Just had a free lesson with Nigel Price!

Megii

Nigel Price and band are playing in Grimsby this evening (of course I'm going) but when I emailed to reserve my ticket, the concert organiser, knowing I'm a guitarist, said "are you also coming to the workshop at 4.30?" - first I'd heard of it, but wild horses would not have kept me away. Got there at 4.15, and there was just me and 3 other local guitarists sat round, and Nigel Price proceeded to talk about things he thinks are important for playing jazz, and demo-ing them, and getting us to try them, plus a little bit of a jam on a jazz blues to start with. Lasted a bit over one and a half hours! Really a bit mind-blowing, but he gave us some really great insights into how he thinks and goes about what he does, and good things to work on re both improvising and using chords in a melodic way. Really inspiring, and a top man. And all for free - I just couldn't believe it, what a nice chap.

bingefeller

ohh, what's his thought process when playing over changes? 

Megii

bingefeller said:

ohh, what's his thought process when playing over changes? 

I'll do my best @bingefeller - after we'd had the jazz blues jam, he then wanted to talk about approaches to improv and how to solo over changes. He started by pointing out that in any 5 fret region of the neck (i.e. any position), all the chromatic notes are accessible, so it's possible to play any arpeggio. And then we took the first 8 bars of Autumn Leaves, just as an example of a standard, and using frets 5 to 9, proceeded to work through the changes playing arpeggios. For each arpeggio, he would include absolutely all the notes available, and not just working up from the root - so for example, taking a C minor 7th arpeggio in 5th position on the neck, he would include the Bb (7th) on the 6th fret of the low E string, rather than just starting from the root C on the 8th fret.

Specifically, he demonstrated an exercise where we would start by playing an arppegio, playing each tone going up in sequence, so start by playing 4 C min 7 notes for the first chord in Autumn Leaves going up the arpeggio, then the next chord is an F7, so then we need to find the next note up that's in an F7 arppegio, and keep going up with 4 F7 arp. notes, then the next chord is a Bb maj 7, so transfer to the nearest higher Bb maj 7 arp. note, and so on through the chord sequence. Of course at regular intervals you get as high as you can go within the chosen fret range, and then you start going down through the arpeggios until you get as far low as you can go, then back up and so on. Basically using arppegio notes and linking from one arp. to the next as smoothly as possible. And you don't have to start on any particular note - you could go from the 3rd, 5th or 7th of the first chord (any one in the given region) and take it from there, and of course that will lead to different note sequences through the changes.

I should also add that using this arpeggio approach, he was very much into building an awareness of where all the intervals - 3rd, 5th, 7th sit in relation to the root of each chord. Later he said that it's possible to add extensions to the notes we are including in an arpeggio - for example, with a dominant 7th chord, you can add the 9th, or maybe the flat 9 and/or sharp 9 if its a resolving dominant, and then that gives you more notes to link to and from as the chords change. Or you might add a 9th to a minor chord, and so on.

Through all this, he's building an awareness of where all the intervals sit in a given region of the neck, in relation to the chord root. He said that this was the sort of way someone like Joe Pass tended to think, rather than memorising loads of scale shapes, he's building a mental map of where all the useful intervals are. So someone like Pass, in his books and when interviewed, tended to just talk about the major scale notes and more-so about the arpeggio/chord notes, but when you listen to his playing, there would be all the altered intervals and everything there as well, all used in a harmonically aware and strong kind of way. NP said that one issue he had with the so-called altered scale is that it doesn't include the natural 5th, and sometimes there are situations where it makes sense to include it - he gave an example from Body and Soul. So with this arpeggio/intervals/fret region way of thinking, one is aware where all the intervals are, and can choose to use whichever ones one wants, and that might include both a flat 5th and natural 5th, for example.

And then NP stated that the above described exercise, while it does produce harmonically strong lines, doesn't quite sound like jazz, so he demonstrated varying the rhythm and basically using the same approach, but more freely. While doing this, he was still able to give a simultaneous running commentary, telling us what he was doing in terms of which chord tones he was playing and linking to and from as the chords changed. For example he'd say "going from the 3rd of that chord to the 9th of this one" - an impressive demonstration of fretboard awareness I thought!

