[Dixielandjazz] Charlie's chord progressions

[Paul Edgerton]

On 7/5/07, Kent Murdick <kmurdick at jaguar1.usouthal.edu> wrote:
> Emily Remler (sp?) the jazz guitarist once said that she learned to
> improvise by taking chord segments (like Charlie's), writing out 10
> solos over each one and memorizing them in all keys. She said that once
> she did that, she could solo like a pro.
>
> I'm currently learning to play saxophone and can solo a little bit, but
> I'm going to try a scaled down version of Emily's idea.  I'm going to
> take four chord segments, write  five solos and learn to play them in
> five keys.  If this changes my life, I'll do the larger project.

So Kent, why would you expect learning a few licks in five keys to
"change your life?" That's like saying you'll learn the fist six
letters of the alphabet and if you can then write a novel, you'll
learn the other twenty letters.

If you want to play jazz, then you make a LIFETIME commitment to
learning it -- nothing less works. People say, "I wish I could do X,"
but then they never dig in and start learning X.  You've at least
gotten started by learning something about playing the saxophone.
That's great, but did you limit yourself to five notes? I don't think
so. I bet those first five notes became a lot more useful when they
had more friends to play with. It's exactly the same with using those
notes to play jazz.

The change in your life comes not from the notes, nor from the
practice. Those are just the visible manifestations of the REAL
change, which is defining a goal for yourself and then working to
achieve it. Whatever else we may do, we *become* jazz musicians. It's
how we define ourselves.

-- Paul Edgerton