Hector Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 Has anyone else worked through this book? Totally making me rethink my playing and practising, and I've got tons of new ideas about how create my own exercises and how to analyse what other players are doing. Looking forward to seeing it translate into my playing. Haven't gotten a buzz like this from an instructional book in a long time. Seriously recommended! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visog Posted December 28, 2011 Share Posted December 28, 2011 Looks like a major project... Is it for advanced players or is applicable to mere mortals? I've done scales to death but phrasing is a bit of a black-art. (Realised how far I had to go when I heard Nigel Price [guitar - sorry] just setting up to support Stanley & Hiromi at Ronnie Scotts. Every line swung so well.) Be interested to hear how you're getting on with the book? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visog Posted December 28, 2011 Share Posted December 28, 2011 He's pretty intense! Check this out... [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2XnB5G6oSc"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2XnB5G6oSc[/url] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bilbo Posted December 28, 2011 Share Posted December 28, 2011 I have known Nigel for 15 years. He swings so hard because he practices an astonishing amount. What a lot of people don't know is that he started playing quite late, after a stint in the Army. He just worked and worked and worked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hector Posted December 30, 2011 Author Share Posted December 30, 2011 [quote name='visog' timestamp='1325098659' post='1479875'] Looks like a major project... Is it for advanced players or is applicable to mere mortals? I've done scales to death but phrasing is a bit of a black-art. (Realised how far I had to go when I heard Nigel Price [guitar - sorry] just setting up to support Stanley & Hiromi at Ronnie Scotts. Every line swung so well.) Be interested to hear how you're getting on with the book? [/quote] It's for everyone! Definitely worth a read - more of a book about how to think about playing and to outline the harmony clearly (amongst some other useful concepts). I did some reading, and developed a new practice routine for the foreseeable future that I'm happy with, but the information in the book is yours to use as you wish. He's a little intense, but he makes some fantastic points. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philwood Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 Im months behind on this thread but this is a great book and highly recommended! Another video from Hal below! [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NehOx1JsuT4&feature=fvwrel[/media] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funkle Posted February 18, 2014 Share Posted February 18, 2014 Just digging up this old thread to say this book is brilliant. Totally spot on and gives you a ton to do/work on. I can already think of a lot to do just from the first few chapters. I'm re-reading the book again after a year or two's break and it all just seems so well judged. Hal Galper's website (the articles in particular) and YouTube videos are excellent also - he echoes the book in his videos and vice versa. I can see the book shedding a lot of light on other things I do and practice. I can only say if you're serious about playing jazz, buy it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
afroblue Posted February 18, 2014 Share Posted February 18, 2014 This book is really good, just a totally refreshing approach to playing and studying jazz. I think if you work from this, your improvisations will become more melodic and have more [i]meaning[/i]. Hal shows how the 'play this scale over that chord' approach to improvisation has its limitations - apparent when you look at what the masters [i]actually[/i] play on records. some topics include the importance of chord tone improvisation RHYTHM! how all 12 notes are available at any time how to use substitutions over the original harmony (eg, superimposing triads) Of course, it is still important to know your scales but Hal shows how to practice them so you get maximum benefit from them and you are making music, spelling out the changes in your lines without sounding like a beginner. Highly recommended! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cairobill Posted February 18, 2014 Share Posted February 18, 2014 Heads up - a mere 11 quid for the kindle edition! Downloaded... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funkle Posted February 18, 2014 Share Posted February 18, 2014 The rhythm aspects shed a lot of light on phrasing for me. Really helpful. He also talks in some of his videos about the lack of rhythm pedagogy in the Western tradition of learning jazz. He then recommends a couple of books by Mike Longo, 'The Rhythmic Nature of Jazz' and I think 'Sight Reading Jazz Rhythms'. The YouTube clips of the associated DVDs look interesting. Guess what I have on order now! Big props to Hal Galper, again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
64k Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 £ 10.53 as PDF from http://www.halgalper.com/forward-motion/ Just bought it ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JuliusGroove Posted March 18, 2014 Share Posted March 18, 2014 Well that's it.. It's going on the list! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bilbo Posted May 22, 2014 Share Posted May 22, 2014 Another convert here. Just finished reading the text cover to cover. Now I just need to get to the exercises and start to put the bits together!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visog Posted June 6, 2014 Share Posted June 6, 2014 [quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1400758658' post='2456668'] Another convert here. Just finished reading the text cover to cover. Now I just need to get to the exercises and start to put the bits together!! [/quote] Bilbo, can you give us a review/blog to let us know if you think it's worth the curious investigating... I'd appreciate your thoughts. It's a bit like getting into Charlie Banacos or Pat Martino's approach. It's kind of 'what religion are you going to devote your life to...?' So please tell us if we should be Jewish, Catholic, Protestant or God of Fire... No really, I'm open apart from circumcision... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hector Posted June 6, 2014 Author Share Posted June 6, 2014 If it helps, visog I know exactly what you mean with jazz education and I also hate being confronted with a cultlike vibe like that. A lot of that comes, I think, from trying to sell educational materials in a market where ought to be none - how many ways can you skin a cat? I think a lot of people want to be told that learning to be a great musician is easy so long as you follow method X or Y, when really it's time in the shed. I learnt this the hard way - my pen and paper theory chops are lightyears away from my actual playing. My personal take is that I use whatever is out there to get my music to a level where I'm happy with what I'm creating (and other people are happy enough with it to hire me of course, but my harshest critic is me). I think that it naturally takes a little time spent on each approach to absorb bits of it with any functional consequences, but you can definitely mix and match. I'm by no means a devout preacher of 'Galperism'! I'm quite a bookish guy, so have read lots of method book and I always share/recommend ones that I think are particularly good or have helped further my thinking (as this one has). I would say that Forward Motion is quite compatible with lots of other ways of thinking about jazz, and it doesn't really limit you in the way that Part Martino's minor chord thinking might, for example. You're welcome to PM or ask here any questions you'd like to know I could give you a contents page or a summary if it'd help? If you're namedropping Banacos and Martino I'd guess you were a jazzer, right? I think you'd like Forward Motion, but I'm not gonna say it's the be all and end all of jazz education (as much as I personally dig). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bilbo Posted June 18, 2014 Share Posted June 18, 2014 I agree with Hector 100%. One of the rarely talked about 'skills' required for your progress as a musician is the development of a 'critical sense' that allows you to recognise the difference between things that are of value in helping you develop and things that are 'snakeoil'. I don't think there is much in the Galper book that would require you to completely reconfigure your learning, just some ideas that you may want to think about. It isn't chock full of musical exercises but includes some ideas that you can apply to the other stuff you do to make it work a little better. I think there are some books like Effortless Mastery and The Inner Game of Music that are not so much about scales and theory as they are about thoiught porcesses and application. The most fundamental learning tools seem to be listening to and learning other people's solos/lines/comping etc, the mainstream theories of music (scales, chords, modes etc) and learning the reprtoire. Everything else is about concepts and application as defined by your won ambitions as a player/composer. It is not in finding a magic system that will see you improve but in finding a way of staying disciplined in your approach. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fatback Posted June 23, 2014 Share Posted June 23, 2014 I found it changes the way I think, and so the way i hear. That from just reading the book a couple of times. A pretty simple message behind it, but like all good insights you can spend as long as you like working out the implications. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AntLockyer Posted June 25, 2014 Share Posted June 25, 2014 I found it utterly confusing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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