I did ask him if he was totally anti-scales, and he said not at all, but just practicing running up and down a given scale fingering won't get you anywhere in terms of being able to play jazz. I explained that I have worked on scales by noodling around with the available notes, adding passing notes etc. and just trying to find nice-sounding lines, and he felt that was perfectly valid.

Anyhow, since being shamed about not being able to improv well on Giant Steps , I've been working on that one, and now I think I'll try applying NP's arppegio linking approach with that. NP said that this whole arpeggio/fret region thing was kind of the "short cut" to being a good jazz improviser, and that his own playing level had accelerated massively when he started working this way. I asked him if given we'd just gone through Autumn Leaves using frets 5 to 9, if he'd be equally happy doing the same thing with frets 6 to 10 say, or 4 to 8, and he said he would - basically he's able to work this way with any 5 fret region, for any chords, in any position on the neck - so that's some "short cut"! but I do take his point. Just listening to him talk and demonstrate things, it was obvious just how dedicated to the guitar he is, and how many hours he must have put in.

Another thing he made a point of saying was that it's really important to learn and know a fair few tunes, otherwise you have no vehicle to use any improvising ability on. Like having a really nice car, but no roads to drive on - I think that might have been the analogy he used.

bingefeller

amazing post Megii!   Thanks so much.  I'm gonna have to revisit this over the weekend and will chat more about it.   

mixolyd

@Megii ;

That's great stuff, thanks for typing it out for us!

That is a smart way of playing because as you say it is instantly musical with awareness of the notes played vs the context i.e. the chord.  

I do more composing than improvising and knowing the interval relationship between chord and melody notes is absolutely vital - to do otherwise would be like driving with your eyes closed, which goes some way towards explaining the dire level of most amateur and semi-pro melody writing! 

The thing you start to learn when using awareness of these interval relationships is how different relationships sound not just in themselves but in the context of time.  An outside note sounds very different on the "and" of two from how it sounds on beat one or beat three.  Similarly an inside note can change from being a suspension in one bar to an anticipation in retrospect when the next chord change hits.  It's this manipulation of the listener's mental/emotional map of the music that separates the men from the boys in melodic writing. 

Im far too lazy to put the work in to be able to improvise properly let alone play jazz, so I like the method used by Tim Pierce which has a lot in common with that which you describe.  He alternates between grabbing arpeggios/chord tones and playing pentatonic scales/licks.  That way he gets the best of both worlds (playing the changes, rocking out) without having to apply a magnifying glass to every phrase.

Megii

bingefeller said:

amazing post Megii!   Thanks so much.  I'm gonna have to revisit this over the weekend and will chat more about it.   

Thanks @bingefeller - I knew it would have to be a long post to adequately convey anything useful, and I only hope I haven't inadvertently distorted what NP was trying to say - just reading through the above, I think it's reasonable at least.

There is more to say really, but I would say re single note soloing, the above description does cover perhaps the most important stuff he talked about.

And then he talked a bit about playing and finding nice chord changes for a standard, for example if playing solo or without a keyboard player, and linking the top notes in a melodic way - it was a bit of a similar approach to the arpeggio smooth-linking business, but with chords. I could see how doing this immediately gets one figuring out new voicings and also new ways to use familiar ones, and gets one away from the "jumping around the neck using standard root position chord shapes" thing.

For Autumn Leaves, he demoed this - so he picks a chord voicing for the first chord (C minor 7th) and then says for the next chord (F7) what would be a suitable voicing that has it's top note a tone or semitone higher than the previous chord, and then carry on like that going up the neck through the changes. Obviously it's allowed/possible to include suitable extensions/alterations in the chords. He ended up with a really lovely-sounding sequence of chords anyhow - the sort of thing that would sound impressive on a solo jazz guitar album. And then he showed that by breaking up the chords, maybe arpeggiating them a bit, or playing bass note then the upper notes, or adding little linking phrases, or little linking bass lines, one can get some really sophisticated stuff happening.

I think he must spend hours noodling on the guitar and finding things just from exploring with exercises like this - just take a standard, and think what if I start with this chord, and then do this... Another idea was to try to keep the top note of each chord the same, as far as possible, and only move when you have to. And then you can mix those two ideas i.e. staying on the same top note, and moving the top note in a step-wise way. Simple ideas, but they can lead to finding really musical things.

