Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Jazz Study Group: Autumn Leaves, ATTYA, etc.

Gee Jazzwee, you should be PROUD of yourself. I don't come in here too often but today I decided to check things out, and I saw this. This is GREAT news. Yes go for it. You will learn so much more in a GIG situation where there is an audience to interact. It is so different from playing at home. Just take whatever comes and don't allow yourself to become nervous. Play it like a PRO cuz you are, and definitely all your skills will shine out to surprise you.

Rosa

That's so nice of you Rosa! Well a gig would be easy if all I had to play was Autumn Leaves, but based on a regular repertoire, I'm not confident. It's all about this self consciousness thing.

When I improvise on my own, and I'm not thinking about it, I think it sounds great. But in front of my teacher, my playing simplifies to 50%. I guess it's the fear of making a mistake or picking the wrong note. It's improvisation after all, where you expose your soul a little.

But my teacher did have an interesting comment. He said, even with the limited stuff I play in front him, he sensed what I was capable of. Obviously no time to give him a concert in a limited lesson time. The only problem is that I personally don't sense that I'm capable yet. I feel like I can't control when I'm in a good groove. Maybe that's what separates the amateurs from the professionals. Consistency.

Not to worry Jazzwee. You will do fine. In fact, when it is live, you will be surprised how well you do, cuz you learn all the tricks to cover your mistakes which the audience would not know.

BTW, I am working on that Charleston rhythm thing. One of these days, I will post a recording.

Rosa

Jazzwee - What wonderful news to wake up to this morning. Way to go, Mr. Jazzer!

Jazzwee,

My teacher asked me to go play at a local open-mic where his trio sits in every Friday.
I pretty much laughed at that point. He said I'd be ok. I think the idea of the open mic is that they see all levels of playing / singing, and they get really good at following you. So if you don't have a band yet, I'd look into something like that. I'd feel free to bring your own changes / arrangements if it helps, at least for the bass player.

btw, what do you do professionally ?

Cool, jazzwee...

Thanks for the acclamations guys! Sometimes I forget that the Jazz thread started in December. A lot can change in 8 months. So hopefully everyone has jumped up a huge notch after all this time of practice...

I play very differently now from what was recorded here so I'm sure everyone else is better too.

knotty, there are jam sessions here but they are intense. Pretty competitive. I'd stay away from those unless I want to be the next Brad Mehldau.

Other than that, I'm not familiar with a less formal setting at least for jazz playing here. My problem is that aside from a confidence issue, I haven't built up a huge library of tunes to work with yet. After learning all the technical details of playing, there's still the task of memorizing the real book.

But I think I have enough to play continuously for a couple of hours. Solo piano, I think I'm comfortable with and might start with that. Besides it's an easier thing to do as you are mostly background. I do a lot of it now (unpaid).

What I need to do is find some student bass player who needs the practice...

As far as my own real professional work, it involves depressing the keyboard all day (but not the piano kind).

Whoo Hoo! What a compliment, jazzwee!

I don't know your jazz scene at all, so don't know about all the competitiveness, etc. But I'm a fools-go-where-angels-fear kind of person, and my suspicion is a little like Rosa's - there's nothing like live for learning to cover one's mistakes I have dozens of ways of doing it when there's other musicians to cover So I think it'd be fun if I were you.

But I'm not. So do what you think is best - finding other less experienced musicians to jam with is a great thing, too - I do it every Sunday night. I can depend on them to cover for me, and I for them, at gigs now.

Congratulations. My life doesn't leave much room for AL, but I still check in sometimes. Thanks for this study group.

Cathy

Jazzwee,
Just listen to your teacher and students - Do it! Never mind this reason or that reason not to do it - just go out and do it! Look, if the guys you are playing Combo with have any talent at all, they'll know how to cover for you and get you back on track. It won't be long and you'll be doing the same for them, but you've got to get out there and try. DO IT!!!

Thanks for the upbeat push Cathy!

