so-called "jazz lessons"

[UDELBR]

But I still don't feel like a can improv a solo

This ain't a bad place to start: https://youtu.be/Bg-Ea7aCb1E" target="_blank

[Charlie C Chowder]

Oddly enough, I just played my first gig doing a bass line on my cello. I was given a key, a time signature, and two practice sessions, (The first over Skype). I was scared to death, but at my age, I need to take advantage of every chance. Now mind you, I do not play in public except once a year at TubaChristmas, and there are over 200 others to hide in. I just reinforce the three percussionist rhythm section, adding a bass to support the young lady who sang and played a lever harp and native American flutes. I kept it simple. But my years of playing tuba, and listening to bass lines, help me out. That and the fact that I make up music all the time. I probably never played more then six notes. Comments were very good, and the banana trick worked good for my stage fright. Maybe some day I will be able to play for the guitar society with out my knees shaking.

Charlie C. Chowder

[tubeast]

I don´t really understand what You´re getting at.

From what I read in the few biographies I´ve come across, truly academic study, discussion and analysis of records with friends and colleagues as well as plain ol´woodshedding has been a common trait in life of many / most HUGE names in Jazz history. Most of these people probably had

So for someone to enter into the world of Jazz, the following approach seems plausible:
1 listen, a lot.
2 (Try to) understand what People are doing.
3 Put that to paper or memorize it.
4 Practise Your butt off until You can reproduce well.
5 Starting from there, try and create Your own Thing.
6 Practise THAT until You can´t get it wrong.
7 Get on stage and see if People like it.

If You can team up with others at some point and help each other along that path: Lucky You.
If You can persuade someone to share their knowledge and experience: Wonderful.
Taking "Jazz classes" may be part of that journey, but it won´t spare You of the other steps if performing Jazz is what You want.

Yes ? No?

[Three Valves]

I don´t really understand what You´re getting at.

Yeah, well...

[Three Valves]

This weekend a band called the Dixie Power Trio played at the Rockville, MD car show.

They threw in some old Jazz and Zydeco stuff and I thought "the bass player should have brought a tuba with him!!"

[tofu]

What I might (??) be suggesting (sort of a response to ValveSlide, but more of a general comment) is that "jazz studies" at institutions may not always demand the amount of discipline and attention to detail that Sidney Chilton did of me

People in jazz studies expect to be "taught it" vs doing it by "learning it" - yes?

DPT - we played just after them down at the Danville Brass Festival in Kentucky years ago. Loved their stuff - really fun group and the tuba player was excellent - think his first name was Andy. Didn't know they were still around and using a string bass instead.

[Three Valves]

DPT - we played just after them down at the Danville Brass Festival in Kentucky years ago. Loved their stuff - really fun group and the tuba player was excellent - think his first name was Andy. Didn't know they were still around and using a string bass instead.

It's worse than that;

Electric Bass Guitar!!



(Large outdoor gig, no sound stage, maybe I'll give them a pass)

[Three Valves]

Cool video of the event featuring DPT...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD2rkNrQASs" target="_blank

[tubaphillips]

I'm not really sure about "jazz lessons".

Many paper-reading musicians, view "playing chord changes" as just another "trick" (perhaps like "lip-trills" or "circular-breathing")...something they could "learn in a month or two, if they just put their mind to it".

1/ Fully acknowledging that my own talents and skills in these regards are parenthetical, I'm not completely sure that just any really fine paper-reading musician actually could learn to do this particularly well - whether given a month, a year, or ten years.

2/ That having been said, I think back to some of my own "training" (I NEVER played in one single-solitary "EDUCATIONAL" jazz band in college, and the one that I played in high school, was - 100% - note-read string bass parts. OK...
[1] Did I learn a little bit of something from reading those bass lines in high school? arguably: yes
[2] Did I pay MUCH MORE ATTENTION to bass lines when ONLY offered chords-and-slashes? absolutely
[3] Did I REALLY sit up and pay attention when - suddenly - there was NO PIECE OF PAPER set there in front of me? you had better believe it
[4] Today, do I find "lead sheets" (of tunes that I already know) to be annoying...particularly when some of the chords are "Sears-and-Roebuck" (i.e. simplified or just plain wrong)? duh

I posted this (below) on facebook. It may (??) not be the worst thing I've ever typed in a text box...
I cut/pasted it (mostly a tribute to a person) here, just in case there is interest:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stumbling across this article (basically, a eulogy), I was ~mostly~ interested in a paragraph approximately 1/4 of the way through:
-------------------------------------------------------------

It begins with some genealogical background, which traces Chilton’s well-bred family back to seventeenth-century England, then to Virginia, then to Mississippi. By the mid-1940s, Chilton’s father, ▻ Howard Sidney Chilton Jr. ◅ , an industrial lighting designer, had moved his family to Memphis to take advantage of the city’s postwar building boom. Sidney also made a name for himself as a jazz pianist, the family home in Midtown operating an open-door policy for local and touring musicians, including Herb Alpert.

