Welcome to Jazz Guitar Lessons, where we help guitarists learn jazz faster, express themselves more fluently, and have fun along the way. My name is Marc, and if you're looking to learn jazz, form better practice habits, and especially if you enjoy French accents, make sure to subscribe. All right. Welcome, everybody. We are here with the winner of the March Madness, which was on the Jester Fellowship for the the Tune with the Summertime, which was a great arrangement.
So we have our guest here with the guitar, and we will tackle our top three questions, see how we can be most helpful. So I will maybe let you ask your first question. If I understand was based around the melodic minor and applying it to a minor. 251. Right. I've been working on the melodic minor scale and the issue is not so much about the scale, but the approach to learning it and creating ideas basically on a minor to five one.
And so the approach that I had was to take a minor seven flat five and work on the melodic minor scale for that as a vent, sort of as a vent, and then the altered five chord as a band and then the minor 694. And then after that I started working on the the II-V-I progression in Minor, and there's so many resources that are out there that a lot of times the focus is on learn this line, learn that line, learn the other line.
And for some reason I don't process like that. I, I like to learn the scales but not thinking of them as scales, but thinking of them as the pitches most appropriate at the time and creating ideas. I've I've listened to a lot of music and I create ideas that I think reflect my personality and try to put them together.
However, of course, you know, you have friends and it's like, Oh, you need to learn this line, learn that line, learn the other line. And I was just curious about if that is really the way that people who have been successful in playing jazz guitar approached it. And the focus is on melodic minor because that's what I'm working on, but it applies to really anything.
Good question. Okay, I'll go grab the guitar and probably go on tangents and on Segways and stuff and you can interrupt me whenever you want, but I'll sort of start off by saying that the approach of nailing a certain chord quality and asserting it as a mode of melodic manner is great. Every single well, wait until the desk makes it with its way down low key saying that say D minor 755 is the sixth mode of F melodic minor sibling as you as you describe and saying, Well, that's six degree melodic, minor discrete.
Every single melodic minor mode can be thought of this way, and every single one of them, even the second mode stuff, they have their usage in common jazz language for sure. Secondly, the fact that you're putting them back together is really the crucial step because they each have a really strong pull. So if I were to vamp like you're doing, say D minor, something like five or Rudiments of Fire, would a bass line up and then continues.
It is good to build some ideas. And for the record, this is also how I think as scales. It's a collection of pitches. It tells me the roadmap of which pitches are in. But as an improviser I will tinker and I will go in and out of it. Chromatically and with rhythms, etc.. Right? So that's an extremely good approach.
But memorize lines. Personally, I know the one, you know, the Crimea River. Yeah, the Crimea River line. That's the lick. All the other licks are like stuff I picked up from West and I, I think it's good, but I've never been the one to either grasp lines like this fully memorized and I've never been one to teach that way either.
So I think you're. You're saying that you're on the right path. However, I'll tell you this one, the approach of seeing so yeah, D-minus and four or five the G7 altitude C minor or something as coming from these three different modes and they're all modes of melodic manner, putting them back together, having two set of pitches, disparate approach.
The next thing in order to have lines that are more than one measure, I think I would assume that these jazz legends play with a sort and skeleton background which goes into that, namely, at first the guidance, the main ones they get on being right on beat one. And I'm going to be super pedantic and I keep repeating this on line and every time we analyze a solo, we see an on paper is like, Oh yeah, this is the third of the scale is going to be a really good signpost of where this is headed.
So in the case of D Minor seven five, it's got to be the F naturally. Then regardless of what mode that is, people will say, I use little Korean. That's that's fine. If you look in natural two as a lot of minor good. And then what we want to hear is that resolution. So essentially the line, the line that I encourage anyone to memorize is more than like that skeleton get on line.
And regardless of the set of pitches and or my own chromatic colorations of it, that line is like backbone. It's behind my ears all the time. And there's three. And if you want, I can show you all three. There's really three backbones. And this is an implicit line that whether it is played, whether they are played or heard, I can get and create my own riff within the set of pitches.
