Take it from someone that's been using theory for 40 years, Paul is 100% correct. I have a good ear but a terrible audio memory. Therefore I used theory. At 60 years old I finally got so bored playing like a computer that I refused to play anything I didn't hear. I finally found a way to practice that allows my ear to improve and I will never go back. I feel like I'm actually playing music now. I'm actually being creative and having fun. I could say a lot more.
Thank you for this comment! I believe our ear can produce results and an understanding that is equal to anything we’d come up with intellectually. I’m glad to hear about your musical journey!
When I say things like this some people think I am crazy, or that I don’t know what I am talking about. I can’t blame them……I don’t really have much credibility. I am more than happy that someone with your bonafides laid out these concepts so succinctly. I hope people take what you said to heart and then take action.
I appreciate it Joe! These are interesting concepts and “playing by ear” can mean different things to different people. I hope this video gives people some things to think about and consider.
Wisdom for the ages, even if you're humble about it! It will be such a good thing for more learners to hear this perspective, which IMO is heavily underrepresented in the kinds of "learn jazz" ideas most people are putting out there. Thanks for working to pass it on!
Paul, As a pro musician (yes I get paid) other musicians hand me a chart or lead sheet which has the melody and chord changes written out in a very precise way.I follow the commands of the chart and focus on timing and the tune just floats up the band has reached its stride and the audience thinks that we are brilliant. All I did was learn to read music and practice and play gigs. By the time my ear gets involved with the music the tune is over and I am flipping the page and waiting for tempo to be counted off. Enjoy!
I agree with you 100%! There are often practical or professional considerations that just require us to “sound good” or “sound polished” on unfamiliar material, and in those situations you should do whatever you feel you need to. Thanks for this perspective!
Dear Paul, you have addressed another interesting topic providing precious pearls of wisdom. It is useful to sing melodies, themes, solos of the great jazz musicians and then play them trying to understand the relationship with harmony. A beautiful work that lasts a lifetime. A beautiful way to spend time. Kudos to you.
Interesting topic for sure. If you were to not "play by ear" at all, that might mean that you know the chords and you execute melodic patterns that fit the changes. It could literally be (and I'm sure already is) an algorithm. On the other end of the spectrum, you could not know the changes at all, just listen, and...play along. For me I'm pretty sure the answer is somewhere in between. For a harmonically challenging tune I'd probably be trying to survive via algorithm. For the blues it would be much more by ear.
Hi Joe - thanks for your thoughts! I think you describe two interesting scenarios here: "knowing" the chords intellectually and executing things that you know will work, vs. "not knowing" the chords (intellectually) and "playing along" to the best of your ability and what your ear will allow. The idea I like to promote is that whatever you may know of a chord progression intellectually, we need to have these progressions in our EAR, and to have such a strong knowledge and understanding from a purely aural perspective, that we can not use our intellect when we solo, but simply to "sing" a solo through our instrument, without having to do that thing that guitarists and bassists often do - we look at a chord symbol and then place our hand on the neck where we know those notes to be, simply out of a desire to be "right". I believe our ear (or whatever you'd like to call it) can actually have a DEEPER understanding of any given chord type than what we can achieve intellectually. It's certainly a more useful understanding for an improviser to have. I'm just one guy with his opinions, but I hope to keep making this case out in the world as much as I can. Thanks for engaging with this and for your insights - I appreciate it!
Hi Paul, I agree with your message in this video. That's how I came to the guitar (or the other way around), by ear. Before the guitar (at around 11) there was an accordion, which helped me a lot with the concept of harmony in the sense of the circle of fifths. Much later I started to understand what I was doing technically and from there on theory and ears went hand in hand, so to say.
Paul, what I love about this video is how you interrogate the concept of “playing by ear” on a philosophical level. Appreciated your depth of thought on this topic. And thank you for writing out those lines for us :)
@@rami-atassi Rami, your thoughtful comment means a lot to me! Thank you! You know also, I only recently learned how to add still images to videos (incredibly easy it turns out) so that means I can add notation without too much trouble :-) Except for having to do the transcription which does take a minute. Thank you again for watching!
