Practicing Intervals for Jazz Improvisation

If you’re a budding jazz saxophonist, this post can make a huge difference in your playing. If you’re a seasoned player, you can probably skip it. Then again, you just might find it valuable, in the manner that hearing your mother’s voice in the back of your head asking you whether you’re eating your vegetables can be valuable.

Are you practicing your intervals?

They’re so good for you.

Oh, I know, you’d rather shove them aside and concentrate on the steak and potatoes of memorizing jazz licks and solo transcriptions. But if you want your instrumental technique to grow up big and strong, then don’t forget to sit down with your Larry Teal workbook, or whatever technique book you’re using, and invest some serious time memorizing and maintaining interval exercises along the chromatic scale. Seconds, thirds, fourths, all the way up to sevenths and even beyond…unless you plan to play nothing but scales in all your solos, all of the aforementioned are building blocks that you really need to get your arms around. So don’t ignore interval practice. Do it because you’ll acquire a greater command of your instrument, speed up your thinking, and enhance your creativity. Do it because your mother would want you to.

Increasing your dexterity is of course an important objective of interval exercises. But don’t make that your sole focus. As you practice, also think of application.

Let’s say, for instance, that you’re spending some time taking diads of a minor sixth up and down the chromatic scale. What are some practical uses of that interval that you’re likely to encounter?

For starters, you can use it to ascend from the third of a major triad to its root. Also, in an augmented triad, a minor sixth (or, enharmonically, an augmented fifth) is the distance both from the root to the raised fifth of the chord, and from the third to the root. With a V9, you can ascend from the root to the flatted thirteenth (aka flatted sixth) and resolve down a half-step to the fifth; or you can leap from the second to the flatted seventh.

And of course, the order of these upward leaps can be reversed. For instance, you can leap downward from the flat seventh to the second of the V9 chord, or from the root downward to the third.

The point is, while you’re practicing your intervals, exercise your mind along with your fingers by thinking of ways you’re actually going to apply all that fabulous technique you’re building. Engage your brain and ears as you’re doing the grunt work.

And with all that being said, sit down and git ‘er done. Practice, practice, practice. Make your mother proud.

September 8, 2009 by
Filed Under: Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Saxophone Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Bracketing: Some Chromatic Exercises

In a previous article on bracketing for jazz improvisers, I described the melodic device of emphasizing a note by surrounding it with changing tones. Since bracketing is used extensively by jazz soloists, it makes sense to develop an approach for practicing this technique in a way that can help you apply it readily and easily to your improvisations.

The following exercises will help you develop chops for a kind of bracketing that I’ll call chromatic bracketing because the upper and lower neighbors are often both chromatically altered in order to achieve a half-step approach to the target note from above and below.

More commonly, the upper neighbor remains unaltered, diatonic to its key, while the lower neighbor is raised. You can also have fully diatonic brackets in which no alteration of either note occurs. In this post, however, we’ll deal with chromatic brackets.

Chromatic Intervals

Perhaps you’re familiar with the following chromatic scale exercise:

Chromatic Major Seconds

If not, you’ve got your work cut out for you. Hop to it, Grasshopper! It’s an abbreviation of a chromatic scale workout featuring the interval of a major second, and you need to know it throughout the full range of your instrument–not just the descending version shown here, but the ascending version as well.

“But why? What’s the point of mastering such a dry-as-dust technical exercise?”

Good for you! You’re thinking about practical application, not just building technique for technique’s sake. And when it comes to bracketing, the above exercise is a building block that can help give you mastery. Let’s call it step one in an organized approach to developing bracketing proficiency.

“Great, so what’s step two?”

I’m so glad you asked!

Target notes

Each couplet of notes in the preceding exercise serves to bracket the first note of the couplet that follows it. For instance, E and D bracket Eb; Eb and Db bracket D; D and C bracket C#; and so forth. In each instance, you have a chromatic upper and lower neighbor surrounding a target note, thus:

Target Notes

So…step two: apply this pattern to the entire chromatic scale, up and down your instrument. (This is a great way to go about learning the first chromatic scale exercise shown farther up.)

Got it down cold? Good. In fact, a fantastic achievement for the time it took you to move from that last paragraph to this one. You’ll make Coltrane look like a piker.

Just messin’ witcha! I’ll be serious, now, promise. Let’s say that you have in fact worked through the exercise of chromatic brackets with target notes. The question still remains, how do you apply it to practical playing situations?

