Hey guys,

Found this interview with jazz guitarist John Etheridge, it has some typos floating around but I don't think there's a problem understanding what he's saying.

In one of the paragraphs he says, "A lot of the emphasis on scale study is slightly misplaced, especially when it comes to playing over changes. Something I always mention is that jazz improvising employed no scales until the middle 60s."

Is this a true statement?

And here's the entire article: http://johnetheridge.com/gt.htm

Wow, that's an interesting interview!

But I think he is speaking more of their approach. He's not trying to say that they weren't playing scales because, of course they were in some way or another at times. What he's saying is that they didn't approach the solo in terms of chord/scale relationships more in terms of chord/arpeggios.

He goes on to say that the use of scales started with Miles and McLaughlin, di Meola, and Holdsworth.

Which is weird cuz I've always thought that Holdsworth used a lot of chord tone type playing...it's just that HIS chords are from MARS! So, his CHORD TONES are also from MARS!

I dunno...but it's a very interesting topic.

I REALLY want to hear what Pebber and some of the other forum members have to say about this.

I think it is also important to understand the musical context of the era, much of the jazz music of the time consisted of rapid sets of changes, mapping to chords was much easier than trying to play linear. Listen to Oscar Peterson and how technical and pure his playing is. I somewhat disagree in relation to blues and guitar though because the blues scale was very heavily relied upon to define the music. The thing that Miles did was write modal so that scales would become the tool for exploration. I like what Ethreridge is saying though - playing with other musicians cannot be replaced by practicing.

I think it's a great interview and agree 100% with what he has to say.

Chord tones also sound much more correct to the chord.

For instnace, if your playing an A chord in the key of A, you definitely dont want to hit the 4(D) and the 7(Ab) of the major scale,
as for a standard three note triad major chord, this notes will clash with the playing of the chord itself.

When using arpeggio;s, they are usually made up entirely of chord tones, so in this case its much more a case of playing on
safe ground.

I found this on the internet:
pYou might find it intersesting.
Its some kinda technique this guy named Kirk Loragne teaches and he claims it helps him improvise over chord changes without any knowledge of scales or modes.
Hes got some vids on YT also.Just another scam? maybe. But he claims Tommy Emmanuel CGP endorses it

Zitat von Lash

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Just another scam? maybe. But he claims Tommy Emmanuel CGP endorses it

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Nope it's not a "scam",,, it may be a bit misleading though...and yes, Tommy Emmanuel endorses it, they are good friends.

It's called PlaneTalk and it basically teaches a visualization technique, a way how to see all chord tones, on the entire guitar, of course you must practice, and honestlyl if you've listened to what Pebber's said about writing down scales and all that, you will get the same results, so I say save yourself $90... if I had known about Pebber back then(1 year ago) I wouldn't have bought it...

oh..ok.What got me kinda confused is that in one of his YT vids he comments :"I have no idea what Scales/modes I'm playing,I just follow the changes" ...or something similar.Thanks for the clarification. Btw, what is the "foot ruler" analogy that he mentions on his website somewhere?Has it got something to do with transposability ?