Hey Paul... you laid out simply, what many have a hard time grasping... and you said it and showed that beautifully! When I am 'singing' my way through chord changes, it's so interesting hearing the submelodic notes and pivot points going by. Thank you for being here. Yes, I subscribed
Great advice to sing the chords in the chord progression! You state that soloing is singing, but in your solo/singing you hardly paused to take a breath. I overheard an interesting quote, apparently from M Davis (i dont remember it exactly): "dont play what comes up in your inner ear, but play in the spaces between." I think this quote doesnt have to be taken literally. Leaving space, or slowing down, which is a PRETTY BIG challenge for me, enables me to connect with what is coming up in my inner ear. In your constant flow of notes, although they might be all 'right', there seems to be hardly any space for the listener to make contact with the own inner ear or imagination: not too much freedom. It reminds me of what the character Sheldon Cooper of the series the Big BangTheory said about jazz: "playing all notes at once." Give me a break... I am aware that this might be considered quite a harsh comment, but i think its a pretty big problem in jazz: the cats are so busy playing all the 'cool' notes, that they arent aware that the pletora of notes arent very musical and i myself am guilty of this too and it bothers me. Its not the notes, it what you do with them, would be interesting to hear from you all how to practice this. Groeten!
@@arjenland4374 I don’t mind an aesthetic critique! For me, the “singing” metaphor mostly is about what we THINK about and the process we use to generate the solo. When you sing, you are forced to “hear” the notes in a way that you don’t have to when you’re playing an instrument. I don’t mean that instrumentalists should seek to replicate a vocalist’s need to take breaths in their solo - that’s a different concern. Still, I appreciate your perspective here! I’m aware that I’m a “notey” improviser at times, and I’m open to the idea that there are many ways to approach a solo. Thanks for your comment!
This might sound like a distinction without a difference, but I differentiate between being able to “sing what you play”, and being able to “play what you sing”, the latter being the more difficult. I am so familiar with the licks, patterns, and vocabulary that I currently have, that I have no problem scatting along with my lines like George Benson. The real challenge for me is trying to sing new ideas and instantly find them on the guitar. It’s almost the reverse.
@ I know that you also play the saxophone. How different is your vocabulary on the saxophone vs. the guitar, as the mechanics, strengths and weaknesses of the two instruments are quite different.
@@kenster3554 They are different but I think my vocabulary is about the same - with the caveat that my saxophone ability is much, much lower than guitar, and that certainly affects what I can do. But in many ways, it feels the same to me. I don’t think about letters and numbers when I improvise on sax (chord symbols and such) any more than I do on guitar. Which is to say, just about not at all.
My best and most fulfilling playing is when I'm able to "sing" through the guitar. I don't get there all the time, but that's my goal. I feel our subconscious kind of takes care of everything else if we can just get to that place. Hence why I feel like listening really is the most important thing we can do to practice. It feeds our subconscious ideas that we subconsciously and consciously reformulate to get OUR sound. Mick Goodrick's and Gene Bertoncini's single string work really has helped me get closer to that place. Have you ever delved into that concept? Would be awesome to see how you'd approach it
I love this whole comment! I’ve thought a lot about single-string playing. Often if I feel like someone isn’t thinking the right way as an improviser, I’ll have them play on one string and suddenly I feel like I can hear their musicality coming through. The challenge of course is to keep that one string way of thinking even when all six strings are involved! Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts.
I can't grasp this method for somebody who 'sings' as well today as when he was rejected for the school choir 50 some odd years ago. Never enjoyed singing cause I couldn't form the notes with my vocal tract. However after I've read the tune and practiced it and internalized it I can remember and reproduce it, and I know when I'm fluffing some of the notes.
It isn’t literally about singing. It’s about thinking the same way as if you were singing, when you’re playing your instrument. The exact same thought process. No letters, no numbers, no looking at a chord symbol and making decisions, no “what key am I in?” Just listening and “singing” your solo, except with your instrument. You don’t have to be a “good singer” at all to do this, but you do have to be a good musician.
Very interesting....confirms the way i am playing, since I was feeling a bit inferior not thinking about the notes😀 I also i find i do better solos when i sing at the same time as i play.
I sure don’t think about note names when I’m playing! I try to just “sing”, so to speak - which requires thought of course, but a certain kind of thought.
