Bluffers guide to Playing Jazz
BLUFFERS 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 shows
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 archeological 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 players 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 loud, 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 and for 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.
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