JasonShadrick

While I was in graduate school, I had to develop a method of learning all the tunes that were thrown at me at a daily basis.  In an earlier post, I outlined a method I learned from Jody Fisher on learning the chords to a tune.  In this post, I am focusing my attention now to the melodic side of working through the raw harmonic material found in many jazz tunes.

Remember, this is only one way to do this.  If anyone has other ideas, please share them in the comments.

1. Roots – It is essential that you learn the root movement of the tune you are working on.  This will aid in memory retention of the chords and ear training.  If you can internalize the sound of the roots of all the chords, the melody will make more sense.
2. Guide Tones – Guide tones are the essence of any chord progression.  There are usually two main versions of a guide tone line.  The first one begins on the 3rd of the chord and the second one begins on the 7th.  Learn to connect these notes in a variety of ways both melodically and rhythmically.  Voice Leading is an important aspect in the improvisations of the jazz masters.
3. Arpeggios from the Root – In this step we are branching out to cover all the notes in a given chord.  Essentially if you stick to these you won’t hit any wrong notes, but I find it more challenging to make interesting phrases from these.  Experiment with different rhythms and inversions with these arpeggios.
4. Guide Tone Arpeggios – Once you internalize a few different guide tone lines in addition to the arpeggios from the roots, you can begin to connect these in a melodic way.  This is the first step in gaining some facility over a particular progression.  I practiced this A LOT.
5. Construct a Bassline – This step is the first that requires some improvisation.  In college I would write out several of these over a tune and then mix and match them to find one I liked.  The whole idea here is to create a melody using only quarter notes that works with the harmony.
6. Continous Motion – I first heard about this exercise from a David Baker book.  The general idea is to play as slow as necessary in order to play continuous eighth notes over a progression. This exercise develops fluidity and helps you develop the sense of keeping your place in a progression.
7. Little Scale Exercise – David Berkman’s Book “The Jazz Musicians Guide to Creative Practicing” was a great help with this step.  Start on any note within the scale or arpeggio of the first chord and go up and down the span of a 5th by only chaning the qualities of the notes as needed.
8. 3579 Digital Exercise – This concept I worked on from a book by the saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi.  This is partial to the guide tone arpeggios we looked at earlier, but now involving extensions.  It works great over altered dominant chords.
9. Alternate Triads – For each chord, I chose another basic triad that would work harmonically and composed a line using only those notes.  It is a great way to breath new life into a progression that you feel stuck with.  You can also include upper structure triads as well.
10. Diatonic 4th Arpeggios – These will add a distinctly modern sound to your lines.  For guitarists and pianists, I would develop quartal voicings based on these lines.

As with any exercise, you want to mix up the approaches to keep the listener guessing.

I look forward to hearing your approaches.

National Guitar Workshop Announces 2009 Season with Special Guests Buddy Guy, Paul Gilbert, Jimmy Herring, Jimmie Vaughan and Pat Metheny

The National Guitar Workshop is proud to announce our 2009 season. This year we will be presenting week long workshops across the country and featuring guest artists such as Paul Gilbert, Buddy Guy, Jimmy Herring, Pat Metheny, Jimmie Vaughan, and many more.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Litchfield, CT—Februrary 12, 2009 – The National Guitar Workshop is excited to announce the curriculum and guest artists for the 2009 season. This year’s program will feature Paul Gilbert, Buddy Guy, Pat Metheny, Jimmy Herring, Oteil Burbridge, Pat Martino, Robben Ford, David Wilcox, Robert Lee Castleman, Brent Mason, Stu Hamm, Peppino D”Agostino, Ed Gerhard, Andrew York and John 5. Courses will be offered in rock, blues, jazz, country, classical, music technology, songwriting, and guitar exploration.

Check out www.guitarworkshop.com for more information.

NGW features locations nation-wide with campuses in New York, Austin, Washington DC, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Each location offers a wide variety of courses, all taught by world renowned musicians.

In association with Performing Songwriter Magazine, NGW is proud to present the Songwriting Summit featuring David Wilcox and Robert Lee Castleman. In addition, the workshop is offering a seminar on Country Guitar featuring Brent Mason, and a special Modern Acoustic seminar with Ed Gerhard and Peppino D’Agostino.

Events are happening across the country for rock players. The New York campus will hold two Rock Summits featuring Paul Gilbert and very special guest to be announced, while the LA Rock Summit will include a clinic by world renowned shred virtuoso John-5. Also at our LA Rock Summit we are happy to announce that bassist Stu Hamm will be an Artist in Residence during the summit.

The Jam Summit, taking place at our New York campus will feature both Jimmy Herring (Widespread Panic) and Oteil Burbridge (Allman Brothers Band) giving a special clinic on improvisation and presenting their unique take on the Jam scene.

Taking place in Austin, Chicago, and Connecticut are three Blues Summits, which will include appearances by some of the most influential bluest guitarists in the world. NGW is pleased to have Buddy Guy making a rare clinic appearance in Chicago. Jimmie Vaughan will be giving a clinic on his unique style in Austin, and the New York campus will feature the legendary blues guitarist Robben Ford.

The National Guitar Workshop is very excited to present Pat Metheny at the Jazz Summit in New York. This will be a rare chance to be a part of an intimate workshop with one of the most respected jazz guitarists in history. A great addition to the McLean, VA campus will be the appearance of one of the fathers of modern jazz guitar, Pat Martino, who will be a featured guest in the Giants of Jazz guitar seminar.