You reminded me of my jazz guitar teacher back in the day. He forced me to sing the guide tones to standards. My head nearly exploded trying to do that 😂 Might be a good time to revisit this
Interesting insights! Theory and hearing inform each other for me and it's an iterative process that are slowly converging over a very long period of time for me.
Im sure we all come at this from different backgrounds and experiences! And we all have to choose our own path. Thanks so much for watching this video, I appreciate it!
Thank you Paul! It is very helpful! I want to ask, what if I sing every chords in 7th chord? Will it be more benefit for me to get familiar with changes? 🙏🙏
Anything you can do to interact with these changes with your EAR will be helpful, for sure! Singing the 7th chords would be great too. I like singing the roots because you can do it in time, but anything you do to get these sounds in your ear is great. 😊
Well, as someone that has not played jazz - not yet, but I have some experience with other genres on guitar and playing also traditional instruments of my country, I would say that I agree with you Paul. First, playing by ear is not something that can stand by itself for any kind of music whatsoever. What a good ear can do is, first give the root tone and then the whole process begins to interact with brain. As the interval is the most elementary thing and then come the scales and after that come the chords as combinations of certain degrees of a scale etc. - I don't want to get tiresome with all this elementary stuff, but the point is that even when someone claims that plays purely "by ear", what really happens is that he/she has played for some time and even subconsciously, has passed from the same patterns of intervals so uses them even without knowing although this is very rare as nowadays, everyone beginning in music learns the elementary stuff in some way. What is important in my opinion is that a good, musical ear can also help beyond the stage of brain interaction I said before and give the colour 7ths, 9ths etc. easily and also give some foreign notes that may instantly pass, that are typically out of a scale. But I also agree that a good ear is not something that we are having or not. It is something that gets better day by day, provided that we love to do it, we have the right concentration when we train it and we do the suitable exercises - there is a lot of them, even on the net. So, I think that good ear and good grasp of music theory go hand in hand. I also agree that a musical instrument solo is singing with its own "voice" and we all have seen many good players that they sing the notes they play during a solo or some of them, especially at "dramatic" points of their solo.
Very good words. It's the only way for improvise with hapiness for my opinion. But infortunaly, these are rare words among jazz teachers. Many of them prefer sell illusions of inspiration... Congratulations for yours unuasals words. And pardon my english...
@@martinezjean8197 Thank you! I agree that jazz teachers don’t talk enough about using your ear. And yes, improvising this way lets you play with more strength and humanity, I think. It lets you play things you actually believe in and understand. And there’s no limit to what we can hear.
Very interesting video. That approach is my goal. I feel so much better when I can do that in my soloing. It's like meditation. It's feel so good and natural. But what happen to me sometimes is that I can't play in real time some ideias that I hear in my mind. Slow melodies works best for me. I wish I could get better with fast melodies. Maybe I'm not ready for that now.
I have two videos on my Instagram where I’m walking out in the country, and I sing solos over changes with no accompaniment. I later transcribed what I played and added guitar to the videos. They’re pretty recent. 👍🎶
You would think I'd know that the triad for G7 is slightly different than the triad for Gm7. (Actually, Paul, you know me well enough to know I wouldn't think of that). I think it is easier to solo if you more or less have memorized the head to a tune. And maybe that is because you learn what the chords sound like while you are singing the melody.
thank god So dear Paul, do you have a melody in your mind first, and then your mouth sings, and then the guitar just copy the melody in your mouth? So I improvised with my mouth in the backing track first. In the later stage, are your mouth and hands completely synchronized at this stage? I appreciate you so much!
@@kunzhang-nn9wr I don’t know if it’s a melody “in my mind first” - I guess it comes out of the guitar almost at the same time I’m thinking of it. And I wouldn’t want to suggest that the guitar isn’t somehow influencing what I play - I’m sure it is, somewhat. But if it is, it’s not because I’m visualizing patterns or thinking about note names. I really am trying to “sing through the guitar”. I don’t know if my mind and hands are COMPLETELY synchronized, but that’s what I’m trying to do when I play. I think if I sang a solo, it wouldn’t be that different than what I play (with some adjustment for my lack of technical facility as a singer). Thanks for listening!
