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From Frank CurrenFrank:
Thanks for the info, that's a real good concept. I look forward to the continuing updates. I read through some of the ebook last night and I like the FM idea a lot. It focuses the reader's attention in the right way, seemsvery natural to me. Is this original from you?
Hal:
As you'll note in the introduction, Bach was the first to speak of this. It's not my idea but no one has written about it except me.
Frank:
I was at the Port Townsend jazz camp a few years back and enjoyed your teaching and playing so much. You are the first (and only) person I ever heard talk about the concept of the "illusion" we put forth to the audience when we play in ensembles. That really resonated with me and still does. I think I read something like that in the ebook last night. Very insightful. So I'm curious, how did you learn? I mean when you were starting to play what was your learning path?
Hal:
The same way everybody else learned; copying, copying, copying! Then analyzing what I copied to find other ways to use what I copied. The primary purpose of FM, or any music theory is to help you understand what you're copying and what to do with it.
From Joel VillaJoel:
Everything as far as downloading went smoothly. I must congratulate you on a great book. I have enjoyed it very much, although I cant help but feel a little overwhelmed. I am not sure how to practice, although my first instinct was to apply it to some tunes. Any advice on how to practice would be appreciated.
Hal:
For sure, anything new is going to seem like a lot. I assume the last chapter on "How To Practice" didn't help. It helps to read the book more than once as everything will not beunderstood the first few times you go through it. There as many ways to practice as there are people practicing. The more ways you can find to practice FM the better. Here are three suggestions:
1) The musical examples are exercises themselves. First, you should play along with the ascending and descending scale examples. Play them in tempo. Play the target notes first(see Melody & Embellishment) , then play along with the example. You can speed them up and transpose them as well.
2) If you want to try FM on tunes use the process discussed in "Melody & Embellishment" by approaching the Inner Guide Tone notes from one note above and/or below. Then mix the directions of the approaches and add more notes to the approaches.
3) One of the main functions of FM is to help you copy correctly. Take any of the transcriptions I'm sure you have (doesn't everybody?) and rewrite them out using FM notation with a blank stave underneath. Circle the notes that land on one & three of the bar to see how the Guide Tones were used and play them in short two bars segments: i.e., a 2 bar Guide Tones melody, the line complete line. Keep adding two bars ( always start again with the first 2 bar segment) until you can play longer and longer passages in tempo without stopping.
From Michel FourkasMichel:
I'd like to buy your book but something bothers me. If I buy it, I'll install it in my music computer on the second floor of my house. This music computer is not connected to the web for many reasons and has only music programs, not even a word processor (except Acrobat).
So if I want to play your exercices wich are located on your website it'll will be impossible for me to hear them.
Is there any way after buying your e-book to go to a page where it will be possible for me to download the music files so I can transfer them to my music computer and work with them offline ?
Hal:
As mentioned on the FM web site, the internet files are dynamic. This was planned to take advantage of the internet's potential so I could create a book that would have the capacity to grow and expand.
However, try this little trick.
You can download the book and plug in to your internet connected computer. Then transfer both onto a Zip disk, and transfer them to your music computer so you'll have them on both machines.
Then go back to your connected computer and download any of the internet music files to the Zip disk (using "Save As" in the File menu) and transfer those to your music computer. You can then play them off-line. The rub is that the exercises can be only played in a browser so you'll have to have one (and the plug in) installed on your music computer.
From Alan in MontrealAlan:
I was reading your site, and it was very interesting. I am a tenor player from Montreal, and I'm 27. Been playing jazz since 15, but always felt a bit "off" for some reason. I always listened and copied solos and played along with great tenors like Coltrane and Sonnny Rollins. But for some reason, when I wasn't copying, my own sound felt very empty. I could copy anybody and you wouldn’t know the difference, but when I play my own stuff, I feel super uninspired, always thinking my way through my solo. When I hear a recording, I can concentrate, because I am mimicing them. My job is to make my sound like theirs. There is a goal. But when you are just blowing, what do you concentrate on? How do you know what to play? I can't believe I've been playing for so long, yet I don't know.
Hal:
Dear Alan, it's the "thinking" part that's getting you into trouble. Thinking is great for practicing but non productive for playing. The intellect is to slow to use during the process of improvising.
Everyone has their own "voice" but very few take the time to listen for it in their ears and then take the painfully slow steps to develop it. It's there. In your head. Listen for it and try to emulate it on your horn. Never go past an idea you played that you didn't personalize they way you want it to sound. Stop. Play it over. Did you use the appropriate dynamics, volume, slurred or ghosted notes, staccato or legato combinations (see my article on "Radical Change")?