And sometimes I may fall back down into that tool, which is change running. I pick up the tool from the toolbox and go, Yeah, and resolving to the third and the seventh resolves itself. And I go up, I do to Crimea River, click on that five, you know, even on the G Can you describe the or variations of the, of the beginning of that song and that's it sort of be my my the simplest way to put it together is like memorize lines.
Yeah. Not so much vamping individually. Yeah. Putting it all back together to see where detentions lead. Awesome. And then defining not memorize lines, but how a framework framework's syntax is more important. Does that make sense? And would you like me to say yes? Sure. Yes, yes, yes. Okay. Um, I'm going to get in trouble here because my, my, my guys in the coaching, I always teach them, well, we're doing all of this and it's going to all be C minor harmonic, so you can use all the three chords coming from that.
So for you, for this video, you guys have been watching me for a while. You'll go like, Yeah, Marc is sort of, I'm going on a tangent because your work is even more specific, but the general approach of everything. C Harmonic minor also works, so frameworks start on the tonic of the two chord, namely ascending the D minor, some flat five chord from the root going one flat three flat five flat seven resolving down that note to the B natural.
So the third of G is going to make sense Once I play it, I promise. And then descending the scale up until we hit the third of C. So it's essentially one tonic, three, three. Sounds something like this. I'll do it. And quarter note just for clarity to go three four coming up. One, two, three, four. High and octave that would get in trouble because I go if I, if I did pure A-flat harmonic minor and melodic minor, I would need to use a triplet like.
But you can you can muster that the way you want the solo here you get three lines. Don't get to the third. That's framework number one. So from yeah, framework number two is hitting the third of each going down. So it's even simpler. So one, two, three, four, one, two. But again, with the full line to again, I would need to teach it, it should teach it out, cheated out.
So, so I will anchor on the change each. The first one has the tonic, third, third. Then this is third. The third and the last one, which is even more interesting, is targeting the fifth of the two chords, the framework. So it's so right to the third of the G and then ascending however you want and to five of C, So flat five down three and five as coming from harmonic minor, it's this one if I butter it up with my g altered that was I played that that was around again three four.
So those are the three frameworks that I picked up from Berkeley gone and he only shows them as all modes of major. So Dorian makes a major and then he does it all coming from C harmonic minor. But that's just the beginning of the approach. What's cool is that in that book, which I put it in here, so connecting chords with linear harmony, the bulk of the book is lines from players like Here's I look at the solo on in your own sweet weighted in the spring and using that one of the three frameworks and here's a line from Michael Brecker here's a line from Charlie Christian.
Here's a line from Pat Metheny. Here's a line from Randy Brecker. Here's a line from Mike Stern. Here's a line from Coltrane. Here's a line from you name it Miles, you know, Parker verses. And it always works. It always works. And he's his whole point in the book is we would be hard pressed to find a good line on the record that does not fit into these three frameworks.
There it is. Okay. Wow. I know. That's a lot. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah, it is a lot. I can't wait to watch the video. I'll send you. I'll send you the recording. Plus, by the way, I owe you that. Luma said I would do a loom. I will shoot you a loom in feedback through summertime. Maybe come up with some points or things to watch out for.
I haven't done that. I've been really, really busy with existing and new students where, you know, victim of my own success. She will. Yeah. Okay. Basically, I think you really have addressed all three of my questions, but perhaps I could show you an example of I can't wait to get the frameworks because I'm going to I'm going to approach that for sure in terms of lines.
By the way, I'm not opposed to them. I often will if I see a line and it's supposed to serve a particular purpose, I'll play it. But I don't have a good track record of like memorizing them. And, you know, I may actually study it, but at the end of the day, if somebody asked me five days later, what was that line, I probably would not have it.
