Jazz Comping (2021)
jazz-library.com
jazz-library.com
These skills, which are often called "taste", are quite temperament-agnostic. They would apply equally to music with 13 notes per octave.
[0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi7SGJGaW8s&pp=ygUXSSBmaW5hbGx...
clarinetist-- play loud, continuous lyrical lines that noodle around whatever register the trumpet happens to be playing in
trumpet-- play continuous arpeggios
trombone-- play ska-style double-timing off-beats
tuba-- no roots of chords allowed. Bonus for playing continuous dotted quarters :)
Any combination of any of the above trolling will sound bad.
I wanted something like you describe, but as far as I know nothing existed. So I've been hacking at this and the basic idea does work. It's now just a matter of designing the courses and polishing the user experience.
I am just coming up with the structure for how to define what music would depend on each other. Trying to do it based on music theory would be ideal, but probably beyond my capacity. So I think the historical development of the genre you are trying to learn is a good proxy. For jazz, for example, this would be something like learning African music first, then spirituals, then blues songs, then new orleans jazz, then basic standards and so on. Trane works based on a graph, so the progression does not have to be linear.
It's pretty early stages at the moment. Only one course for now since I've been trying to work out the process first: https://github.com/trane-project/trane-music/blob/master/cou...
These "transcription" courses first ask you to loosely sing the song, then loosely improvise over it with your instruments (you can customize your own), then sing in different keys and do it more thoroughly, then improvise more closely to the actual song. The last step is what is normally called transcribing, but the course is meant to progressively lead you to that. The whole process is meant to recreate the apprenticeship process that all the early Jazz masters went through.
Ideally there's a graphic interface that downloads the music and lets you loop, slow down, and change the pitch. But for now, there's only a command-line interface and the user has to do that themselves. Not ideal, but it works.
Adults have a hard time learning new things largely because beginner's mind feels so alien and tedious to them. A kid is shocked to discover how great that first E major chord sounds, and experiences like that are motivating.
It's easy for beginners to find low hanging fruit, because there's so much of it. But if you periodically step back to map the terrain, there's always something within your reach that will feel satisfying when you get it, no matter how much you already know. How is my rhythm? Can I play to a click? Do I recognize chords as fast as I want? Can I play doublestops? Can I do funk? Counterpoint? Odd time signatures? How are my biomechanics? Bichords (that's two chords at the same time)? Symmetric scales? Microtones (instrument permitting)? Can I convey peace? Excitement? Morose? Military? Exultant? Afraid? Call and response with someone else? Between my two hands? Within one hand?
Also it's helpful to avoid the goal of "dominating" such targets. I will never dominate "rhythm". It's too big. But I'll keep improving.
Start by listening to music you like, then pick an instrument. Copy what they did, note by note, but 100x slower. It may not be fun at first, but you will pick up speed slowly, and soon, you're making music, and maybe you'll learn something along the way.
Take the song, load it up in transcribe (https://www.seventhstring.com/) or similar software, pick a part. Up to here, this method and yours is the same. But rather than worrying about the exact notes being played, study the context by just singing and playing over the song and seeing what works and what does not.
There's a lot more information than just the notes that were played. So this type of transcription gets you to navigate the same context the musicians were playing in. And as you do it, you'll start hitting the actual notes, and eventually you can close in on them. What's great is that it's fun, playful, musical, and you can do it even with songs that are way out of your level when transcribing note by note or learning from a score.
Using a human language analogy, your suggestion would be to mimic conversations and mine would be to babble in other people's conversations until you become fluent. It's clear in human languages that one is much faster than the other. Sure babies are geared for it, but I think the babbling would work for adults too if they became cute as a baby or puppy, got over themselves, and could shamelessly babble onto other's conversations.
The best book on the matter I've read of how to learn by ear is "The Gift of Music" by Victor Wooten. It's kind of weird in that it's written as a fiction book, but there are definitely music lessons. And if some of them feel too out there, just listen to him play. He's a master, not a stoner pretender.
There's also "Thinking in Jazz", but I am only a fourth or third of the way and so far it's mostly about the historical and cultural background of improvisers. It's not gotten too into the weeds musically speaking.
edit: This Seventh String software has an old school interface, but it's actually brilliant. This completely changes my approach, thank you!!
Do you confirm the name? I cannot find any reference to it. We do have 'The Music Lesson' and 'The Spirit of Music'.
The spirit of music is supposed to be the sequel but I haven't read it yet.