Our curriculum has also expanded to also include classes on Pro Tools, Ableton Live and Desktop Music Production. These music technology classes are powered by Apple®.

For a complete list of dates, locations, guest artists and classes offered please check out our website

www.guitarworkshop.com

If you are interested in connecting with other musicians and learning more about National Guitar Workshop from a student’s perspective, you can join our free community site

http://guitarworkshopcommunity.com

About National Guitar Workshop:

The National Guitar Workshop is celebrating over25 years of providing high quality music education to students of all ages. The curriculum is wide ranging with courses in Rock, Blues, Jazz, Acoustic, Songwriting, Music Technology and Classical. NGW offers expert instruction for guitarists, bassists, drummers, keyboardists and vocalists.

So mostly due to deadlines at work and post NAMM craziness, I have been absent.

Matt Warnock, a guitar professor at Western Illinois University recently interviewed me for the MusicEdMagic Website.  You can read it here.

Also, we have announced some of our guest artists for our campuses this summer.

National Guitar Workshop’s 2009 Guest Artist Roster (more to come)

Chicago, IL – Blues Guitar Summit July 12-17 with special guest Buddy Guy

Austin, TX – Blues Guitar Summit July 19-24 with special guest Jimmie Vaughan

Purchase, NY

July 19-24 Rock Summit with special guest TBA

July 26-31

Jazz Summit with Pat Metheny

Jam Summit with Jimmy Herring and Oteil Burbridge

August 2-7 Rock Summit with Paul Gilbert

August 9-14

Blues Summit with Robben Ford

Songwriting Summit with David Wilcox and Robert Lee Castleman

(I have a cool job)

Over the last few years I have found that the Internet is a great resource for developing musicians.  In grad school at the University of Northern Iowa I found it to be invaluable to practice in front of my computer.  Here are some websites you should check out to help make your practice time more effective.

In no particular order:

• eMusic – eMusic is an invaluable resource for affordable DRM free music.  As a jazz major in college, it was very useful to use eMusic to find rare and hard to find tracks for transcription, study and analysis.  No other online music resource has as deep of a jazz catalog as eMusic.
• I Was Doing Alright Ear Trainer -  This is a great Java based ear training application aimed at not only learning intervals and chord types, but chord progressions, jazz scales and even blues and rhythm changes.  This website was developed by a trumpet player from Atlanta who happens to be a web developer.  Easily one of the best free ear trainers I have ever seen.
• Ricci Adams’s Music Theory – Ricci Adams’ Music Theory website is a great place to start learning the nuts and b0lts of how music works.  Covers scales, chords, intervals, progressions and a lot more.
• Pollstar – I would also recommend JamBase – The reason we all are musicians is because we had a meaningful live music experience.  GO SEE LIVE MUSIC!
• Eythorsson – A great site for free high quality PDF’s of classical guitar literature.  I know many of you are not classical players, but being able to read music and play without a pick are important skills to have no matter what style you play.
• Online Metronome – Use it.  Seriously.
• How to Transcribe – A great article on the basics of transcription.
• Blank Music Paper – A great site for different formats of blank sheet music.   Reading music is such a valuable skill.  I didn’t know how valuable it was until after I could read.

Part two coming soon.

To have a unique voice on an instrument is the goal of every artist.  The ability to identify a musician by how they manipulate their instrument is something you don’t need inherent musical talent to be able to do.  You just need to have an emotional connection to a certain sound that triggers something in your mind.  When I began to seriously study jazz guitar I made sure to check out all the great players that everyone told me I should hear.  Jim Hall, Grant Green, Pat Metheny, Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell and Barney Kessel all contributed to my early education in jazz guitar.  After investigating the styles and history of those players, I did what most serious music students did, I started to look for new and intersting musicians.

Kurt Rosenwinkel was the first jazz guitarist I heard that made me think that it was ok to use non-jazz influences in a jazz style.  The first album I heard from Kurt was “The Next Step“. This album (unknown to me at the time) was a pretty big departure from his previous album on Criss Cross Records called “Intuit”.  “Intuit” was a collection of bebop tunes and standards performed in a straight ahead style with Michael Kanan on piano, Joe Martin on bass and Tim Pleasant on drums.

“The Next Step” opened my ears to different influences in a jazz setting.

Not everything has to swing.

Later on when I discovered Dave Holland’s music, I went though a phase where I did listen to any jazz with a swing feel.  The straight eighth feel spoke to my rock influences and Kurt’s tone used distortion, delay, chorus, and many other effects that were normally reserved for artists who played much fewer chords.

I have a recording from a workshop Kurt did in ’06 where he discusses his tone and then proceeds to play a blues for about 15 minutes and with each chorus exploits a different sound from his arsenal of pedals.  Not only does Kurt have a mastery of harmonic and melodic devices, but he knows how his instrument works in an intimate way that allows him to further express himself.

Many young jazz guitarists are becoming a part of Kurt’s tribe the same way they flocked to Metheny in the 80′s.  Here is a new, young, fresh voice on the instrument who not only knows the historical lineage of his instrument but is open to influences of his generation and beyond.

Here are some more links to learn more about Kurt

Offical Home Page – Kurt Rosenwinkel

Wikipedia – Kurt Rosenwinkel

Interview and Performance on NPR

Kurt Rosenwinkel Offical Group on Facebook

Interview on Jazz.com

Interview at State of Mind Music

A Rosenwinkel by Any Other Name

Please leave a comment or link to any other valuable link I might have missed.