Hearing and listening are not the same thing, hearing is a passive process whereas listening requires active participation on the part of the listener, to really enjoy the full jazz experience it’s vitally important to hone our listening skills.

There are five levels of active listening or audio processing:

1. Hearing

2. Listening

3. Concentrated listening

4. Deep listening

5. Concentrated and deep listening

Let us take a closer look at each of these levels to gain a deeper insight into the various distinctions that make up the five levels of audio perception .

1. Hearing – is when your ear is aware of a vibration, at this point you are not really listening to the audio, you just happen to be there.

2. Listening – the distinction between ‘hearing and ‘listening’ is that in order to listen you have to ask yourself what it is you are hearing.

3. Concentrated listening – is when you are no longer distracted by external stimuli e.g., visual, temperature etc.

4. Deep listening – this is when there is nothing else going on in your world, you are totally engrossed in what you are listening to.

5. Concentrated and deep listening – is the type of listening where you ask yourself questions about what you are listening to e.g., How many instruments are playing? What is the chord progression you are hearing? Is it a blues tune? Is it a modal tune? Who is playing drums? etc.

This is where you are having an internal dialogue about the music you are hearing.

Of course these five levels of audio processing could apply to any situation e.g., listening to a speech, lecture or participating in a conversation etc. in the instance of concentrated and deep listening if you were attending a lecture your internal dialogue might go something like this: What did she say? What does her message mean to her? What does her message mean to me? etc.

As with all skills, the development and refinement of your audio perception takes practice, patience and perseverance but it well worth the effort!

Every successful jazz artist is a problem solving, experimentalist; they possess an enquiring mind that is never content just to take other people’s ideas, these musicians have always worked things out for themselves — that’s the only way to really be noticed!

And that is exactly why they are successful, they are being themselves.

If you are only doing the same as everybody else is doing, why should anybody take notice of you?

Why put so much time into practising something when you are only going to come out an ‘also-ran’ in a game of everybody sounding the same!

All creative musicians share a number of common traits, a short list of these traits would include:

1. Self belief – The worst enemy of creativity is self-doubt, hence the innovative jazz musician must be a strong individual, they must believe in themselves and have strong convictions about their artistic values.

2. Mastery of their instrument – the jazz musician must attain two levels of competency on their instrument (a) to be able to ‘play what they hear’; and (b) to make sure what they are hearing is worthwhile playing!

Technical mastery of a musical instrument is a never-ending process the trick is to let the music determine the amount of technical ability you need. Let the music take you to the technique.

3. Style – in many ways this is the most difficult to master; in that there are not too many truly distinctive styles in all of jazz; with pop culture promoting mass conformity, jazz education programs turning out hundreds of musical clones each year and a modern-day society that does not value or encourage individuality; the emerging jazz artist must be very courageous in order to develop their own style in a world that is constantly trying to make them sound like everybody else.

4. Taste – is a process of elimination; it could be accurately stated that the creative musician spends the first twenty years learning what to play and the rest of their life learning what to ‘leave out’. One of the qualities that separates the amateur player from the professional is that the amateur’s focus is on learning ‘licks’ or ‘tricks’ that they can insert into a performance, whilst some phrases may be technically correct, they may not fit the ‘mood’ they are trying to convey; whereas the master jazz musician’s focus is on the spontaneity of the musical conversation..

5. Chord progressions – it is vitally important for the jazz musician to study the underlying harmonic structures and progressions, just as there are rules that govern you biologically and physiology, there are rules that govern the language of music, for the jazz artist chord progressions are the key; they are the strong musical pylons that their melodies and improvisations are built on.

6. Rhythm – if a student of music goes back far enough, they will find that the main source of jazz music is Africa; this is where the jazz ‘feel’ comes from; John Philip Sousa put everything in perspective when he said “Jazz will endure just as long people hear it through their feet instead of their brains.”

The musician may have all the other attributes but if they do not have the rhythmic sense to put it together it negates all of their other accomplishments!

Form

This is probably the simplest area to explain and can be summed up by saying the most popular blues form is twelve (12) measures long.

Other common variations of the blues form are 8, 16 and even 24 measure blues.

Harmony

In it’s purest form, the harmonic structure of the blues appears as one of the four variations as follows: (In the key of C).

Blues 1

C /// | C /// | C /// | C /// |

F /// | F /// | C /// | C /// |

G /// | G /// | C /// | C /// ||

Blues 2

C /// | C /// | C /// | C /// |

F /// | F /// | C /// | C /// |

G /// | F /// | C /// | C /// ||

Blues 3

C /// | F /// | C /// | C /// |

F /// | F /// | C /// | C /// |

G /// | G /// | C /// | C /// ||

Blues 4

C /// | F /// | C /// | C /// |

F /// | F /// | C /// | C /// |

G /// | F /// | C /// | C /// ||

There is an infinite amount of harmonic variations to these four basic chord sets; but for now we will stick to these simple patterns and get into some variations later.

The discerning listener can readily hear the difference between an amateur mindlessly twiddling on a pentatonic scale and a seasoned improvising musician creating art music; but what exactly makes the difference between good and great jazz musicians?

The finest jazz musicians, the players that work at the top of their craft are not trying to prove anything; they are expressing themselves; they are being themselves.

Beyond technique …

The improvising musician encounters a vastly different set of training problems than that of their classically trained counterparts … in most cases, the classical music student is working from music already written by someone else.

