BLUES OR GIANT STEPS?

[stukvalve]

have you guys heard about david baker's concept of teaching giant steps to beginning improvisers before teaching them the blues/blues scale?

i think this is cool because it stops the whole running of the blues scale up and down over tunes, and forces the student to play and deal with changes from the beginning. to my experience there have been many students who have difficulty playing changes, and negotiating bebop after a certain stage of development.

then again, giant steps for anyone is a challenge, and it could possibly turn some young improvisers away...

im curious what you guys think about this.
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"It's not about working hard, It's about being organized." -Wynton Marsalis

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[Erin C]

I haven't ever heard of that before, but it sounds really interesting. I think that because the blues scale is taught before anything else about chord changes is taught the students think that the blues scale is the only tool that exists at all, and it gets confusing when you tell them not to use that anymore after you've told them to use it however many millions of times. I think it's a great concept to teach about chord changes instead of the blues scale... although my question would be, why Giant Steps? I mean, holy crapola, why not just teach about chord changes over an easier progression?

Erin -iii<
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"If it is true that love makes the world go round, then of course there'll always be music to spark the romance of life."
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[PH]

Actually, what you describe sounds more like Jerry Coker than David.

These days David tends to start players out with the bebop/scale & gestures ala volume 1 of his "How to Play Bebop" series (similar in many ways to Barry Harris's pedagogy) plus a focus on ways to conceptualize chord progressions and quickly hear and memorize tunes & changes.

[stukvalve]

oops... yeah, jerry coker! sorry ....
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"It's not about working hard, It's about being organized." -Wynton Marsalis

matzentrpt@hotmail.com

[Larry Smithee]

Where does Jerry Coker teach now days?
Larry Smithee

[Strawdoggy]

Interesting.

I know that some teachers like to steer clear of the blues scale when starting out. They say that it has students sit on the 4th scale tone on a dominant 7 chord too much. Also too much b3 and b5. I can see their point.

Maybe the reason the blues is so popular as a starting point is that it gets beginners to hear the easy 12 bar pattern. So many students can't follow the changes in simple tunes when they first start out, the blues seems like an easy pattern to hear. Also, you can get started playing right away on the blues scale.

I like starting out with the Major and Minor Aebersold series. Then move to dom 7s, etc..

I, too would be interested in what others do. What do they do at the Aebeersold camps, Pat?

[cybertrumpet]

That is cool. Kind of like the baseball player swinging three bats prior to stepping up to the plate with one. I think it is a great concept, however I do think that the blues is very important. I have noticed that in alot of cases, when someone in a jazz group calls a tune, they will always say, "let's play a blues". I always try to think, "let's play THE blues".


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When I think of the perfect sound, I think practice. When I think of the perfect horn, I think Schilke.

[ This Message was edited by: cybertrumpet on 2003-02-23 14:06 ]

[adamcz]

Cyber, I have to disapprove of your desire to play "the" blues as opposed "a" blues. By using the word "the," you are (probably not intentionally) feeding the misconseption that a blues is a blues. Most improvisers play the same material over blues forms, without regard to the head and specific changes that the composer wrote. I oftentimes here players putting iii-VI-ii-V turnarounds at the end of Monk tunes that shouldn't have them, or playing blues scale derived phrases on a Bird tune who's melody suggests nothing of the sort. Each blues should be treated differently, and that's why it's a better idea to play "a" specific blues.

[Vessehune]

I don't like the Blues in A.

[PH]

Coker is retired from the University of Tennessee. He just sent me a new book called "Clear Solutions" which is just that...no B(arbara) S(treisand) ways for the improviser to solve problems with no wasted motion.

