You're doing good work. At the school I used to work at, one of the math teachers is a great guitarist and has a great relationship with the music department and music students.

Best buy them a CD player, too, while you're at it.

As a Jazz Band Student, I resonate with this comment 😌 Also, I recommend researching “Giant Steps” (John Coltrane) after breaking it down, that piece is wild.

Band kids quit because they don't have any meaningful way to interact with music with their given instrument and knowledge thereof. The avenues that your average band kid has available to them to actually play their instrument in a meaningful way are far fewer number than someone who plays something like piano or guitar which lend themselves to pop music, accompanying, playing out in environments and scenarios that don't traditionally include a conductor or sheet music. Furthermore, both piano and guitar have the benefit of functioning as a solo instrument as well as a rhythm instrument. Additionally, piano and guitar are extremely simple when it comes to changing keys, scales, or playing a chord of a certain quality with a different root. Music theory also tends to display itself almost visually, the geometry of intervals and how they nest to create chords and scales becoming something a pianist or guitarist can sea projected on their instrument. Band kids, once they no longer have a teacher directing them towards specific pieces that they are going to play, have more obstacles in their way when it comes to acquiring additional musical vocabulary. Someone who has been instructed to play off of sheet music, has not been selecting the music they're playing, and the music theory they have encountered undoubtedly suffers from extreme Euro classical bias? These are all handicaps. How are you going to decide what to learn or play when the music written for your instrument isn't really your favorite and your education has focused on staying in your lane? Also, the sheet music itself is an intermediary between you and your instrument that can act as an impediment to making actual musical choices, the stuff that comes from internalizing vocab and not just memorizing it. To reiterate? People fall off because they don't like it that much...or they lack ways to engage with music once they're let free. Focusing on jazz improvisation via Coltrane or Davis isnt going to help. Music students need to learn how to "speak" along with common progressions and music forms and genres, not just how to meander along the musical forms of genres and artists that are long since past the point of relevance. A kid who can kill it on So What? is talented, but a kid who can casually jam along any given hip-hop track that comes on the radio *understands* how to converse, not just recite. Recitation is not motivating once you don't have reason to recite. Being able to converse with any given song, though? Always be relevant.

@@happilyferociously7403 dang… I’m a high school student in band rn, and that’s so real for all of us…

Exactly, if you walk around humming tunes or can whistle melodically without copying a known tune you can use that musicality to improvise on a real instrument. A lot of people just don't 'hear' anything except songs or music they have listened to in the past and that means you just gravitate to your library of licks or running scales rather than actually doing anything creative when its your solo.

Just curious - how's that possible to accomplish a pro classical training without studying harmony? Did they skip lessons or are horn players not taught this?

@@maksimivanov5417 I really don't know. I find it amazing what gaps there are. I mean, they now basic stuff like major and minor arpeggios but as soon as you get into 7th chords it's a crap shoot! In one of our tune, there was a diminished chord and I asked him to spell it and he had no idea. Same with Augmented triads. It's astonishing. Then there's the idea of improvising as spontaneous composition. How is that possible without the backdrop knowledge of harmonic context. It's a mystery. And even in the conservatories here for jazz music, there are shocking gaps. Many people don't know who Fats Waller is!! Or Art Tatum or Bix Beiderbecke. These are pioneers of their chosen art form but ignorance prevails. I feel like an ambassador bringing them this information.

It’s huge! But it’s rarely a stumbling block for beginner improvisers, in my experience anyway. They can call and answer and pick up and execute simple rhythmic ideas really easily, but they totally freeze on what notes to play without a bit of guidance.

​@@BradHarrisonif you've ever listened to kids learn to improvise over time it's clear it's less about the notes than the phrasing which comes down to rhythm.

Oh yes, plenty of experience here! Obviously teaching is about dealing with the problem that’s presented to you. Every student and group has different needs and you need to adapt to that. But rhythm just hasn’t tended to be a big issue with my students. Not by the time I get them improvising anyway. I start them off with simple ideas, lots of call and response, trading, etc, and it mostly just works itself out as they build their technique and understanding of theory and ear training.