Megii

mixolyd said:

@Megii ;

That's great stuff, thanks for typing it out for us!

That is a smart way of playing because as you say it is instantly musical with awareness of the notes played vs the context i.e. the chord.  

I do more composing than improvising and knowing the interval relationship between chord and melody notes is absolutely vital - to do otherwise would be like driving with your eyes closed, which goes some way towards explaining the dire level of most amateur and semi-pro melody writing! 

The thing you start to learn when using awareness of these interval relationships is how different relationships sound not just in themselves but in the context of time.  An outside note sounds very different on the "and" of two from how it sounds on beat one or beat three.  Similarly an inside note can change from being a suspension in one bar to an anticipation in retrospect when the next chord change hits.  It's this manipulation of the listener's mental/emotional map of the music that separates the men from the boys in melodic writing. 

Im far too lazy to put the work in to be able to improvise properly let alone play jazz, so I like the method used by Tim Pierce which has a lot in common with that which you describe.  He alternates between grabbing arpeggios/chord tones and playing pentatonic scales/licks.  That way he gets the best of both worlds (playing the changes, rocking out) without having to apply a magnifying glass to every phrase.

Interesting to hear about @mixolyd, and indeed thank you for telling us about it - I can indeed see the parallels you're talking about there between melody composition and jazz improv.

viz

Megii said:

bingefeller said:

ohh, what's his thought process when playing over changes? 

I'll do my best @bingefeller - after we'd had the jazz blues jam, he then wanted to talk about approaches to improv and how to solo over changes. He started by pointing out that in any 5 fret region of the neck (i.e. any position), all the chromatic notes are accessible, so it's possible to play any arpeggio. And then we took the first 8 bars of Autumn Leaves, just as an example of a standard, and using frets 5 to 9, proceeded to work through the changes playing arpeggios. For each arpeggio, he would include absolutely all the notes available, and not just working up from the root - so for example, taking a C minor 7th arpeggio in 5th position on the neck, he would include the Bb (7th) on the 6th fret of the low E string, rather than just starting from the root C on the 8th fret.

Specifically, he demonstrated an exercise where we would start by playing an arppegio, playing each tone going up in sequence, so start by playing 4 C min 7 notes for the first chord in Autumn Leaves going up the arpeggio, then the next chord is an F7, so then we need to find the next note up that's in an F7 arppegio, and keep going up with 4 F7 arp. notes, then the next chord is a Bb maj 7, so transfer to the nearest higher Bb maj 7 arp. note, and so on through the chord sequence. Of course at regular intervals you get as high as you can go within the chosen fret range, and then you start going down through the arpeggios until you get as far low as you can go, then back up and so on. Basically using arppegio notes and linking from one arp. to the next as smoothly as possible. And you don't have to start on any particular note - you could go from the 3rd, 5th or 7th of the first chord (any one in the given region) and take it from there, and of course that will lead to different note sequences through the changes.

I should also add that using this arpeggio approach, he was very much into building an awareness of where all the intervals - 3rd, 5th, 7th sit in relation to the root of each chord. Later he said that it's possible to add extensions to the notes we are including in an arpeggio - for example, with a dominant 7th chord, you can add the 9th, or maybe the flat 9 and/or sharp 9 if its a resolving dominant, and then that gives you more notes to link to and from as the chords change. Or you might add a 9th to a minor chord, and so on.

Through all this, he's building an awareness of where all the intervals sit in a given region of the neck, in relation to the chord root. He said that this was the sort of way someone like Joe Pass tended to think, rather than memorising loads of scale shapes, he's building a mental map of where all the useful intervals are. So someone like Pass, in his books and when interviewed, tended to just talk about the major scale notes and more-so about the arpeggio/chord notes, but when you listen to his playing, there would be all the altered intervals and everything there as well, all used in a harmonically aware and strong kind of way. NP said that one issue he had with the so-called altered scale is that it doesn't include the natural 5th, and sometimes there are situations where it makes sense to include it - he gave an example from Body and Soul. So with this arpeggio/intervals/fret region way of thinking, one is aware where all the intervals are, and can choose to use whichever ones one wants, and that might include both a flat 5th and natural 5th, for example.