JC's approach to teaching improv to students who are already competent musicians is an interesting one. He likes to start with a tune that has simple kinds of chords (in other words, chords without a lot of unusual alterations, etc.) and a pretty fast harmonic rhythm. He says that this removes much of the intimidating burden of decision making for the new improviser. The student would start off by playing on a tune like Confirmation, Lazybird, Giant Steps, etc. at a moderate tempo. These tunes have a new chord approximately every 2 beats. On each change the improviser plays 1 to 4 notes that clearly outline the chord change...arpeggios & inversions, scale fragments, etc.. This is not too tough to do if you have a decent technique and know your basic chord and scale forms from music theory. After the student becomes comfortable and facile with this kind of tune he gradually simplifies the chord progression and introduces an increasing amount of creative decision making to the developing improviser. The student starts with the mechanical and as that is mastered becomes gradually more creative.

I find this works well with certain kinds of students.

At the Aebersold camps we have students at all different levels of skill, technique, background, and maturity. Different people respond better to different teaching techniques & one size never fits all. It is my job to be familiar with as many different ways to "skin the cat" as possible and prescribe the one that will work best for each individual. That is what keeps my life intriguing!

JC's approach is certainly a valid one that works great for many folks.

[Larry Smithee]

[Boy meets Horn]

Hmm, interesting topic.

I have often wondered how my playing would have been if i had started learning my major scales starting with C# instead of C. I think that often times we think of things as difficult, bc we compare them to the things we started out learning. When you first started music, you didnt know if the C scale was easier to learn than the B major scale, all you knew is that they started you out with the C scale.

Now to tie this with Giant Steps. I think it is a great idea that someone is starting beginning improvisers on Giant Steps. I think it is a good change of pace. Truth be told, when someone starts learning something, the thing they are taught first tends to stay with them. I think starting ppl out on Giant Steps is a great idea, it'll raise the bar.


P.S. I dont think Giant Steps would be all that difficult at quarter note =100

[jazztrpt]

Giant Steps really isn't hard. Just start at a slow tempo and work it up. The hard part for me is finding new things to play over it that don't sound old.
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[jazz_trpt]

That's everybody's problem.

[stukvalve]

I guess its a great thing that Giant Steps is only played for fun, usually being played for a half full room of drunk people with their backs turned.
_________________
"It's not about working hard, It's about being organized." -Wynton Marsalis

matzentrpt@hotmail.com

[Horatio Hornblower]

Got this off of the web. Comments about soloing from Bob Brookmeyer. FYI

" Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 10:10:56 -1000
From: Mark Minasian <minasian@hawaii.edu>
Subject: FW: Bob Brookmeyer
Hi everyone. Mark Van Cleave just sent this article to me. It does contain some very foul language, so if that sort of thing offends you, delete now. This is an interesting take of Jazz, the art and the film by Jazz artist Bob Brookmeyer.

Mark Minasian


From Bob Brookmeyer:

Date: 01/17/2001 12:35:41 PM Eastern Standard Time

Woke up this mornin' and both my cars were gone -- Hollywood Blues, courtesy Jack Sheldon. While on the Blues, I recommend Sleepy John Estes. A paragon, to me. I have a sports-loving wife (tennis whiz, All State HS Basketball) and it's still unnerving for a MALE to hear "3 seconds" muttered while watching the Celtics limp around. The Knicks-Blazers game over the weekend -- me; "they're holding" -- she: "let them play." When asked if I should really do a NY Times piece (I bagged a review of "Jazz" because of WM & Co.) she said "say something upbeat." I married well. Something upbeat -- HMMM -- well, I have been very lazy about musical advice and -- since one of my jobs is teaching -- here goes.