====================================
Yes... His father, ▻ Sidney Chilton ◅ , (when in my early 20's - in the late 1970's and early 1980's...when Sidney was right around age 70) taught me more (on-the-job) about "chord changes", "passing chords", and "there really only being one best-choice bass note given the melody, the chord, where it came from, and there it's going" than anyone else before or since.
At that point, Sidney Chilton (born in 1911 - five years before my parents were) already had white hair. I was very lucky to have played a couple dozen random gigs with him; they opened my eyes. He didn't need to teach me what he taught me. Simply, he could have tolerated me until those 2-, 3-, or 4-hour gigs ended. I certainly could have benefited from much more of his on-the-job training. He died in 1982.
fwiw, The son (the topic of the article, the mercurial 16-year-old star of The Box Tops and the one-hit-wonder creator - at age 16 - of the #1 hit, "The Letter", died before reaching age 60 - as have so many in that industry.

Of course, Alex Chilton (Sidney's famous son) really wasn't "self-made" at all. Just like me, he had his dad.

I feel obligated to chime in with my 2 cents since I pay my rent with rhythm section playing on tuba. A little background on myself. In college I had zero formal training on rhythm section playing and jazz. I found myself in a job market begging for tuba playing playing improvised music while the demand for classical tuba playing was almost non-existent. Out of necessity I learned how to improvise. Now I play with The Underground Horns, The High and Mighty Brass Band, The Hungry March Band, Etc. I have subbed in Lucky Chops and Sugartone. I played at Lincoln Center, The French Embassy in NYC, The Blue Note, Etc.

Jazz and reading chord changes is something anyone can learn. Most tuba players struggle with it because it requires strong musicianship skills and theory knowledge. Most tuba players I know would benefit from it greatly and I see a lot of young tuba players very interested in it. I think it's a shame that we don't dive into the subject of improvised tuba music more often especially when we have 2 late night bands with tubas in them. Here's my advice to anyone out there interested in doing more improvised music. Play with the music on your ipod. Start a band and suck at it. Go out there, Play and busk with your band, or anyone, all the time. Fall on your face during a solo. You don't need to be Chris Potter to play improvised music in front of people. You just need to love music, play the music you love, and be brave enough to fail.

[Donn]

Jazz and reading chord changes is something anyone can learn. Most tuba players struggle with it because it requires strong musicianship skills and theory knowledge.

Theory knowledge -- I don't know how much I don't know, but I think it's a lot. Yet, I'd rather play improvised bass lines than do about anything else. I'm not earning any money at it, but let's suppose I do an adequate job. By the way, I see that as not just playing notes that are consonant with the harmonic structure, but also providing cues to the harmonic movement, so to speak - notes that set up the changes. (It would be interesting to work with another player who's doing that, e.g., trombone, but never been there.) Anyway, supposing I'm managing all right with quite minimal theory, what am I missing?

Well, one missing thing is that I need to know the music before I can play it. I mean, I can puzzle something out from a chart, play the roots anyway, but that isn't how I do it, it's pure black box stuff that goes on somewhere outside of my understanding. Likewise it's a lot easier to play a kind of music I know. I mean, duh, "the blues", but a lot of music is like that.

And from where I'm sitting, it seems to me the "newer" popular music that's used for be bop etc. (only 1/2 century old, as opposed to whole century), might actually be a little harder to learn, in that sense of categorical familiarity. I don't think that's because the popular music as a whole became less predictable, rather it's because be bop improvisers preferred the more unpredictable tunes. Unpredictable means not only that it's harder to know what's coming next, it's also harder to put together a bass line that makes sense of it ... and maybe the theory comes in handy here.

[tubaphillips]

I mean, you need basic theory. If you can play 1 and 5 that's 90% of the job. As a rhythm section player you need to be rock solid on your time. The more theory you know along with better time the better you will be at recovering from your "mistakes" IE making strong cases for your "mistakes". The most important thing you should take away from what I said was go out there and play music. Meet people, work on your networking, get performance practice, learn the tunes people in your community are playing, show people what the tuba can do.

If you honestly think that pop tunes today are harder to learn than be-bop I don't know what to tell you other than you are wrong. Not only that, but you should embrace the pop music. It's the musical language of our era. Also keep in mind that these jazz standards were the pop music of it's day. Don't dismiss the pop music for a second. If you want to be employable as a rhythm section player an easy way to do it is to learn pop music. If I recall correctly Amir Gray saw a huge amount of success following one video of him playing the Whip and Nae Nae. Play to your audience.