Presenting step three, where it all comes together…

Practical application

The following exercise consists of three licks, each of which begins with a chromatic bracket and a target note. I’ve supplied some chords to give each lick a context, but I haven’t tried to create any particular progression from one bar to the next, just offer three examples among a host of possibilities for utilizing the bracketing technique.

Bracketed licks

Note that the last bar leads with not just one, but two couplets from the chromatic scale exercise. You can use as many couplets as you wish in your playing, guided by your own sense of good taste, before resolving the last couplet to a target note that launches you into a new idea.

More options to choose from

The material here has concerned itself with chromatic bracketing based on the interval of a major second. But it’s only intended to get you started. There are plenty of ways that you can expand on the concepts shown here.

You can invert the couplets (e.g. D to E targeting Eb; Db to Eb targeting D; and so on).

Or you can use the interval of a minor third, which can help you get a better feel for brackets that use a diatonic upper neighbor and a chromatic lower neighbor (e.g. D to B targeting C; C# to A# targeting B; C to A targeting Bb).

For that matter, if you really want to get into it, you can work through the chromatic scale with all kinds of intervals–major thirds, perfect fourths, major sixths…take your choice. You can apply the principles described in this post to all of them. As you move beyond neighboring tones into wider intervals, I’m not sure you can correctly call what you’re doing “bracketing” anymore, but you can darn well call it useful.

One last thing: exercise three showed examples of licks that started with brackets. I wrote them this way in order to help you quickly connect the first two exercises to actual musical ideas. However, brackets can and should be used within lines as well, not just at their beginning.

That’s all for now. I’ve given you plenty to chew on. Now it’s time for me to go and eat.

September 3, 2009 by
Filed Under: Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Internalizing the Sound of the Augmented Scale

Just out of curiosity, I poked around on YouTube to see whether any video tutorials existed that would allow listeners to get the actual sound of the augmented scale into their ears. I came across this excellent lesson by guitarist Geoff Stockton.

Geoff does a great job explaining the construction of this symmetrical scale and giving its basic application to major seventh and minor seventh chords. His video not only helps you understand the theory behind the augmented scale, but very importantly, gives you a superb introduction to how the scale sounds. Listen and absorb!

August 31, 2009 by
Filed Under: Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

The Augmented Scale

…John Coltrane and Oliver Nelson brought [the augmented scale] to the masses in the late ’50s and early ’60s. In more recent years, tenor legend and bandleader Michael Brecker (who passed away in January of this year) made good use of the scale, and required that Mike Stern, John Scofield, Pat Metheny, and other guitarists who played for him over the years also know how to harness the pattern’s power.

–from “Secrets of the Symmetrical Augmented Scale” by Josh Workman, EQ online edition

If you want to lend a touch of mysterious, Eastern-sounding chromaticism, angularity, and symmetrical sequence to your solos, consider the augmented scale. I’ve dipped into this unusual, colorful scale from time to time, and lately, in spending more time exploring its sounds and possibilities, I’m becoming captivated with what it has to offer.

The augmented scale is a hexatonic scale–that is, it only has six tones. It is also, like the diminished and whole tone scales, a symmetrical scale. This means that the interval relationships between scale degrees are repeated to create a symmetrical pattern. In the case of the augmented scale, moving upward from the tonic, the scale intervals are: minor third, minor second, minor third, minor second, minor third, minor second.

Here’s what that looks like on the staff.

C augmented scale

There are a couple easy ways to understand the augmented scale. One way, using the C augmented scale to illustrate, is to think of approaching each note of a C augmented triad with its leading tone–i.e. the note B leads to C, D# leads to E, and F## ( or more simply, G) leads to G#. Note that while in this approach you begin with the note B, the actual tonic of the scale is C.

Another way to picture the augmented scale is to superimpose two augmented triads with roots a half-step apart, then organize the resulting tones linearly in a scale. In the case of the C augmented scale, you would superimpose C+ on top of B+. Again, the actual tonic of the scale is C.

A variation of this approach is to superimpose two augmented chords with roots a minor third apart from each other. To get a C augmented scale, you would superimpose Eb+ (same as D#+) on top of C+.

