What Jazz Soloists Know

Read an amazing article earlier today on The 99% by Scott McDowell:

What Jazz Soloists Know About Creative Collaboration...

"One of the defining elements of jazz is improvisation, the act of composing on the fly.  Anyone who’s heard a classic Miles trumpet solo knows the potential beauty of individual improvisation within the group setting. The team depends on each person to contribute his unique skills, ideas and views to the collaboration, and the individual relies on the team for support, guidance and judgment.

Since it depends on improvisation, jazz is highly interactive.  A player must be responsive to the moment-by-moment actions of the other musicians. Like a properly tuned creative team, jazz is above all a collaborative pursuit in service to the composition (the agreed upon goal), and the individual voices in the band (the members of the team)." - Scott McDowell

His bullet points to enriching your skills as a team member by mimicing the great jazz soloists are as follows:

1. Practice until it’s intuitive. The only way to learn improvisation is by doing, and the only way to become great is by doing repeatedly.


2. Listen. Pay close attention to those around you. Heightening the skill of listening, if you do nothing else, will have a significant impact on the team.


3. Try not to repeat yourself.  Make an effort to constantly develop new approaches and angles. Charlie Parker was a relentless harmonic innovator, constantly editing his solos in real time at blistering speeds and changing the jazz vocabulary in the process.

4. Spur others into action. In jazz it’s called “comping” (an abbreviation of “accompanying”) when one instrumentalist plays a phrase or group of notes to support or provoke the soloist.


5. Fail admirably. It happens often in live jazz settings and it’s usually noticeable. The thing is: nobody cares. Missteps are part of the path to greatness, and those solos that do become classics sound that much sweeter.

See more...

“It’s the group sound that’s important, even when you’re playing a solo. You not only have to know your own instrument, you must know the others and how to back them up at all times. That’s jazz.” - Oscar Peterson

-Frey




1. Miles Davis - "Seven Steps to Heaven" 
2. Charlie Parker - "Koko" 
3. Oscar Peterson - "Cottontail" 
4. Lennie Tristano - "Line Up" 
5. Ornette Coleman - "Lonely Woman"

The Confident Musician

One of the greatest tools available to you as a musician is confidence. In fact, it should be as essential to you as scales. It should be as familiar to you as your repertoire. Why? Because music is a emotive nuance-driven force. There are so many variables to music, that to say that something has a great melody is not nearly enough. A great melody can be overshadowed by awkward phrasing which shaves milliseconds from notes, which is the actual physical sound. A millisecond difference in how your ears and brain perceive the vibrations of music, can drastically alter the fundamental experience of music. Our music is seemingly held captive by the tiny, almost imperceptible variations of time.

Okay...before I lose everyone in the psuedo-analyitical nature of the frames that hold our music...let's bring it back to practise.

Confidence plays out in a really tangible way with drummers. A drummer without confidence does something funny. They will have a hint of hesitancy when they play. But what happens when a drummer is hesitant? What happens when the groove-machine is malfunctioning by milliseconds? The moment of connection between the drum stick and the drum skin is altered. It is usually played milliseconds later than it should have been. It is in this detail, this nuance that the drummer loses..."it". Our highly evolved musical terminology has brought us to this wonderful realisation of 'it". The drummer either has "it" or he doesn't. And a drummer who hesitates a little, hasn't got "it". A drummer who hesitates a lot, plays out of time. This "it", I believe refers to Groove. But not some nebulous groove, to a central syncing up of the collective players in this musical outing. This is where confidence can come striding in.

Confidence, found upon skill, is going to help. And to a lesser extent; confidence, without skill is going to help. A drummer who believes in themselves will start to hit more like they should, no hesitancy, they are less likely to play out of time. This applies itself to all instruments. You are going to play better if you apply confidence, which in turn will lessen hesitation, and will cause the physical sound, the physical timing to change in your playing.

Nice thoughts, but how can this idea become attainable to me? ...Good question...I'm glad you asked.

