However for jazz musicians, a mental understanding of theory is just the tip of the iceberg when approaching a tune or an improvised solo. Pass a test in your history class, give a quarterly progress report in front of your colleagues, prepare your taxes – if you know the facts you’re going to perform well, you’ll even look smart.

“I’ve learned all my scales and I’ve memorized the melody and chord progression, but for some reason I still have trouble improvising over that tune!” This phrase and it’s accompanying frustration are more widespread than you might think.įor a lot of things that we do every day, mental knowledge is the beginning and ending of “knowing” something. In fact, it won’t even guarantee that you’ll be able to play a mediocre solo.Īspiring improvisers complain about this intellectual and artistic disconnect all the time. But, despite all of this study, memorization, and analysis, it’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to improvise a great solo. You can analyze books of transcribed solos, circling every 7-3 resolution and ii-V7 line that you see. You can study every imaginable scale and carry around the scale syllabus in your back pocket. You can spend your time memorizing an entire book of music theory. Without meaning to, you’ve stumbled upon one of the most frustrating realities about improvisation: music theory knowledge doesn’t equal great improvised solos. You’ve memorized your scales, but why do those “right notes” suddenly sound so wrong? At a certain point you’re going to hit a wall, wondering how everything got so difficult. One thing you may have already realized is that those so-called “theory smarts” are only going to get you so far as an improviser. Jazz is certainly smart people music, but smart people, like great improvisers, don’t just materialize out of thin air. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find hours of focused practice and study, an unforgiving honesty about shortcomings, well defined goals, and a strong willed determination to improve. Take a close look at any “smart” person and you’ll find much more than raw intelligence or talent lurking beneath the well polished sheen of that outward image. It’s an understatement that you need to be intelligent to survive in that situation, however “smart” is a word that we carelessly throw around along with other words like “genius” and “talent,” these mysterious qualities that appear to be genetically predetermined. Getting up on stage in front of an audience and improvising in real time demands the utmost from both your intellectual and your physical senses. The typical improviser is determined, focused, dedicated, well-rounded, and studied…and that’s just a list of what it takes to get some basic instrumental technique and music theory down. It’s no secret that it takes brains to play jazz.

If you’ve ever spent any time around this legendary musician, chances are you might have even heard him say this phrase and more importantly, if you’ve ever tried to play jazz or improvise, you know he’s not kidding around!

To hear one of them was to get closer to the music, the history you’ve only read about in books, your musical idols from Lee Morgan and Miles to George Coleman, Herbie Hancock, and Freddie Hubbard.īut, there was something about that particular phrase that stood out for me: smart people music. This man probably has two stories for every tune he knows and he literally knows a thousand tunes. An impromptu musical lesson that didn’t involve scales or chords, but just as valuable – maybe even more so. Walking through the practice rooms at school one day, as was usually the case, a group of eager students was huddled around him as he told a story. Jazz is smart people music! I first heard these words from the great pianist Harold Mabern.

Jazz chord aural training