I may I may have a lot of information about it, but I probably wouldn't have it. So I like to play other people's, like good players lines, but that's not how I find that. I can try to create things when I study and understand a little bit better what's going on, as opposed to just grabbing a line. I'm the same.
I'm the same. Like I will study and I will dissect it. I will learn it all back and front and just analyze the whole process and then I will wind up being in a a state where I just absorbed everything. It's like reading a book, like I'm reading this book. Could I recite a sentence from that book? I know what he said, like I know the point, but I can't have the sentence or the paragraph memorized.
That's fine. The big ideas are more important than the framework I like. I like the idea that you you have this framework. And then if I can keep that melody going in the in my mind for a particular situation, in this case a minor to five one, then I can use all of the other things that I'm learning to decorate the framework.
This, this how I'm thinking about it. But anyway, I want to play just a little bit and oh, since you can edit, you know, it, it out. What doesn't work? Oh, I was playing up here primarily. That's the other thing. There's some these zones and so down here I don't have the zones worked out so much. Okay. You know, I take them like one at a time and go through them.
But anyway, so I'm sort of thinking right here, it's so nervous I can't even play. Okay, so for that, that's the sound and I might play. Oh, I know I can play better than this. Now, this island and on the sixth there, but I didn't necessarily do that. So let me try. And the thing is, I couldn't play that again for real.
So I might go to Greg and I might make up in it as a part of my practice. I will just sit and I will just try to listen because I'm trying to hear these things. So I will try to listen and see if I can right. Then create something. Of course, they're all using the same ingredient, so it's not like anything greatly original, but that's the approach I'm doing.
And I think if I put that framework in the back of my mind or in my ear as I'm doing that, that may make these my lines say, I love my lines, make my lines stronger, agree. And since I can't play, you can edit all of that. And it's the the point you're making is great because to me, by creating your line, you, you grab the material, you see it as a collection of pitches, you address the technicality of the instrument because, because instruments.
But at the same time, you retain the exploratory nature of your improv, which is, you know, we're not robots, you know, we don't want plug and play like be correct with the appropriate scales. Like it's just a framework is you got this. And the more you rehearse the technique and stuff, the more your own stuff will just organically come out.
So you're on the right path, okay? And so you don't do you have the impression that like I like Grant Green, I like I like everybody. I just don't imagine them sitting around memorizing lines. So I guess that's the other resistance that I have to that kind of approach. But I think they digested a lot of that from listening.
Yeah. And so I'm trying to figure out how to do it in this day and time where you're not in a jam session every other night. But hey, guys, just a quick note. If you're enjoying this content and you're eager to boost your own jazz guitar playing, then connect with us. We've transformed the jazz skills of thousands of guitarists.
You can find a link in description or head directly over to jazz guitar lessons dot net to begin your journey. All right, let's dive back into the episode. I'm trying to figure out how to replicate that experience without actually having it. Yeah, the that was my next point. Like, they played so much just by osmosis. They sat down, you know, every night with, you know, after hours from, you know, 8 p.m. through three and five nights a week.
It's like we're never have this volume of rehearsal. It's not even in rehearsal. That's just when they played in public. Plus we went back all in practice a little more, you know, just to be sure. So we we won't we can use the softwares, but there's like two things I had in mind because you mentioned the zone. So as far as zoning, I would highly recommend whether you block it like caged or any other way that you have these different areas.
And I have a precise exercise for you. If you're interested, I'll can get back to. But also another tangent to that is maybe trying out 3 to 4 different keys just because when I get back to see, it's like there's something that clicks because I can relatively easier. So if I did G minor right, I'll do a minor.
Sounds like five right to D alter the G minor and then just go, oh that. Okay, that's ac0c melodic minor. Okay. Yeah. So doing that, that mental work because, you know, we never just plain see all the time in songs, right? So that's one of the things I would do. And if you're ready, I can give you, um, another, not a framework, but another way to work on the framework.