@@PaulPieper dear paul, thank you very much for your reply. English is not my mother tongue. I am using a translator. Your guitar is like a certain organ of yours. Maybe it is your second mouth. There is no sense of inconsistency. All Solo is singing, this sentence is so inspiring. I saw the feeling of "synchronicity" in great music pioneers such as Shawn Lane and George Benson, and so do you. God bless you and your family.
Great video paul! Thanks! Do you think it's possible to hear fast lines in your head while playing through the chords (also in your head haha)? Do you think parker and benson could sing those really fast lines they were playing without insturmental aid?
@@gallevin7507 I think it’s possible to do everything in your head, absolutely. The ear has no limits! Although I’m sure mine does, LOL. I’ll bet Bird and GB both have / had amazing ears. I think the instrument lets us play things faster than most of us can sing, but I think Bird could have sung everything he played if the tempo was slow enough. (Of course we can’t ask him now.) I have to think that in the 40s / 50s it was more understood that your ear was what made jazz improvisation possible.
Good approach. But unfortunately for me the problem is transfering my singing to placing my fingers on the right spot, in the right tempo and articulation. Like playing guitar is a question of ‘finger memory’ (by definition a wrong term), singing is a question of ‘voicebox memory’. And this is what people develop from the moment they are born (just try to mimic the sound of an accent, or foreign language, you’ll understand what I mean). I feel that this is the prime distinction between singers and instrumentalists.
The instrument is almost always an impediment to the realization of the idea, for an improviser. I guess the goal is to improve our technique and familiarity to the point where the “instrument disappears”, as I heard Pat Metheny say in a clinic once. Thanks for your comment!
I don't understand. You played a D chord and then played the notes which matched the chord. That's not playing by ear. Same with the chord progression, you knew it and sang the notes of each chord.. I don't get it
@@guitarplayer5932 I do think that’s the commonly held belief - people play by ear because they don’t know enough to do it any other way. My idea of playing by ear involves just as much work and rigor as playing “by theory”, or whatever we want to call that. I think the video makes a good argument for this ear-based approach to jazz improvisation. But I’m not anti-theory in any way. Improvisation requires rigor and discipline and I sure didn’t make this video to relieve anyone of that obligation. If you end up watching this video, let me know what part(s) you disagree with - I’m always happy to get feedback. Thanks!
Yes that's exactly why we should be playing that form because we need to practice all these things so we can become dexterous and intellectually flexible
There is almost nothing in standard music pedagogy that has accurate name. I'd start with music "theory." It's not theory. It's descriptive statistics.
Take it from someone that's been using theory for 40 years, Paul is 100% correct. I have a good ear but a terrible audio memory. Therefore I used theory. At 60 years old I finally got so bored playing like a computer that I refused to play anything I didn't hear. I finally found a way to practice that allows my ear to improve and I will never go back. I feel like I'm actually playing music now. I'm actually being creative and having fun. I could say a lot more.
Thank you for this comment! I believe our ear can produce results and an understanding that is equal to anything we’d come up with intellectually. I’m glad to hear about your musical journey!
When I say things like this some people think I am crazy, or that I don’t know what I am talking about. I can’t blame them……I don’t really have much credibility. I am more than happy that someone with your bonafides laid out these concepts so succinctly. I hope people take what you said to heart and then take action.
I appreciate it Joe! These are interesting concepts and “playing by ear” can mean different things to different people. I hope this video gives people some things to think about and consider.
Thank God for the alogarithm that brings me videos like this! Excellent discourse good explanation I appreciate your help I just subscribed
@@Mauitaoist I appreciate that so much! Thank you 👍🎶
Wisdom for the ages, even if you're humble about it! It will be such a good thing for more learners to hear this perspective, which IMO is heavily underrepresented in the kinds of "learn jazz" ideas most people are putting out there. Thanks for working to pass it on!
Thanks so much, AJ. I do agree there isn’t as much discussion of these ideas as there could be, out in the world. I appreciate the kind words!
Paul,
As a pro musician (yes I get paid) other musicians hand me a chart or lead sheet which has the melody and chord changes written out in a very precise way.I follow the commands of the chart and focus on timing and the tune just floats up the band has reached its stride and the audience thinks that we are brilliant. All I did was learn to read music and practice and play gigs. By the time my ear gets involved with the music the tune is over and I am flipping the page and waiting for tempo to be counted off. Enjoy!