@@BradHarrison I guess it depends on what you mean by "rhythm"... I'm not a teacher but have played in many different jazz bands. From my experience, most people don't have a problem with playing things "in tempo" or mimicking rhythms from others (like you said). But I've heard so many beginners and intermediates (myself included) struggling with rhythmic **phrasing**. Like, being able to play a phrase that rhythmically builds on what you previously played. And being conscious of every rhythm that you use. I really think this is what matters the most in a solo, and that should be practiced right from the start. As a player you should not only build a vocabulary of "notes", but also a vocabulary of rhythmic ideas. And that requires deliberate practice. Like Dizzy Gillespie said, when asked what he thinks about when he improvises - "I think of rhythms and put notes to them". Sidenote - I really liked this video and I think the 5 levels you made were spot on. Just wanted to give my perspective on rhythm :)

@@BradHarrison as a bassist thats real and true

You’re the first to mention the fish! I kinda liked the visual.

scale(s) I assume?

You bet!

In my experience, most musicians that play contemporary styles get chastised or even punished for going beyond lv3 knowingly. I've always found it odd that certain people in the pop and rock sphere get hailed as geniuses for using 'wrong' or 'wierd' chords/progressions/melodies when they amateurishly stumble on them by accident, but when musicians with actual knowledge, training and intuition do that sort of thing intentionally, it very often gets dismissed or critically panned for being indulgent or pompous (unless, of course, theyre doing a youtube video detailing the musical techniques used by the aforementioned amateur 'geniuses').

All good ideas!

This is a beautiful comment. Very nice

Lmao. Not quite, but I hear what you’re going for.

where?? lol

Which lick 💀

bro has negative aural skills LOL

@@samuelwilson818 -100000 aura

So glad you’re enjoying!

Thanks! Cheers!

The blues scale is pretty great. Lots of great sounds and licks to be found. It is nice to nail the changes too though. Depends on the tune and context.

@@BradHarrison Precisely! Is my go-to strategy when I don't know what to do in a particular song I havent played. I'll need to practice more scales in order to get more tools for improvisation, but just I'll just return to the basics if I get lost.

Haha. To be fair, I’d never meant to put a value judgment on the “levels”. It’s just how I define the tools put into use while improvising. And, there is so much to be said for playing by ear! I think theory gets a bad rap for a lot of reasons. It can be an overwhelming topic to be sure, but people also think the term is synonymous with the term “rules”. But I just think of them as definitions, and they can be really helpful to think about concepts and communicate with other musicians. Start with major scales and build from there. They’re the heart of most music theory.

@@BradHarrison Definitely. It is a whole new language, without it I can’t communicate with others. Verbally anyway. But musically? I can be the extra sauce that no body is asking for..! You are right, I find it overwhelming and got intimidated when I hear people talking “major” “B#” “flat5th” ”augment diminished”. But I am getting to know them slowly. And interesting point you mentioned there “rules” as someone that is learning by ear. It is lawless where I’m from, only high and low around these part of hierarchy hahah! Please don’t take my humour as a flex. I am useless on my own. That is why I’m learning theory now😅. My point was it is interesting for the people that are learning by rules as eventually you’ll learn to break them. I guess it is a different path to take but we would still be landing on the same note. Music theory is universal and not a waste of time for musician. Thanks for replying and great content, I am a learner. Count me in as your cheap student roaming around in the comment section!🫡

Love hitchhikers! I’ve put a few references similar to this in different vids.

Great point! I like to use the term “flow state”. Magic happens there. It can happen at any level. And it can also remain irritatingly elusive too. Magic can be uncooperative.

Thanks!

Absolutely!

Couldn’t agree more! Great way to continue the metaphor.

Level 2 can be powerful! If you’ve got good ears, you’re probably basically executing level 3 intuitively. But opening the door to level 4 can be real cool. There’s some really interesting sounds there.

It can be scary for people. The options are overwhelming! I can play anything? But what? I usually start them off with one note and let them play with rhythm, then two notes, then build a whole scale. Limiting their options is actually quite freeing.

