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Archive for September, 2009

There are many ways of starting to investigate how to play jazz guitar. Some guitar players see jazz as a way to learn improvisation. Others see jazz guitar as an instrument that accompanies a certain repertoire of songs. But once you start to actually study jazz you are confronted with a head-spinning array of odd looking chord shapes and endless discussion of modes and scales.

Just what is your average beginner guitar player supposed to think when all he wants to do is learn how to play jazz guitar? Well, jazz kind of grew like Topsy from its beginning as part of Black American culture in the early twentieth century. The rest of America and the rest of the world started adding their own interpretations of jazz music.

So now under the heading of jazz guitar we have widely diverse styles as those of Wes Montgomery, Lenny Breau, Joe Pass, Charlie Byrd, John McLaughlin, Herb Ellis, Pat Metheny and Charlie Christian. This list is just off the top of my head and these guys’ playing styles are as different from each other as cheese is from Shinola.

So where is the starting point for anybody who wants to learn how to play jazz guitar? I would have to say the repertoire. There is a body of songs and instrumental pieces that are called jazz standards. There is a website called Jazz Standards dot com that has twenty pages listing one thousand jazz standards.

Here is a list of familiar titles from the top one hundred jazz standards: Body and Soul, All the Things You Are, Summertime, ‘Round Midnight, My Funny Valentine, What Is This Thing Called Love?, Yesterdays, Stella By Starlight, Autumn Leaves, Star Dust, Willow Weep for Me, Honeysuckle Rose, Sweet Georgia Brown, Caravan, The Man I Love, St Louis Blues, How High the Moon, Oh, Lady Be Good!, Take the “A” Train, Embraceable You, On Green Dolphin Street, These Foolish Things, Sophisticated Lady, Ain’t Misbehavin’, Night and Day, Georgia on My Mind and Satin Doll.

So the jazz repertoire seems to be the one common thing amongst the diversity of styles of playing and levels of innovation. Of course you need to get into subjects like what jazz chords are and why they have evolved and the various movements in jazz music but in order to keep it simple start with a list of your favorite songs. Once you have a list of maybe twenty or so songs from the repertoire of jazz standards you can listen to how jazz guitar players have interpreted the songs on your list. From listening to interpretations you can go to learning the chords that you need to play your songs and start practicing them.

As for improvisation, many people feel that in order to learn jazz guitar improvisation you need to learn to play a multitude of exotic scales and modes. A much more enjoyable alternative is to simply play along with your favorite songs. Learn licks from other jazz guitarists. You can always put what you have learned into the theoretical framework later if you feel that you need to. As a general rule, while you are learning, stick to the major scale all over the fretboard.

So, as with any style of music, if you want to learn how to play jazz guitar the jumping off point is the jazz standards and how you want to interpret your favorite pieces.

There’s no ‘compulsory’ licensing in literature… And if there’s an industry in worse shape than music, it’s the publishing world. Amazon’s Kindle is stillborn because it relies heavily on Amazon for content, and there are no easy paths to licensing writing. It’s entirely a 1:1 negotiation and as a result, the vast majority of authors are left out. It’s pretty clear: without the right to use (and pay) authors to fairly use recent works, modern works languish on the shelves until they go out of print and disappear forever. Today the blogosphere stands as a monument to both the triumph of amateurism, and the difficulty of getting noticed or paid. While content aggregators have labored to create a web-based syndication market for a decade, broadcaster’s ability to play any and everything whenever they want creates new stars to this day, and supports a much larger industry.

Many written works are so far ahead of their time as to be worthless when published. Einstein’s most famous works were dormant for over a decade until the world caught up with his theories. Laszlo Moholy-Nagy’s ‘The New Vision’ was written in the 1920s, but required digital computers to fully realize and flesh out… the author was dead for 50 years before the ideas could be deployed at all! Had the work been more easily carved up and annotated, it may never have gone out of print, and almost certainly would have earned it’s author more income in his lifetime. Furthermore, earlier development would have made the franchise and the body of his work more valuable to his heirs.