I agree with you 100%! There are often practical or professional considerations that just require us to “sound good” or “sound polished” on unfamiliar material, and in those situations you should do whatever you feel you need to. Thanks for this perspective!
Dear Paul, you have addressed another interesting topic providing precious pearls of wisdom. It is useful to sing melodies, themes, solos of the great jazz musicians and then play them trying to understand the relationship with harmony. A beautiful work that lasts a lifetime. A beautiful way to spend time. Kudos to you.
@@gaetanopedroni1395 I appreciate your feedback as always Gaetano! Thanks so much :-)
Interesting topic for sure. If you were to not "play by ear" at all, that might mean that you know the chords and you execute melodic patterns that fit the changes. It could literally be (and I'm sure already is) an algorithm. On the other end of the spectrum, you could not know the changes at all, just listen, and...play along. For me I'm pretty sure the answer is somewhere in between. For a harmonically challenging tune I'd probably be trying to survive via algorithm. For the blues it would be much more by ear.
Hi Joe - thanks for your thoughts! I think you describe two interesting scenarios here: "knowing" the chords intellectually and executing things that you know will work, vs. "not knowing" the chords (intellectually) and "playing along" to the best of your ability and what your ear will allow.
The idea I like to promote is that whatever you may know of a chord progression intellectually, we need to have these progressions in our EAR, and to have such a strong knowledge and understanding from a purely aural perspective, that we can not use our intellect when we solo, but simply to "sing" a solo through our instrument, without having to do that thing that guitarists and bassists often do - we look at a chord symbol and then place our hand on the neck where we know those notes to be, simply out of a desire to be "right".
I believe our ear (or whatever you'd like to call it) can actually have a DEEPER understanding of any given chord type than what we can achieve intellectually. It's certainly a more useful understanding for an improviser to have.
I'm just one guy with his opinions, but I hope to keep making this case out in the world as much as I can. Thanks for engaging with this and for your insights - I appreciate it!
@@TheJazzWorkshop Agree, in jazz improvisation 👂🏼 > 🧠
Hi Paul, I agree with your message in this video. That's how I came to the guitar (or the other way around), by ear. Before the guitar (at around 11) there was an accordion, which helped me a lot with the concept of harmony in the sense of the circle of fifths. Much later I started to understand what I was doing technically and from there on theory and ears went hand in hand, so to say.
I love accordion! I'm glad that this resonated with you. Thanks for watching!
Paul, what I love about this video is how you interrogate the concept of “playing by ear” on a philosophical level. Appreciated your depth of thought on this topic. And thank you for writing out those lines for us :)
@@rami-atassi Rami, your thoughtful comment means a lot to me! Thank you! You know also, I only recently learned how to add still images to videos (incredibly easy it turns out) so that means I can add notation without too much trouble :-) Except for having to do the transcription which does take a minute. Thank you again for watching!
Hey Paul... you laid out simply, what many have a hard time grasping... and you said it and showed that beautifully!
When I am 'singing' my way through chord changes, it's so interesting hearing the submelodic notes and pivot points going by.
Thank you for being here. Yes, I subscribed
I appreciate that so much! Thanks for your comments and for subscribing.
Great advice to sing the chords in the chord progression!
You state that soloing is singing, but in your solo/singing you hardly paused to take a breath. I overheard an interesting quote, apparently from M Davis (i dont remember it exactly): "dont play what comes up in your inner ear, but play in the spaces between." I think this quote doesnt have to be taken literally. Leaving space, or slowing down, which is a PRETTY BIG challenge for me, enables me to connect with what is coming up in my inner ear. In your constant flow of notes, although they might be all 'right', there seems to be hardly any space for the listener to make contact with the own inner ear or imagination: not too much freedom. It reminds me of what the character Sheldon Cooper of the series the Big BangTheory said about jazz: "playing all notes at once." Give me a break... I am aware that this might be considered quite a harsh comment, but i think its a pretty big problem in jazz: the cats are so busy playing all the 'cool' notes, that they arent aware that the pletora of notes arent very musical and i myself am guilty of this too and it bothers me. Its not the notes, it what you do with them, would be interesting to hear from you all how to practice this.
Groeten!