As is also true of the diminished and whole tone scales, the symmetrical nature of the augmented scale makes its root ambiguous. The repeated pattern of a minor third and minor second produces not just one, but three possible tonics separated by a major third. In other words, when you learn the C augmented scale, you’re also learning the E augmented and G# augmented scales. This means that when you’ve learned the C, Db, D, and Eb augmented scales, you’ve learned all the rest as well. Nice, eh? You get all twelve scales for only a third of the work!

There’s plenty more to say about the augmented scale, but I’m not going to try to cover it all here. Dig inside the scale and discover its possibilities for yourself. Here’s a simple pattern to help you get started. The pattern is in C (and E, and G#/Ab). Memorize it, then transpose it to Db, D, and Eb.

C augmented scale pattern

Oh, yes–lest I forget, you’ll want to know how to apply the augmented scale. I’m still working that out myself, but here are a few pointers. Use the C augmented scale with
* a C+ or CM7.
* a C7 or C+7, but watch how you handle the #7. The chromatic tones can be viewed as passing tones, or they can become upper extensions if you alter the chord.
* a B7(b9) or B7 altered chord.
* an Am, Am6, or Am#7 chord.

You can also use the augmented scale with “Giant Steps” the same way you’d use a blues scale with the blues. But that’s a separate post.

This scale doesn’t come easily, but it’s well worth acquiring. However, it’s a more advanced study. You’d be wise to make sure you’ve got your basic major and minor tonalities down, including your cycle of dominants and ii-V7-I patterns, before you go digging into the more abstract stuff. Just my opinion. Take it with a grain of salt as you find your own way. Whatever you do, keep practicing–and have fun!

August 24, 2009 by
Filed Under: Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Some Reflections on the Icons of Jazz and Storm Chasing

I just finished looking through a couple forum threads on Stormtrack.org, one of them about what makes a person a “true” storm chaser, and the other about storm chasing legends, about the forerunners who have risen to icon status. In reading the latter thread, I was struck by a similarity between jazz and storm chasing that I had never seen before: each is a distinctively American art form.

While today both jazz musicians and storm chasers hail from all over the world, yet we owe our respective crafts to a handful of American pioneers who, guided by passion and a quest to learn and excel, first set forth into uncharted territory and showed the rest of us the way.

Both pursuits are young. Jazz has been with us for only a century. Storm chasing has existed half that time, a little over fifty years. In the history of both, the progression of discoveries and advancements has been rapid, even dizzying. One obvious difference is that the patriarchs of jazz have passed on, whereas most of the veterans of storm chasing are still with us. Louis Armstrong is long gone, but David Hoadley remains a present inspiration, and while I’ve never met him, I assume from his occasional input on Stormtrack–the online descendant of Hoadley’s trade magazine for chasers–that he’s still fairly active.

I suspect that Hoadley wouldn’t see himself in the same light as Louis Armstrong. From all accounts of David, he’s a humble man who likely would feel surprised to be compared with the likes of Louis. Yet both men are innovators. Both followed their instincts to accomplish something that had never been done before. In Armstrong’s case, the result was the birth of a brand new musical language of feeling, inflection, and improvisation. With Hoadley, it was the acquisition of knowledge and insights that could only come from actively pursuing tornadic storms rather than passively waiting for the storms to come to him.

Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, John Coltrane.

David Hoadley, Tim Marshall, Jim Leonard, Chuck Doswell, Al Moller, Howard Bluestein.

The lists are only partial, and over time they will grow. Storm chasing probably has more potential for true innovators to rise within its ranks than does jazz, for similarities aside, jazz is driven primarily by creative explorations that have for the most part already been made, whereas storm chasing deals with a subject about which much still remains unknown, and is influenced to a much greater degree by advances in meteorology and technology. Regardless, the icons of each field occupy a special, venerable position that can never be duplicated. The rest of us–whether we’re small-town musicians or world-renowned artists, or whether we’re neophyte chasers or OKU grad students with plenty of chase seasons under our belts–can only do the best we know how to carry the torches lit by our predecessors.

From our ranks, too, new knowledge will come and new beauty will be birthed, and from time to time, someone truly remarkable will rise to the surface. Let’s hope that person’s generosity of spirit will be in keeping with his or her abilities.

As was Louis’ Armstrong’s. As is David Hoadley’s.

August 23, 2009 by
Filed Under: Life, Saxophone, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Kenny Garrett with Miles

When it comes to alto sax players, Kenny Garrett sits in the tiptop echelon of exciting contemporary voices. The man not only has formidable chops, but a deep understanding of how to use them to generate consistently electrifying performances.

