Jazz: Forms & Listening the soloist

stavrosdru

Junior Member
Hi guys,

I'm kind of new at jazz, and i have some questions that i would be grateful if you gave me some advice. I don't have any experience playing jazz live or jamming with other musicians yet, i've only been on a jam night once and played one song. i'm practicing with playalongs and learning and singing the melodies doing diferrent exercises and learning phrases. On that jam night i noticed two things about my playing, 1) I lose my place in the form of the song a lot (with playalongs i lose it only the first 5-6 times i play it, but it seems that after that i memorize parts of the solos that help me keep the form.That does help for pre-recorded music, but it's not the same live when the soloist improvise.), and 2) Sometimes i don't listen the soloist and my mind wonders or listen only to piano comping or thinking about the form. So my questions are:

1) What are some ways or exercises that can help me know my place in the form without counting measures. I have learned some melodies (doxy, nows the time, take the A train, Jordu, four etc) but if i don't count measures i can't follow the form even if i'm just listening.

2) Are there any ways or exercises to improve my ear so i can listen and understand the soloists more so that i can accompany in a better and more musical way? I feel that my comping till now is kind of random and i would like to change that.

I want to start going to weekly jam sessions and be able to be more free and enjoy the music without thinking a lot. I didn't really enjoyed it the first time, and i think that these are the reasons.
 
I don't know that there's any shortcut other than time spent, and hard listening. If you immerse yourself in the music you want to play, meaning listening to it as much as possible while driving, and any other time that you can, the style will start to become a part of you. Hopefully lol.

You could try listening exercises, to identify the various components of the song. For instance when you listen you could try and figure out if you are listening to a verse, chorus, intro, bridge, head, solo ect...During any solos you could try and identify if the chord progression is the same as a verse, a chorus, a verse and chorus, or whatever. Write your arrangements out (verse, verse, chorus bridge solo ect.) You could count how many bars are in the verse or chorus or whatever and notate that too.

So while listening you are attempting to "reverse engineer" the song to break it up and identify it's various components, the order of those components, and the length of each component. That goes a long way into getting particular song structures ingrained in your brain. Each song is different, but you will recognize basic patterns that are common to different songs.

So listen, divide, and conquer.
 
There's a couple good play-along apps that will help you learn form (the Peter Erskine apps come to mind). When you're practicing, sing the heads of the tune while just keeping time and while trading 4's or 8's with your imaginary band.
 
my advice

forget listening to the soloist .... I almost never do ... he really has no information for you .
I think that theory is way out of date .
to me the music sounds way better when a drummer comps creating a musical jigsaw puzzle with the others comping and plays catch with the bass player

I would never really voice this theory until I read Bob Moses say the same thing in his book Drum Wisdom .
I was always afraid because of that old school "rule".... LISTEN TO THE SOLOIST
I say hogwash.
I am not saying DON"T listen to the soloist.... that would be nearly impossible
I am saying don't base everything you are playing on responses to the soloist as the old rule may suggest .

have a conversation with those supporting the soloist .... you are one of them at that point

... as for not losing your place in the form

play alongs are ok.... but they are really not very useful to a jazz player beyond working on your time and some phrasing ....

like you said ... you start to memorize what is on the recording and that actually works completely against you in terms of developing jazz instincts.... which is pretty much everything

there comes a point in everyones playing.... not only drummers but all musicians .... where we just understand how to feel groups of 4 and 8 without counting .... you just feel it... it's 100% instinctual
I believe this comes from continuous listening... to all kinds of music
you just feel that 4 bars just passed.... it is hard to describe ... but when you have it there is no denying it .

actually in uptempo tunes I feel 4 bar phrases almost as if they are a really slow quarter note .
so if the tune is a 32 bar form I know that 8 of those 4 bar feelings is the entire form .... and I really did not count at all
I hope that wasn't too confusing .

listen , Listen, LISTEN..... just listen to great jazz records all the time.... learn melodies and the ones that really speak to you ... listen to them over and over ..... sing them to yourself as you walk around