If you want to learn improvisation it helps to also investigate "why" - why this particular rhythmic figure (e.g as shown in the OP article), why this chord voicing (e.g. block chords? Quartal harmony? Drop-2?), why this melody (e.g. ascending or descending? Arpeggiating the chords or "playing outside"?) etc etc
Edit: One more thing: it's OK to improvise with the help of something like iReal Pro, but nothing replaces improvising with real humans, find a group of like minded people that would like to play with you
As an aside, music skill (and many other skills) can be divided into Reading and Writing. Reading consists of either actually reading sheet music, or Playing by Ear. Writing is executing what is in your mind. In the context of improvisation, it's coming up with those things to execute in the first place.
To be honest, I am a good Reader, but a poor Writer myself, and still in the beginning of this part of my journey. I love listening to jazz, and playing along, but devising my own melodies is almost beyond the current me. But what's great about music is that every day you practice is one that you get better.
(Okay, technically a song is a pattern. But it's a really nice one.)
First you familiarize yourself with an interval, by just playing it all over your instrument, listening and singing it.
Then you test your recall: Play a note N, and try to sing N+I (where I is the interval).
Once you know more than one interval, you can also test recognition: Someone else plays an interval (N,N+I) and you try to identify I.
Once you've got the twelve intervals (you can go past the octave but that's pretty easy so basically there are only 12 to learn) you can do similarly for chords. Chords are also easy compared to intervals, though, because they are built up from intervals, so even before you can recognize them all at once, you'll already have the ability to pick them apart note by note to figure out what they are.
Seriously though, you can think of melody and etc as relative parts of a scale as well as intervals between notes. Ear training using scales is simplest and eventually starts to apply to more complicated patterns. Eventually you recognize the intervals and scales even if you are not consciously thinking about the descriptors like 'oh this is a major third interval'
Here's one.
Level 1-- learn the bass notes for Heart and Soul
Level 2-- now learn the bass notes in broken thirds
Level 3-- play those bass notes in left hand and root position triads an octave above in right hand
Level 4-- learn to play the melody in the right hand
Level 5-- (big power up needed to continue!) play both l.h. bass notes and r.h. melody
Level 6 Final Boss-- l.h. broken thirds and melody together
Now you go through 2nd Quest and play duets with people. It gets fun when you realize it's the same as the A section to I Got Rhythm so jazzers can jump in and noodle around atop your bass patterns.
You can even hear a few of these levels literally in the ending credits to a Tom Hanks movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHwhfJ1zzPs
Good luck and remember to save your game or you'll have to start back at the beginning each time.
Edit: the link is to a neat rendition-- you get a simulation of the game of learning the bass pattern as the musician slowly gains speed; New Orleans style Heart and Soul; and then a modest stride style Heart and Soul with chord substitutions. It even ends with a circle-of-fifths game that rises up to the Neapolitan before collapsing into one of those jazz ending-chords (sharp 11th?).
Also, the online course site openstudiojazz.com has first rate courses.
My top-down approach is to work books as best i can, i need to incorporate "bottom up" which is listen (50x if necessary) and transcribe.
(and i have another TODO for Barry Harris' books/vids etc)
He is a highly practical player who (self-admittedly) doesn’t doesn’t know theory that well, which is the perfect antidote to the more theoretical Berklee-method educators (e.g. Adam Neely) that dominate the scene.
Citation needed for the jazz harpist comping chords.
(No points for solo jazz harping-- only for jazz harping from inside the rhythm section.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdUztFVwi3I
More seriously:
Jakez Francois https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA7mM128jqk
comping behind a piano solo https://youtu.be/Z9goA1ZhElg?t=185
Ok, that third link is a harpist actually comping. Boy, that's tough! The pianist has to drop their left-hand and even play rather quietly in their right hand so that you can hear the chords the harpist is comping.
It makes me think of Michael McKean as the harpist bandleader in Primetime Glick, where the audience nearly never hears any harp sounds:
The first two were
* tongue in cheek
* on the path to ...
I left them in as evidence of the evolution of my response to your challenge .. which was a interesting one, thanks for that.
Nice response, although it actually reminded me of more of the many great works by Dave Brubeck:
Then, I recommend you to check out what Sullivan Fortner is doing. Probably the next really heavy one that has managed to push the jazz lang forward after Brad.
While we're at it, just in case there is -- is there any classical composer you know of comparable to Lowell Liebermann[1]?
> Got to hear the incomparable Sullivan Fortner last night at @bimhuis in Amsterdam. I’m sure many of you know how unreal his music is … he just blows me away every time I get to hear him. Last night was piano solo.
> Sullivan is deep on all levels—touch, counterpoint, utter relaxation, swing, transparency of ideas, no matter how dense the texture. He takes you through the whole emotional spectrum, unabashed joy included.