How many contemporary painters can anyone outside the art world name? The average consumer knows far more pop stars than painters. There are more working millionaire pop stars than painters, and they make their fortunes faster. These two worlds reflect the most restrictive copyrights. The results and state of the respective arts make the case: As bad as things may be for the music industry, the art world lacks the exposure, opportunity, and yes, money, that would flow their way with compulsory licensing of images. At least pop stars don’t have to die to get paid (though classical composers were in that boat prior to compulsory licensing!).

In the 20th and 21st century more musical artists achieved greater notoriety and commercial success than authors or painters. Sure, you can pick out a couple individuals, like Stephen King and Andy Warhol, who out-earned almost all musical artists of their respective eras, but there are far more Madonnas, Christinas and Britneys than Andys. While as many books are written as CDs are released, who’s more popular? Joe Strummer put it best: ‘Plato the Greek or Rin Tin Tin; who’s more famous to the million-billions?’ Similarly, in the drug industry patents are inviolable for 17 years. Witness the result: Obscene profits for pharmaceutical companies, unreasonable pricing for patients (unreasonable in a business sense, not a moral one). Clearly broadcasting expanded some industries and incomes via compulsory licensing.

Its clear the absence of compulsory licensing deprives us of all kinds of fun, entertaining and previously legitimate media-baubles. A century ago, copyrights expired and works passed into the public domain, and classical music freely filled high schools, symphony halls, and band shells. Today copyrights of media conglomerates are effectively eternal (Mickey Mouse’s legitimate copyright was up 20 years ago, but Disney is still prosecuting infringement of their icon). In a reasonable world, an X-Rated Mickey Mouse cartoon would already be at Blockbuster!

Since conglomerates will not surrender their gains easily, compulsory rates are the next best solution that allows ALL citizens access to our collective cultural cache. In the constitution, and international law, there is a long-standing presumption that it is a GOOD THING for intellectual property to enter the public domain. The notion of heavy-handed enforcement of perpetual (or ever-extended in the case of drugs) intellectual property, not fair use and mash ups, is the novel concept here.

Virtually NO ONE but Stephen King and his cohort can make a living writing books today, but there are plenty of people making a living making music. The art world is even more dismal: If you don’t make it and can’t land a teaching job, you’re probably bitter about your retail job. Of course most musicians see nothing from licensing, but it’s impossible to miss the broader market for music created by the existence of popular music and broadcasting. Conversely, the collapse of music formats and regionalism on the radio, far more than file trading, have halted the growth of our industry.

The challenge today is to revitalize programmed music, so webcasters can grow the market in the ways broadcast once did. There are far more and better opportunities on the web than there ever were in broadcasting. Compulsory licensing that rewards performance, alongside song writing, open those doors and grow the market for our work.

Every great jazz musician has, at one time or another, transcribed jazz solos from recordings. Since jazz is an art from that is aural in nature, it makes complete sense that listening and copying the improvisations of earlier jazz masters helps one become a more consistent and skilled jazz improviser.Transcribing a jazz solo involves the repetitive listening and notation of a recorded jazz solo. To get maximum benefit from the process, the person studying the solo through transcription should memorize and internalize every note and every inflection played by the improviser. “Transcribing” refers to the activity of notating on paper the exact notes and rhythms played by the improviser.Evolving Technologies of Transcribing Jazz SolosCharlie Parker could arguably be called the most influential jazz artist of the 20th century. His inventive jazz improvisations changed the face of jazz and ushered in one of the most exciting eras of jazz: the bebop era.Charlie Parker was born with a huge amount of natural talent, but that does not mean Charlie never worked hard at his honing his craft. History reveals that Charlie spent almost a year early on in his music career memorizing – note by note – the jazz solos of Lester Young from 78 RPM recordings.Before jazz became widely available on 78 RPM recordings, musicians relied on listening and learning in “real time”. The only way to learn jazz improvisation in the early days of jazz was to listen to live musicians and pick up what you could from what they played. Once played however, the music was gone forever. During the 1920s, artists such Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong and many others began recording their music and jazz improvisations onto 78 RPM acetone discs. This leap in technology opened the door for future musicians to “study” the improvisations of their jazz predecessors.The 1950s saw the introduction of reel to reel tape machines and ultimately cassette tape recordings. Magnetic tape made it possible for jazz musicians to forward and rewind the tape to exact locations of solos and specific passages of a solo. No longer did musicians have to “drop the needle” on worn out discs to learn a solo or tune. Some cassette tape players were made specifically for musicians, allowing them to slow down parts or all of a recording at half or quarter speed. This proved to be helpful, but slowing down analog tape created problems with pitch and fidelity that was annoying to say the least.In recent years, computers have assisted jazz musicians transcribe recordings in ways that were once considered impossible. Inexpensive or free computer programs have made it possible to slow down fast passages without changing fidelity or pitch. Other advantages of computer assisted transcription include the ability to change key, precise looping of passages for ease in learning, and even help with notating pitches that are played.Transcribing and studying great jazz solos can be one of the smartest and beneficial activities any jazz musician can undertake to help hone his or her craft. Even with the marvels of modern technology, the process still takes time and effort however. Don’t forget to use the knowledge and skills you acquire from transcribing jazz solos to performing with live musicians. Nothing will replace the experience of playing jazz with others!

