The Music Lesson Blog

How to Learn Tunes, Step 1 - Listen!!!

Matt — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 15:34:38 +0000

This is the second in a series of posts about How to Learn Tunes. To view the introductory post, click here.

The first and by far the most important step in learning any tune is listening to it, ALOT! The first step is not to look at your real book and play through the melody, as some of you may believe. After all, music is an aural art. The tune was written for you, and everyone else, to hear it, not to read it on a page.

Start with finding as many versions of the tune you are trying to learn as you can. If it is a standard, there are probably hundreds out there. Search your library and make a playlist of all the versions you already have. Try and get the quintessential version of the tune. If it is a Duke Ellington tune - get a version of Duke playing it. If you’re not sure what the quintessential version is, do a little research. A great place to start is Jazzstandards.com, or you can check out some books at your local library. Also, the real book usually lists a version or two at the bottom of the lead sheet (although I don’t always agree with their choices for the best versions of a tune). Or you can e-mail me and I’ll tell you what version you gotta have.

If you don’t have many versions, or if you don’t have a classic version - it’s time till fill in those holes in your collection! I often use learning a new tune as my main excuse to buy new CDs, and so should you. Heck, it’s for your education! Often, I will do a little research online and come up with 5 or so CDs that I want with the tune I’m trying to learn. Then I go to my local record store (which fortunately has an awesome Jazz CD collection - you may not be so lucky) and get them. If you’re on a budget (aren’t we all) you can also probably find some versions of the tune on Amazon or Emusic. Then you will only have to buy the individual tune and not the whole record.

Now it’s time to go to town and listen:

Set aside some time to just listen to the versions you’ve gathered. Don’t try to do other things while you are listening. Don’t do the dishes, or noodle on your guitar - just find a comfy place and listen. Listen to each version a few times - at least 2 or 3. If you really love a particular version, listen to it even more.

Really get to know the melody. As you listen to it more, you should know it well enough to be able to hum along with the tune. This is especially important for the tunes you are trying to learn that you are less familiar with.

Try to hear what’s going on with the harmony too. You don’t have to analyze the whole thing right then, but try to get a feel for where the harmonies are going - even if you don’t have names for every chord yet.

Really try to listen to the nuances of each of the players, and how they make the tune come alive. Listen to their solos with a vested interest. Sometimes, when I’m listening to Jazz, I like to pretend I’m at the Jazz club, and listening to it live. Because of the spontaneous nature of Jazz, it always sounds more alive at the moment it is created. So pretending you are there, at that moment, helps you lose yourself in the tune, and in everything the players are doing.

Once you’ve listened to the tune enough times, you should already know it pretty well. You won’t be able to translate it to your instrument yet, but you should be able to hum the entire melody, and you should know the whole form. You should also have a general sense of the harmony, and of the improv concepts of the musicians you’ve heard.

If you cannot do all of those things, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO PLAY IT ON YOUR INSTRUMENT. Go back and listen some more. I can’t stress this enough. You will only lose time later on, when you have trouble getting the melody, or when you forget the tune completely a week later. As I’ve said before, music is an aural art, and you need to learn what a tune sounds like before you can learn it on your instrument.

When you feel you have really gotten to know the tune, then you can move on to the next step, which is learning the melody. More about that to follow in my next post. Happy listening!

How to Learn Tunes

Matt — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 21:02:57 +0000

This is the first in a series of posts about How to Learn Tunes.

So how well do you really know the tunes you say you know?

Can you play the melody?
Can you improvise through the tune?
If you are a chordal player (like me) can you play through the chords?
Can you play the chords and the melody at the same time?
Can you play a bass line?
Can you do all of these things in 12 keys?

If your answers to these questions is an unequivocal yes, then you don’t need this series of posts. If you are like the rest of us, though, your answers probably went more like this:

So how well do you really know the tunes you say you know?
Really well man, I’m a Jazz player
Can you play the melody?
Of course, duh.
Can you improvise through the tune?
With my eyes closed.
If you are a chordal player (like me) can you play through the chords?
You’ve got to know how to do that.
Can you play the chords and the melody at the same time?
Um…for most tunes sure.
Can you play a bass line?
Why would I do that - I don’t play bass
Can you do all of these things in 12 keys?
Well, I, um…I could probably play the melody…in…some keys.

Learning tunes is the single most important thing for a jazz player (and players in any genre really) to do. Period. Every Jazz player out there may not agree with me, but I believe it. There is so much you can learn from a single tune, that you can spend an entire year on just one, and never practice the same thing twice. Not to mention, that knowing a lot of tunes is essential to every working Jazz musician.