> It’s completely rooted and completely original all at once. If you have the chance to hear him, don’t miss it. He is quietly revolutionizing jazz piano playing. Actually piano playing period. (And by the way he can sing like nobody’s business, if that weren’t enough!)
Hard to put it better than Brad... nails the review.
Kind of like how running with both legs isn't really using your left leg? I don't really understand this train of thought.
> playing random shell chords
Not many piano players these days use bebop era shell chords. It's all about rootless, cluster and quartal voicings. And just because they are played without regularity doesn't make them random. A skilled player places them very intentionally.
> Playing an actual walking bass, stride, four-to-the-bar chords, arpeggios or boogie patterns is more like it.
These techniques create a metrical regularity that is antithetical to the spontaneous and forward-pushing rhythym of post-bop era jazz. It's fine for certain styles of music.
PS In your other comment you blame bebop for this, but I don't think that contemporary jazz is necessarily all in the shadow of bebop, I think it is actually very diverse, with so many genres that are not necessarily close to bebop such as neo-swing and funk-jazz.
Most pianists put the melody on top because it sounds better and doesn't conflict with the bass.
Before that, the prevalent comping style in the left hand was stride, which provides a rich bass backing. (You know, the oom-pah stuff) Contrary to the common criticism, if coordinated well, this can also work in the presence of a double bass player (just check out Fats Waller recordings, many of his Rhythm recordings had a double bass player!)
Even pre-bop, like singing Great American Songbook stuff while playing the piano, requires this. Like, for the head while you're singing you can get by on bass and chords while you sing the melody, but when it's time for your piano solo, you're basically trying to fit three responsibilities in two hands. Stride is only one way to do that, and you really only want hints of it.
Sorry, I think what I said was misunderstood and was not very accurate, so I made the decision to delete it.
The problem with music theory is that it's _extremely_ contextual, and I think you have to at least get a sense for some of the "rules" of chord construction to be able to make sense of the notation. Music theory is just a language for talking about sounds and harmonies, and while there are cases where "just focus on the intervals" would make sense, there are just as many times that it's useful to say "it's a ii-V-I in Ab major." Having the language be based on the diatonic chords of the key you're in can make it easier to express a lot of different concepts in a shorthand, instead of having to spell out the intervals of every chord you come across.
My advice to folks learning music theory would be to check out the Signals Music Studio channel - that dude has helped me make sense of theory concepts that I never grokked in years of playing music. I think it's really one of those cases where you have to get a good sense for the language before you start to get frustrated by the limitations and blemishes of the whole system.
If I couldn't have any information about the key, I'd still want the root and the melody.
The point I think you're missing is that the blog post isn't a music-theoretical presentation of what E7 is 'ontologically', it's a guide for what jazz pianists should play on that chord in an ensemble context. And in that context what's written here is very standard advice, since it's assumed the bassist will be playing the E. If there was no bassist, say if they were playing solo piano, a pianist will often play the E in the bass.
It's also clear from the way the article is written that they're already assuming some basic theoretical knowledge. It's never explained what notes are in an E7. If you don't know that, yes it will be confusing, but only because the article is not for you.
Overall I think the post would be very helpful for someone who knows the basics and is just getting starting playing with others.
The player chooses what voicings to use, often on the fly. Voicings like 7-9-3-5 for a ii chord are only the most basic one-hand voicings that can give some minimal voice leading in common progressions.
Once a player learns a lot of different voicings, and more voicing concepts, they will add other notes like the 11, 13, and yes the root. Two-handed spread voicings on piano might often have a root on top, or pass through a root via voice leading in a progression.
The simpler voicings are there for beginners to teach the theory, enough practice to play a bit, and to emphasize getting the root out of the low register where it muddies things with the bass.
So the important piece of information is the key and chord quality. For an E7 as a V7 chord, it really matters that the root is E (and that you're in the key of, and maybe resolving to D) even if you don't, right at some particular moment, play the E.
From my reading of the article there wasn't a suggestion the root was unsounded, just that it wasn't provided by the piano or guitar voicings, i.e. left to the bassist (or potentially even the soloist). Having said that I'd say there clearly are times even playing solo it makes sense to think of a particular chord as rootless, given what it's leading to or what it's substituting for, or what you might reasonably expect a bass player to do if they were present.
Thus, when I hear things like "Of course, a rootless 3-7-9-5 so-called I7 (E7) chord is actually a diminished seventh chord (minor third, diminished fifth, diminished seventh (major sixth)) viio7 (D diminished 7th chord)" it makes sense in my mind what you're saying, but I'm also thinking... if someone showed you how to play it, rather than attempted to 'teach' you by showering you in theory, there wouldn't be a whole lot of confusion.