I have found that the most universal stumbling block to developing ones own voice is a fear of being emotionally vulnerable, a state of being many find risky as it leaves one open to potential distress. Opening oneself to emotional risk takes some courage or more to the point, foolishness. Many player's goals are "product" oriented ( it's safer) rather than "process" oriented (risky), believing that it is the end result, the production of a perfect end product that is our goal when actually it is the trip itself, the process of playing, that should be given the higher evaluation. They take playing too seriously and don't enjoy the process of playing being afraid to make a mistake. If it's not fun why bother? This fear of vulnerability is most often avoided by "thinking." If not prepared to make a fool of oneself every beat, then don't get on the bandstand.
One of the techniques I use to help my students play from an emotional rather than intellectual basis is to reduce the amount of information they have to deal with while playing so they can bypass the intellect and access their vulnerability, is to have them play on blues changes at a medium slow tempo. BUT; improvising using only the three blues changes of I, IV, & V, and the four chord tones of each and ONLY those four chord tones improvising MELODICALLY and rhythmically using only these tones. The goal here is, instead of playing from the emotionally "safe" intellectual basis, by reducing the amount of information you can "think" about you're more likely to play from an emotional basis. The reason the blues is the best vehicle for this exercise is that you can't successfully play the blues from an intellectual basis. It's not about the notes, it's about the feeling. The feeling picks the notes.
Eventually you will discover that this place your "emotionally based" playing comes from actually has a physical location somewhere in your body. Some students find in their forehead, their stomach, their chest, etc. it's different for each person. Once you have discovered the physical location of this emotional state you can practice "going" to that spot ( that's the best way I can describe it) at will. Eventually you be able to go there with ease. Be prepared for your playing to be different from the kind of playing you might do when "thinking" as this is the place where your own voice resides.
Alan:
The download process went real smooth and the reading it and hearing it did as well. Now I'm practicing the stuff which is fun. I'm realizing how bad my imagination really is, and how much work it needs to hear the music. Is it normal for someone who has been playing for over 10 years to not be able to clearly hear some simple lines in his head?
Hal:
It is if you haven't been focusing your practicing on the right things.
Alan:
I try and repeat it in my ear soI really hear it clearly before I play it, but it's so damn tough. And the whole imagining part feels extremely forced. You know the part of hearing it loudly in your head before you play it? Is it normal for that to take so much effort?
Hal:
Anything new, in the beginning, will be difficult and forced. The point of "screaming" melodies in your head is to develop a strong brain signal.
Alan:
And the execution part should be the opposite on the instrument right? Very easy?
Hal:
Exactly, after "screaming" a melody in your head you should just toss it off, without "trying." Not "trying" is the most difficult thing to do and without being there, impossible for me to judge whether you're "thinking" and "Trying" or just letting your ear do the work for you. Every time you scream an idea and then toss it off you are reinforcing and testing the strength of the brain-to-hand signal. Your goal is is the development of the PROCESS of having vivid imagination. It is that process you take to the bandstand with you, not the melodies you were practicing.
Alan:
And when practice time is over and you just wanna improvise, what are you supposed to do then? Not force at all, and just play whatver is in your ear?
Hal:
Again, you're right on the mark. The attitude is "what comes out is what's happening." Don't second guess what you played. Accept as what you were hearing at that moment you played it.
From Thomas in ParisThomas:
Hi Hal, I'm a french guitarist playing in the style of Django Reinhardt, and I have to congratulate you about your work with FM...I used to ask myself how Django was able to be so rhytmically free in the songs he played, anticipating the chords. Your work opens my eyes (and my ears too,...I hope.
But I'm not sure the way to practice the exercises on scales (Chapter 10) :Should I play the inner guide tone melody, singing it loudly in my head, and, in a second time, playing the approaches whithout thinking at all, or should I try to hear the target note as I play the approaches too?
Thanks for your advices and if you pass by Paris, I would enjoy taking a course with you, to be sure I'm working on your stuff the right way.
Hal:
Dear Thomas, There are as many way to practice as there are musicians practicing. The more different ways you practice a thing the better. Try them all and see what works best for you.
