[Harp-L] Questing For a Basic Competency in Jazz

[Elizabeth Hess <TrackHarpL@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I am coming up on three years of learning to play harp, and let me  
tell you, it has been a really fun ride.

My initial stated goal was simply to find out how good I could get in  
three years "if I practiced," which I have done.  Not that I would  
quit after three years, but that I  *wouldn't *  quit before three  
years.

On Feb 5, 2011, at 8:21 AM, Steven Hellerman wrote:

> Date: February 5, 2011 2:38:18 AM EST
> To: <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: icemanle@xxxxxxx
> Subject: [Harp-L] RE: Reading Music
>
> Think of all those little girls out there who take piano lessons,  
> learn to sight read, but never ever develop an ear. And most of them  
> quit playing as soon as Mom says "okay, now you can quit if you  
> want" (my cousin's three daughters can all be so described). Must be  
> millions of 'em!

That would be me!  Jon Gindick's Harmonica Jam Camp is the bedrock of  
my harp-playing ability.  I went in knowing how to read music, and  
came out with a clue about how to play by ear.  It was truly a pivotal  
moment.

Once I felt I had traction (Thank you, Jon!), my secondary goal was to  
be able to walk into any open blues jam in any club in the country and  
play creditably-if-not-brilliantly.  And though I know I have lots of  
room to grow, here, I feel confident walking into any open blues jam  
in any club in the country, signing up, and playing when it's my  
turn.  Being able to make music with other people, spontaneously, is  
pure magic to me.  I mean, sure, lessons helped, and practice helped,  
and listening helped, and reading helped, but this is still one of  
those "wildest dreams" kind of things for me.

My local blues jam has closed its doors.  I was bereft for a few days,  
but my teacher has been having me work on chromatic harp, anyway, and  
it's almost a relief not to have the "conflict of interest", at least  
for a bit.  Jamey Aebersold's Jazz Play-Along Volume 1 has arrived, as  
has the scale syllabus (and with them a complete layout of what   
*his*  chord symbols mean), and I am having great fun playing dorian  
scales.  They're scales.  But with jazzy jam tracks, they sound  
jazzy.  This is really cool.  I've put the chord sequences into Band- 
in-a-Box so that I can jam at a slower tempo (which I need right now),  
and also transpose the play-along tracks into all the different keys.   
(I'm not obsessive.  Compulsive?  Maybe a little.)

I got Jerry Coker's "Patterns for Jazz" and "How to Practice Jazz".   
Clearly there is a lifetime's worth of work, here.

I aspire to be able to sit at the informal lobby jazz jams at SPAH and  
play creditably-if-not-brilliantly.


My question for this list (and the part to excerpt for replies <hint,  
hint>) is this:

My current Mt. Everest is these lists of songs that the books  
recommend one learn.  So many!  I have more or less resigned myself to  
the fact that unlike blues songs, which all share a (nearly) identical  
chord sequence, the way one learns jazz songs is "one at a time".   
SOME are different tunes (heads) over the same set of changes ("I've  
Got Rhythm", for example), but most are unique.  I have my eyes open  
for the Unified Theory of Everything Jazz that will tie things  
together.  The question that sums it up is, "What does a decent jazz  
player do when a song is called that he/she doesn't know?"  What  
SHOULD he or she do?

Thanks in advance,
Elizabeth (aka "Chrome Lizzie"?)