No, no work out of that three framework, but to work on the fingering physical aspect of this instrument in a way that can helps you build better lines and thus we have any questions before we can. Well, I do practice clarification. I can play, for example, any particular melodic minor. I find the the the rule and I can play it all over the guitar.
I can do that. Oh, but I've just started really focusing on trying to make good shifts from from the, from the two core to the five chord into the to the one minor. But that I don't feel so familiar, even though I know the scales here, I know I'm here. I know there is just that's the thing about it's not a trumpet so it's all I know.
So yeah, so that that becomes difficult. But yeah, so that's, I think I'm on the road to doing that. And I do see it as five blocks pretty, pretty much five areas. Okay. But I don't know that I'm necessarily Cage, I haven't defined that and said I'm doing using cage. It's so my cage it's like you see it it's yeah, I'm not too pedantic I'm not dogmatic in the systems of positions either but good.
What you mentioned about making the good transition is this where the juices really and the thing I wanted to get across to you is there's a way, I would say if I block it off as this position, just because you mentioned it's something you're not as familiar with. So we'll go here you go. D and then go. F Okay.
Just running the scale like this and not having it in time, just mapping it out and then go right, just making sure it's fully mapped out there and then okay, my C and doing that work out of time then and there. And then one cool thing that would be more, more like an exercise I can put on my real and show you is what if I played strictly across the bar line while that chord is changing and I prevented myself from changing direction because that's one of the problems with some of my students.
Like it will start a line, It's beautiful, it's nice, and then the chord changes they make, the switch like there's like this huge break point that happens. So if I can play fluidly across the bar lines and make it positional as well, then then your own inspiration will have an easier time shining through. But that's the technical difficulty of the guitar, if you will.
That's that's the realm of fretboard. Okay. Does that mean like a let's say, one, two, three, four. I'm doing a long 251, two. Perfect. Nailed it. I'm practicing that as well. Okay. So yeah, you can confront yourself with different starting notes now. It's easy once you always start on the same one, but then. So you reach the end of two positions like, oh, it starts going backwards.
But I will put my eye real on like 30 repeats, right? And I will just run that, run that, run that and I will get stuck in the corner. If there's a point that I'm not sure where the next finger is and that training is what is exploding. My like the availability of the next note, sort of the next note or next notes, well, does become more, more intuitive.
But that that's different from like jamming, playing, playing. It's more this is like drilling so hard. Drilling, okay, it can come in handy. They call it big scale. And then once you get good at the separate positions, you can do it in no position. There's a name that's called Big Skip because that's what I'm doing, is I'm trying to just hit the next.
Yeah. No, but sometimes it's not the third, right? It's not the it's not that it's not. Maybe perhaps the strong is. No, it is just a note that is appropriate for that particular melodic minor scale. Yeah. It's one No. One in your pitch collection. Right. Right. And I can demonstrate some of that because Yes, I have to let you go, but and then it's.
Yeah, the next thing to do with that was simply to have it be in no particular position and to cover the entire register, which would mean I start with my lowest available note sorry, or floaties here and I start to say my f is the lowest one. I will go up and it then is switch a flat melodic minor and and and then eventually go like, okay, I capped is at 1315 trip and go back down.
But the thing is like the the the track may not be the point where I'm used to switching so that's a big, big scale I'll just demonstrate for for the purpose of video. So oh sorry. That's okay. I'll tell you that right there. I'm on that. Good. Because then it will occur. That's. Oh, look, the next one available is just a half step.
Oh, look at that. And it's like minimizing that thing. And when I get to my solos, like the the intuition of where that next available note is, is there up or down anyone the fretboard. And there's not going to be a jerky stopping point to my line if I hear something that's going to hit or skip five up this, you know Yeah, great.
Okay. Thank you. Thank thank you so much. And I hope it's going to be since you can edit, I hope it's going to be good video. That's great. Thanks for getting the stuff out. Please keep coming to fellowship. It's just a pleasure to hear you play and I'll let you go. I wish I could play better in front, but that's okay.
That's part of the game. Thank you.