[Donn]

I mean, from a theoretical perspective I'm not playing 1 and 5, because I am not aware - in those terms - what chord would be indicated on the chart if I was looking at one. Sure, if we stopped and got into it, I could puzzle it out without much difficulty, because non-theoretically I do know what chord it is and what the root, third etc. are, so I can take stock of the situation and likely identify the chord. So I guess I have basic theory, but it's a semantic question whether I'm using it - often I don't even know, consciously, what key signature.

As far as what I honestly think about pop tunes, I guess the best I can do is requote what I said -

I don't think that's because the popular music as a whole became less predictable, rather it's because be bop improvisers preferred the more unpredictable tunes.

.. again for example

[Mudman]

I don't think that's because the popular music as a whole became less predictable, rather it's because be bop improvisers preferred the more unpredictable tunes.

I'm trying to figure out if you are saying that Autumn Leaves is unpredictable? When I see it and play it, I see a series of 2-5-1 progressions. Once you know how to navigate a 2-5-1, life gets easier.

But I would agree that Autumn Leaves is more complex than some 3-chord pop tunes.

[Mudman]

Don't 1-chord praise songs modulate up to the key of Jesus?

lol

[Mudman]

I miss you. Mr. Willson, not so much, but he has made a career of it

Haven't played the Frankenyork as much as I would like.

A bit of gasoline would take care of that there kudzu infestation . . .

[Donn]

I'm trying to figure out if you are saying that Autumn Leaves is unpredictable? When I see it and play it, I see a series of 2-5-1 progressions. Once you know how to navigate a 2-5-1, life gets easier.

This discussion has sure been odd for me. Did I mention Autumn Leaves? I don't think I did, but anyway, here it is. The first three chords look to me like they might be your 2-5-1 progression, and I see it happens again later. That seems like a pretty small fraction of the tune, but as I'm no music theory giant perhaps I'm missing it all? I personally don't find it super challenging, but it helps that it's a very familiar tune. (Modern popular music, I don't know, 71 years old.) Not all be-bop favorites are the same - didn't guys like to use Indiana? I don't know, not really heavy on be-bop, just saying as a whole the repertoire might give you more opportunities to use your music theory.

[Mudman]

My bad---I saw the letter "A" in your previous post. All the things you are ... more prevalent series of 2-5-1's.

But for full predictability, go full Millenial Whoop:

https://youtu.be/MN23lFKfpck" target="_blank

[iiipopes]

The bass player in the Stan Kenton Band (c. 1972) coached several of us in Memphis (piano and bass players involved in the rhythm sections of various local high school jazz bands) about "improvisation". He kept telling us during that hour that "two notes" were enough - and we (with our juvenile delusional-superiority wisdom...and - well - the guy was talking as if he had just smoked something) laughed about that for a long time. ...but (of course) he was right.

When you hear someone else do something astonishingly simple that sounds really great, instead of wondering, "How did he know to do that?", begin to think, "Heck, I can do that!"

I am very lucky. The Kenton organization had an annual summer clinic at Drury College (now Drury University) in Springfield, Missouri in the '70's. I was too young to go to the clinics, but I did get to attend the last concert in @1975 when I was in junior high school. I benefitted from the older classmen when they handed those lessons learned down to me when I finally got there as an undergraduate, including getting to perform many of the Kenton classic cuts off authorized photocopies of the manuscripts (Minor Booze, Girl Talk, MacArthur Park, etc.)

I agree totally with bloke. You really can't teach how to construct a good jazz bass line. I prefer to think of it as having been given some good fundamentals as to theory in the classroom sense, but then the opportunity to gig in a variety of contexts to get more of what might be called "apprenticeship" education to get out there, have the opportunity to make some mistakes in order to see where the line should go, and then get the understanding worked up over time to provide the appropriate foundation in whatever ensemble I am called to provide, whether it be written charts, chord sheets with hash marks, "Nashville" notation, lead sheets in the "Fake Book" style, or even, "Here's the recording. Listen to it over the lunch hour and be able to gig it this evening."

[roweenie]

I agree totally with bloke. You really can't teach how to construct a good jazz bass line. I prefer to think of it as having been given some good fundamentals as to theory in the classroom sense, but then the opportunity to gig in a variety of contexts to get more of what might be called "apprenticeship" education to get out there, have the opportunity to make some mistakes in order to see where the line should go.

^^^ This is how I did it, exactly. ^^^

"Back in the day", I had several other tuba players ask me "how I did it".

It's ALL about FIRST learning about something called voice leading, then, listening to records, and then, going out and doing it (although, in my case, two and three were switched around a little....)

(The first two you can do at home....the third, in this day and age, good luck.)

[roweenie]

I believe most people (as if lip trills, circular breathing, double-tonguing, etc.) view this as another on a list of playing "tricks..."

True that.

When I play trad jazz, I "live" the music, just as much as (or maybe even more so than) when I play quintet, band, etc.; this, as opposed to "learning the trick so I can get work playing that old crap".