I’m working on the jazz course at the moment (I have been for the past couple of months) and while I discovered lots of cool stuff, I must admit that this course is by far the most complex endeavour I’ve ever embarked on.
Where I basically get stuck is here: I have this video out on Youtube titled “How to play jazz” and what I explain there basically gets you really close to something that’s very useable, relatively easy to learn etc.
With the new jazz course I have been working on how I could take things next level after that youtube video. The problem is, that this requires a completely different way of playing, developing hand independence in a very difficult manner and in the end the result is that the student will be able to play stuff that still sounds more or less the same as it would sound with the youtube video method. It’s just more difficult and it gives you a little more dynamic expression but that is sort of it.
So my question to people waiting for the jazz course is this: What is missing from the youtube video? What would you like me to elaborate on? I think it’s way better to ask you guys because the thing I came up with now is indeed “next level” but I really think it will not be the right thing to learn for 98% of QFG students (which would leave me with maybe 5 people who would actually get something out of the course). It’s a lot of squeeze for not a lot of juice. Sure, if you keep at it for the next 5 years you will be a better jazz finger drummer but in the first year or so you will actually sound better using the youtube vid method.
Hey @Robert_Mathijs, There is probably not a lot missing from the YouTube video for that style of Jazz. There may be an issue that with Jazz, probably similar for other styles of music too, that there are genre’s within the genre of Jazz and the drumming techniques alter withe the different styles of Jazz. If you go back to Dixie and Trad Jazz, its probably a fairly straight forward 4 in a bar and fairly simple to learn and play. Then you have Swing, Latin Jazz and Modern Jazz, all of which have very different feels and are more complex than the earlier styles around Dixie. I would guess that the drumming patterns, complexiities, rhythms and levels of difficulty would ramp up massively as you work through these genre’s. That might be a way to focus some of the teaching and training to help us learn to play Jazz.
Maybe folks are just looking for more finger drumming adaptations of jazzy grooves. I can’t speak for everyone, but what I hope to learn from QFG is to someday be able play grooves that I can only do now by looping and quantizing. If the time comes to do a deep dive into rhythm theory of heavily syncopated Jazz or obscure genres, I probably would look elsewhere. I want to learn the mechanics of playing the pads, how to practice, how to get achieve some of the trademark sounds of live drumming, improve my timing and how to keep it sounding natural and groovy. I think the YouTube Jazz video covers that ground nicely.
Thanks for this! I haven’t really made a plan of action (yet) but I did sort of admit to myself yesterday that this jazz course is maybe the first thing for the QFG I tried to make work for months and sort of failed at. It boils down to Ivans comment about jazz being many genres in itself, which then gives you two options. You touch the surface (like I do in the youtube video) or you go and become Berklee college of music . I’m glad I caught it before I started filming.
I now all of a sudden see very clearly and have multiple great ideas for the website that do work and will actually help students. Everything started to flow again right away and I finally got started on something new. I’m clearly on the right path again. Will explain my next move in the livestream this weekend!
@Robert_Mathijs Nothing attempted in music is ever wasted. The results just show up somewhere we didn’t plan. I can’t wait to find out where your efforts to make the jazz course end up surfacing.
@Robert_Mathijs, you could look for music to listen to from early Dixie where they used Sousaphones for bass rather than strings, Bix Biderbeck (bad spelling sorry), Louis Armstrong kind of runs between late Dixie and Trad, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman will take you towards swing, Theolonious Monk and Miles Davis will move into the Modern era. There are loads more, but I would be here all night typing if I were to list everything, but I think you get the idea. Hope it helps.
I think that the youtube video is for very advanced players and it’s a very fast jazz song.
If you do a jazz course you could break that video in small sections and also provide the kits preset.
I think the essential would be to learn the basics and also to work in different time signatures, like Take Five, Someday my prince will come or other 3/4 ballad, something in 7/4, etc.
And do not overlook one lesson on counting, for instance I heard this one the other day and it was stuck in my brain… I was very confused
So I went to sleep and in the morning my brain told me it was 1-2-3-4,1-2-3-4,1-2-3-4,1-2 and if I had to make a sheet music I would do the same, 3 bars of 4 and one of 2.
In odd times like 7/4 you can explain that the feel plays a lot in the counting like 1,2,3,1,2,3,4 or 1,2,1,2,1,2,3 etc.
Voilà
Very interesting. Maybe something I can do fairly quickly is to get the backing track for that jazz video and provide you all with a couple of versions, slowed down, with metronome etc. That might be some nice extra help.
. I’m glad I caught it before I started filming.