At the end of the day, the American styles of music are ultimately all aural traditions, whereas 'classical' has -- unfortunately, in my opinion -- become transformed into a written one.
But going back to the E7. Only the piano pays Gsharp, B, D, F#/F. The Bass player will play E, so while it's rootless on piano, it's not rootless in a band. Which is probably another reason you're confused. Jazz comping should not be played without a band. If you're just playing jazz piano then you should certainly play the root at some point (unless you want to sound cerebral, in which case don't do that).
> My advise to people who are learning music theory is to ignore terminology as much as they can and focus on intervals. Intervals are the true source of truth of harmony and everything else is someone's opinion as to how a particular structure should be named, perceived or modeled.
I always tell people attempting to learn improv and piano to 'play what sounds good and don't play what doesn't.
When taught properly, modern jazz theory is a clear and pragmatic aid to improvisational fluency. The time investment needed to get to grips with theory is really quite modest in the overall scheme of learning to be a jazz musician.
If they understand the notion of changing keys, then they don't have no knowledge of music theory. Transposition is basic theory, but music theory nonetheless. What do you reckon theory is? It starts with understanding how scales and chords are built.
I mean sure you can handpick scenarios where some musicians on certain instruments may be able to transpose without knowing any theory. But knowing a bit of theory would unlock the requisite knowledge to do it reliably on any instrument. There is really no reason not to learn some music theory is what I am getting it - it will only make you a more versatile musician.
> Improvisation is about feeling the music and interacting with it, it is not about finding the best scale and writing the notes on paper.
Knowing music theory is not about finding the best scale. It is about being able to talk and write about the building blocks that give rise to musical expressivity in a common language that is communicable to others. In other words, it is descriptive, not prescriptive.
> in fact it may hinder you ability to discover by yourself
As someone who has taken 6 semesters of music theory, and still stumbles upon things that surprise me musically, I would disagree. The difference is when I stumble upon a new sound, I can remember it not only by feeling and how it sounds but also by it's harmonic, rhythmic, melodic, structural characteristics. Which would allow me to use it in greater contexts.
Agreed, jazz teachers have the tendency to overcomplicate things. Jazz is not that difficult (on the theory side), because most of what players do is to decide on the fly what sounds good or not. All the complex analysis of scales is just something that is introduced afterwards to try to understand what is going on, not something you need to learn. The only concepts that I believe you need to master to play jazz is basic chords sequences (II/V/I style) and voice leading. Everything else follows from that.
I'm an amateur jazz bassist. I've also learned relatively little theory, but have a reasonably active gig schedule with 3 bands plus whoever calls me. I handle my role well enough, including extensive soloing.
But I offer some caveats to younger players when they're given a chance to learn theory:
1. What I've learned by ear and intuition has taken me 45 years. And there were more opportunities to learn by immersion when I started out. A young player who studies theory can get there an awful lot quicker. And there are a lot more college trained jazz players competing for gigs.
2. I compensate with some other strengths, including knowledge of the standards (rarely bring fake books to "standards" gigs), and fluent sight-reading. Even pro's who don't maintain their reading chops will have a hard time subbing for me on my big-band gigs. Some jazz follows the written tradition.
3. Players who go beyond just playing standards and canned arrangements, by writing their own compositions and arrangements, are almost exclusively trained in theory. And unlike the rock scene, playing high quality "originals" seems to enhance the audience appeal of a jazz band. Two of my bands have fairly prolific composers. Unfortunately, neither band records, or I'd share.
4. There's a fair amount of modern stuff that's over my head, and I'm forced to find ways of soloing and harmonizing that are work-arounds.
"Shouldn't" seems a strange way of putting it - if you're fortunate enough to be playing in an ensemble with a dedicated bassist then sure, it's their job to provide the root (for any chord!) but I've never heard it suggested as a pianist that you should avoid doubling it...
The particular sentence you quoted sounds rigid on its own, but when put into the context of my entire comment, it's clear that I'm not trying to give a hard rule, but a general convention. Like I said... you should play what sounds good; and don't play what doesn't
Knowing theory won't necessarily make you better at playing music in a certain style on a certain instrument. But it will make you a much more adaptable musician who can pick up styles and instruments faster, communicate musical ideas more efficiently, and form a mental conceptual model of a piece much more effectively.
Particularly in music as harmonically complex jazz, if you can't speak the language of theory other musicians frankly won't be able to communicate with you on paper and thus won't take you very seriously.
Now if you want to play for example punk or Appalachian folk music and nothing else, I would agree with you. But a working musician these days needs to be adaptable.