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Woodshedding - Learning to Play!
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Mac, one other thing - so much of what you wrote above is how I started to learn for the class- even though it wasn't taught directly.

For example, Gary Burton posted an unrecognizable solo snippet of "What Is This Thing Called Love?" for the first week assignment and asked us to analyze his solo and to do our own solo.

I had no idea it was a standard - no attribution was given as to the writer, etc. until someone in the class forums posted some YouTube links to some old and current versions of the song.

All of the sudden, even without playing it - I knew the melody and was able to 'write out' how I would play it in my head. I will see if I kept a take from my first attempts before hearing the lyrics and melody. It was awful. After studying the chart while listening to many different versions, I tracked this straight through after perhaps 5 runs practicing. Not perfect, but the method you described is exactly what I did: https://soundcloud.com/rockstar_not/what-is-this-thing-called-love

Woodshedding - Learning to Play!
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The only way I know to get the familiarity with the changes to the various standards is what I posted above, Scott.

Yes, having a Melody in your head that matches the changes is a very good way to approach soloing IMO. It also avoids that situation where a player is playing "all the right notes" but isn't making very much coherent sense out of them.

There is also a method in which a player designs or derives their own custom Melody to fit the chord changes. This too can create a coherency that people will sense more than hear out of the expectancy that comes from the listener also knowing the Melody.

Matter of fact, that is what Charlie Parker did with just about all of his great Bebop tunes - each one is a different Melody put to the changes of a tune popular at the time.

For one example, Bird's "Koko" is based on the "Cherokee" changes.




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