Soloing Techniques

[guruguy]

What are your techniques to solo for Jazz?
What scales do you use?
Mine are the blue scales

How many would like to solo like a professional but never had a teacher to teach them?

[mr dave]

Originally Posted by guruguy

How many would like to solo like a professional but never had a teacher to teach them?

this would likely simply result in you being a clone of the teacher. you don't need a teacher to sound like a pro. if you require the aid of a teacher for more than learning the basic elements of an instrument you're likely going to have difficulty progressing as a true musician as opposed to another guitarist.

my technique for jazz soloing is to play along to jazz tracks that do not feature guitar. play along to the horns, create a rhythm to accompany the piano parts, etc. you'll develop a much more fulfilling and unique style using that approach.

ultimately it really just depends on whether or not you want to develop your own voice or parrot someone else's. the people you see on stage are NOT 'soloing like professionals', they're simply 'soloing'.

[cheezyridr]

just trill as fast as you can, with alot of distortion. then hit the wammy a couple times. you'll be considered a guitar god

trust me

[SATCHMO]

arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios
EDIT: also with jazz the major scale is your friend, but I find that tinkering with arpeggios and trying to suss out cool melodic phrases while staying on top of the chord changes is usually the best most creative way to approach jazz soloing.

[Antonio]

just f**cking play.

[Blue]

Originally Posted by mr dave

this would likely simply result in you being a clone of the teacher. you don't need a teacher to sound like a pro. if you require the aid of a teacher for more than learning the basic elements of an instrument you're likely going to have difficulty progressing as a true musician as opposed to another guitarist.

my technique for jazz soloing is to play along to jazz tracks that do not feature guitar. play along to the horns, create a rhythm to accompany the piano parts, etc. you'll develop a much more fulfilling and unique style using that approach.

ultimately it really just depends on whether or not you want to develop your own voice or parrot someone else's. the people you see on stage are NOT 'soloing like professionals', they're simply 'soloing'.

I don't necessarily agree. You can have a teacher and learn and understand music more through things they can pass to you without you just mimicking them; you can take the musical ideas of what it is they're doing and use them in your own manner to suit your own musical voice. I also don't think having a teacher means you're going to have more trouble advancing as a musician. If you get a good, experienced teacher, they can show you things you wouldn't have thought of, and introduce you to new ways to approach things, as well as hashing out things you need to be able to do to be a "professional musician."

In terms of jazz soloing, you generally should play with a vertical approach and follow the changes. You can do as Satchmo said and do arpeggios, or you can expand a bit and add the other notes of the scale around the arpeggios as passing tones. I guess one of the keys is trying to get your chord tones to land on the down beats and the passing notes to land on the upbeats so you more or less form the sound of the chord without even having the chord being played. For example, in a jazz blues, it sounds great if you use mixolydian scales on the I/IV/V dominant chords, but you can also highlight the other possible changes with their own suiting scales or arpeggios.

Edit - I don't mean to imply you need a teacher by the way, but I don't think it instantly means something negative or you're just going to be a carbon copy. A good teacher can be very helpful.

[Blue]

Originally Posted by Antonio

just f**cking play.

Generally I agree with you in terms of overall guitar playing, but when it comes to jazz, I think you generally need to consider at some level the musicality of it because the changes and everything else are much more advanced then in most popular music.

[mr dave]

Originally Posted by Blue

I don't necessarily agree. You can have a teacher and learn and understand music more through things they can pass to you without you just mimicking them; you can take the musical ideas of what it is they're doing and use them in your own manner to suit your own musical voice. I also don't think having a teacher means you're going to have more trouble advancing as a musician. If you get a good, experienced teacher, they can show you things you wouldn't have thought of, and introduce you to new ways to approach things, as well as hashing out things you need to be able to do to be a "professional musician."

i suppose it depends on perspective and why an individual searches for a teacher. it also depends on the teacher and their own ability to teach rather than instruct.

in a situation like this one where the issue is presented in a sense of 'someone tell me the dots to connect in order to draw this shape' then i firmly believe that individual will end up as a clone. they lack the attitude to go it alone. i'm not getting the impression an impasse was reached and a desire to expand ones perspective on music is at play.

as for the techniques i think a lot of it has to do with whether or not one wants to play more traditional 'smooth' jazz and just cheese out that same tired melody or if they want to go out there and hook onto the 'free' stuff.

[SATCHMO]

I had a teacher specifically for jazz. Really this was more a matter of breaking myself out of my own stylistic ruts and expanding my applied theory more than anything else.