3) You suggest learning to solo by ear. That seems
really difficult! How can
I ever possibly learn to do that?
Jeff Adams: Listen, listen, listen, and listen some more to
good jazz. This is
the only way to learn the language and eventually be
able to speak it. Then when
you are listening to just a rhythm section play
through the changes of a song
like they would on an Aebersold CD or in Band in a
Box, force yourself to
hear ideas and either scat-sing or whistle those
ideas over the changes.
Sam Burtis: Start. Start simple. Be patient. Use your horn.
Use a piano.
A journey of a thousand miles begins w/one
step...and THIS journey is
MUCH longer than that. Endless, really.
Alex Iles: After you learn some simple songs and things you can sing..."Mary
Had a Little Lamb", patriotic songs, "Happy Birthday" [you BETTER know that one!!], you may want to move on to improvised solos.Start with the simplest sounding recorded improvised solos you enjoy.Sing along. Try to sing the solo without the recording. Then try playing along. Sometimes, your patience will be tested. Go back to singing along. Then come back to your horn. Once you can play most of it, you might want to write it out. I like writing solos out to see what I went through in the process and to share with other people.
Chris Smith: We all have the ability to memorize performances.
How many of us
can recite or re-enact whole scenes from our
favorite movies? Relating this idea
to music- nearly everyone knows the pop tunes that
have become the “musical
wallpaper” of our modern existence (i.e., anything
by the Beatles, Whitney
Houston, Phil Collins, etc....). We hear this same
music in stores and shopping
malls everywhere we go. You can probably sing along
with the instrumental solos
that occur in many of these tunes. That's not
because you made any conscious
effort to do so, but because you have heard the
music many times and have
internalized it.
If you
spend a LOT of time listening to jazz solos, you will find yourself
memorizing them. At a certain point, you will even
be able to recall them away
from the recordings. When you pick up your horn
knowing the solos internally,
then you will be able to start playing them on your
horn by recalling the
rhythms, pitches, etc. It is slow going at first,
but after a while (this could
be months or years) you can hear a musical phrase
and instantly play it back on
your horn, as easily as if you were repeating a sentence
someone had spoken to
you.
When I was "getting it together", I spent
a LOT of time learning jazz solos by
ear.
I feel that this, more than any other practicing
activity, trains your "whole
being" as a musician.
By learning other people's solos, one can:
1)
Develop an understanding of the feel of jazz music;
2) Gain
a good sense of relative pitch;
3)
Develop the ability to store musical ideas and recall them;
4) Slowly gain insight into the conscious and
unconscious processes
behind improvising;
5) Learn the "tendencies" of harmony,
form, etc.;
6) Gain a feel for what is known as, and believed by
some people, to be
the "Jazz Tradition". The *way* of jazz,
if you will.
7) learn lots of other valuable stuff which I can't
put my finger on at the
moment.
To condense what could be a year-long academic
course on the subject,
I’ll suggest taking a very methodical approach to
learning a solo off a record:
A)
Listen
to the solo until you find you can sing along with it note for note;
B)
Begin
trying to determine what the key of the tune is, what notes the various
phrases start on, etc. by using a reference
instrument- be it piano or keyboard,
your horn, whatever;
C)
Start
playing along with these sections where you’ve figured out the starting
points and use them to “anchor” you in figuring out
what happens after them.
D)
When
you feel you have the notes right, start paying attention to inflections,
alternate positions (listen to whether someone
played a 1st or 4th position “D”,
for example), volume levels, differences in attacks,
breathing points, sections that
are “sequenced” (meaning patterns), etc. This will
open your mind to what the artist
playing that solo may have been thinking or feeling
or trying to say when they played
that solo.
Good luck, and remember to perservere. The best jazz
artists are/were all very
determined, disciplined musicians!
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