And then NP stated that the above described exercise, while it does produce harmonically strong lines, doesn't quite sound like jazz, so he demonstrated varying the rhythm and basically using the same approach, but more freely. While doing this, he was still able to give a simultaneous running commentary, telling us what he was doing in terms of which chord tones he was playing and linking to and from as the chords changed. For example he'd say "going from the 3rd of that chord to the 9th of this one" - an impressive demonstration of fretboard awareness I thought!

I did ask him if he was totally anti-scales, and he said not at all, but just practicing running up and down a given scale fingering won't get you anywhere in terms of being able to play jazz. I explained that I have worked on scales by noodling around with the available notes, adding passing notes etc. and just trying to find nice-sounding lines, and he felt that was perfectly valid.

Anyhow, since being shamed about not being able to improv well on Giant Steps , I've been working on that one, and now I think I'll try applying NP's arppegio linking approach with that. NP said that this whole arpeggio/fret region thing was kind of the "short cut" to being a good jazz improviser, and that his own playing level had accelerated massively when he started working this way. I asked him if given we'd just gone through Autumn Leaves using frets 5 to 9, if he'd be equally happy doing the same thing with frets 6 to 10 say, or 4 to 8, and he said he would - basically he's able to work this way with any 5 fret region, for any chords, in any position on the neck - so that's some "short cut"! but I do take his point. Just listening to him talk and demonstrate things, it was obvious just how dedicated to the guitar he is, and how many hours he must have put in.

Another thing he made a point of saying was that it's really important to learn and know a fair few tunes, otherwise you have no vehicle to use any improvising ability on. Like having a really nice car, but no roads to drive on - I think that might have been the analogy he used.

Nice one

carlos

@Megii ;
Thanks very much for the write-up and for sharing knowledge.

Megii

Cheers @viz and @carlos - very glad if you can still get some good benefit from my admittedly second-hand remembrances of the workshop. Actually it was useful to me to do the write-up as well, in terms of getting my thoughts straight.

bingefeller

@Megii, just re-reading your post.

I note the mention of Joe Pass - in Randy Vincent's Line Games book he does some analysis of Joe's lines and he says that Joe uses a hexatonic scale over major chords which is essentially the major scale without the 4th. 

Did he mention the use of triad pairs at all? 

Megii

bingefeller said:

@Megii, just re-reading your post.

I note the mention of Joe Pass - in Randy Vincent's Line Games book he does some analysis of Joe's lines and he says that Joe uses a hexatonic scale over major chords which is essentially the major scale without the 4th. 

Did he mention the use of triad pairs at all? 

Hi @bingefeller - interesting about the hexatonic scale re JP's playing. The simple answer to your question is no, there was no mention of triad pairs - of course, jazz improv is such a wide subject, and I'm sure if you'd been there to ask about that one, NP would have had something interesting to say on that. Joe Pass really only came up in passing. Sorry about that one - I guess a one and a half hour workshop, however great, can only cover so much.

One thing NP said at the end was re use of a metronome - putting it on beats 2 and 4 is good, and much better than on every beat. But he liked using it just on beat 4 of each bar even more, and even suggested having it only on every other bar's beat 4, if you can find a metronome that can be set slow enough. The idea is that doing this keeps you in time, but forces you to provide the beat and feel yourself, and you get more benefit in terms of training the brain that way.

Megii

BTW - on the subject of triad pairs, I've been working a bit from a book by Garrison Fewell, which talks about that.

bingefeller

Megii said:

bingefeller said:

@Megii, just re-reading your post.

I note the mention of Joe Pass - in Randy Vincent's Line Games book he does some analysis of Joe's lines and he says that Joe uses a hexatonic scale over major chords which is essentially the major scale without the 4th. 

Did he mention the use of triad pairs at all? 

Hi @bingefeller - interesting about the hexatonic scale re JP's playing. The simple answer to your question is no, there was no mention of triad pairs - of course, jazz improv is such a wide subject, and I'm sure if you'd been there to ask about that one, NP would have had something interesting to say on that. Joe Pass really only came up in passing. Sorry about that one - I guess a one and a half hour workshop, however great, can only cover so much.