@@arjenland4374 I don’t mind an aesthetic critique! For me, the “singing” metaphor mostly is about what we THINK about and the process we use to generate the solo. When you sing, you are forced to “hear” the notes in a way that you don’t have to when you’re playing an instrument. I don’t mean that instrumentalists should seek to replicate a vocalist’s need to take breaths in their solo - that’s a different concern. Still, I appreciate your perspective here! I’m aware that I’m a “notey” improviser at times, and I’m open to the idea that there are many ways to approach a solo. Thanks for your comment!
This might sound like a distinction without a difference, but I differentiate between being able to “sing what you play”, and being able to “play what you sing”, the latter being the more difficult. I am so familiar with the licks, patterns, and vocabulary that I currently have, that I have no problem scatting along with my lines like George Benson. The real challenge for me is trying to sing new ideas and instantly find them on the guitar. It’s almost the reverse.
@ Of course they are completely different. I agree with you here, totally.
@ I know that you also play the saxophone. How different is your vocabulary on the saxophone vs. the guitar, as the mechanics, strengths and weaknesses of the two instruments are quite different.
@@kenster3554 They are different but I think my vocabulary is about the same - with the caveat that my saxophone ability is much, much lower than guitar, and that certainly affects what I can do. But in many ways, it feels the same to me. I don’t think about letters and numbers when I improvise on sax (chord symbols and such) any more than I do on guitar. Which is to say, just about not at all.
Great take - thanks for sharing!
Thanks so much for watching! I appreciate it :)
My best and most fulfilling playing is when I'm able to "sing" through the guitar. I don't get there all the time, but that's my goal. I feel our subconscious kind of takes care of everything else if we can just get to that place. Hence why I feel like listening really is the most important thing we can do to practice. It feeds our subconscious ideas that we subconsciously and consciously reformulate to get OUR sound. Mick Goodrick's and Gene Bertoncini's single string work really has helped me get closer to that place. Have you ever delved into that concept? Would be awesome to see how you'd approach it
I love this whole comment! I’ve thought a lot about single-string playing. Often if I feel like someone isn’t thinking the right way as an improviser, I’ll have them play on one string and suddenly I feel like I can hear their musicality coming through. The challenge of course is to keep that one string way of thinking even when all six strings are involved! Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts.
I can't grasp this method for somebody who 'sings' as well today as when he was rejected for the school choir 50 some odd years ago. Never enjoyed singing cause I couldn't form the notes with my vocal tract. However after I've read the tune and practiced it and internalized it I can remember and reproduce it, and I know when I'm fluffing some of the notes.
It isn’t literally about singing. It’s about thinking the same way as if you were singing, when you’re playing your instrument. The exact same thought process. No letters, no numbers, no looking at a chord symbol and making decisions, no “what key am I in?” Just listening and “singing” your solo, except with your instrument. You don’t have to be a “good singer” at all to do this, but you do have to be a good musician.
This is becoming one of my favorite channels. Thanks for all the musical wisdom you sharing.
@@sinoblues I can’t tell you how much that means to me! Thank you so much for watching - there will be much more to come!
Very interesting....confirms the way i am playing, since I was feeling a bit inferior not thinking about the notes😀 I also i find i do better solos when i sing at the same time as i play.
I sure don’t think about note names when I’m playing! I try to just “sing”, so to speak - which requires thought of course, but a certain kind of thought.
That would have to be one of the best videos I've seen.
@@jamessingleton4856 You just made my night! That’s really kind of you - thanks for watching! There will be more 👍🎶
Thanks for sharing! 🙌🏾
Appreciate you watching, thanks!
Interesting lesson. Doesn’t get talked about enough. relevant book: “The Mind’s Ear”
@@KeithVizs Thats something I’ll have to check out! Thanks for watching 👍🎶
You reminded me of my jazz guitar teacher back in the day. He forced me to sing the guide tones to standards. My head nearly exploded trying to do that 😂
Might be a good time to revisit this
I love that story! Singing guidetone lines could be its own video. Thanks for the idea!
@PaulPieper Please do it! I remember it was really hard back then, but it did help a lot.
This is awesome! Looking forward to more educational videos here from you!
@@paolocortezmusic There will be many more! Thanks so much for watching Paolo 👍🎶
That performed example you gave at the end ROCKED 🔥
..and the stuff you said was da bom.