I have been emailing back and forth with the great Berklee jazz professor Skip Hadden recently and he keeps suggesting to listen to ONE tune for 6 hours.... either straight or broken up ... I personally have no problem with that but it's not for everyone.

listening is the key... and when we enjoy something it naturally absorbs ..... the melodies absorb .... and the drumming language will absorb ... after lots of enjoyed listening you will hear yourself responding in a whole new musical way

the last thing you want to do while playing jazz is count and think too much .... you should be just reacting and playing what you feel .... don't think too much about the form just see where your instincts take you ... recognize the chord changes ... your ear will tell you where you are


... and when in doubt ... keep time until instincts kick in
 
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Not much else to contribute but to reinforce what's already been said.

The melody is the key to understanding the form / structure and playing musical. If all your doing is following the soloist, your most likely to over play and get in his/her way anyways.

Internalizing how a phrasing feels in terms of 2-4-8-12-16-32 bars - it comes with listening and by working on it, but it's a total necessity to listen to what you are playing, not just read (if that makes any sense).

This concept can also be worked on by using a book like John Riley's "Art of Bop Drumming" who has a section dedicated to figures and phrases. You can also use Syncopation for this as well as any snare drum solo book (Wilcoxon's are great for this). Try trading 2's and 4's with yourself and perhaps things will begin to internalize in the feel aspect where counting is no longer necessary.

Keep it going and it will come.
 
Also not much to add, but I like hearing (seeing?) myself talk (write?), so:

Listen to lots of stuff. I love WhoIsTony's advice to listen to one song repeatedly, for hours and hours. I can hum entire saxophone solos just because of spending years being obsessed with tunes and wanting to completely get inside the heads of the musicians who played them. It's counter-intuitive in a way, because this music was improvised on the spot and was never before or again performed exactly that way, yet I know it as if it was etched in stone. I think this was huge for me and can be huge for you. I've heard educators say you can only play what you can hear. Listening to the music and immersing yourself in the minutiae of it is the best possible advice I can give.

I'm not big on following soloists, either. It's more important to follow the form of the tune and know where you are. Get the form inside you. You shouldn't have to think about it, the feedback you're getting from the rest of the band should just confirm what you already know about where you're at, if that makes sense. It's sort of like playing with a click, where you're not obsessing over it, it's like another instrument in the band. Same concept applied differently; you're just riding those changes.

But it's important to remember it is a dialogue you're having with the rest of the band, so some of it is on you to contribute something to. You may cue on something a soloist does and react to that. Maybe not a literal phrase repeated back (that can sound corny), but it could be something like taking the dynamics up and then bringing them back down. Or, if things have gotten stale, maybe you need to ratchet them up a notch. It's a conversation. There aren't written rules. You learn when to talk and when to listen. How not to interrupt someone else. It's a language.

And it's beautiful, man. The greatest feeling in the world. Welcome.
 
my advice

forget listening to the soloist .... I almost never do ... he really has no information for you .
I think that theory is way out of date .
to me the music sounds way better when a drummer comps creating a musical jigsaw puzzle with the others comping and plays catch with the bass player

I would never really voice this theory until I read Bob Moses say the same thing in his book Drum Wisdom .
I was always afraid because of that old school "rule".... LISTEN TO THE SOLOIST
I say hogwash.
I am not saying DON"T listen to the soloist.... that would be nearly impossible
I am saying don't base everything you are playing on responses to the soloist as the old rule may suggest .

have a conversation with those supporting the soloist .... you are one of them at that point

... as for not losing your place in the form

play alongs are ok.... but they are really not very useful to a jazz player beyond working on your time and some phrasing ....

like you said ... you start to memorize what is on the recording and that actually works completely against you in terms of developing jazz instincts.... which is pretty much everything

there comes a point in everyones playing.... not only drummers but all musicians .... where we just understand how to feel groups of 4 and 8 without counting .... you just feel it... it's 100% instinctual
I believe this comes from continuous listening... to all kinds of music
you just feel that 4 bars just passed.... it is hard to describe ... but when you have it there is no denying it .

