Jazz Improv Masterclass #2

[Last week, I talked briefly about the five elements of a good jazz solo. This week, I'm discussing an important concept that underlies all five of them, especially tone and style. I'll get more into detail on each of the five elements starting next week.]

Listen, listen, listen. That's what we hear when we go to jazz clinics. Did you ever wonder why jazz instructors pound that point in every time? Do you think it might be important?

It is. When I started, I was like most students. I liked to play jazz, but I didn't like to listen to it. I preferred the popular music of the time (and I'm going to date myself here) like The Cars, Duran Duran, and Oingo Boingo. When my teacher suggested I start transcribing, I did the tenor solo on Duran Duran's Rio. I missed the point.

Several years ago I went to a clinic with jazz trombone legend Carl Fontana. At the time, I was frustrated with how difficult it was to get my students to listen and transcribe. I asked him if he knew of a way to get them to do it. He answered in his cantankerous way, "You force them!"

I have had several students move on to become fantastic jazz players and improvisers; some even have gone professional. Part of the formula, of course, is hard work and practice. Another element, though, was that they all listened to jazz. A lot. And I didn't have to force them. I have NEVER seen someone who became good at jazz who was not a fantastic listener. No one.

So, the moral of the story: if you really want to be a good jazz player, you must listen. There is no other way. Now, I really can't force you to listen, though. YOU must decide to do it. YOU must take control of your education and development. Until you do, you will just be another one of the many mediocre players in the world.

Stand out. Listen. Learn. And besides, once you get into it, the music IS pretty darn good.

Assignment: Find some jazz to listen to. Ask your teacher for some suggestions, or contact me. There is plenty of jazz on the radio (like KUER 90.1 in the evening in Utah). Also, a lot of libraries have jazz CDs that can be checked out.

Jazz Improv Masterclass #1

What does it take to play a good sounding jazz solo? A master's degree? 20 years experience? Super human powers?

I have great news for you. A good sounding jazz solo is not rocket science and anyone can learn to play one. I like to break jazz solos down into 5 principles that I'll outline today. I'll go more in depth into each one in future articles.

Principle 1: Tone
How to do this correctly is different to each instrument. Some don't even have to worry about it. However, for wind players, this is the first thing people hear when we play and people evaluate how good we are with in a few seconds. Fortunately, with proper guidance, tone can easily be learned. If tone is not one of your strengths, all you need to do is to get help from your band director or a private teacher who can show you the fundamentals of good sound.

Principle 2: Time
One of the biggest errors beginning improvisors make is to try to cram too many notes into their solos. As they do this, they have little or no regard to time. This is an easy fix. Just keep track of the beat (tap your foot if necessary) and make sure your rhythms lock in.

Principle 3: Style
This one does take a little time to learn. The first step, though, is to be aware of it and not just rattle off lots of notes. This entails being aware of articulation and rhythmic patterns. The best way to learn this is by listening to the jazz greats. Listen closely to what they do and then imitate it.

Principle 4: Energy
Another fairly simple fix, but is more difficult for some people than others. A lot of it has to do with personality. Shy people, like me, have a harder time getting in front of people and blowing out. Trust me, though, it is a lot less embarrassing to get up and play a bold solo than a wimpy one. And if you don't feel bold, fake it.

Principle 5: Notes
What is the number one fear people have when improvising? Playing wrong notes. The thing is, though, I've heard plenty of good sounding solos with tons of wrong notes (they did have good tone, good time and energy). I've also heard solos with perfect notes that sounded awful (because they lacked the other principles). The problem with notes is that it takes a long time to learn all the theory. You mainly have to get started by learning your major scales well.

But for now, don't stress about the notes, just get started and have fun.

Assignment: Find a blues play-along and the corresponding blues scale. Then play around with the scale in time with the play-along. If you need a blues play-along, contact me, and I can get you one.

Weekly Articles

I've set a goal to produce two articles a week that I will post here on my blog. One will be a jazz educational article on improvising, called Jazz Improv Masterclass. I originally envisioned this to be a podcast, but time has become too limited to produce it in that form. But I thought I could at least release the planned lessons as short articles. Later, I hope I can get back into recording the lessons.

The other article will be about my adventures while learning about writing. I am by no means an expert at the craft, but I feel I've learned several things that could benefit other people trying to get into the art. That article will be called Writing Discoveries.

Two minds

When I went to BYU's Life the Universe and Everything in February, they had a panel on podcasting for writers. At first I thought that I didn't want to hear that, because, even though I'm about to be published, I'm not an experienced enough writer to do a podcast about it. But, as I sat there and listened to them, I realized that I am an expert in something that I can podcast about: Jazz improv and saxophone.

Anyway, today I started working on my first jazz improv podcast. I wrote down what I want to cover in the first one, now I just need to record some samples, make a pdf of the exercises, and record the lesson.

Yesterday, since I now have more time to think about my novels, I decided to start a new outline for book 2. It went pretty well until today. My problem still is that I can't think about two things at once. After I finished what I wanted to do for the jazz podcast, I started working on my outline again. As I tried to focus on it (trying to come up with a Dragon system of government), my mind kept drifting back to jazz education. Finally, I just gave up and practiced my sax. If anyone's wondering, I played harmonics, did throat flexibility exercises, I worked out on 60 scales, then played All of Me in 12 keys from memory, then improvised it in all 12 keys. It felt good to practice again.

Split personality

Okay, it's been a while since I posted anything. Things have been busy with the holidays, in addition to all the other things I keep stacking on myself. That's a good thing, though. The reason why I used to never get anything done was because I would keep thinking about doing things, but not actually doing them. Of course, my main project has been to finish the second draft of my sequel. That's going slower than I'd hoped, but it seems like the second draft is the most difficult. That's the one where you have to work out all of your plot problems from the first draft.

My other project is putting together a jazz improvisation class to start at the end of January. I think I have a method that can teach people to play good sounding jazz solos in only six weeks. Of course, that means I need to design a website for it, write a lesson plan, and record play-along recordings for it.

This gets me to my dilemma: being a musician and writer. I seem to only be able to be one at a time. The days that I focus on music, I have a hard time getting to the writing, and vice versa. It seems that I can only do one creative endeavor at a time. Hopefully, I'll find a way to balance the two, but I haven't yet.