So this series is dedicated to all of the things you can learn from a jazz standard. It is also about how to really learn tunes. How to learn a tune so that you will never forget it, even if you haven’t played it in years. How to learn a tune so that, no matter what situation you are thrown into - solo, duo, trio, quartet, with a singer, big band, etc. - you can handle yourself on the tune.

So let’s get started: How to Learn Tunes, Step 1 - Listen!!!

Lick # 7 - Improv.

Matt — Fri, 04 May 2007 04:11:15 +0000

This lick is based around the opening bass lick of the eponymous tune of my Jazz trio Sixtanato. You can here a recorded version of the tune here.

Here is the bass lick:

Most of the following lick is built on the first three note motif of the bass lick. There are also some hints at a D7 chord, which are the next four notes of the bass lick.

Lick #7 - Mp3

Sometimes I will record a quick improvisation and write it down in my lick book - which is what I did here. It is played in free rhythm, just as the solo on the A section of Sixtanato. The rhythms of the notation are therefor only an approximation.

If you have a recording program - which you should (get Audacity if you don’t) - then try recording something and transcribing it. Add it to your lick book.

Warping Licks - rearranging the melody (Lick Book Licks #4-6)

Matt — Tue, 01 May 2007 16:48:27 +0000

This lesson is conjunction with my earlier post on The Almighty Lick Book. If you are unsure of what a lick book is, you should read that post first.

Your lick book is not just a place to record the most killing licks that you will have in your musical arsenal for the rest of your life. This certainly is the goal. However, sometimes the lick book is really more of a working notebook. You may have to do some work in it until you come up with something you really like. Sometimes you will put a whole lot of work into a lick and still not like what you came up with, and that is OK. The most important thing is that you are working on it, and you will be helping yourself improve - even when it doesn’t seem like it.

Now I am going to introduce you to an important tool for working with a lick book - Warping Licks. To warp a lick, basically means to alter it in some way in order to produce a new lick that is related to the raw material of the original lick. There are many ways to accomplish this, and I am only going to talk about one way today - rearranging the melody.

This first lick is a very simple ii-V-I-iii-VI lick that is designed to take you back to the ii again. This chord progression can be found in several tunes, but the specific tune I was thinking of was Cole Porter’s “I’ve Got You Under my Skin.”

Lick #4 - Mp3

This lick is mostly based around scales and arpeggios and moves mostly in 2nds and 3rds. It’s not a bad lick, but is what I would consider a somewhat bland one - very by the book. So let’s try our best to spice it up a little bit.

This first trick to spice up a lick is to simply change around the melody notes over each chord so that the intervals are more interesting. It can be very difficult to make the lick sound perfect by doing this - but try your best and do not change any of the notes or the rhythm. Many times, putting constraints on yourself can push into creative places. This is because it forces you to think in ways that aren’t as natural to you, therefor stretching the possibilities available to your mind. Here is my attempt at rearranging the melody notes.

Lick #5 - Mp3

As you can see, this is by no means perfect. In fact I would venture to say it is pretty random and incoherent sounding. However, there are some interesting ideas that this lick gave me. The first bar accomplished something, completely by accident, that I often do in my composition - having two melodies going on simultaneously within the same melody. The wide leaps make it sound like there is one melody on all of the downbeats and one on all of the upbeats. I don’t necessarily love either of the melodies, but I do love the concept. You could stretch that concept further too, by not limiting yourself to just a downbeat melody and an upbeat melody, but having syncopated rhythms in each melody, or allowing the melodies to overlap and have two notes playing at once (if your instrument can accomplish this.) As you can see the possibilities are pretty endless, and this is only in the first bar. That is what makes warping licks such a neat concept - it can lead to so many more concepts exponentially. More than you can even handle. Trust me.

Now, sometimes I don’t like to leave a lick hanging like this. Although there are some good concepts in this lick, I don’t like it as a whole, and too me that is unsettling. Therefor, I will usually try to tweak the lick to make it a little more pleasant sounding, while trying to keep some of the key concepts. There aren’t really any rules for this, but you could feel free to impose some if you think I’m wimping out on a challenge. Here is my tweaked version of the lick.

Lick #6 - Mp3

As you can see, I kept the first bar pretty much the same, except that I cut out the first beat. I think it sounds a little better this way - less like an exercise and more like a melody. The second bar is also pretty much the same, except I cut out two notes and tweaked the rhythm. I think this helps to give you a little bit of breathing room after the ascension of the first bar.

The third bar is kind of a new concept that came to me from the first three notes of the third bar in the last lick. It is pretty much a pattern of fourths where the first is a descending fourth, and the second is an ascending fourth a step up. Then another descending fourth a step up , and so on. I like the way this sounds - fourths always sound pretty modern and hip. The fourth bar is similar to the fourth bar of the last lick, but I used the same concept in the previous bar to end the fifth bar, except this time with fifths. This is pretty cool because it gives you all of those alterations on the G7 - b5, #5, and b9.

