Helpful Resources

Hey guys!  School, work, and practicing have made it difficult for me to get myself to blog recently so it's been a while since my last one.  I have some good ideas for a few blogs though, so I'm going to try to get going with this again.


But first some great news-I recorded a CD last month of entirely original music and the mixing is almost done.  I have gotten two of the tracks back so far and they sound great!  As soon as I can I'll post it on my Website for free download.  I'm looking forward to hearing the rest of the tracks!  


Anyway, for this blog I thought I would go through a list of some of the most important resources I've utilized in my musical education.  I'll present them in the form of a numbered list, but the numbering is arbitrary.  I've used each of these for different reasons and at different times.  They include books, websites, people, etc. Anyway, here it goes.  


1.  David Berkman's book, the Jazz Musician's Guide to Creative Practicing.

So this isn't a ranked list but...  this book has probably been the single most important resource for me aside from private teachers and recordings.  This is sort of my "jazz bible".  I find myself coming back to this book over and over again, and have for several years now.  What's so great about this book?  I learned from this book how to come up with creative, fun ways to deal with specific problems I encounter as an improvising musician.  Instead of feeding you exercises or "licks", this book teaches you how to practice through focused exploration of unfamiliar keys, time signatures, changes, etc.  If you feel like your practicing is unfocused or that you're not sure how to work on things like chromaticism or advanced harmonic material, GIVE THIS BOOK A SHOT!  This book helped me tremendously and I think it could do the same for any student of this music.   

2.  Youtube channel of Shawn "Thunder" Wallace

I mean, anyone whose nickname is "Thunder" has got to be a big deal, right?  In this case, right.  Shawn "Thunder" Wallace, as you will hear in the intro to all of his videos, is a professor of music at the Ohio State University.  Furthermore, he's a RIDICULOUS Sax/Flute/Clarinet/Bass/seemingly anything player and also is a great educator.  His videos are excerpts from lessons he teaches and cover a wide range of topics, including technique relating to Sax/Flute/Clarinet, music theory, mental issues involved in the life of the practicing musician, etc.  These lessons have also been great for me to watch because they're so inspiring.  This guy has incredible technique and understanding of the music (example):

but he also has worked extremely hard to get where he is.  It is clear from listening to him in lesson that he has thought A LOT about practicing and has put in incredible amounts of time.  This is always a nice reminder for me that talent does not count for much without disciplined, focused, consistent practice time.  This guy has been a great resource for me and I would not be the same musician without his great videos and lessons.  

  
Well, I have several more resources I would like to share but, for the sake of keeping these blogs to a (somewhat) reasonable length, I'll just include them in the next blog of this series.  I'd like to close by talking a little bit about what I see as the purpose of or value in this blog.  I've often wished during my musical education that I had more resources or that information about practicing/learning music was more available (for free would be nice too!).  I'm trying to write blogs that I would have been happy to find before I knew some of this information.  


Also, I feel like most information about playing and learning jazz comes from 1) master players (good) or 2) educators who may or may not have a clue (sometimes bad).  I felt like it would be helpful to share some information from my standpoint, which is that of an advanced student who is still MANY years away from mastery.  Few educational resources come from this persepctive.    Anyway, hopefully some of this information will be helpful and check back for more resources and music coming soon!   

Motivation

Hey guys.  I thought for this blog I would talk about motivation and how to find it.  


Motivation is really important for being able to excel in any field, including music.  It takes a lot of motivation and dedication to practice or compose every day for hours when you could be doing other things.  I've struggled with motivation on and off over the past few years that I have been seriously pursuing music and have thought a fair amount about how to find and maintain it.  I've been able to find a few things that help me with this issue.  


One thing is making it a point to place myself around other motivated, passionate students of music.  This serves the dual purpose of giving me a sense of community and giving something to compare myself to.  I'm fairly competitive and don't like to feel like someone is getting an edge on me in some way, so being around others who are working on their playing engages my sense of competition, which, in this case, seems like a positive thing.         

Also helpful to me are quotes or stories about other people giving up short-term gratification to achieve mastery/greatness.  The world of sports can be a great place for this kind of stuff.  I'm a big basketball fan and recently became enthralled, as much of the sports world did, by Ray Allen's breaking of the all-time record for three-point shots made in the NBA, surpassing the great Reggie Miller. Before he reached this milestone, sport writer David Aldridge wrote an interesting article about Allen. One particular quote from the article struck me:

"You see so many things happen, so many temptations," Allen said. "I just always said to myself, I wanted to be great at what I was doing. For me, it's a testament to just saying, 'Well, I'll have fun later. Right now, I need to put my work in.' Get the work in at the early part of the day, so you can enjoy the latter half of the day -- whether it's the latter half of the latter quarter of the day, you get to enjoy that knowing you put your work in."


I love this quote because it highlights two major issues related to the mastery of a craft:


1)  The reality of temptations.  Every hour that you're practicing could be spent doing something that would be much more fun in the present.  The motivation to practice despite this reality comes from knowing that you're work will pay off and that the end result is worth the sacrifice.  


2)  Mastering a craft is not just a hobby, it is a lifestyle.  I love when Ray is talking about getting the work done early in the day, etc.  He builds his schedule based on his practice routine!  It is important to acknowledge that becoming a master of some craft is going to take A LOT of time and that your life is going to have to be different than that of other people because of it.  Again, it's important to keep in mind that the end result is worth the sacrifice.  If you doubt this, just listen to your favorite artist.  For me, this always works.  I just think the same thing I though when I first got serious about music: "I want to do that!"  