Great video 🖤
@@mongoharry I appreciate it!
Interesting insights! Theory and hearing inform each other for me and it's an iterative process that are slowly converging over a very long period of time for me.
Im sure we all come at this from different backgrounds and experiences! And we all have to choose our own path. Thanks so much for watching this video, I appreciate it!
Excellent lesson! Thanks for sharing your expertise!
@pauldil Thank you so much Paul! This is a topic that means a lot to me. I appreciate it!
Thank you. I'm going to try this.
I hope it’s helpful! Thank you for watching.
Thank you Paul! It is very helpful! I want to ask, what if I sing every chords in 7th chord? Will it be more benefit for me to get familiar with changes?
🙏🙏
Anything you can do to interact with these changes with your EAR will be helpful, for sure! Singing the 7th chords would be great too. I like singing the roots because you can do it in time, but anything you do to get these sounds in your ear is great. 😊
@@PaulPieperThanks for reply!! Gonna keep on practice!
Can’t wait to see more content 🙏
Brilliant Paul.Love your playing too🎸🎶👌
@@localpm Thank you for listening Paul 👍🎶
Brilliant, Paul.
Thanks so much for watching Horatio!
Well, as someone that has not played jazz - not yet, but I have some experience with other genres on guitar and playing also traditional instruments of my country, I would say that I agree with you Paul. First, playing by ear is not something that can stand by itself for any kind of music whatsoever. What a good ear can do is, first give the root tone and then the whole process begins to interact with brain. As the interval is the most elementary thing and then come the scales and after that come the chords as combinations of certain degrees of a scale etc. - I don't want to get tiresome with all this elementary stuff, but the point is that even when someone claims that plays purely "by ear", what really happens is that he/she has played for some time and even subconsciously, has passed from the same patterns of intervals so uses them even without knowing although this is very rare as nowadays, everyone beginning in music learns the elementary stuff in some way. What is important in my opinion is that a good, musical ear can also help beyond the stage of brain interaction I said before and give the colour 7ths, 9ths etc. easily and also give some foreign notes that may instantly pass, that are typically out of a scale. But I also agree that a good ear is not something that we are having or not. It is something that gets better day by day, provided that we love to do it, we have the right concentration when we train it and we do the suitable exercises - there is a lot of them, even on the net. So, I think that good ear and good grasp of music theory go hand in hand.
I also agree that a musical instrument solo is singing with its own "voice" and we all have seen many good players that they sing the notes they play during a solo or some of them, especially at "dramatic" points of their solo.
All great thoughts and I’m grateful for your input! Thank you :-)
Very good words. It's the only way for improvise with hapiness for my opinion. But infortunaly, these are rare words among jazz teachers. Many of them prefer sell illusions of inspiration... Congratulations for yours unuasals words. And pardon my english...
@@martinezjean8197 Thank you! I agree that jazz teachers don’t talk enough about using your ear. And yes, improvising this way lets you play with more strength and humanity, I think. It lets you play things you actually believe in and understand. And there’s no limit to what we can hear.
Brilliant, Paul!
Thanks so much for watching, Tony!
Very interesting video. That approach is my goal. I feel so much better when I can do that in my soloing. It's like meditation. It's feel so good and natural. But what happen to me sometimes is that I can't play in real time some ideias that I hear in my mind. Slow melodies works best for me. I wish I could get better with fast melodies. Maybe I'm not ready for that now.
@@vinisilva_guitar So great that you’re thinking about these things! It’s something we all have to work at, for sure.
I would like to hear an example of you singing over the changes.
I have two videos on my Instagram where I’m walking out in the country, and I sing solos over changes with no accompaniment. I later transcribed what I played and added guitar to the videos. They’re pretty recent. 👍🎶
Nice tips! I'm a huge fan of transcribing as I uploaded a bunch of videos on my channel. :) Really great lesson!
@@SzabacsiNandor Thanks so much for watching!
Great video!
Thanks so much for watching!
Brilliant ❤
Thanks so much 👍🎶
You would think I'd know that the triad for G7 is slightly different than the triad for Gm7. (Actually, Paul, you know me well enough to know I wouldn't think of that). I think it is easier to solo if you more or less have memorized the head to a tune. And maybe that is because you learn what the chords sound like while you are singing the melody.