actually in uptempo tunes I feel 4 bar phrases almost as if they are a really slow quarter note .
so if the tune is a 32 bar form I know that 8 of those 4 bar feelings is the entire form .... and I really did not count at all
I hope that wasn't too confusing .

listen , Listen, LISTEN..... just listen to great jazz records all the time.... learn melodies and the ones that really speak to you ... listen to them over and over ..... sing them to yourself as you walk around

I have been emailing back and forth with the great Berklee jazz professor Skip Hadden recently and he keeps suggesting to listen to ONE tune for 6 hours.... either straight or broken up ... I personally have no problem with that but it's not for everyone.

listening is the key... and when we enjoy something it naturally absorbs

the last thing you want to do while playing jazz is count and think too much .... you should be just reacting and playing what you feel .... don't think too much about the form just see where your instincts take you ... recognize the chord changes ... your ear will tell you where you are


... and when in doubt ... keep time until instincts kick in
So awesome, Tony. This is why you're a teacher. You articulate it so well. I wish I had a cat like you mentoring me when I was starting out in this s***.
 
Deep Thoughts....

Creative influence, creative process, creative inspiration and soloing...

What happens when a drummer solos, in particular what happens when a Jazz drummer solos? Is it exactly the same every time? Is it spontaneous? Is it loosely structured, outlined, thematic? What do you think? You are listening to 1 cut, on 1 night, in 1 venue when you listen to live recordings from different eras (and studio recordings for that matter).

Capturing a vibe is important to me, not necessarily note for note, beat for beat but in a thematic sense. And then I scat percussively. AND as others have stated I want to have a musical conversation.

Drilling down to the exactness of each and every measure is exhaustive for me and I have rarely done that over the years.

There is agreement and disagreement over this. But... in my mind I want to have my chops up to snuff, my technique and stick control optimized, I want to be loose and relaxed, I want to breath, and I want to make any solo something that expresses my background and influences. Which as anyone will attest... we are all a product of our influences. It's our musical journey. Flow down that river... it is deep and wide and let the current take you where it wants you to go.
 
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Learning melodies on a melodic instrument like piano helps an awful lot, I had a lot of trouble with Stablemate's form, which is an unusual one, so I dedicated a day of practice to just sit on the piano and learn the melody little by little, add to this listening to different versions of the tune as many times as possible and I guarantee you will always know where you are on the form.
 
Learning melodies on a melodic instrument like piano helps an awful lot, I had a lot of trouble with Stablemate's form, which is an unusual one, so I dedicated a day of practice to just sit on the piano and learn the melody little by little, add to this listening to different versions of the tune as many times as possible and I guarantee you will always know where you are on the form.

amazing advice

looks like you had a great time in NYC William

I wish we could have coordinated a meet up ... but it looks like you saw some great performances and of course you got to see Steve Maxwells shop
 
Thanks a lot guys for your great advice. I don't play any melodic instrument but i do have an old keyboard and i would like to learn play a bit sometime. It's hard for me now because i have a day job and i have only 4 hours free per day and i want to spend it on my drumset. I know only some basics on piano. On last summer i had a bit of free time and i learned some basics on piano, basic chords and reading, thought i have forgoten almost everything by now. By saying playing the melody of a song you mean only as is written in realbook. I thing i can do that. I used to play now's the time's melody, on C if i remember, with my right hand. If that only helps i guess i could learn some standard melodies on piano with a bit of practice
 
... I used to play now's the time's melody, on C if i remember, with my right hand. If that only helps i guess i could learn some standard melodies on piano with a bit of practice

If you learn the harmonies (chord changes), you should be able to keep your place in the music. The soloists are improvising over those changes.

Now's the Time is a 12 bar blues. It's preferable to know both the melody and harmony, but if you know the blues changes you can keep your place in any blues.

Jeff

Jeff W. Johnson
 
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