From JustinJustin:
I finally have had the opportunity to watch the video Universal Mind of Bill Evans and am curious as to how you would interpret Bill's ideas in this video; that we should learn and cement the basics of music, to the point where the subconscious can drive the vehicle. It's almost an onion effect, where you tackle one basic problem, solve it, then move inward and onward in your musical development.There is so much that is evasive to the intellect, when it comes to music, that when you sit down and try to work out a practice schedule, or figure out or buy books telling me how to learn the basics, you risk running in circles. But how do I learn to cement the basics? I've taken several theory classes, understood most of it, but I don't know if it is automatic. I suppose I'm not asking a question so much as venting my intellect's frustration with the ineffability of music. Thanks for listening.
Hal:
Dear Justin, well for one thing, your intellect will not provide you the answers your seeking. The only way to test the efficacy of your practicing is under the pressure of the performance situation, i.e., by playing and seeing what happens.
However don't make the mistake of expecting WHAT you practiced to come out in performance. Practiced musical ideas have a higher function than mere memorization and regurgitation. It is the "effect" having practice an idea has on your inner processes. It is this "effect" you take to the performance situation, not the musical idea itself. If, by chance the idea slips out 10 years from now on some bandstand in Chicago, count your blessings.
I'm not sure this coincides with Bill's practicing concepts as I haven't seen the video (though I'd love to). Bill appears to be one who possesses the attributes of willpower, discipline and goal setting, of which I have neither. Being of the rebellious nature that I am, the only way I could approach practicing was through a process I call "Incentive Based Practicing" wherein the modus operandi is to spend as much time at your instrument in a concentrated way, working on musical ideas that maintain your interest and concentration. No matter what practicing method one uses, only concentrated practice is worth the time spent. There being so much to learn and work on, there is no good reason why anyone should run out of interesting things to practice. Concurrent with this practicing concept is the idea that one doesn't have to practice things in any particular order as when you improve in one area, it effects and improves all the other areas as well. See my articles on "The Development of Style" at halgalper.com for a more complete explanation of this.
From RandyRandy:
The download of the pdf version of Forward Motion was seamless. Really liking it so far. I am on chapter 2 now and am concentrating on the "2 beneath the 4" feel. As recommended, I am applying this to my extant repertoire of medium and up-tempo tunes. I have a couple questions about praciticng this concept. I am currently using a metronome and considering the metronome ticks as 1'sand 3's in cut time. Would you encourage or discourage using a metronome forthis practice? If you encourage metronome usage, I'd appreciate your feedback.
Hal:
I'm not much of a fan of the metronome. Best to use your own inner time clock. With that in mind, I suggest you do everything you can to rid yourself of any automatic 4/4 feeling (you can use it from time to time to enhance the rhythm of a line) so as to feel everything in the ballad tempo.
Take a tune like "Just Friends," and play it in a balled tempo so it now translates into two 8 bar (rather than 16 bar) sections. Play it like a ballad, using double time improvising. Then, as an experiment, set your metronome (ugh!) to 4/4 and keep playing in the double time ballad style. What you should then perceive is HOW LESS ACTIVE A SOLOIST is THAN IT APPEARS TO YOU WHEN LISTENING TO A SOLO.
Randy:
I have a couple more questions about practicing the concept WITHOUT metronome. I will use your example of Just Friends
So I'm now playing all by my lonesome and playing through my "ballad"version of Just Friends in F, which is now a 16 bar instead of a 32 bar song. All harmonic durations are halved -- e.g. a chord that occupied two bars now only occupies 1. And I'm playing at a tempo approximately half that of the mid to up tempo commonly applied to the tune. 16 bars at 90 will take as long to play as 32 bars at 180.
As I listen to the imagainary rhythm section playing this nice,relaxed ballad version of Just Friends with the stretched out tempo and the truncated harmonic rhythm ( i.e. one bar of IV major at the top of the "8" bar sections instead of the typical 2), I'm not feeling like double-timing everything. In fact, I find double-timing all the time on a ballad is even more boring than playing nothing but eighth note lines on medium/up tunes. When I hear ballad, I feel like taking my time -- leaving spaces, playing long tones interspersed with eigth note and sixteenth note passages. Do you think these aspects of ballad playing work when played against a medium/up feel as well?
What would you think of experimenting with using a play-along ( such as the Abersold ), or a recording of the tune in medium to up-tempo instead of a metronome and try to maintain the ballad feel/sensibility?
Hal:
This can be confusing to discuss, ergo my wonder at why anyone would want to study music through "distance learning." The chords still pass through time at the same rate as if the tune were being played in 4/4 making a ballad in "effect": rather than a "virtual" ballad.
I agree with you about taking your time, leaving space but what I mean is not playing in strict double time but playing in a double time manner, using the phrasing you have suggested above and mixing it up. This is usually easier to demonstrate than to talk about.