What do you think?
Rate this book
Aebersold Play-A-Long #1
How to Play Jazz and Improvise
Do you want to learn how to improvise jazz? Then this is the play-along for you! Easy to understand and inspiring for all musicians wishing to explore the secrets of jazz improv. Now with 2 CDs---one with slower practice tempos! The first CD includes blues in B-flat and F, four Dorian minor tracks, four-measure cadences, cycle of dominants, 24-measure song, II/V7 in all keys, and Jamey Aebersold playing exercises from the book (hear the master clinician demonstrate exactly how it's done). Beginning/Intermediate level.
Rhythm Section: Jamey Aebersold (p); Rufus Reid (b); Jonathan Higgins (d). The second CD of slower tempos included in this Book & 2 CD set is available separately for those wishing to upgrade their old single-CD set they may have previously purchased.
Includes: Scales/Chords * Developing Creativity * Improv Fundamentals * 12 Blues Scales * Bebop Scales * Pentatonic Scales * Time and Feel * Melodic Development * II/V7s * Related Scales and Modes * Practical Exercises * Patterns and Licks * Dominant 7th Tree of Scale Choices * Nomenclature * Chromaticism * Scale Syllabus * and more!
NOTE FROM JAMEY:
When I first heard So What" on the Kind of Blue record, I didn't think anything was happening because I was used to hearing changes flying by and this seemed so tame by comparison. I quickly fell in love with Kind of Blue and of course we at IU started experimenting with modal tunes and trying to keep our place in those many 8 bar phrases that seemed at times to make me feel like I was in the middle of a desert and couldn't see for the life of me the beginning of the next 8 bar phrase. When I began teaching privately for the first time in Seymour, Indiana I had a girl flute student who really had a great sound. One day I asked her to improvise on a D- Dorian scale and off she went. I could tell she was playing what she heard in her mind and I was so surprised. It really sounded natural. So, I asked other students to "
Rhythm Section: Jamey Aebersold (p); Rufus Reid (b); Jonathan Higgins (d). The second CD of slower tempos included in this Book & 2 CD set is available separately for those wishing to upgrade their old single-CD set they may have previously purchased.
Includes: Scales/Chords * Developing Creativity * Improv Fundamentals * 12 Blues Scales * Bebop Scales * Pentatonic Scales * Time and Feel * Melodic Development * II/V7s * Related Scales and Modes * Practical Exercises * Patterns and Licks * Dominant 7th Tree of Scale Choices * Nomenclature * Chromaticism * Scale Syllabus * and more!
NOTE FROM JAMEY:
When I first heard So What" on the Kind of Blue record, I didn't think anything was happening because I was used to hearing changes flying by and this seemed so tame by comparison. I quickly fell in love with Kind of Blue and of course we at IU started experimenting with modal tunes and trying to keep our place in those many 8 bar phrases that seemed at times to make me feel like I was in the middle of a desert and couldn't see for the life of me the beginning of the next 8 bar phrase. When I began teaching privately for the first time in Seymour, Indiana I had a girl flute student who really had a great sound. One day I asked her to improvise on a D- Dorian scale and off she went. I could tell she was playing what she heard in her mind and I was so surprised. It really sounded natural. So, I asked other students to "
104 pages, Book and CD
First published June 1, 1988
3 people are currently reading
46 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 27, 2024
One of (maybe the) first books on how to improvise jazz. As such, it's pioneering in its way. Even so, I'm surprised at the number of five star reviews on here. In the present day, there are so many other web sites/methods, many of them much better than this.
Pros
* It does teach the modes. If you're paying any attention at all, you'll learn what a mode is and learn a few of them (mostly Dorian, Mixolydian at this stage).
* It teaches the connection between chords and modes. This is the cornerstone of Aebersold's method: every chord has a corresponding mode and vice versa. In some sense, they're the same thing, just thought of "horizontally" or "vertically".
* Good practice in transposing. If you really do go through the exercises and transpose them, you'll be a better player for it.
* Starts easy, ends challenging. (Maybe too challenging; I'd be surprised at the beginning player who could get through all the V-I licks at the end of the book.)
* Currently (2024), you can get the complete catalog of play-along recordings (warning: recordings only, not the printed music or books) at the Aebersold web site for about $50 a year. That's not bad.
* I've heard people complain that it's not real jazz b/c it's static - as a recording, it never changes. It's true it's not dynamic, but so what? It's intended as a practice tool, not a performance background.
Cons
* There's more to improv than learning chord/scale relationships. The author is aware of this, and mentions it several times, but yet there's not much more baked into the method than chord/scales and licks. For instance, there is very little in the way of demonstrating or growing a student's understanding of proper articulation, or phrasing, or growing an idea or many other aspects of improv that are (at least) as important as knowing which set of notes to choose from.