This YouTube clip features Kenny playing with Miles Davis in Paris. As high-energy as the music is, I find the unspoken connection between the two men–the jazz patriarch and the keeper of the flame–to be almost as fascinating as Kenny’s solo. Davis appears mesmerized by the sax warrior’s unrelenting barrage of ideas, and Kenny seems inspired by the presence of the Legend. Whatever the dynamic actually was, evidently sparked by some microphone problems that Garrett was experiencing, the result is unquestionable. There’s a whole lot of music going on here.

I love Kenny’s use of sequence, repeated tones, and motifs as organizational devices. And check out his tone splitting toward the end of the solo. In every respect, both technically and conceptually, the guy is an absolute master. Wish I could get my arms around just half of what he’s doing!

August 22, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Finding Jazz in the World Around Us

My sweet lady, Lisa, and I took a trip to Meijer Gardens earlier this week. Today, sifting through the photos I took as our tram ride wound along the curvy path through the world-class outdoor sculpture garden, and afterward as we strolled through the remarkable plantings in the children’s garden, I’m struck–as I often am–at how the elements of music are woven into the very fabric of our world.

Jazz is all around us. Form, space, unity, diversity, rhythm, dynamics, improvisation, color, texture, contrast, creativity–whether in music, nature, speech, literature, art, human relationships, or above all, our relationship with God, you’ll find the same qualities working together to create beauty and interest.

Consider the qualities of space and contrast. In a jazz solo, the notes you don’t play are as important as the ones you do. Too much clutter, too many notes in endless procession, ceases to communicate. As in writing and conversation, well-placed punctuation–held notes, brief pauses, and longer rests–helps to shape musical ideas and gives them breathing room. Yet the furious density of artfully placed double-time passages creates another form of color. Both space and density can be overdone; it’s the contrast between the two that helps raise a solo from the doldrums to vitality.

The massive red iron piece titled “Aria” is a great visual representation of the interrelationship between music and art. The piece has a rhythm to it, shape, space, contrast–all the aspects of a well-crafted jazz improvisation.

Aria: like a jazz solo cast in metal.

Aria: like a jazz solo cast in metal.

Here are a few more images from the sculpture garden and children’s garden that remind me of music and jazz.

What musical elements can you detect? Space? Sequence? Color? Dynamics?

What musical elements can you detect? Space? Sequence? Color? Dynamics?

This landscape sculpture creates unity out of contrast and serenity out of movement.

This landscape sculpture creates unity out of contrast and serenity out of movement.

If only I could play a solo as creative, spontaneous, and cohesive as this!

If only I could play a solo as creative, spontaneous, and cohesive as this!

Lisa: the beautiful song God has brought to my life!

Lisa: the beautiful song God has brought to my life!

August 16, 2009 by
Filed Under: Christian Music, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Life, Music, Nature, Outdoors, Photography, Saxophone Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Using Angularity in Jazz Improv

If you want to add interest and color to your jazz solos, anglify them. “Anglify” might not be a real word, but it ought to be, and it is now as far as this post is concerned. Word coinage is one of my prerogatives as a word wizard.

Anglify. It’s easy to get caught up in linear playing, weaving scales up and down like a stock market graph, but that approach will get old fast unless you mix it up with other melodic devices. Angularity is a good one. Wide interval leaps grab attention; they stand out like bold letters and exclamation points in a sentence.

Writing about angularity forces me to consider exactly what it is. If I were to define it, I’d say it’s the use of two or more consecutive interval leaps of more than a third in any direction. Fourths and fifths are commonly used in angular playing, but any large interval qualifies. The point is, you’re no longer playing notes in a straight line; you’re breaking up the melodic terrain into hills and valleys, moving out of the flatland and into the mountains.

Pentatonic scales are a rich source of fourths and fifths when you start doing interval exercises with them. You can also do exercises on fourths and fifths, or on any interval, using any scale or root movement.

Starting a line with an angular approach is a good way to say, “Listen to this!” Here’s a little diminished whole tone lick I’ve been woodshedding lately. It begins with a leap of an augmented fourth followed by a diminished fourth (aka a major third) up to the raised fifth of the D7 #5, #9 chord. (For ease of use, I’ve shown that note on the staff as Bb rather than A#.)

angular

Note how the arpeggio in the second half of bar two further breaks up the very linear, chromatic flow. The combination of linearity and angularity engages attention.

