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Player’s Corner

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Ask Charlie (Player’s Resource) (6 posts)

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  • Profile picture of Andrew Youngren (admin) Andrew Youngren (admin) said 2 years, 7 months ago ago:

    Ask Charlie any questions about the Player’s Resource

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  • Profile picture of Steve Alboucq Steve Alboucq said 2 years, 7 months ago ago:

    Yo Charlie, I’m curious to know more about developing a practice routine to develop my music theory and technical skills while at the same time building a jazz vocabulary based on Willie’s pentatonic pair system. When I sit down today to practice I want to maximize my time. Do you have any tips?

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  • Profile picture of Craig Craig said 2 years, 7 months ago ago:

    Steve stole my question. So I’ll ask another one, kind of related. As a beginning/early-intermediate jazz player, I’ve found Willie’s listen-and-playback videos in the Immersion Zone incredibly helpful, as they’ve given me a down-to-earth, practical way in to learning some basic theory and putting it into practice in a gratifying way. Then I look at all the theory in the Player’s Resource section — which is wonderfully well presented, but still incredibly daunting to me. I hardly know where to start to incorporate it into my practice routine. Which is Steve’s question. So mine is, When you are looking at a series of chord changes on a piece of music and improvising to them, what is going through your brain? Are you mentally “crunching” all that theory at a supercomputer pace, identifying the notes in each chord, figuring out what notes it has in common with the chords before and after, and spontaneously composing a melody — while also transposing up a step because you’re playing a Bb instrument? Yikes! Can mere mortals (like me) really do that?

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  • Profile picture of Charlie Porter Charlie Porter said 2 years, 6 months ago ago:

    Hey Craig, Sorry but I didn’t see your question at first, since I was checking a different page- oops!

    As for the player’s resource info- it is there to help players bridge the gap between the very basics and the more intermediate and advanced stuff, harmonically speaking.

    The first step to incorporate the harmonic stuff I present is probably more obvious than you realize and that is to learn all of the triads and chords on your horn, apart from the written chord changes. The next step is to be able to associate triads and chords with the written chord changes. Then, very slowly to play the associate triads and chords up and down from every degree (inversions).

    For example:
    If I am playing a tune that has the chords C7, Eb-7 and Gaug7, the first thing I need to know how to do is spell those chords. After that I need to be able to play them on my instrument- not in time, just be able to play them and hear them- really hear them. After that, play them up and down in time, trying to connect one chord or triad to another. Remember to keep it simple at first. Start with just the triad or even just the root and 3rd if the who chord is too much. Eventually you will be able to play chords as a triggered response from the root, 3rd, 5th, 7th, etc. if you train yourself to be able to do that.

    The flip side of the coin is to make sure you dedicate as much time, if not more, to playing what you hear- copying and transcribing- learning aurally. The theory will help you to better understand all the things you will learn by copying anyway. It will show you the matrix behind it all, but it is not enough on its own to get you to speak the language. The language of jazz is one of conversation and dialect. Think about how you learned to speak English. You copied your parents and only after that were you handed a grammar book and told to “learn” English. The theory only explains what already exists in sound- it came after the music, and therefore should be secondarily learned- like English. Theoretical knowledge should not be a sole method for improvising, but rather a way of codifying a language which you are already learning aurally.

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  • Profile picture of Ron Pfender Ron Pfender said 2 years, 6 months ago ago:

    Not sure I’m posting in correct area but…, I’ve been working on the chromatic lesson one, basically connecting ii-V’s,going up by 4ths using the suggested pattern. But in the blues changes at the end of the lesson the patten used was different. For ex going from the C7 to F7, instead of going to the F7 using the F7 be bop scale going from C – F the pattern is C-C#-D-E to F, was the change just to show another option or some other reason.

    This site is great – Thanks

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  • Profile picture of terry nmcdonnell terry nmcdonnell said 2 years, 5 months ago ago:

    My problem is memorizing and then retaining chord sequences.Do you have any tactics I hate taking real book on gigs

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