One thing NP said at the end was re use of a metronome - putting it on beats 2 and 4 is good, and much better than on every beat. But he liked using it just on beat 4 of each bar even more, and even suggested having it only on every other bar's beat 4, if you can find a metronome that can be set slow enough. The idea is that doing this keeps you in time, but forces you to provide the beat and feel yourself, and you get more benefit in terms of training the brain that way.

I find it really, really difficult to keep time when the metronome is on 2 and 4.  I always go back to counting on 1 and 3!!

Brad

Ah the good old continuous arpeggio exercise, it's a killer but well worth the effort particularly for working on playing through changes. 

And having the the click on 2 and 4 makes everything swing much more effectively. 

I've never come across Nigel Price before, I'll have to check him out :-)

Megii

Brad said:

Ah the good old continuous arpeggio exercise, it's a killer but well worth the effort particularly for working on playing through changes. 

And having the the click on 2 and 4 makes everything swing much more effectively. 

I've never come across Nigel Price before, I'll have to check him out :-)

Great player, I think you'd like his playing @Brad ;

Megii

Niallseroreilly

Thank you so much for the write up, i really enjoyed it.

My old guitar teacher taught this arpeggio based approach and the example he used was that when you sing over chord changes you inevitably use the arpeggios, thus by learning to improvise with arpeggios playing can become more melodic. I think its a great way to get to know the interval sounds aswell. 

I was at a gig a few months ago with legendary jazzer Jim Mullen, he said he didnt use any arpeggios or scales. I was really intrigued because he was the greatest guitarist ive ever witnessed play. He said he goes entirely by sound and also building a big reportoire of songs helps with this. The main tip he gave me was to attempt to sing each note as you play a la George Benson.

I can see how incorporating arpeggio exercises and singing would really help build the connection that Jim talked about.

Btw i love the idea of that metronome exercise. Def gonna try it.

Megii

Cheers for those interesting comments @Niallseroreilly - funnily enough, you reminded me that Nigel Price did actually mention the benefit of singing along with one's improvising, and even demonstrated a bit. He joked that for most people, including him, it's best avoided when performing, as it makes you sound like someone trying to do a naff version of Benson. There was another very fine jazz guitarist present at the workshop, who I know, and we were chatting afterwards about the surprisingly different ways jazz guitarists seem to go about playing and improvising - what you say about Jim Mullen would seem to bear that out. Cheers for the post anyhow, good stuff, and glad if my description of the workshop is of any benefit to you.  

Niallseroreilly

Megii said:

Cheers for those interesting comments @Niallseroreilly - funnily enough, you reminded me that Nigel Price did actually mention the benefit of singing along with one's improvising, and even demonstrated a bit. He joked that for most people, including him, it's best avoided when performing, as it makes you sound like someone trying to do a naff version of Benson. There was another very fine jazz guitarist present at the workshop, who I know, and we were chatting afterwards about the surprisingly different ways jazz guitarists seem to go about playing and improvising - what you say about Jim Mullen would seem to bear that out. Cheers for the post anyhow, good stuff, and glad if my description of the workshop is of any benefit to you.  

Cheers man. Must have been a great experience to play along with NP.

Megii

Niallseroreilly said:

Megii said:

Cheers for those interesting comments @Niallseroreilly - funnily enough, you reminded me that Nigel Price did actually mention the benefit of singing along with one's improvising, and even demonstrated a bit. He joked that for most people, including him, it's best avoided when performing, as it makes you sound like someone trying to do a naff version of Benson. There was another very fine jazz guitarist present at the workshop, who I know, and we were chatting afterwards about the surprisingly different ways jazz guitarists seem to go about playing and improvising - what you say about Jim Mullen would seem to bear that out. Cheers for the post anyhow, good stuff, and glad if my description of the workshop is of any benefit to you.  

Cheers man. Must have been a great experience to play along with NP.

Certainly was - a little intimidating, although he couldn't have been more encouraging and supportive, but really inspiring also, and it left me full of renewed enthusiasm.