Well you're much gutsier than I am:D

I need time to let it sink in. I was under the impression that I would be stuck as a student for the foreseeable future

Now let me make this clear. My teacher didn't say the journey was ended by any means. Not by a long shot. Only that I reached a level of being "acceptable"

Fortunately, I don't do this for a living and don't have to jump into the fray tomorrow. I'll have to mull this over...

Sometimes I wonder why I even started this whole jazz study thing. What was the goal? Was it to gig or just the sheer enjoyment of creating music?

It's probably the second as I don't need this for income. But what's funny is that my teacher must think that the 'gigging' is part of the lesson. Something I need to work on.

Thanks for your nice comments!

Too bad we're all spread out all over the country. The next logical step for this thread is for everyone to get together and play together.

The one I'm talking about here seems pretty informal, more like a karaoke for musicians. The way I look at it, it's one way to dive into it. You come up on stage, you bring a chart, arrangements, whatever, and they follow. You do one tune and then out.
How to get the most of it?
I'd play something simple, something you are very comfortable with. A blues maybe. I'd focus on not overplaying.
I'd bring a friend and ask him to record. 3 minutes are gonna go so fast

So for example if you're really comfortable with a particular Aebersold track, bring the changes with you.

Personally, I'm not tempted for several reasons:
- I don't like bars, I don't like big crowds
- I don't like waiting for my turn
- 3 minutes is to short anyway
It's just so much more comfortable at home


That was my guess. I'm in the same boat
If they ever make you travel to DC, give me a ring, beer's on me

Happy birthday, knotty -

Cathy

I would not be tempted too for the same reasons. I'm getting to an age where I don't need to prove things for ego purposes.

But there's just a sheer joy in improvising and having control over the music you play.

Was it Frycek that said this? It's the difference between watching someone else having XXX or doing it yourself. As we grow and actually start liking what we play, there's an intense pleasure that comes out of that. Do I have to perform publicly to get this pleasure? Occasionally but it's already a good feeling just doing it at home.

Knotty, I extend the same invitation to you (and to all our friends on this thread) to check me out in LA if you're ever here.

My teacher encouraged me early on to play in a jam session at a jazz club, so I did. It was a bit intimidating, because all of the other players were professionals, but I had prepared for it at great length, using Band-In-A-Box. I went in with the attitude that the first attempt at anything is bound to be a major disaster, so I should just do it and learn from it, and correct my weaknesses, so that the second time would only be a minor disaster instead of a major one, and so on.

Actually it was an unmitigated success. I played four songs, almost half an hour on stage, with no flubs. My biggest concern was losing time during the drum solos (trading fours), but, miraculously, that did not happen. I did find the stage lights annoying, and there was an awkward silence at the beginning of the first tune - - I was waiting for someone else to count in, and they were waiting for me to do it! Live and learn. It never hurts to have a bit of comic relief, even before you start!

There was an excellent post on LJP about this. I have searched for it, but can't find it. I think it was from Jazz+. The gist of it was that for a person's first jam session, he should go in with the attitude that it's his turn, the rest are there to support him however he needs, and he should play whatever he is totally comfortable with - just a few notes, or simple lines, simple chords, or just sit there, whatever, and really just enjoy the experience.

Anyway, good luck, and I'm sure you will do great!

Ed

Good story Riddler.

You see I already tried a little of this. A couple of professionals came to my house to jam. These guys were serious pros and one frequents this forum with 30+ years of jazz piano behind him.

They just blew me away. I wasn't ready to keep up with them as their expectations are of serious playing. So now I know I can play but this incident is in the back of my mind.

I actually told my teacher this and he reassured me that I would be able to figure it out. Then my teacher jammed with me. If I can now jam with my teacher, I should be able to handle other jazzers. But the memory of my failure over a year ago comes back to haunt me.

I'm sure if I played with a less intimidating crowd, I would have a different ego level now. But that brought down my ego to zero.

