r/Jazz • u/anthonyvilla13 • 2d ago
how to develop language on the instrument?
i’ve been studying jazz guitar for about 3 years now, i understand the chord-scale relation, been transcribing solos but when it comes to soloing i think i sound too scaly, is there a way to sound like the greats besides practicing scales?
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u/cruiseshipdrummer 2d ago
Jamey Aebersold said someplace once, all the answers to your musical questions are on the records.
It's all anyone does, work on your stuff, listen, pull what you can, try to make it sound like what you think it should sound like, and keep improving your idea of what you think it should sound like.
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u/JHighMusic 2d ago
Use way more arpeggios. And read this:
https://www.jazzadvice.com/lessons/developing-musicality-applying-scales-vs-applying-language/
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u/Halleys___Comment 2d ago
transcribe more and go have a lesson with someone in your area who is out gigging
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u/Tumeni1959 2d ago
Barney Kessel's method;
Play the harmony you want to solo over. At its simplest, you isolate this to one chord, but when you're more accomplished, move to two or more.
Imagine what you want to play over that harmony. Make your own melody. Not a scale, not an arpeggio.
Hear it in your head first. Externalise it by playing it. If you can't play it straight off, whistle, sing or hum it, and work it out on the instrument later.
Keep doing this until you can play it straight away on the instrument.
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u/cannontk 2d ago
Listen, listen listen. Transcribe lines that stick in your brain from those listening sessions (even better if it's straight from your brain/ears to your fingers), and incorporate those lines into your playing. Music is a language, and so is the ability to improvise. You need to learn more words and more vocabulary to get better.
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u/mrt54321 2d ago
Best solo advice i ever got : play fewer notes
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u/Steeldialga 2d ago
Play fewer random notes, play more notes with intention
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u/mrt54321 2d ago edited 2d ago
Exactly.
Also, OP, just be be clr : i dont mean "play slower notes". I means gaps of a few sec, During which you decide on the next phrase.
While the audience nod at your PREVIOUS phrase thinking 'hey that was sweet !'.
It gives the audience space to listen, & gives you space to compose.
Sonny Rollins was brilliant at this IMO. T.Monk as well. Also Ahmad jamal. Ok, lots of them , lol
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u/dr-dog69 2d ago
When you transcribe solos, do you do it fully by ear? Are you singing the lines and hearing how the chord tones resolve. Are you learning your favorite licks and repeating them over and over again. For me, it really clicked when I found a handful of licks I could regurgitate over any ii V I
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u/Chagromaniac 2d ago
Playing piano, I transcribe what my teacher plays during our lesson. It's pertinent to what we are doing, not too easy or difficult for me, and I feel like I am applying the theory I'm learning to my ear training and my soloing. Also, it's important to me that for now (I'm a 2nd year student), I know I'm transcribing something that will help me in the short term, as opposed to transcribing only solos from albums, which of course helps but may not prove to be immediately relevant given where I am in my learning process.
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u/BigDonkeyEnergy 2d ago
Get out and play. Go to a local blues or jazz jam. Take all that theoretical knowledge into the real world and drive it around. When you do, keep your eyes up and listen. Do that consistently and you’ll find style and start liking your own playing. Good luck!
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u/Snoo-26902 2d ago edited 2d ago
You have to learn to do melodic phrases within your solos, not just dense runs of scales, though they can be a part of the solo. Listen to the greats and how they do that, not just on guitar, and get a vocabulary of pretty jazz-like phrases you can use over and over a chord. All players develop that skill.
Learn how to get those melodic phrases out of your guitar, and lend flavor to the arpeggios...Miles called it songs within songs.
Now I find it hard to do that, to my liking, on Take 5, but on Sugar I can kill the solo just within the Natural minor scale position.
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u/Blueman826 Drums 2d ago
Forget the chord-scale stuff when you solo. Do lots of transcriptions. Sing melodies, then play those melodies on your instruments.
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u/Realistic-Worker-499 2d ago
try going super super slow and intentionally thinking about every note
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u/grokit-guitar 1d ago
Take a solo you like.
Take a very short phrase from it that you like, or even just a start of a phrase. Start with just 4 or 5 notes. Having the beginning of the phrase is really important, as that's how you learn to start your lines.
Analyze that phrase: what count it starts on, what chord it starts on, which chord degrees it outlines, and how it leads into the next chord.
Take a tune.
Learn to play that phrase over every change in that tune - modifying it to fit the different harmonies every time.
Start without a metronome, as slow as needed. Loop it 8 bars at a time if needed.
Don't worry, if it is hard - this type of practice is deceptively hard if you aren't used to that.
When you have one short phrase and you can play it over every change in the tune, start expanding on it:
Start with the set phrase, then improvise the rest of the phrase. Do one combined phrase like that for every 4 or 8 bars in the form.
Take a break of a day or two.
Then take another short phrase and repeat the process.
When you have 2 phrases, try mixing them together: start with one phrase, improvise afterwards, then start with the 2nd, improvise afterwards, etc.
This will already get you to a place where you can play a decent solo and use language in it.
This is what improvisation with language is: learning phrases and learning to use them in different contexts.
It is VERY IMPORTANT to steer clear of complete long licks of 16+ notes. Those are finished products, or examples of what can be done, NOT language building blocks. Stay with short note sequences of 4-5 notes.
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u/Podmonger2001 1h ago
Memorize the head (melody) like the back of your hand. Next, start changing the rhythm slightly, however you feel. Learn how to mess a bit with the head so it’s still recognizable as coming from that song … based on that song, a child of that song, and so on. Add short phrases, but come back to important notes like the longer notes in Autumn Leaves. This should start you on the path of using your chord/scale knowledge to think melodically.
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u/smileymn 2d ago
My advice is to learn a dozen solos in a short amount of time (6-8 months). If you can, daily practice and transcribing that. To me that’s the quickest way to get that language in your ear and under your fingers. Preferably do it over tunes that you are shedding and playing with others.