@@BradHarrison Some tricks I've used are: limiting the set of notes to e.g. 3 pitches on the instrument, giving a very specific rhythm of at most four notes, giving a certain word or short sentence for a rhythm, giving a maximum allowance of two notes per bar or two notes per chord (if the player knows about bars and chords). Playing as if playing comping chords on piano or guitar, but selecting only one note from the chord instead of the full chord. "Repeat the rhythm after me", trading one-bar rhythms where I play something first and then the student repeats that by ear, focusing on rhythm only. One nice method has been, playing over a song with sung lyrics, but so that the improviser is only allowed to play during empty spaces between lyric lines. Or, play a few notes and then stop playing and listen for at least two seconds. All sorts of tricks can be done, depending on what the student can already do, always building on top of an existing skill. I'm not an actual teacher by any means, I just coach a group of young players at the church. It's very encouraging to see their progress. Too bad music can't really compete with video games and smartphone entertainment.

@@BradHarrison Once in a "bring your hobby to the office" kind of situation I was able to get a bunch of complete non-musicians to play melodic snippets by ear on a keyboard by promising that the lines will only use three different keys on the keyboard. It was fascinating to see grown-up people try to actually identify pitches they hear for the first time in their lives. And nobody had even been drinking. I could sense a considerable fear of "what if I get it wrong and make a fool of myself".

Love it! All excellent exercises. Very cool to bring that to your coworkers too! That must have been really fun for you all. You sound like you’ve got education in your blood.

No doubt! Gotta have the basics under control. Wrong notes are far less of a problem than poor rhythm control.

Sounds like you’ve got some good stuff going on. Agreed that poor rhythm can really throw things off and is really uncomfortable for listening and fellow musicians.

When you make a rhythm mistake, you can see the drummer, bassist and dancers frowning at you 😅

Just tell them you’re working on nested polyrhythm tuplets and it’s not your problem if they’re not hip to those yet. ;-)

It can be a super useful skill. Fun too!

I might touch on it in my ii-V video, but I’m also trying to keep that video to a manageable length. Will see what I can do.

I think he may have known a bit more than he let on, but he was also exactly who I was thinking of when I wrote that section.

@@BradHarrison one of my teachers in guildhall worked with him for abit. He was playing a solo on a big band and the director told him to play some whole tone scale passages, he later went up to my teacher and asked him what a whole tone scale was. Pretty funny but goes to show how good his ears where

Glad you enjoyed! Keynote is a surprisingly powerful tool.

I can live with that.

I think it’s difficult to quantify art like that. I don’t think you can say that Moles Davis is X value and Wynton Marsalis is Y value. They’re both clearly amazing, advanced, successful, admired musicians who are level 5 improvisers. You can analyze and observe the differences in their choices and styles but the “levels” metaphor really breaks down in these cases.

Once you have learned with the music, practice without it at home. Accept the challenge, break it down, and enjoy the work of slowly but surely nailing it. THEN try it with the band. If you make mistakes at first, it's normal, but if you can do it at home then the problem is nerves, not memory. Get over nerves with a "so what" attitude. You have to play with confidence, and if mistakes happen, shrug and carry on. Learn to ignore the nagging, but essentially illogical, fear of mistakes and focus more positively on other things, like tuning in to the overall band sound and vibe

@mustafa1name Thank you for this helpful advice and I will put in practice what you advise.

Enharmonic equivalents. More information here kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rJpkgbxly9_ceHU.html.

@@BradHarrison Ah, the enharmonic overlap between Db/C#, Gb/F#, Cb/B. In my head, they're the same scale... so to me it's 12. I have another music teacher friend who would say "what about G# major? And Fb? And..."! Double sharps are notes too, he would opine! 😀 If you're in C# and modulate to the dominant, you're in G#, not Ab.... but that way lies madness!

