Music Savvy is a music education resource for helping you play jazz and other improvisational music to your full potential.
While most improvisation instruction focuses on your eyes and analytical mind, Music Savvy focuses on your ear and your intuitive musical instincts in order to connect your instrument to your musical mind.
For the 2023 holiday season, all online courses, books, and music is 20% to 50% off. Check it out at www.musicsavvy.com
No. Air VELOCITY is NOT the determination of pitch played. The embouchure controls pitch. The air pressure controls dynamics. This video is a complexification of a simple concept of exhalation effort to control the air pressure.
It’s been a few years…now… I was fortunate to see them a few times - PMG… at the Berkeley California amphitheater near the college. I remember this long skinny big-hair… long- fingered alien from some other world! It made sense! How else could I account for a modern incarnation of Liszt, Chopin, Monk, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, et al. Orchestral Jazz, played on the piano with 9th, 11th, 12th, 13th chords. That is an incredible use of the mind, and the ears. All just prior to the actual physical evidence of same, when he put those hands on the keyboard. Certainly, in my limited view , the most capable of fusing, and informing jazz with classical structure! Certainly my favorite composer/ piano player of the 20th century. I do still miss the man/ musician. While I do listen to the PMG catalogue and Lyle’s albums, the collective creation is now set in stone.
Great video. Richie has been a favorite of mine since Elm and the first Quest albums. I will contribute. That was George Mraz on Elm, not Dave Holland.
Thanks so much for this! I took some lessons with Richie when I first moved to New York in ‘83. I can still hear his voice, think of his insights, and practice what he shared with me. Not sure I ever properly thanked him for all he did for me. Thank Richie. Good times and health to you!
Because of Richie's financial situation, he cannot take money directly. Heather is the go-between. Trust me that the money all goes to Richie outside of any "tip" someone gives at the time of donation This probably should have been made clear on that page.
I had the pleasure of taking lessons with Richie around 1975-76 whenever he was off the road. I love the guy. He is a Titan at the piano, and an extremely thoughtful person. He helped me take my playing seriously. While I'm no Richie Beirach (nor should I be), I am a better pianist and piano teacher for knowing him.
So glad i stumbled on to this. Thanks Richie. Great insight. Thanks for creating the Crowd funder.. First started to him since Look Out Farm. Thanks for sharing the brillance snd insights of Richie Beirach.❤
I greatly appreciate your methodical approach to a more complex tune! I have been a fan of your approach for quite some time now. I do have to ask though how does the language then show up in your solos? Does the time focusing on the chords at the keyboard and listening to the greats play the tune cause the language you hear to show up in your improvisation? I did have an experience once with a big band while playing Blue Bossa where I knew the melody from listening but I had never worked it out on my horn. Without the notes of the tune in front of me, I found myself playing the head with few mistakes having never practiced it. Would your approach help to affect more of these type of experiences?
Hi Michael, This is huge...this video plus incorporating your overall teaching focus on the ear to allow myself to listen to chord changes then emote/express what I feel & hear inside is the only way I've been able to improvise my entire life. As a trombonist, I never studied theory or learned/practiced scales. Over time, I've become proficient at sight reading, intonation & articulation. I've had to solely rely on what melody lines/phrases come to mind when it comes to 8, 12, 16+ bar solos. I've never even glanced at the chord notations throughout the solo measures. I've had to totally rely on what I intuitively hear. But here's the kicker...to do this live & in the moment is difficult. Depending on the level of chord change challenge, I often resort to writing out my solos. This works well for jazz ensembles that practice weekly in preparation for gigs and I have the time and able to test solos out during a given practice. I play the chart track, sing out what I hear over the progressions, then play what I've sung on the 'bone & finally scribe the solo on manuscript. (I know there's software out there that can transcribe for me, but I'm old school). What this does for me is to have a foundational solo/melody base line. As I practice it, learn & hear it over time, I'm able to deviate off that foundational script--LIVE--and create varying licks, change up phrase entrances & exits, switch up note rhythm patterns, etc. Among other techniques you've shown that have helped me when I do look at the measure chord changes are common tones like you did in this video. I've actually written common tones over the chart chord progressions to better support soloing live. Playing over drones in specific keys has also helped me align ear to instrument. This has also created awareness that maybe I don't know my 'bone as well I thought I did. Thanks for your wonderful savvy insights & the way you clearly & authentically articulate your teachings. Bruce
Mike - just what the Doctor ordered - a logical approach that will bring out that inner player. I’ve heard it before many times - learn by listening, more listening, study, more listening - then create. I so much appreciate your work. Neil
I think that for people such as yourself who have spent plenty of time practicing scales and chords in a variety of ways, playing what you hear and playing from the heart creates much better results than it does for someone who has not put that work in. I don’t think that the chord-scale approach creates mechanical playing. It just creates a baseline upon which you can either play from the heart or not. There are exceptions in the cases of students with incredible ears who can pick up stuff right away from recordings but most students can’t do this at the start. After spending time with chord-scale practice and applying it to tunes, students usually end up having improved their ears as well and are better able to transcribe and imitate and execute ideas they hear in their minds.