Those guys might read this post. The reality though is I have a different level of confidence level now in my ability. But I'm careful to bring up my ego slowly as it was distressful to be crushed to a fine pulp .

Wow jazzwee! Excellent news from your jazz teacher. Can't wait to hear how it goes if you do decide to take the plunge and play a gig or with a band. I'm sure you'll do great. Really cool to hear the progress you've made in a relatively short period of time. Keep up the great work!

deeluk, thanks! I'm not going to formally plan on taking a 'plunge'. I'm just going to work hard on tunes as I always do and play publicly when I have a chance but I'll do it slow.

My first battle is to get over the little flashing red light. If I can do that then, the rest will be easy

Seriously speaking though, and back to blog mode, I think it'll be next year before I actually feel confident. I always said it takes five years to get there. I feel like I got a little reserve time right now to clean up some spots.

Areas to clean: improving comping, improving soloing on uncommon keys, consistency of solo quality (sometimes this is up and down depending on concentration), improving handling of soloing over fast changes (like chord changes every two beats).

I hope this gives a little idea to those working up the jazz ladder what some the issues are to development.

As far as difficulty of tunes, I think I've worked on pretty difficult ones now, so that seems not to be too much of concern. For myself, I think the issue is to push everything to the subsconscious level so there's more time to appreciate the music and listen.

For those of you learning voicings, do you have to think about how to voice a Dm9(#5)? Am7(b5)? Fm11? This is the stuff that has to be on autopilot.

Same with scales. Once your mind and your fingers know each scale and positions of chord tones, suddenly solos go automatically and you stop thinking about technical issues. I just listen to the music coming out. It's amazing actually that it can happen, and in a reasonably short period of time (3+ years for me when I realized it).

When it happens, suddenly the improvement goes ballistic as the sound changes. Now the notes and melodies seem to just come automatically and I'm actually more focused on phrasing and rhythm. Maybe that will be more automatic too.

Another blog item: Licks.

Everyone learns a different way so this is not something I will say works for everyone else. My current teacher of two years has not taught me a single lick. I often wondered how I was going to learn jazz without learning licks and patterns. This teacher is completely against teaching that.

I mentioned to him that it's pretty amazing that in two years of not learning licks or copying anyone's patterns that I can actually play. I did learn licks from a prior teacher and I can honestly say, I don't remember the licks or use them.

What I did do was listen and when I transcribed, I studied the intervals and studied the selected notes against the scale being played (which often is biased towards chord tones), and lo and behold, I'm creating melodies. But the melodies are coming from my own head.

Anyway, I hope these blog posts are useful to someone following the same route of learning and hopefully get encouraged by what happens later in the process.

.

Hey Jazz+. I agree Patterns are unavoidable in music. But repeating licks is one form of training for some. In fact, some players make a point of repeating common melodies in their playing. Nothing wrong with that.

I'm just saying that it's suprising that in the absence of memorization of licks that I'm still able to play. I'm just contrasting this to an old teacher that gave me a year's worth of licks to memorize and that was his methodology for teaching.

I just thought that interesting and after years of study, I've been able to compare approaches as it applies to what I learned. Some people are able to incorporate licks easily. It doesn't come easy to me. I find myself removing myself from the current idea and executing somebody else's idea. Then I can't go back to my own style.

This was just a blog point and not intended to characterize anybody else's learning method.

FYI - Dm9(#5) is the second chord in "Tones for Joans Bones - Chick Corea". Just used that as an example since it was something new and yes, outside of Chick, probably rare. But I could have used G7#5 as an example which is common. Point's the same though which is that, one needs to grasp chord intervals with immediacy. In fact, being aware of the important extensions is important to splitting the chord in LH and RH and cannot be done by sheer memorization of iim9-V7(9)(13) - I(6)(9) rootless voicings, at least in my experience.

The point of the blog was to spur a little debate and I appreciate your response. Let's discuss it more.