Then the final bar, I added a little non-chord tone just because I heard it as I was working out the rest of the lick. This leads me into my final point. Always trust your ear first and foremost. Warping licks is a concept where it can be tempting to ignore your ears and focus on your brain. DO NOT EVER IGNORE YOUR EARS!! Your brain is a helpful tool for stretching your musicianship, but it will always be a loyal subject of the king - your ears. If your brain tells you something is cool, listen to that something and see if your ears agrees. That is the only true test.

Try warping some of the licks in your lick book by rearranging the melody. You may be surprised by how many new ideas it can lead to.

30 Days, 30 Licks…Lick #3

Matt — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 02:31:34 +0000

If you read my earlier post, The Almighty Lick Book, you know that for 30 days I will be posting a brand new lick from my own personal lick book each and every day. This is the third of these licks. If you are unsure of what a lick book is than be sure to read that post first.

This Lick comes from the first 9 bars of the tune In a Sentimental Mood by the second greatest composer of Jazz - Duke Ellington. It features what is called a “line progression,” which is when one note in a chord changes, usually by only a half step, in a sequence. In this case, the same line progression happens for the Dm chord and for the Gm chord, where the bass note moves down a half step in every bar.

Lick #3 - Mp3

The approach that I used here is the easiest way to approach a line progression. Basically all you do, is hit the changing note at the beginning of each bar. Try coming up with your own lick using this simple approach. As long as you stay in the key, this will always sound good.

30 Days, 30 Licks…Lick #2

Matt — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 06:41:42 +0000

If you read my earlier post, The Almighty Lick Book, you know that for 30 days I will be posting a brand new lick from my own personal lick book each and every day. This is the second of these licks. If you are unsure of what a lick book is than be sure to read that post first.

This lick comes from the first 5 bars of the tune Star Eyes. It contains a very typical progression in which the I chord in bar 3 turns into a minor 7th chord in a ii-V-I. You will see this in tons of tunes, so it is good to have a bunch of tricks for this progression.

Lick #2 - Mp3

This lick is base on a three note motive, or short musical phrase. The motive for this lick is made up of a minor 2nd and then a perfect 5th. If you look almost the entire lick is based on this motive except for a few passing phrases in the 3rd and 4th bars.

Motives are a great way to build a solo and help you to not sound like you are just running through arpeggios all of the time. Try writing your own three or four note motive and basing an entire lick on it. Then try basing an entire solo on this motive. You can either improvise the solo, or write it out.

30 Days, 30 Licks…Lick # 1

Matt — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 03:33:44 +0000

If you read my earlier post on, The Almighty Lick book, you know that for 30 days I will be posting a brand new lick from my own personal lick book each and every day. This is the first of these licks. If you are unsure of what a lick book is than be sure to read that post first.

This lick comes from bars 4-8 of the tune “Corcovado” by Antonio Carlos Jobim. It is a typical ii-V-I progression, but has an interesting twist with the i diminished chord happening in bar three before resolving to the I in bar four. Corcovado is a Bossa Nova tune, so it is played with a straight rhythm, although this lick sounds good at an up-tempo swing as well.

Lick #1 - Mp3

The first three bars are based almost completely on the arpeggios of the chords, while the fourth bar is based on an F major scale. It is a pretty straightforward lick. The C7(b9) chord is worth noting because it is technically not in the key of F Major, but a lot of Jazz musicians will add a b9 to the V chord.

I find that it is best to keep it simple when playing over diminished chords. You really want these chords to stand out, and there is no better way then just playing a simple arpeggio. Diminished chords are already outside of the key, so they already sound pretty hip on their own.

Try playing this lick in twelve keys. Try writing your own lick on the same progression.

The Almighty Lick Book

Matt — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 00:58:38 +0000

The “Lick Book” is something I had heard about many times from a lot of different people. Every time a teacher or fellow musician would mention it to me, they would always sing its praises, and yet I always avoided doing it for one reason or another.

Well let me tell you now…that was stupid! The lick book is the quintessential tool for developing your own voice as a performing musician, no matter what genre you perform in. So start yours right now. I mean it.

So what exactly is a lick book? Basically it is a notebook, or in my case a computer notation file, that you periodically write down musical phrases that you come up with. How often are you practicing (or fooling around on your instrument) and you play something that you think is really hip? The lick book is one place that you can keep track of all these cool licks so that you can reference them later.

What benefits will you be getting from starting a lick book?