It's like giving an aspiring painter a big ol' box of paints and saying, there ya go, ya got the materials, now go make some art! It can seem more like you're solving a puzzle than making music. I'd recommend checking out Amie Nolte's courses on Nebula for better approaches for beginners.
* The licks just aren't that usable. I realize that many of the exercises are for getting chords and scales in your mind and fingers, not as something you'd rip out at the jam session. That's fine. But the remaining licks just aren't very usable. There are only 2 or 3 in the whole book I'd use in a solo and many I'd actively avoid.
* Speaking of licks, it's easy to be left with the impression that the key to a good solor is remembering a thousand licks (perhaps from Charlie Parker) and pulling out the perfect ones at the perfect time and stringing them all together. Please don't do this.
* The printed book rambles badly. Some of the advice is good, some is hokey/cringey ("FEAR = False Evidence Assumed Real", "The greatest solos all begin with a single note"), all of it is disorganized. It feels like someone dropped the pages on the way to the printer and just scooped them up in some random order. And this is the 6th edition! I don't know if it started small and grew into a multi-tentacled creature or what, but it's kind of a mess. I'd imagine it's genuinely puzzling to a beginner as to where to start or what to do with this thing. Just putting on the recording and playing a bunch of crap whilst closing your eyes and softly swaying in time isn't useful. You need somewhere to start, and some sort of game plan.
Conclusion. We're well past the day when Aebersold is the only (or best) way to learn improv. I wouldn't use it on its own, but perhaps as a supplement to some other method. On its own, I suspect you'll find it wanting. As a part of a larger, nutritious breakfast, I think you'll find it useful.
Just my two cents.
Pros
* It does teach the modes. If you're paying any attention at all, you'll learn what a mode is and learn a few of them (mostly Dorian, Mixolydian at this stage).
* It teaches the connection between chords and modes. This is the cornerstone of Aebersold's method: every chord has a corresponding mode and vice versa. In some sense, they're the same thing, just thought of "horizontally" or "vertically".
* Good practice in transposing. If you really do go through the exercises and transpose them, you'll be a better player for it.
* Starts easy, ends challenging. (Maybe too challenging; I'd be surprised at the beginning player who could get through all the V-I licks at the end of the book.)
* Currently (2024), you can get the complete catalog of play-along recordings (warning: recordings only, not the printed music or books) at the Aebersold web site for about $50 a year. That's not bad.
* I've heard people complain that it's not real jazz b/c it's static - as a recording, it never changes. It's true it's not dynamic, but so what? It's intended as a practice tool, not a performance background.
Cons
* There's more to improv than learning chord/scale relationships. The author is aware of this, and mentions it several times, but yet there's not much more baked into the method than chord/scales and licks. For instance, there is very little in the way of demonstrating or growing a student's understanding of proper articulation, or phrasing, or growing an idea or many other aspects of improv that are (at least) as important as knowing which set of notes to choose from.
It's like giving an aspiring painter a big ol' box of paints and saying, there ya go, ya got the materials, now go make some art! It can seem more like you're solving a puzzle than making music. I'd recommend checking out Amie Nolte's courses on Nebula for better approaches for beginners.
* The licks just aren't that usable. I realize that many of the exercises are for getting chords and scales in your mind and fingers, not as something you'd rip out at the jam session. That's fine. But the remaining licks just aren't very usable. There are only 2 or 3 in the whole book I'd use in a solo and many I'd actively avoid.
* Speaking of licks, it's easy to be left with the impression that the key to a good solor is remembering a thousand licks (perhaps from Charlie Parker) and pulling out the perfect ones at the perfect time and stringing them all together. Please don't do this.
* The printed book rambles badly. Some of the advice is good, some is hokey/cringey ("FEAR = False Evidence Assumed Real", "The greatest solos all begin with a single note"), all of it is disorganized. It feels like someone dropped the pages on the way to the printer and just scooped them up in some random order. And this is the 6th edition! I don't know if it started small and grew into a multi-tentacled creature or what, but it's kind of a mess. I'd imagine it's genuinely puzzling to a beginner as to where to start or what to do with this thing. Just putting on the recording and playing a bunch of crap whilst closing your eyes and softly swaying in time isn't useful. You need somewhere to start, and some sort of game plan.
Conclusion. We're well past the day when Aebersold is the only (or best) way to learn improv. I wouldn't use it on its own, but perhaps as a supplement to some other method. On its own, I suspect you'll find it wanting. As a part of a larger, nutritious breakfast, I think you'll find it useful.
Just my two cents.
Displaying 1 of 1 review