As always, take the above lick through all twelve keys. Try moving it through the circle of fifths to acquire facility in a lot of playing situations.

August 14, 2009 by
Filed Under: Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Emile De Cosmo and the Byzantine Scale

If anyone embodies the improvisational and technical aspects of jazz education, it is Emile De Cosmo. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Emile since the time he contacted me about an article I had written about jazz contrafacts, and I can tell you, the man is deeply knowledgeable, and as excited to share his insights into jazz theory and technique building today as he was back in my college days, when I first bought one of books in his Polytonal Rhythm Series.

Our initial conversation, back in early February, resulted in my adding another of his books, The Diatonic Cycle–a tour de force of the twelve major scales and their relative harmonic minor scales–to my practice library. Last week, after chatting with Emile on the phone, I purchased yet another book coauthored by him and his wife, Laura. A compendium of articles that Emile and Laura wrote for Jazz Player magazine, The Path to Jazz Improvisation is a treasury of insights into the vast array of scales and modes that are available to jazz improvisers today. At $14.95, the book truly is a steal–and no, Emile didn’t give me a free copy so I’d write him a glowing review*. I ponied up the money just like anyone else, and I’m glad I did. I know a fair amount about jazz theory, but there always seems to be something new to learn, and Emile and Laura’s book is proving to be a good source.

I’m thinking right now about the chapter I’ve been reading on the Byzantine scale. In his foreword to the book, David Gibson, editor of Jazz Player, writes, “When I read his chapter on the Byzantine Scale I almost fell off my chair. I had never thought about jazz in those terms. I suddenly realized that jazz improvisation has roots which go back much further than the jazz master of the 1920s, 30s, 40s, and beyond.”

Of course my curiosity was piqued by Gibson’s words. The Byzantine scale? I’d heard of it before, but never explored it. I think I had some vague idea that I had it already tucked in my pocket as some mode of the harmonic minor scale. And indeed, the Byzantine scale is related to the harmonic minor, but it is a scale unto itself, and a darned interesting one.

Probably the easiest way to conceive of the Byzantine scale is, as Emile describes, to superimpose two major seventh chords a half-step apart. For example, if you dovetail CM7 and DbM7 and then arrange the chord tones in successive order, you get the following: C, Db, E, F, G, Ab, B, C.

Another way to think of this is to approach every tone in a major seventh chord with its chromatic lower neighbor–e.g. for the DbM7 chord (Db, F, Ab, C), you would precede the Db with C, F with E, Ab with G, and C with B.

The De Cosmos recommend using the Byzantine scale with major seventh and dominant seventh chords that share the same root as the scale. In other words, you’d use a C Byzantine scale over a C7b9 or a CM7. At least one other application quickly suggests itself to me as I look at the structure of the scale, and that is to pair it with an altered dominant that is based on the second degree of the scale. For instance, by playing a C Byzantine scale over a Db7#9, you get both the flatted and natural sevenths (B and C), allowing the latter to function as a passing tone between the flat seventh and the root of the chord.

I have to say, though, that it may be a while before I dig into the Byzantine scale in earnest. Right now I’m focusing on the diminished whole tone scale, with some forays into both the augmented and diminished scales. Those pack challenges enough. But I think I can see a new area of woodshedding on the horizon. Emile and Laura’s book should prove a valuable resource, and you’ll hear more about it from time to time. I have yet to write about Emile’s concept, the polytonal order of keys, or POOK, for short.

But that’s for another post. As for this one, well…the day is beautiful, and Lisa and I have plans to visit Meijer Gardens. It’s time to get rolling. Happy practicing!

_____________

*Emile did, however, send me a POOK T-shirt and a CD of he and Laura playing tunes that he had written. I don’t mind telling you that the De Cosmos can blow!

August 13, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Entertainment, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone, Tornadoes Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“Will I Ever Become a Good Jazz Improviser?”

What does it take to become proficient at improvising jazz? Will I ever become a decent player?

Have such thoughts ever nagged at you? Perhaps you’re at the stage where you’ve acquired a decent technique, but you’re uncertain how turn it into flowing, musically cohesive improvisations. Will you ever be able to make the leap between mere good chops and great jazz solos?