Firstly, practise.
There is no better source to draw confidence from than a awareness and assurance of your skill. If you can nail that solo, you can be confident about it. If you aren't sure you are ready to play that solo in front of a crowd, your confidence is going to be affected. A honest evaluation that says your skill is at the level of what you are about to attempt to play, is the biggest vein from which to draw confidence.

Secondly, imagine.
Take a few moments before a gig or performance and just imagine. Put yourself in the place of where you are playing that which is ahead of you. See yourself nailing the bits that have caused you some worry. See yourself doing it effortlessly. This is a simple way of saying no to the stress and worry, and a practical outworking of "as a man thinks in his heart...". Now, again, this skill will get you so far...but doesn't negate the need, the absolute essential necessity of practise and preparation. But it will help! It will be the extra top-up that you need. It will be the thing that can help you calm and focus on the task at hand. It has been helpful for me.

How can you apply this to your musicality? What performances, services and assessments could this help you with?

Would love to hear your thoughts and perspectives on the matter.

Virtual Insanity

Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir 2.0, 'Sleep' from Eric Whitacre on Vimeo.

Last year, composer Eric Whitacre led a virtual choir comprised of 185 singers from around the world in a piece he composed called "Lux Aurumque". Each member records themselves singing their respective part while Eric conducts them to a piano track, and then they upload the video to YouTube. [To see the actual video they audition/sing to click here.] Also, you've got to check out his session on TED Talks. In it, Eric takes us through the creative challenges and process he went through in composing music powered by YouTube. Above is a video of his newest work entitled "Sleep"-- boasting a video choir of 2,052 people from 58 countries across the globe.

"Human beings will go to any lengths necessary to find and connect with each other." - Eric Whitacre

-Frey

Strand of Oaks

Found this great song on Daytrotter the other day by "Strand of Oaks" as well as a great review by Sean Moeller: "We've grown into an old age, perhaps a middle age, here with Timothy Showalter and his musical project Strand of Oaks. We're twixt that age when we've started reeling from time that's railed on us and has reeled off like a marauding storm system, knocking us down like all of the weakest branches and leaves of a tall and proud tree and a time when we were overcome with energy and defiance. It bears the markings of a man who's been swayed and bowed, then embattled and tipped until they've regained a balance somewhere in the distant future. It's a future that's haggard and humble, melancholy and stripped of all artifice. The recollections that Showalter makes in these gorgeous songs that remind us of the fragile relationships we have with our loved ones and those that love us impossibly from afar and how they can easily crumble like dried out bread. There is a heartbreaking reach that Showalter and Strand of Oaks gets to with all of his grief-stained and grounding lyrics - all of which read as long-harbored confessions and brilliant odes to the stumbles that have been made over the years. They beg for love and they beg for forgiveness, these words, opening the souls that they're coming from and just crying if they must, soaking their tee-shirts with years of remorse and regret if there's any thought that an act like that could help. "Lawns Breed Songs," is as emotional as father and son confrontational songs go. It involves a middle son who admits that he's "just young and selfish" and pops banging on his chest and demanding his way - as he did in his younger years - wasn't going to work well. It was what led to the separation, the rift that's been growing and leading to what seems to be a deathbed reconciliation - a meeting of what both wanted to believe about the other all along: that they couldn't have meant any more to each other than they did and that all of the fighting and pushing were these feelings coming out in their own ways. The young man, talking to his father, insists, "We don't need a drink to talk." It brings the relationship of father and child into such a devastatingly beautiful synopsis - where the complicated situation is never all that complicated. There is undying love and there is undying stubbornness coming from a child needing to not always been associated with another man who can claim almost sole responsibility for the junior's existence. It's pretty heavy and yet, Showalter here summarizes it all with a spectacular folk song that will kill you in ways you didn't expect it to. He deals with the end of the world and illicit love affairs the same way, finding ways to make us cry from the simplicity of the sentiments."

-Frey


  Lawns Breed Songs by swansting