When it involves learning jazz standards, solos and licks, there isn’t a wrong or right way. But there’s the straightforward way and therefore the better way.

The easy way is simply to shop for some musical composition, read the melody and chords on the page, memorize (or sometimes not) and call it good. That’s certainly the moment gratification way, but I guarantee you that’s not the most effective way to learn jazz language or any piece of music.

Remember that jazz may be a language. One of the foremost important parts of learning a language is mimicking. You hear something and duplicate it. If you ask almost anybody who is bi-lingual, they’ll tell you they became fluent by immersing themselves with native speakers and being forced to concentrate, decipher and respond.

Jazz isn’t music that’s meant to be learned from the piece. It never was. Back within the bebop days within the 1940s, jazz musicians would pile into clubs and hear one another play. They might literally pick things abreast of the bandstand, in rehearsals, and by just taking note of records.

That doesn’t mean they couldn’t read music, or never read music, but learning music by ear was always the first method. That’s something I would like you to know. An aurally learned music, Jazz is first and foremost. So if you would like to become a good jazz improviser, you would like to follow in the footsteps of the nice jazz musicians before you.

Learning music by ear isn’t always the simple way, and if you aren’t accustomed to it, you’ll find it quite difficult initially. But it’s the most effective way handily, and therefore the more you are doing it, the better it gets.

Don’t misunderstand me either. Musical composition isn’t bad. Can musical composition play a job in your jazz education? After all, it can. In fact, reading is a very important part of learning a language. It may be a good tool to conceptualize and analyze jazz language. It can even be a good resource for checking the work your ear has done. If you’ve had the method of learning a jazz standard by ear, you will want to test a chord or two you’re unsure about or a bit of the melody that seems ambiguous. Additionally, if you’re in a very bind and don’t know a tune at a gig, there’s no harm and trying out a chord chart on the fly (although this shouldn’t be abused).

The idea isn’t to throw away musical composition but to understand its place. If you truly want to become a great jazz improviser, you’re visiting must get your face out of the pages and instead open your ears.

But if you’re anything like me, you don’t take action on something unless you recognize why you’re doing it (especially if it requires more work). So why must you learn jazz by ear and not sheet music you found online and use a sheet photo watermark remover online? Let’s check some reasons:

 

ALSO READ: The Reason Why Jazz Music is Important to American Culture

 

1. You may internalize it better.

As I’ve already hinted at, learning music by ear tends to be harder for many than reading it. It’s almost as if the answers are given to you if you’re a competent reader. You don’t need to think as critically. Once we use our ears to find out music, we are forced to translate what we hear to our instrument.

comes repetition along with the struggle of learning jazz from recordings. You’ve got to pay attention to small fragments of music at a time and figure it out on your instrument. This naturally leads to many repetitions. In short, the harder you’re employed for it, the more likely you’re to recollect it.

2. Jazz entails reaction.

Jazz music relies on improvisation. Improvising is one of the core components that create jazz, jazz. Reacting and responding to one’s environment is what improvisation is all about. Most of the time you can’t take care exactly what to expect, but the elemental idea of improvisation is that you simply will react to what’s happening on a whim.

This is where sharpening your ear comes in. Let’s say you’re playing a jazz standard and an ii-V-I chord progression is turning out within the form (in the key of C: Dmin7-G7-Cmaj7). But suddenly you hear the player approach it chromatically (Ebmin7-Ab7-Dmin7-G7-Cmaj7). What does one do? Does one quick flip through a recipe book of licks and choose one that matches the scenario? In fact not! There’s no time for that, neither is it within the true spirit of improvisation.

Jazz isn’t predictable. Piece is. After we learn jazz language by ear, we are training ourselves to retort to the music with our ear.

3. It helps you become an interpreter.

Jazz isn’t calculated reasonably music. The spirit of improvisation is movement and alteration. The magic begins to wane if there are too many rules and limitations attached to the music.

In jazz, everyone contains a unique voice. We could also be trying to mention similar things, but ultimately it starts up a bit different. I’ll play the melody to a song, and you will phrase it a bit differently. The message continues to be identical, but we both have a novel way of claiming it.

Jazz is about expression. Jazz is about interpretation. Once we learn jazz language by ear, we are in sync with the spirit of the music. We are training our ears to reply, and we are internalizing the music so it stays with us. The opus isn’t bad, but it can tempt us to use it as a crutch, not as a tool.

The next time you’re feeling lazy, and tempted to succeed in a few compositions, stop. Of learning the music by ear, consider the potential.