Jazz is one of the most popular forms of music that has roots originating from blues music. If you want to learn to play jazz, then it’s a good idea to learn basic jazz chord progressions. There are many progressions used in jazz music. This article will share with you some of the most common jazz chord progressions.

ii-V-I

One of the most widely used jazz chord progressions is the ii-V-I progression. Most chords in jazz music are seventh chords, so each chord in this progression will be a seventh. In the key of C, the chords would be Dm7, G7, and Cmaj7. If you don’t know how to play seventh chords, you need to learn them as soon as possible. The notes of Dm7 are D, F, A and C. The notes of G7 are G, B, D, and F. The notes of Cmaj7 are C, E, G and B.

V-ii-I

Another one of the common jazz chord progressions is the V-ii-I. Once again the chords will be seventh chords, but this time they will be in the key of F. The chords played that make up this progression are Cmaj7, Gm7, and Fmaj7. As stated above, the notes of Cmaj7 are C, E, G and B. The notes of Gm7 are G, Bb, D, and F. Finally, the notes of Fmaj7 are F, A, C, and E.

I-vi-ii-V

One of the more advanced jazz chord progressions is the I-vi-ii-V progression. This time let’s play the progression in the key of G. The chords for this progression will be Gmaj7, Cm7, Am7, and D7. The notes of Gmaj7 are G, B, D, and F#. The notes of Cm7 are C, Eb, G, and Bb. The notes of Am7 are A, C, E, and G. Finally, the notes of D7 are D, F#, A, and C.

Learning to play jazz is not very difficult. After you learn a variety of jazz chord progressions, you will have a solid foundation to build upon. All you have to learn next is how to harmonize the chords and you’re well on your way to playing great jazz music.

There are many videos and CDs on the market for babies. You may have heard of theories that classical music can help your baby become smarter, and by exposing them to music we are introducing our baby to the world around us.
Music is good for calming your baby and can soothe them so that they become more restful at bedtimes, or for their nap time. There are many good choices out there for your baby.
If you find a piece of music relaxing and love listening to, you may find it is ideal for your baby too. Mozart or Bach are good collections to have for bedtime. For soothing music there is Enya, or another choice for something peaceful and relaxing is Georgia Kelly’s harp music.
Nursery rhymes and music from children’s films can stimulate your baby’s senses when he is awake. Philip Glass is a minimalist and a lot of children respond to his music; the music is simple with a good rhythm and when your baby gets older, he will dance to it. To help get your baby to sleep try the gospel and spiritual music.
You can buy sound machines which simulate the sound of dolphins, or water in the form of rain, the sea or ocean which can be soothing whilst blocking out any background noise in your home. You can also put on a fan, though not directly in your baby’s direction, or some other form of white noise. It isn’t necessary to create an alternate silent surrounding for your baby, as they also need to get used to the usual home rhythm and the activities that go on around the house.
Classical music is also a good genre of music that you can try, if you’re not used to listening to it. Listening to what helps your baby get to sleep, can also be relaxing for you, so while you are both going through that bonding process, you can both enjoy some restful periods together.