As I said in the video, I am not against working on scales. They help orient one's ear to key centers and builds technical facility, both of which are critical to improvisation. But leave them at the door when it comes to improvising. Orienting your playing to scales and memorized patterns is the very definition of mechanical playing. It also reinforces today's prevailing idea that jazz is about the quantity of notes - the more the better. And forcing scales and patterns into "improvisation" is an excellent way to artificially increase the volume of notes. Instead, listen to tons of music, compose your own music, play piano regardless of your primary instrument, practice your instrument relentlessly to gain facility, but don't be lured into the mechanical caricature of jazz by confusing scales and patterns for music. Play what you hear inside.
@@mymusicsavvy Wouldn’t you say that scale practice goes beyond just the key center? For example, you could play over a ii V I and think of just the key center and sound fine. This is what I call “global” playing. But thinking of chord-scales through the ii V I (ex. Dorian to Altered to Lydian tonic) will take you in a different direction and open up melodic possibilities that wouldn’t arise from the other approach. I think it’s important for students to develop this “local” approach as well as the global one. Ultimately, I agree that in the musical moment you want to just follow your ear and heart!
@@tbonealex I think our basic disagreement is about the relationship between scales and melodies when crafting music. Scales are not melodies. I'm advocating starting from melody instead of scale. I see confusion and frustration from players thinking while improvising about technical terms like Dorian, Altered, Lydian, etc. The notes fit the chords but is the final result personally inspired music? The audience I'm trying to help is the guy or gal who doesn't naturally think of modes and altered scales. It sounds like that stuff comes naturally to you and allows you to express yourself the way you prefer. But I see the musical results when I encourage a player to sing what they hear inside and then play that on their instrument, not thinking about anything but the melody over the sound of the chords. Is it perfectly aligned with the harmony? Not always. Did they miss that raised 4 or flat nine in the chord? Sometimes. But I don't think that technical precision is the primary goal of improvisation for many who want to improvise better. Was Miles always technically note precise. No. He played what he heard, and his energy and melodic genius created great music. That's my model. I did go to great lengths in the video to say that this way of approaching jazz is not objectively the only way. But for those with a certain sense for melody and whose left brain to instrument connection is not as technically proficient or quick as yours, I experience this as making them better and more satisfied improvisers.
@@mymusicsavvy I agree that scales are not melodies, but it doesn’t take much to go from a boring, mechanical scale to an expressive melody (add some rhythms, combine leaps and steps, chromatic embellishments, expressive inflection, etc). Maybe you’ve had different results, but in my own experience (ten years working full time teaching college jazz students), asking a student to follow their ear without also methodically exposing their ears (and fingers) to the sounds of the individual chords and scales tends to have very mediocre results. We hear this in every middle school blues scale solo! I suspect that if you asked a beginner jazz student to sing what they hear in their mind over a fairly complex tune like “Stella,” they would struggle a lot at first (my guess is that many wouldn’t even be able to hear the key area shifts), but after spending some time practicing the individual chords and scales (mechanically at first, then adding the other elements I mentioned, and also doing a lot of singing), they would probably be able to hear and sing something much better! When students listen to great jazz recordings from about the late 1950s on, they are largely listening to players who were thinking about individual chords and scales (in addition to song melodies and key centers) as the basis of improvisation. Chet Baker would be one obvious exception in that he was strictly an ear player, whereas people like Coltrane and Michael Brecker went hard on the scale side. I think there is a famous quote from Miles where he says that his musical goal was to “learn all the changes” which seems absurd on its face but I think he meant that he wanted to go deeper into the relationship between melody and harmony. This interest is also clear form fact that he hung so much with Gil Evans and got into George Russell’s Lydian Chromatic Concept. There is no question in my mind that although he performed with absolute freedom, he practiced in a way that dug into chords, scales, and harmony in a very specific way. I know that students can easily get frustrated and overwhelmed with all the different scales and modes but I think it’s up to us teachers to make it as simple as possible and to let them know that it’s not as daunting as it seems (as you know, almost all the scales they need to know are modes of either major or melodic minor). Anyway, thanks for your response and I enjoy your channel!
@@tbonealex Let’s conclude this conversation by stating that you and I are saying basically the same thing: learn your chords, scales, patterns, piano voicings, and other theory-but leave it at the door when you stand up to improvise.