It’s 12 for your ear and fingers but 15 for your eyes. If I’m reading chord changes, I dont want to waste time transposing even a diminished unison if I can avoid it. I need to recognize and execute the the chord immediately without hesitation. That’s why I say you need to learn 15, but the last three should really easy! C# is used so rarely that you’re unlikely to modulate to it’s dominant. But I don’t think anyone is going to be mad at you for flipping to Ab over G# major. It’s way easier to read and increases the chances of the musicians performing well, so that keeps everyone happy.

@@BradHarrison This is really interesting! It's got me thinking again about the different kinds of visualisations that happen when you're improvising. I don't really call myself a jazzer, but the genre where I do some pro guitar gigs is Gypsy Jazz, which doesn't tend to go near the dusty end of the circle of 5ths anyway. But I do play trumpet with a fun Afro-Latin band, and I realise that I am thinking much more "what the notes actually are" (i.e. names) when I solo there. Guitar and piano accordion are primarily visual physical patterns, although I still know what the notes are there of course.

I love your pfp

Where did you get lost?

I would say everywhere. But maybe is my level not adequate at your explanation even if you write for beginners, and I am not

Everyone has got to start somewhere! Usually if you have any musical skills at all, most people can handle messing around with one scale, ie level 2. If you want to learn some theory check this out! kzfaq.info/sun/PLDaNGknQ_wTh3eXyjB0smdEYSvqa-wJ1_

My first question would be, in what way do you struggle with it? Are you able to play in time normally? Can you play with a metronome and not drift off the beat? If not, that’s the first place to start. If you’ve got the basics under control and just find yourself freezing, try limiting yourself. Start with improvising using only whole notes, then half notes, then quarters, then simple combinations. Quarter, quarter, half, etc. And listen to other improvisers and emulate! It’s a language, so you learn by listening and experimenting. Also, if you’re interested, I’d love to get into this with you in a lesson. Get in touch at www.bradharrison.ca/lessons

Honestly, I didn’t even know it was a thing until right now. Googled it and there seems to be plenty of precedent. I don’t think it’s a common thing in my neck of the woods though.

@@BradHarrison id never had it til i made it at home. had no meat but I had PB. its all protein. and id had pb cheeseburgers before. 🍔 it taste like those cheddar crackers with peanut butter.

Haha. Yeah... I’m not saying I don’t have my moments! But it’s hard to capture that sort of thing for us mere mortals, and I didn’t want to tempt the internet’s wrath. “Look at me! I’m the height of jazz perfection!”

@@BradHarrison I feel you :)

Good video though!

Yeaaaah….about that. I usually do all these videos in concert pitch, but I live my life in Bb as a trumpet player and it just slipped through. By the time I finished the video and realized I wrote it in Bb, I just needed to get it out there. But congratulations on being the first person to notice and call me out! ;-)

Exactly! The levels are kind of a circle in that way.

Ears is basically level 5 again. It’s all sort of cyclical.

The basics of music notation are pretty simple. But putting it into practice with any sort of flow takes a long time and a lot of practice. And even most theory concepts aren’t so bad, the trouble is understanding them in all the different keys. And advanced musicians who play great but don’t read well rarely want to spend time on simple nursery rhymes and exercises to build that skill. It’s a lot like learning a new language. You speak your mother tongue great, but try a new language, sweat through learning 100 words and you still can’t do very much to understand or communicate. But if you work at it, it gets better. A good way to do it might be learning a new instrument while you learn notation. That way you’ll be remapping your brain and gaining multiple skills simultaneously. It could be more motivating than just suffering on your main instrument with difficult notation.

This used to be a big problem for me.I solved it by learning another instrument and learning reading at the same time. I took paino classes so I could learn to read well, but didn't have to do it on my main instrument so It didn't feel like nursery rhymes as I was learning anew instrument with the music

Reading music is like playing, it needs constant practice and maintenance. You'll never forget how to read a book, because this type of communication we use everyday. Reading music will get worse if you don't do it regularly.

Not exclusively. You can apply these models to all kinds of music. But what was it about that section that you bumped on anyway?

@@BradHarrisondont worry man just joking around on the good ol 'anything goes in jazz if you're brave enough'

No worries! Yeah, as I said in the video, it’s difficult to say what is objectively good or bad, but there are definitely trends and aesthetics, and that applies to all genres.