Great Video - I like "All soloing is Singing"🦑 @ 🕓? 😃
@@tommygreco7213 Thanks Tom! I appreciate it.
thank god So dear Paul, do you have a melody in your mind first, and then your mouth sings, and then the guitar just copy the melody in your mouth? So I improvised with my mouth in the backing track first. In the later stage, are your mouth and hands completely synchronized at this stage? I appreciate you so much!
@@kunzhang-nn9wr I don’t know if it’s a melody “in my mind first” - I guess it comes out of the guitar almost at the same time I’m thinking of it. And I wouldn’t want to suggest that the guitar isn’t somehow influencing what I play - I’m sure it is, somewhat. But if it is, it’s not because I’m visualizing patterns or thinking about note names. I really am trying to “sing through the guitar”. I don’t know if my mind and hands are COMPLETELY synchronized, but that’s what I’m trying to do when I play. I think if I sang a solo, it wouldn’t be that different than what I play (with some adjustment for my lack of technical facility as a singer). Thanks for listening!
@@PaulPieper dear paul, thank you very much for your reply. English is not my mother tongue. I am using a translator. Your guitar is like a certain organ of yours. Maybe it is your second mouth. There is no sense of inconsistency. All Solo is singing, this sentence is so inspiring. I saw the feeling of "synchronicity" in great music pioneers such as Shawn Lane and George Benson, and so do you. God bless you and your family.
Great video paul! Thanks! Do you think it's possible to hear fast lines in your head while playing through the chords (also in your head haha)?
Do you think parker and benson could sing those really fast lines they were playing without insturmental aid?
@@gallevin7507 I think it’s possible to do everything in your head, absolutely. The ear has no limits! Although I’m sure mine does, LOL.
I’ll bet Bird and GB both have / had amazing ears. I think the instrument lets us play things faster than most of us can sing, but I think Bird could have sung everything he played if the tempo was slow enough. (Of course we can’t ask him now.)
I have to think that in the 40s / 50s it was more understood that your ear was what made jazz improvisation possible.
Good approach. But unfortunately for me the problem is transfering my singing to placing my fingers on the right spot, in the right tempo and articulation. Like playing guitar is a question of ‘finger memory’ (by definition a wrong term), singing is a question of ‘voicebox memory’. And this is what people develop from the moment they are born (just try to mimic the sound of an accent, or foreign language, you’ll understand what I mean). I feel that this is the prime distinction between singers and instrumentalists.
The instrument is almost always an impediment to the realization of the idea, for an improviser. I guess the goal is to improve our technique and familiarity to the point where the “instrument disappears”, as I heard Pat Metheny say in a clinic once. Thanks for your comment!
I don't understand. You played a D chord and then played the notes which matched the chord. That's not playing by ear. Same with the chord progression, you knew it and sang the notes of each chord.. I don't get it
@@lesn4528 if you make a video about what playing by ear actually is, I promise I’ll watch it! Thanks for watching 👍🎶
Number 1️⃣
@@bevitorerrante I appreciate that so much! Thanks for watching 🙂
playing by ear means years of wasted time fumbling through wrong notes, chords etc
@@guitarplayer5932 I do think that’s the commonly held belief - people play by ear because they don’t know enough to do it any other way. My idea of playing by ear involves just as much work and rigor as playing “by theory”, or whatever we want to call that.
I think the video makes a good argument for this ear-based approach to jazz improvisation. But I’m not anti-theory in any way. Improvisation requires rigor and discipline and I sure didn’t make this video to relieve anyone of that obligation.
If you end up watching this video, let me know what part(s) you disagree with - I’m always happy to get feedback. Thanks!
If you asked 100 guitarists to play a D chord, not one would use that fingering.
@@codetech5598 I thought I’d establish my bonafides as a jazz rebel early in the video.
Yes that's exactly why we should be playing that form because we need to practice all these things so we can become dexterous and intellectually flexible
There is almost nothing in standard music pedagogy that has accurate name. I'd start with music "theory." It's not theory. It's descriptive statistics.
I agree, the actual meanings of words in this space are often not what the word has come to mean in this context. That can be confusing!