First, improvisation. To wean students away from cant (accepted wisdom) I find that reminding them that all music is "song-based," (from Buddy Bolden to Cecil Taylor), is helpful. We wallow in decades of beautiful songs, giving us so much linear and harmonic instruction that to ignore it is criminal.. I once asked a student, years ago, to play a "standard" -- he replied "how about 'Bolivia'?" Now Cedar Walton is OK, but "STANDARD???" It shook me up. Standard songs are so-called because they have weathered time and assault from hostile forces AND they can be used as a barometer on how well the improviser can improvise. Somebody running "Giant Steps" doesn't tell me **** -- a pass on "Stella" and I have a very good idea what's up after 16 bars. The fascination with the "Steps" was in place when I returned in 1978 -- it still looks like a bunch of II-V-I's, but then at 71 I may be missing something. However, since 40,000 tenor players can do Coltrane clone imitations, I have begun to feel a little more secure in working at being, as much as possible, an IMPROVISER. I make up stuff without an agenda. Regardless of context, I try to "sing" through the horn and I try to react to my circumstances -- to play WITH people, not AT them. There seems to be, in the chat world, a complete fascination with the new AG folks. The idea of a slow, steady progression forward perhaps requires too much experience listening and a greater grasp of history than most have time for. When I recommend Don Byas to the student, I do so in the belief that Don played unusual rhythmic structures and made up his own language. So did Warne Marsh. I tried Vandermark and could not see the reason WHY -- I was not moved, touched or interested. I have had my say on David Murray earlier. The way forward is, perhaps, not half-assed electro shock. Talk therapy?

Anyway, there MUST be a belief that EVERY note matters. You (the player) must love every single note, for if you mumble, the sense is gone. Compare to acting -- no diction, no job. The production of one complete sound then offers the position that two sounds are possible. Exponentially, 10,000 sounds are available, all valid, meant, felt and YOURS! I tell my people the "oh ****!" syndrome -- if you are tootling away and make a mistake, the revolving neon sign floats above the brow says "OH ****!!!" -- that properly signifies to one and all that you have ****ed up. However, if -- upon producing a note that is momentarily alien to the passing context -- you say "Aha, interesting and perhaps valuable," you have first of all put your own mind at ease and then allowed the rest of us to breath easier, for we worry when you **** up. We come to hear you play well and having a Bush in hand is a **** up enough for anyone. So, the lesson is -- the only wrong note you play is one that you declare to be wrong. The advantage in MY chromatic world is that I have 12 choices wherever I go and they are all MINE and they are all available to help me give you my thoughts, feelings and experiments. Yes, it IS possible to play in 4/4 or 3/4 and to actually experiment! Reinventing the light bulb is a nice hobby, but with the dearth of actual creative young players given to us by Corporate dudes, the production of "noise" or the acts of random violence have already been done. Anybody remember the 60's?? In school and abroad, I find rays of light and there are indeed young players rising slowly into view. The young are my musical sustenance and I do everything I can to help them become themselves. I need them, you need them. They don't have to be incomprehensible to be creative. As Thad said, "Mean What You Say!" And learn to say it well.

Now, composition and song writing. The problems found with younger writers is, as said before, the unwillingness to expose yourself -- to take the risk of US knowing more about YOU! That's where it's at, where it starts and where it ends up. As an improv. person, you can always "have a bad night" -- as a writer, it is quite difficult to convince anyone that you had a bad week, a bad month or especially (for opera composers) a bad year. It begins with the reduction of elements to comprehensible units that can be used to build music. The poet works long and hard to get a single phrase to speak -- they play with words. We play with pitches and rhythms and colors. The dividing of self from the natural love of your own song/child is rough. BUT, the more attached you get to your "baby," the more hamstrung you become in letting the kid grow up. A "song" (or "tune") is compositional potential, not fixed in stone. It needs to be deconstructed and, most often, given extra space between statements to breathe, and these statements themselves need to be thought out, developed, allowed to grow. We always (ALWAYS) truncate our musical thought by fearing public boredom. If the public ain't bored by what they have been hearing lately, we are home safe. So, be of stout heart and risk durational disapproval. The baby MUST be allowed to grow and 32 bars will not do it -- it's a cage and you will kill the kid or render it crippled in the long haul."


[ This Message was edited by: Horatio Hornblower on 2004-08-02 13:53 ]