PlayJazzGuitar.com Forum

[sykofiddle]

Anyone else struggling with it?

I've been playing guitar for 33 years, but always blues and folk music. In the last six months I've ventured into jazz and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. What's frustrating to me is that, after all these years of playing music, I can hear what I'd like to play, but I simply don't have the knowledge to execute it. I'm taking lessons and it's very helpful. I can also see how this will ultimately come together. For example, my teacher has me working on playing major scales in different keys in a single position on the fingerboard. I can see that this is going to be useful for moving through those different tonal centers that seem to crop up on *every* song.

But boy is it frustrating to be feeling like I've lost a couple decades of xperience on the guitar. I thought I was a reasonably accomplished musician (playing out, regular gigs, etc.), but now I feel like a novice. The other frustrating thing is that if I sit down and figure out a piece of someone's recorded solo, I can usually play most of it, but I have no idea why/how it was put together. I don't like this feeling of having the dexterity to play this music, but relatively little understanding of what's going on.

Has anyone else been through this?



Michael

[Gorecki]

"There is no end, only new beginnings".

The good news, there is never an end, that is the fun of all of it!


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Forums Admin for PlayJazzGuitar.com.

Do you know where all of your F'n B flats are?

[trickeydave]

[stupot]

Ditto - im going through a plateau at teh moment and the frustration is killing me!!! But its normal, so hang on in there
_________________
'I'm not interested in being the star, just a participant in playing some great music' - Tal Farlow

[nezumi]

Christmas time found me sympathizing with guitar smashers. I'd close my eyes, and WHAM! would go the classical, or sometimes the samick, when I was really frustrated. but it's so heavy.

We’ve all come through unscathed.
Hang in there
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hey, hey, hey
play every day

[aranash00]

I thought i could play a pretty good rock guitar and then wanted to expand my horizons so i took jazz lessons. That was a very humbling experience to say the least. One thing that i learned is that learning this music (especially if you are fairly new to hearing it)is a journey and it takes work over years to really start getting it. The only way is to work hard there are no shortcuts. Alot of people wind up quiting when they realize this. Society today is all about fast results and less work. you can see this in every weight loss commercial there is. Less work, faster results is the motto. Hard work over long periods of time will always win out and the journey is way more fun. Learning this music has been the most rewarding experience of my life. YOu really have to like jazz to play it well. If one goes into it for any other superficial reasons they probably fail at it.

Good luck with the learning process and enjoy it. Its well worth it.

[PaulD]

I'm sure it's different for everybody, but for me the trick has been to isolate one thing and work on it till I'm comfortable doing it in a very specific situation. Sort of a unit test, so for instance in one position or in one key, slowly at first, for as long as it takes to get it under my fingers and in my ears. Only when I'm comfortable with the concept or fingering or voicing, or whatever it happens to be that I'm working on do apply that one thing to as many musical situations as I can. Eventualy that thing becomes part of my playing. The frustration comes when I attempt to absorb more than I can handle, but by staying focused and setting long and short-term goals, I've managed to turn impatience into anticipation, which is a whole lot easier to deal with.

Paul

[mr. beaumont]

[Brad Hedrick]

I hope it's a big boat because I'm in it as well. After playing rock, country and blues for an embarassingly long time, 30 years, I took up jazz last year. I think I've experienced most of the frustrations voiced here. However, I belong to the "Tortoise" school of thought, 'slow and steady wins the race'. Brad

[Gorecki]

[jokron]

Hey, it's getting a little crowdy in that boat...

I'm there too. I've been struggling around the jazzguitar area more seriosly for tha past sixth months trying to chew more than I could handle...

Now I have decided to take it really from the very beginning, realizing that a solid basement is what I need for building my "jazzhouse"...I'm approaching it like PaulD described it: "slowly at first, for as long as it takes to get it under my fingers and in my ears. Only when I'm comfortable with the concept or fingering or voicing, or whatever it happens to be that I'm working on do apply that one thing to as many musical situations as I can."

"It's not the speed or the size of the steps that really matters in the long term...it's moving in the right direction..."

