Seems like an odd question to ask, in a way, but is improvising by ear and by feel considered by our resident jazzers a bad thing?

I guess/assume that really good jazzers will do that eventually anyway, that they won't necessarily be thinking, "oooh, such-and-such a chord, this would sound good", but is it bad to do that in the short term without necessarily knowing more than the basics behind it as long as you know what sounds OK?? Even if it's mostly instinct and not because you know that such-and-such a scale would be a good improv starting point from that chord???

I ask because often when I've said to people I'm trying to learn jazz, I get told to go learn all the chords and the scales etc. Scales are fine, and I have enjoyed learning those for the flute grade 1 and extending the patterns I have learned into all 12 notes of the scale, but although I basically understand how chords work I have always found them difficult to recognise and know instantly, so when I'm improvising, I'll tend to go with instinct and what sounds good rather than knowing which scale-y bits go with which chords etc...

Naturally I'm keen to keep trying and keep extending my knowledge, but I wondered if it's actually such a bad thing to play by ear and instinct not knowledge??

I hope this makes sense...

I think that the best jazzers probably do both. I know at one stage in my improvising journey I was consciously trying to play more from feel than theoretical knowledge because I tend to be an analytical type of person and I was trying to encourage a more intuitive approach from myself. I've since moved back to trying hard to be more analytical. Truthfully, I'm not nearly a good enough improvisor to give any categorical advice based on my own experience, but over the last few years I've attended workshops and lessons by jazz professors at Guildhall and RNCM and a number of graduates of Guildhall and RAM jazz courses they all stress the importance of theoretical knowledge, learning scales, chords, patterns and licks inside out. A couple of them have advised strongly against the "just play what you feel" approach (unless, of course, you've already paid your dues). I have regular lessons from someone highly regarded as an innovative, cutting edge jazz saxophonist and get the same advice there.

From a personal perspective over the last 6 months or so I've been making regular recordings of my playing. One of the first things I noticed was a tendency to "waffle" when I'm soloing - I know when I'm doing it, it's when I haven't got any clear ideas about what I'm doing or why so I just play stuff that sounds alright. It's really obvious on the recordings that it's waffle, and it's just a bit dull and boring. The bits where I'm playing something for a reason even if they're quite simple just sound, so much better and more interesting - almost worth listening to!

Getting back to your question, I don't think improvising by ear and feel is a bad thing, I think it's absolutely necessary, but I suspect that without the technical, theoretical and analytical knowledge to back it up you might get stuck in making progress.

OK, thanks for the detailed and somewhat reassuring answer!

I will keep plugging away at the theory side: I can easily hear the harmony changes etc, it's the letters and numbers that I can't decipher quickly enough to go "ahh, I need to play X because that's Y" or anything

Well the modes are important and that comes in to scales. Think of Miles Davis he based his tunes on modes. However I improvise by ear - know the basic key and play around, after all some accidentals work! I was examined by Jeffrey Wilson (major clever jazzer) for my grade 8 jazz (guildhall) and he put on my mark sheet something like 'diminished 7th on E at the end? ' I remember thinking after reading it back was jsut that I had improvised it, that was what I always did at the end of the piece but I didn't know whether it was diminished on E or what!

So serious jazzers do it both ways I reckon!

Have you tried what's commonly called arpeggiation (though I'm not too sure about making a verb from arpeggio)?

This involves playing chord tones over the progression, it helps in many ways - in getting the sound of the chords and movement into your head, in identifying guide tones, in getting the notes under your fingers AND in increasing the speed at which you decipher chord symbols.

Step 1: play the root notes for each chord in time (along with the CD if there is one)
Step 2: play the root and 3rd of each chord in time (2 beats on each where it's one chord to a bar, 1 beat if there are 2 chords in a bar)
Step 3: play 1, 3, 5, 7 of each chord - one beat for each note, if there are 2 chords to a bar just play 1 and 3
Step 4: play 1, 3, 5, 7, 1, 7, 5, 3 of each chord using quavers, just use the ascending pattern if there are 2 chords to a bar
Step 5: try mixing up the chord tones into different patterns

Hi Sarah, it's a good question - I do go along with the others who've responded here, though. I used to play by instinct until I learnt the scales and modes etc, and am definitely a better jazzer now than I was before.

I guess today a jazz education takes the place of all the years of going out night after night and playing in big band or in some smoky jazz club in New York! Yes, there's the danger that a jazz education can make you sound somewhat 'formulaic', but a good jazz educator will teach you the language of jazz and then encourage you to find your own voice and tell your own story in your own unique way.

After all, the best players are always immediately recognisable - you can recognise Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Lester Young, Art Tatum, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Django Reinhardt, Stephane Grappelli and so many other truly great players just from one note! None of them had what you'd call today a 'jazz education', but they'd all listened obsessively to the jazz of the time (and probably the jazz from before their time), and had obviously all fully absorbed the language. Some of them learnt by playing along with records and imitating other players' solos but I would put money on the idea that none of them 'just played by feel' until they'd fully absorbed the language by whatever means they had at their diposal at the time.

I now teach jazz violin at my local uni (yay!!!), which has been an amazing experience so far. One of my students had already been playing a bit of jazz with friends before starting at university, but after we'd finished the semester he told me he feels much more confident now because he's learnt how it all works, rather than just playing 'what he feels like', which usually involved a certain amount of meandering but without much understanding or structure, which was a lot less satisfying to himself or his audience than what he's able to play now.

So once you've really absorbed the language there's plenty of room to play what you feel, but it'll kind of make a lot more sense! Imagine trying to express yourself articulately in French because you like the sound of French, enjoy listening to it but haven't really learnt how the language is constructed, or haven't gone to live there for at least a year and been forced to learn it from scratch. You'd say some nice French-sounding words but it wouldn't really be French..... or some bits would be, but only by chance.

Hope that helps!

Thanks, guys, this is helpful!

Did a jazz workshop yesterday in music (it was really good) - we took a standard progression, a I - IV - V - I in C major (so C, F, G, C).

First of all we just played crotchets of the standard arpeggio, ascending. Then we started choosing notes to play, almost kind of randomly. There were a bunch of about 6 of us all playing different notes of the same common chord. It sounded really nice.

Then we took quavers, etc, choosing notes from the arpeggios, and ended up taking 8 bar solos each in a repetition of the progression, it was really good.

Then we changed the chord progression to minor, so we had Cm, Fm, G7, Cm. We used the harmonic minor scale over that (which is really yummy) and again took solos over those scales.

Perhaps you could practice stuff like this at home?

I teach jazz piano and guitar I would say that "feel" and instinct plus a lot of listening will take you so far BUT if you want to develop fully you have to do the theory

I started playing around with jazz and blues piano about 30 odd years ago I picked up a lot of stuff by feel BUT I picked up more with a course of lessons and the right books

Theory helps when you are tired/run out of inspiration/are frustrated

I don't play jazz- I wish I could (and one day . . . but that's deviating).

However - It seems to me that Jazz is about bending the rules without breaking them. You can't do that unless you know really well what the rules are.