy Bb and Eb versions of Real books because you can
never expect alto sax players and trumpeters to buy their own copies.
What the sellers of Real Books don't tell you is that the song the band
wants to play is in a different copy of the Real Book - one you don't own.
No, I'm not going to tell you how to get an illegal copy of half a dozen
different Real Books downloaded to your hard drive. But you can.
Playing by ear
You are not supposed to do it. This is what the old great jazz players used
to do because there was no jazz music theory then. But how can you build a
world of jazz music education if people just pop off and play by ear? As a
trained jazz musician you are supposed to know what you are doing and why at
any time. This of course is absolutely impossible and all professionals end up
playing by ear themselves. Afterwards they'll tell you what they probably did
in theoretical terms, but will be unable to reproduce it. “I was using D7 over
C major, I think” they'll bluff.
You can tell when the pianist is at his wits end and is playing by ear. He
will drop the left hand out and just play with the right hand. This means he
does not know where he is in the song and hopes the drummer will give a big
flourish at the end of the section. He is too worried to listen to the bass as
he should.
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