/Jan Olof
_________________
Play what you hear - not what you know.

Miles Davis

[jazzclif]

Almost everybody who plays jazz these days started out playing rock, R&B, Blues, metal, folk, in short something else. Me too, and I'm 63.

when I started out, I could get paid pretty well to play blues but I didn't know a major scale. There was a lot of thrashin' around before everything made sense and was all part of the same picture.

I think for people who can already play in some other genre(s) the best thing for a jazz teacher to do is fill the player in on how music is made.

This isn't always obvious to everyone, or at least it wasn't to me.

Sure, you need scales and CAGED positions to do that, but it can be learned concurrently since the how to make music principles are very simple and very repetitive.

This is because the same rules apply everywhere, and they're going to incorporate the CAGED hand positions anyway on guitar.

You don't have to get into the composers' heads, fortunately since they're only dealing with twelve tones, traditional sounds based on the major scale, 375 years of 12TET and pretty simple arithmetic, so it's possible to build a very comprehensive grid of basic sounds that all music fits into, even the really weird stuff.

For myself, I base everything on the harmonized (in seventh chords) major scale. I can change it into anything I need to define music, but it's the foundation and rebar you can use to build or deconstruct/analyze anything written.

If you start with the visual aid of playing a chord scale in sevenths along with the CAGED scale positions from say F or G where the entire thing can lay out ascending with bass on the sixth string for drop 3 chords or barres, that can serve as a sort of 'spine' for the key to which everything needed can be attached, including everything you already know from other musics, whatever they are.

For example, these F scale chords are good to play Puff the Magic Dragon in F, but you need a seventh chord at G instead of a minor seventh.

For Hotel California, you'll need that G7 and also another one at A, and if you're real slick, maybe one at D in the middle of the bridge. For Maggie May in F, just the scale chords are all that's needed. Same for about anything written by Curtis Mayfield.

For a simpler jazz standard like Autumn Leaves, it's not really any more complex than the previous tunes, just phrased and extended differently according to rules you learn as you progress, but G7, D7 and A7 will get you through most of that song too if it's in one flat.

There's use for a C7 too, and more, but it's a step by step progress adding stuff to that chord scale spine.


These are all positions covered in CAGED hand positions, as most folks know.

It's a visual thing as much as sound, especially at first, but eventally everything 'seen' on guitar has a sound that seeing will trigger, and coversely hearing will create a 'mind's eye view' of the hand position.

And when someone says 'key of F' that stuff pops right out to your eye and ear and your hand goes to a tonic chord in any one of 5 or more positions.

That's learned over years from repetition, and some progress much faster than others. I learn some stuff super fast, but not music since there are both physical and intellectual aspects to reconcile. My hands are pretty dumb.

Anyway, if you start out with that 'spine' of scale chords in F and can play them, it's a short trip to making any of them dominant sevenths or minors or the tritone subs of these new sevenths or minors, and outside of modulation, that's all you need to know, but you have to have the absolute ability to hear it and jump into it. That comes with practice.

I think learning that chord scale spine and building on it fills in the big picture/sound for the guitarist's internal eye and ear faster than not doing it or trying to substitute something else.

It gives a sense of finiteness to jazz harmony, something that can otherwise seem infinite and impossible to learn. It ain't rocket surgery!

Clif

[jokron]

Hey, clif...

If you lived here, I'd like you to be my teacher...

Thanks again for an eyeopener...



/Jan Olof
_________________
Play what you hear - not what you know.

Miles Davis

[sykofiddle]

Thanks for the helpful replies. It's nice to know I'm not alone. I think I'll stick to the strategy of tackling one thing at a time. I'm also finding that for the first time in many years I need to structure my practice time (e.g., 10 minutes on scales, 15 minutes on chords, 10 minutes on comping, etc.).

Michael

[jazzclif]

Thanks again, Jan! I don't like to solicit on a private forum, but I do sell a masterclass CDR that some people find useful. You can find out about it at

http://angelfire.com/jazz/clif/CDStore.htm

if it's ok to put that up. There's a sample page with some graphics and other stuff there.

Clif