The psychology behind their studies puts them in a relatively safe place. “If you don’t like it, don’t blame me. Bach, Beethoven or Mozart wrote it; I didn’t”. The improvisor, however, faces the risk of criticism not only of their technique, but of their choice of notes as well!

But there’s much more to jazz than technical mastery of the instrument!

The very best jazz musicians must know who they are and accept who they are … most importantly, they are comfortable with who they are; they are not trying to be someone else, they are not competing with anyone.

Miles Davis said it well … “Don’t be a Mockingbird”.

When you are listening to accomplished jazz musicians you are not aware of their instrument; what you hear is the music … 100% pure music, these players are such strong individuals that they have developed the ability to totally project themselves through their instrument, the very essence of their being is greater than the physical components of the instruments they are playing; their mind leads their fingers … not a single note is wasted.

In the process of finding ways to express themselves … the jazz innovators developed their own individual and unique instrumental techniques to get their music out; the music welled up so strongly in them that it found a way to express itself differently through each individual performer; Django Reinhardt, Dizzy Gillespie and Barney Kessel all employ unorthodox techniques on their instruments but there’s no denying the validity of their music ideas and contributions to jazz.

Music is the voice of the human soul … when you hear Lester Young, Billie Holiday or Miles Davis you are hearing their soul speaking directly to you and their message is loud and clear.

America’s art music ‘jazz’ is often associated with the word improvisation however, improvisation and jazz are not synonymous; it’s possible to improvise jazz but just because you improvise it does not make it jazz.

You can be improvising any form of music: rock, country, folk etc., jazz is just one form of music in which improvisation could be used;

Jazz education programs were introduced in universities and colleges in the 1950′s; but sad to say despite the best efforts and intentions of a handful of talented jazz musicians and educators the result has been very confusing for both the fledgling jazz musician and not-to-discerning listening public.

In hindsight the fundamental problems can be identified as follows:

1. Mass education methods promoting the see-that-chord, play-that-scale type of playing resulting in the #1 problem … musical conformity!

2. Instead of being taught by respected jazz musicians with a proven ‘real world’ track record improvisation courses are for the most part written and taught by classically trained ‘school teachers’ who do not have any real jazz experience outside the university walls; at best these course can describe ‘what’ a jazz musician did but can never explain ‘why’ they did it!

This lack of direct contact and communication with professional jazz practitioners is just the beginning of the problem; so let’s clear up a few things.

Jazz improvisation is not:

(a) playing scales and arpeggios

(b) musical improvisation is not playing one musical lick after the other

(c) showing off – playing as fast and as loud as you possibly can hoping to impress people with your technical facility on your instrument

(d) playing other people’s material

(e) playing phrases from recordings or transcriptions of solos

Jazz is a dialect of music that includes certain characteristics and certain values and excludes other characteristics and certain values.

The vitality of musical improvisation lies in the musical line, the musical statement… it’s ‘what’ you are saying not ‘how’ you are saying it!

It would be very much like if you were listening to a speech the important thing would be the ‘message’ the speaker was delivering not the speaker’s appearance, the tone of their voice or the color of their shoes; none of that would be your primary concern what really matters is their message; (a) what that message means to them; and (b) what their message means to you.

Jazz musicians have an attitude to their craft; it’s more than their discipline, it’s a way of life … jazz is their religion.

The very same people wouldn’t dream of making a comment about dentistry or brain surgery because they feel that it is a specialist field; yet everyone young and old are happy to offer their thoughts on music.

The average “Joe public” music buff picks up all they need to know to “keep them in the loop” from little snippets of information on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and a handful of trendy magazines; they know what brand of toilet tissue Madonna uses and what sort of make-up Joe Satriani used to look like a alien on his surfboard.

Those who are jazz inclined probably know about Jim Hall’s love-life or Kenny G’s preferred brand of shampoo and conditioner and much, much more.

To the enthusiastic amateur that’s all okay – it gives them something to talk about when the footie’s not on; But! If you are one of the lucky ones who wants to know more and grow deeper into your favorite style of music we’ll have to take a different route.

Let’s start at the beginning …

What is jazz?

Most of our official dictionaries struggle to give us a clear definition. How can you describe a music of such complexity in eight centimeters?

A distinction that is absolutely central to the essence of jazz is …

“Jazz is not a what … but a how!”

The player is primarily concerned about how he or she will play the notes and chords, rather than the notes and chords themselves.

Jazz is improvised music.

The improvisation can be based on an existing melody or an original piece and may take place within the framework of a composition or arrangement, or may evolve independently of pre-set patterns.

Improvisation is spontaneous invention that exists on many different levels in a jazz performance; this spontaneous interplay or ‘musical conversation’ between each member of the jazz ensemble is essential in the creation of the art; the unique personality of each musician is embossed on the composition making a truly ‘one of a kind’ performance.

A jazz performance is effected by the musician’s response to the following:

• The tone of the instrument
• The acoustic qualities of the room
• The responsiveness of the instrument
• The lighting and temperature of the room
• The emotional response from the audience
• The ability of the musicians to bring out the various parts in relation to each other

and most of all …

• How the performer feels about the music!

The jazz artist has the skills and experience to eliminate spelling out anything … when it is time to play, music is the language.

Jazz does not ask you to be yourself … it demands it!