Or maybe you’ve been playing the sax for a while and you think you’re making strides. Then you come across a YouTube video of some young firebrand who’s blowing circles around anything you ever dreamed of playing, and your heart sags. At that point, you think one of two things: What am I wasting my time for? or I can be that good too if I work at it.

Depression or determination. I’ve felt both emotions at different times. When I was 26 years old, I took a year of music at Wayne State University in Detroit. During my time there, living on campus, I made arrangements to practice after hours in the music building, where I normally woodshedded from 9:00 p.m. to as late as 3:00 in the morning. I worked hard, doing scale exercises, running patterns, and memorizing solos from the famous Charlie Parker Omnibook.

One evening I walked into the building early and heard sounds of music drifting from the auditorium, where one of Detroit’s high school jazz bands was playing a concert. I listened for a bit. They sounded pretty good! But I had work to do, so I broke away and headed for one of the empty classrooms, which I preferred over the smaller practice rooms. Then I assembled my horn and began to work on one of the Omnibook transcriptions I was memorizing.

A few minutes later, several of the high school band members walked into the room. The concert had ended, and they had heard me playing down the hall and decided to get an earful. Cool. I didn’t mind if they hung out and listened. I chatted with them a bit, and then the bass player said, “Hey, we gotta get James.” The other guys agreed that James definitely needed to be gotten, and one of them left to look for him.

I continued to work on my Bird transcription. Pretty soon, in walked a fourteen-year-old kid with a tenor sax tucked under his arm. He listened to me for a minute, then said, “Oh, ‘Ornithology.'” He put his horn to his mouth and started to rip through the Parker solo from memory as flawlessly as if his genetic makeup included an ‘Ornithology’ chromosome. Then, having demonstrated his mastery of a solo that I was only beginning to get my arms around, the kid proceeded to double-tongue a chromatic scale up into his horn’s altissimo register, high enough to sterilize the flies in the room.

I wanted to slap him.

The kid went on to tell me how he planned to master not just the saxophone, but all of the woodwind instruments. Whether he has entirely fulfilled that lofty ambition in the years since, I can’t say, but I do know that today, jazz virtuoso James Carter plays a large number of the woodwind family in addition to the tenor sax.

Fellow saxophonist Tom Stansell, whose family owns and operates the celebrated Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Muskegon, where Carter spent a summer as a student years ago, once commented, “No one ever told the kid that it’s hard to play fast.”

As for me, I just kept plugging away at my saxophone. My journey as a musician hasn’t taken me to New York at age 21 or on international tours. Rather, it has placed me in Caledonia playing for cows in the pasture at the west edge of town and taking gigs as they come, which they seem to be doing more and more of lately.

And they should be. Because while I’m no James Carter, I’m a good sax player. I’ve been told on different occasions that I don’t realize how good I really am, and maybe that’s true. I hope so. Coming from capable musicians, compliments like that certainly encourage me, because I’ve worked hard to bring together all the technical stuff–the scales, arpeggios, patterns, solo transcriptions, and everything else I’ve labored at over many years–into something that sounds interesting, original, personal, passionate, and…well, musical.

I hadn’t initially planned to share the above anecdote, but there’s a point to it: discouragement and inspiration often come from the same source, and they’re just a matter of how you look at things. Maybe you’re not playing the way you wish you could play today. But if you stick with it, one day you’ll look back and realize how far you’ve come. The technique that you’re presently unsure what to do with will have become your servant, the building material of ideas which you spin with confidence and ease out of your horn. You may not be the next Michael Brecker–or maybe you will be–but that’s not what it’s about. Do what you do for the love of what you do, and everything else will follow in its time.

Not all of us have the same advantages. Not all of us grew up in musical families or were steeped in jazz at an early age. Not all of us have the same natural aptitude, the same educational opportunities, or the same life circumstances that permit us to practice as much as we’d like. But all of us have the ability to choose whether to persevere or give up. So…

“Will I ever become a good jazz improviser?”

If you quit, the answer is no.

If you keep at it, studying the music, listening to great players, and practicing diligently and consistently, the answer is yes.

Don’t rob yourself of the joy of playing music worth hearing. Don’t deprive the world around you of the pleasure of hearing you. And don’t belittle the talent God gave you, because into that talent is woven a purpose that is higher than you may imagine.

Stay with it. You’ll be glad you did.

August 5, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Entertainment, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Life, Music, Nature, Saxophone, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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