1. You will never forget a cool lick again. The next time the creativity is flowing all you have to do is whip out your book, write it down, and it will always be there for you.

2. You will develop your own voice. As you write down more and more licks, you will find what kinds of phrases you do and don’t like.

3. Work on your technique using your own material. Lick books are a great way to work on being able to play what you want to be able to play. So many technical exercises out there have so little to do with music. Now you can have a whole book of musical technical exercises that YOU WROTE!

4. Build your own vocabulary as an improviser. The lick book is not exclusively an improvisers tool, but it is probably one of their most important. Improv is all about building up a usable vocabulary, and the lick book is THE way to do it.

You can use the lick book in two different ways. You can only write down licks when inspiration strikes, just so that you don’t forget it. Or you can force yourself to sit down and come up with a lick periodically, working it out until you come up with something you feel is worthy to put down in the almighty lick book.

I personally use and recommend the lick book to be used in a combination of both of the above ways for maximum creative growth. Give yourself a goal of how often you want to write a lick down in your lick book. Maybe 2-3 times a week or even daily. Then force yourself to come up with a lick at least that often. You won’t come up with the greatest licks all the time, but it is the fact that you are committing to it that is important. Of course, in addition to this committed time, you should also write down the licks that you happen across as well.

In order to give everyone the idea of what a lick book is, I will be coming up with a lick everyday for the next month (until May 18) and posting it on this blog for everyone to try out. Most of the licks that I come up with are based on progressions from Jazz standards, so that is most likely what I will be posting. However I encourage everyone, not just the jazzers to take a look at them. At the very least they can serve as good technical exercises.

Does anyone else already use a lick book? Are there any other ways that you use them? Are there any benefits that you see that I’m missing?

Welcome to The Music Lesson Blog

Matt — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 22:07:09 +0000

Hi. Welcome to my new blog - the music lesson blog. I will be using this space to post a variety of lessons on many different musical topics. This may include, but certainly will not be limited to - music theory, reading tips, improvisation, songwriting, composing, music business tips, style explorations, practicing tips, and technical exercises.

Just to let you know a little about myself - my name is Matt and I am a guitar player living, working, and teaching in and around Philadelphia. I have been teaching for a few years now and have been toying with the idea of starting this blog in order to reach a larger student base. There are only so many hours in the week, and while I have quite a few private students (26 as of right now), I think that think the power of the blog will allow me to teach a lot more people in less time (isn’t technology awesome!)

I started off playing rock music, like most young guitar players, and then got into playing the blues, which led to Jazz. Currently I am performing mostly Jazz, some rock, and writing a lot of classical and New Music. I also love to listen to many other kinds of music such as Electronica and Dance music, Bluegrass, Zydeco, Country, North Indian Hindustani music, japanese noh music, and New Age guitar music - although I am far from an expert in any of these styles. To me, all music shares the same ability to capture the spirit and bring rise to a palette of emotions. Therefore, I label myself Stylistically Indifferent. This concept will permeate through my blog, as I will be posting on many different styles, and also on music in a more general sense.

Check back to see the first lessons, which will be popping up as the week goes on. I’m looking forward to sharing my knowledge with you, and to learning from you as well. If you want to know more about me you can read the bio page on this site. Are there any other topics I didn’t mention that you’d be interested in hearing me talk about? Please leave your comments, and let me know what you’d like to know more about.

About

Matt — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 18:41:35 +0000

Matt, originally hailing from Marlton, NJ, has spent the last 5 years in Philadelphia working and teaching. Having graduated with highest honors from The University of the Arts, and holding a Bachelors of Music degree in Jazz Performance, Matt has studied with such noted musicians as Tom Giacabetti, Mike Quaile, Jonathan Kreisberg, Ron Kerber, Tony Micelli, and Micah Jones. He has been teaching Guitar and Bass guitar both privately and with music schools for over 5 years to students of all ages and ability levels. He has performed in a wide array of Philadelphia area venues, including Chris’ Jazz Cafe, The Pyramid Club, Estia, The Caribou Cafe, Taipan, The Millcreek Tavern, The Fire, Crescent City, The Grape St. Pub, The Ritz Theater, The Grand Theatre and for countless private functions.

Matt’s original Indie Pop band, The Tonalites, which was formed when Matt was just old enough to hold a guitar, is currently working on their 2nd album, scheduled to be released this fall. Matt is also the Managing Director of Music Programming and Education for Aspire Arts. Matt’s jazz trio Sixtanato recently premiered Matt’s original Jazz Suite “The Either” based on the philosophical works of Soren Keirkegaard, with guest musicians Tenor Saxophonist Mike Pracher and Trumpet player Ashton McNelis. Matt plans to attend graduate school for a Masters of Composition.