Exactly. In common practice, there are standard scale and chord pairings. I covered some of them in level 3. Level 4 would be using non-standard scale and chord pairings. Mixolydian is the most common and most “standard” choice on an unaltered dominant chord but using altered, diminished, whole tone, or a tritone sub would be a much spicier and interesting choice. And none of them would be your default scale choice. Therefore, I call them substitutions.

@@BradHarrison > there are standard scale and chord pairings. is there a list anywhere? what is this based off of?

“What is this based on?” is one of those deceptively simple questions. Short answer, it’s based on functional harmony and common practice. These are the scales that fit the key/chord most obviously and functionally and that are commonly used by other improvising musicians. The long answer will come when I tackle all these topics in later videos. Too much to summarize here but maybe start with googling chord scale lists(what do I play over ___ chord) and learning about ii-V’s(“two-fives”). They’re the heart of jazz theory.

@@BradHarrison when do you plan on making a new video? i cant find anything covering chord scale lists

They should be coming this fall. I googled Chord scale list and found tons of resources. Check this out but there’s lots more presented slightly differently. musictheory.pugetsound.edu/mt21c/HowToDetermineChord-ScaleRelationships.html

There are 15 major scales, chords are based on major scales, every chord type transposes into 15 keys! kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rJpkgbxly9_ceHU.html

@@BradHarrison oh you counting enharmonic scales , my bad. I always think about 12 scales but now I got it

I’m also confused about 7:16

@@ElieElKhoury19 Brian Kelly made a good video called There are NOT 24 Keys (and there are NOT 30 keys either)....here's why!

There are 12 distinct pitch classes but 15 major keys. Depending on the context one or the router number is more correct. Your ear will only hear 12 different notes but both C# and Db major can show up on the page, so you have to know and recognize them both. The same is true for minor scales, chords, etc. Every chord type(maj7, min7, dim7, m7b5, etc) can be expressed in 15 keys.

@@BradHarrison thanks for the clarification!

I’m a professional! But I live in level 3 most of the time. I considered trying to pick a Michael Brecker solo or something(I think that’s what you’re were hinting at, right? Using a pro recording example of L5?), but then you get into fair use and copyright and that’s not something I can afford to deal with as a small creator. Don’t want to tempt the wrath of the demonetization demons!

@@BradHarrison ok fair. Maybe some older recordings are fair use though

@@Fenilee Fair use is really strange. It's poorly defined and you can get dinged basically if the copyright holder feels like it. Public domain is a different thing and I think it doesn't kick in for 95 years after a recording is a released. So we'd be looking at the late 1920s at the earliest.

What no?

Sure! Most of my students have been in middle or high school but I’ve also worked with quite a few adults and seniors.

@@BradHarrison Do you teach piano?

@@BradHarrison also what province and Canadian county are you located in?

I’m in Toronto. I don’t teach piano specifically, so I wouldn’t be much help for technique, but I have worked with all kinds of instrumentalists. So if you want slightly more general musical coaching about practice, notes and rhythms, improv, theory, etc, I can definitely help out with that. Reach out at www.bradharrison.ca/lessons if you want to set something up!

@@BradHarrison Durham county Canada?

If you can play simple rhythms, you can get started improvising. My students rarely struggle with this by the time I get them improvising. As for the “extra three”, look up enharmonic equivalents. Check out kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rJpkgbxly9_ceHU.html for more info.

I’m not sure I follow. What does that have to do with this video?

What did you have in mind?

@@BradHarrison sonata, etude, prelude, theme and variation, fantaisie, waltz, poem ...

I’ve improvised over other types of pieces before! It can be done. Some will have simpler harmony, others more complex. It depends on the piece.

@@BradHarrison I just think reducing impro to only songs is too reductive. Many impro are done outside the song structure, and without any predefined harmony or structure or theme.

Sure! This is just one lens to view this stuff. Free/total improvisation is a thing. Call it level 1 or level 5 or something completely different. I have no intention of limiting anyone’s creativity or gatekeeping music.