valejazz

First I'd like to say how I appreciated "At Sea"...it's not easy to get your cds in Italy, but I received and reviewed a copy for the italian edition of All About Jazz and gave it 4 stars :)

I am mostly a section player and an istinctive soloist. I know I have to transcribe to develop a deeper jazz language, but it seems I have big trouble even singing correctly a solo. My ears stick to the ensemble passages and get a complete but not detailed image of the solo....

Any advice...solos to start with, methods, approach?

Thanks a lot!

Valerio

BergeronWannabe

What helped me was SLOW solos by Chet Baker. Much easier to pick out the notes and rhythms. Check out 'I've Never Been In Love Before' or 'I Fall In Love Too Easily' from Chet Baker Sings. These lyrical solos give a wonderful sense of phrasing and harmonics.
Good luck,
-Andrew

trpt2345

I've been holding off jumping in here but Ingrid seems to be elsewhere. I'd echo the idea of starting with something simple, Chet with Mulligan, any early Miles, Art Farmer. It's important to stay with things that are within your technical capabilities. And it is most important to get them by ear off of a recording, and not from a book. Try to get them in real time, not by slowing down the track with one or another of the trickeries now available. Your ears need the training too. It's an aural art and it is important to grasp it through one's ears.

Michael McLaughlin

valejazz

Thanks I'll follow your advice..

Valerio

valejazz

Please could you explain why you don't find slowing down useful?

I know this practice has been used long before computers...

Thanks
Valerio

BergeronWannabe

Hi. I disagree, especially if you are just beginning and having trouble hearing the pitches. I've used windows media player to slow it down so I can hear the correct pitch, I believe accuracy is important. Especially when I compare the notes to the chord changes to analyze it.
However, I do understand why you would say try it in real time. Only because when you are improvising, you have to 'hear' something in your head and instantly play it. I believe you should eventually do it that way but when starting off I think it's ok.
Good luck,
-Andrew

ilikethetrumpet

Well, you wouldn't begin to play jazz by playing a burning Freddie Hubbard or Lee Morgan solo, would you? You'd start with something more attainable, something at a speed to play it not as notes, but as music. Transcribing something slower allows you to capture nuance and also to avoid transcribing something that is beyond yours (or my) ability to recreate it with all the subtle shadings of the original. The hardest thing I've ever had to do musically is to transcribe Clifford Brown's "Laura," a ballad on the "with strings" album, and then play it back along with the recording. Yikes, so great.

NickD

When I was on the road, I used to listen to solos on my Sony Walkman and write the solos out by ear. Sometimes it would take forever, but it helped while away the hours on the bus. Also, the fact that, on trickier passages, I might have to listen to a phrase hundreds of times, singing it quietly to myself and fingering "air trumpet" until I was sure I had the notes right before I wrote them out, helped me a lot. Then when we'd get to a gig site, I'd read through what I had to double check it on my horn. At that point I was putting a solo into my fingers that I already had in my ears, including nuances of tone and note bending.

If I transcribe a solo these days, I do it the same way.

FWIIW coming from me.

Peace.

Nick

trpt2345

Because when you're on a bandstand, and the piano player does a little something and you want to use it, there is no slowing down available. You have to teach your ears to hear quickly. When I did Dolphy and Shorter solos, yes, I used half-speed. But all my Clifford, Parker, Booker Little, etc., solos I got at speed. Part of it was my training too, my teachers were from the Lennie Tristano school and you had to sing the solos before playing them, in real time along with the record. Or tape. In the end you can only play what you hear and if you can't hear fast you can't play fast.

Michael McLaughlin

valejazz

Of course but as an athlete before running 100m prepares his/her body for such an extreme performance I still think that starting with a slow down could help me get a clearer idea of the job. I completely agree with singing the solos as a first step and I really envy your chance to learn from Tristano's students :)
Did you learn all Lester's solos as Konitz did?

Valerio Prigiotti