I'll end the blog with some quotes, in no particular order, that have inspired me at various times, and which I hope will do the same for you.  Thanks for reading and stay motivated!


"No one is original.  Everyone is derivative."  
-Sonny Rollins


"Education is hanging around until you've caught on."
-Robert Frost 


"If you knew how much work went into it, you wouldn't call it genius."
-Michaelangelo 


"It's more a testament to [my mentors], because I've learned everything from guys who came before me.  There is nothing original about my game"  
-Kobe Bryant, responding to a question about how it feels to have scored 24,000 points as a professional  
  
"I hit big or I miss big."  
-Babe Ruth 

"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out."

 

Robert Collier

Chris Potter "It Could Happen to You" Transcription

For this blog I thought I'd post a transcription I did recently and talk a little bit about what I learned from it.  The transcription comes from one of my favorite modern sax players, Chris Potter, and the tune is the standard "It Could Happen to You".  I only transcribed the first 2 choruses for now.  Here is the recording (from youtube):  

I love to listen to Chris Potter play standards unaccompanied and have transcribed several of his unaccompanied solos.  As a sax player, a big challenge is to be able to communicate harmonic motion and form with your lines without sounding chords, like a piano or guitar player can.  This is achieved with logical voicing leading and the careful placement of notes. 

Check out the low notes Chris starting throwing in bar 17 through the end of the first chorus.  These notes are carefully chosen to either enhance stability (bar 17) or intensify the harmonic motion (bar 26).  Going back to my previous blog, this approach to improvisation is reminiscent of the Bach Cello Suites, in which multiple melody lines are conveyed utilizing a monophonic instrument.  The only way to be able to do this, it seems to me, is to develop a deep understanding of voice-leading and harmonic function.  Chris is known to be a great pianist and often talks about the importance of playing the piano during master classes.  Bob Mintzer is also talks a lot about the importance of the piano for horn players.   

One more thing interesting to note about Chris's approach to playing standards-it is clear once you transcribe this guy that when he thinks of the changes of a tune he is thinking more of a framework than a set of unchangeable chords.  I tried in this transcription to figure out what Chris may have been thinking and write those chord symbols instead of just the original changes of the tune.  It's clear that when Chris sees a turnaround or a ii-V, he is thinking of MANY other alternatives to reach the harmonic goal of the phrase than just those chords.  Reaching that level of harmonic understanding and instrumental ability is a lofty goal for any musician!

"Blah, blah, blah-just give me the transcription already!"  Alright-here it is!  Just check back soon for more transcriptions and ideas!  Feel free to comment and thanks for visiting!   

Welcome/Learning Tunes

Hi and welcome to my blog!  My name is Jonathan McNutt and I'm a music student at Texas State University.  I play saxophone, flute and clarinet as well as compose.  Over the past few months as I have discovered a cool new pattern or transcribed a cool solo, I've thought to myself, "I should write this stuff down and share it with other musicians".  I think this desire largely stems from my feeling that I owe about 99% of my musical knowledge to other musicians.  Anyway, this blog will be my attempt to share some of my discoveries and thoughts about music with those interested.  We'll see how this goes!  


Anyway, I though I'd start with sharing a video I recently found on Youtube by Saxophonist Bob Reynolds.  In the video, Bob talks about his approach to learning new tunes.  Here it is:    

I think the approach Bob describes is a great one for a few reason:

1) The nature of this method is restrictive, by which I mean that you are restricting your harmonic choices to, say, just the roots of the chords.  This allows you to really familiarize yourself with the root movement of the tune and make sure you know it while not having to worry about upper extensions or playing every hip lick you can.  Bob talks about doing a sort of step-method, where you gradually add more of the notes of the chord.  I think this is good because you can focus on each partial at a time.  Do you know all the thirds of the chords?  7ths?  11ths?  By restricting your choices you have less to think about while you practice so you can you can focus on other factors like sound of rhythmic content.  

2)  This method really lets you know how well you know a tune.  Whether or not you know all the changes to a tune becomes very apparent when you stop trying to play a killin' solo and just try to accurately convey the harmony.  I think it's a good way to find out what parts of tunes you may still need to work on.  

3)  It's fun!  Playing rhythmic motifs around a tune using specific harmonic choices sure beats playing half-notes and whole-notes through the tune over and over.  I'm always trying to practice in ways that I enjoy and that I'll look forward to, and this seems like a good way to have fun while learning a new tune.  

One thing I would add to Bob's method is something I've started doing as an exercise recently.  Through both transcribing Chris Potter playing tunes unaccompanied and from working on the Bach Cello Suites, I became interested in spread triads.  By spread triad, I mean a triad voiced with the color notes higher than the root and fifth (F major triad voiced F-C-A-E instead of F-A-C-E).  I think it's helpful to do what I call the "Bach Cello Exercise", which is simply playing through a standard using spread triads (I usually have to do this out of time at first).  The next step in the exercise is to try to play contrapuntal melodies.  These melodies can be based on half-notes and quarter notes-it's OK to simple-I think the value in the exercise is just to be able to visualize all the notes in the given triad in all inversion in all the octaves of your instrument. Easier said than done.  

Well, that ended up being pretty long-I hope some of it is helpful.  Anyway, Stay tuned-I will be posting some transcriptions I've done as soon as I figure out how to convert to the proper format.  Thanks for checking out the blog!