Hi Pieter, you can get the book at: musicsavvy.com/alto-trombone-savvy/ I just released a new video on the alto and on the book. You can see that here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-VO6nAzkflQI.html Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks!
You've definitely piqued my interests Mike! I love the tenor and the bass but they can be untameable monsters at times🧟♂️ Yes, I've pretty much given up on the bass (and my Tuba too) but definitely not the tenor. I've decided instead to grab the bull by the "horn" in this case and bent my bell up like Dizzy. It gives me a more novel and exciting approach however, no surprise it can be even more of a monster🧌 I'm going to give your encouragement serious consideration. Do you find is easier to read treble clef and does that approach lend itself to reading alto or bari sax charts?
Interesting comment, Neil. I think the tie-in to my educational stuff is that my message for improvisational performance is for it to be free from the constraints of scales, memorized licks & patterns, and the technicality of the printed page. I think improvisation is a journey of musical freedom. It does take work to get there, but is worth the effort. Thanks for that!
I know this video is eight years old, but it was instrumental in helping me make this back in October: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-8QihQnOOk-U.htmlsi=riNOHC1MmLeCWCI2
Mike - how do I adopt listening with understanding chords and progressions? Should I try to understand why a particular set of chords are situated in a harmonic sequence to help me play over the piece?
Neil, Great question. Listening and the analysis of chords and harmonic theory are really to separate activities. Take the time to understand the chords and form of a tune. Know the various key centers and how they move from one to the next. If you are a horn player, play through the chords on the piano, ideally by memory. But after that analysis (or in between sessions of that analysis) LISTEN to the harmony, learn the melody, and improvise over the changes on your instrument by ear as much as you can. I advise players (and myself) to avoid thinking about the chords as they play. I look at it as a toggle switch that goes one direction or the other between thinking and listening. I mocked up this toggle switch in this 1-minute entertaining video: vimeo.com/479914635 I know how irresistible it can be to think think think from chord to chord or section to section, and if you have enough harmonic knowledge and instrumental chops, you can manufacture something that sounds 'correct.' But my question is: do you consider that type of playing to be spontaneous musical composition that authentically reflects YOU? And I also ask, as you develop your ear to instrument connection, will that connection allow you to create much more satisfying music for both you and the listener. I think you know my answers! As I hear from players who develop the skill and confidence to play by ear without the 'safety net' of thinking, they are thrilled with the surprising result. I look forward to you being one of them!!
That video spot on - trying to connect the chords, chord tones, approach notes, scalar notes, emphasis, articulation, while trying to have fun and stay loose. Drives me crazy. I appreciate your thoughts. Neil
I was initially hesitant about improvising when Music Savvy introduced it to me, as I have always been more of a 'by-the-book' player. However, I've been pleasantly surprised by the improvement in my ear for the music as well as the flow of my improvisation. Improvising has become fun and a regular part of me practicing. This guy knows what he's talking about and makes learning enjoyable. Thanks Music Savvy!
Thank you Jason. Wonderful testimonial. Isn't it amazing what happens when you focus on your hearing of the music and the connection that can built with your instrument?
Very cool video. An excellent lesson for those who might be struggling. I think your interviews with the heavies are also excellent for that - your Jazz Master Savvy product. Your mention of "common tones" in the video is a case in point. I can imagine someone having that stick in their head and the realization coming to them that they don't have to play scales all the time. Could be a breakthrough for someone. Should be.
Groovz Playground sounds like a surprisingly innovative yet fundamental approach to making groovy improv by listening and feeling rather than distracted by too much complicated and unnecessary thinking
Excited to try this new resource Mike. About 2 and a bit years ago you set me off on a journey discovering rhythm. It has been a humbling but incredibly rewarding experience, which I would not have had the awareness to have embarked on without your prodding. I am hoping that this video will be a similar catalyst for melodic sensibilities. The fact is the conventional improvisation tuition model produces serviceable but ultimately unsatisfying results. It seems more than a coincidence that the prevalence of this method coincided with the declining popularity of jazz. Thanks for your untiring efforts in attempting to turn the tide.
Lyle was a classmate of mine at North Texas. Everything Mark remembers of him brings back fond memories of the moments I spent around him. Such a tremendous loss. RIP Lyle.
I bought a MOZ bass trombone with just an F key on eBay for $455. Listed as used but looks new. I'm happy with it, but one unusual feature is that the tines of the inner slide are not fixed rigid with respect to each other, but can swivel independently. Maybe this is to lessen the chances of them getting bent. Does anyone know if this Is a feature of all MOZ trombones, or just of this particular model?
This is some white people shit. Music is played. Either you can relate and understand, or you talk about music. There are no musicians that talk about their craft.