Jazz Articulation | how to tongue bebop on sax

Summary

In his saxophone instructional video, Dr. Wally Wallace discusses key concepts for jazz articulation and tonguing. He identifies core techniques like tonguing the offbeat and slurring to the downbeat, as well as tonguing the highest notes of motives. Wallace stresses the importance of listening to jazz masters, stating it's the 'master key' for learning proper articulation, phrasing and style.

Takeaways

• 🎷 La transcripción de big band a menudo no incluye articulaciones, lo que requiere interpretación del músico.
• 🎵 Es crucial saber cuándo usar el ligado y cuándo la articulación con la lengua en el saxofón.
• 📚 Se utiliza un método inductivo de enseñanza, comenzando con ejemplos pequeños y expandiéndose a más material.
• 🎶 Para un estilo bebop, se mantienen las corcheas generalmente rectas sin mucho balanceo, dependiendo del tempo.
• 👅 La articulación en el jazz incluye acentuar los tiempos débiles con la lengua y ligar hacia los tiempos fuertes.
• 💡 Es importante evitar cortar las notas largas al aplicar la articulación correcta.
• 🎼 En arpegios descendentes, se recomienda acentuar y articular la primera nota y ligar las siguientes tres.
• 🔑 La clave maestra para aprender articulación es la escucha activa de grabaciones de jazz, especialmente bebop.
• 📖 La tradición oral del jazz es rica y compleja, haciendo indispensable la escucha para una interpretación auténtica.
• 🏋️ Practicar la articulación sin marcarla en la partitura fomenta el aprendizaje y la escucha activa.

Q & A

What is the main topic discussed in the transcript?

The main topic is jazz articulation and techniques for tonguing and slurring.

What is the 'master key' that is important for learning jazz articulation?

The 'master key' is listening closely to recordings of jazz masters like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.

What is the first core concept discussed for jazz articulation?

The first concept is tonguing the offbeats and slurring to the downbeats.

What common mistake do beginners make when trying to apply this concept?

Beginners often clip or cut off the downbeats when tonguing the offbeats.

What exercise is given to fix this mistake?

The fix is to first slur all the notes smoothly, then add light tonguing on the offbeats without changing the air stream.

What is the second core concept discussed?

The second concept is to tongue and slightly accent the tops of motives or musical ideas.

When would we tongue 1 note and slur 3?

We use this pattern frequently in bebop over arpeggios or falling musical lines.

What is 'ghosting' a note?

Ghosting means to back off on a note dynamically without fully omitting the note.

Why is listening more important than written articulation markings?

Jazz is an oral tradition that can't be fully captured through notation - you have to listen to native speakers.

How much more should you spend listening versus playing?

You should spend about twice as much time listening than playing.

Outlines

00:00

Introducing articulation concepts for jazz saxophone

The paragraph introduces the video lesson, which will teach concepts related to articulation and tonguing technique for jazz saxophone. It previews that the main ideas covered will include when to tongue versus slur, how to properly tongue rhythms to achieve swing feel, and the importance of listening to jazz masters.

05:00

Tonguing the offbeat and slurring to the downbeat

The paragraph demonstrates the technique of tonguing the offbeat notes and slurring into the downbeats to properly articulate swing rhythms. It contrasts this with incorrectly clipping the downbeat notes. It provides an exercise to develop this technique properly.

Keywords

💡articulation

How notes are tongued or slurred during jazz performance. The video focuses on teaching correct jazz articulation through concepts like tonguing the offbeat and slurring to the downbeat.

💡bebop

A fast, energetic style of jazz that emerged in the 1940s. The video uses a bebop etude to demonstrate jazz articulation concepts.

💡tonguing

Using the tongue to interrupt the airstream, creating a separated, clipped effect between notes. Important technique for articulation.

💡slurring

Smoothly connecting multiple notes using one continuous airstream, without tonguing. Important technique for articulation.

💡ghosting

Playing a note very softly to diminish its impact. An advanced technique often used when slurring groups of 3 notes in jazz.

💡offbeat

The weaker beats between the main beats in a measure. The video teaches tonguing the offbeats in jazz playing.

💡downbeat

The first beat of a measure. The video teaches slurring to the downbeat in jazz playing.

💡motive

A short musical idea or pattern. The video discusses tonguing the tops of motives in jazz.

💡listening

The key skill for learning jazz articulation properly, according to the instructor. Requires listening to jazz masters.

💡airstream

The steady flow of air supporting tone production. Proper airstream is critical for jazz articulation techniques.

Highlights

Introduce conceptos básicos de cuándo y dónde usar la lengua al tocar saxofón de jazz

Usa el ejercicio mensual gratuito como ejemplo para enseñar articulación de jazz

Explica la importancia de escuchar a los grandes maestros de jazz para aprender articulación correcta

Compara aprender jazz solo leyendo partituras versus escuchando grabaciones de maestros

Demuestra sonidos incorrectos de articular todas las notas o usar solo 'swing feel'

Enseña concepto básico de lengueta en contratiempos y ligaduras a tiempos fuertes

Advierte sobre error común de acortar las notas ligadas a los tiempos fuertes

Da ejercicio para practicar fraseo ligado suave sin alterar el flujo de aire

Introduce segundo concepto de lengueta y acento en las cimas de motivos

Explica patrón común de lengueta 1, ligadura 3 notas en frases de bebop

Menciona técnica de 'ghosting' la 3ra nota ligada, se explicará más en futuro

Acentúa que hay muchas excepciones a estas reglas según estilo de jazz

Insiste que la única forma de aprender es escuchando grabaciones de los maestros

No marca articulaciones en los ejercicios para forzar al alumno a escuchar y aplicar

Enfatiza la importancia crítica de escuchar jazz tanto o más que se practica tocar

Transcripts

[Music]

you open up a big band charter your

transcription book it's likely you may

not see

any articulations marked at all so how

do we know when to slur

and when to tongue and do we use the

tongue at all

yeah we're gonna chunk so let's talk

about it

[Music]

hi and welcome to the saxophone academy

i'm dr wally wallace and if you're

interested in saxophone master classes

please do subscribe

be sure to hit the like button to

improve your swing feel

now today we're talking about jazz

articulation i'm going to introduce some

core

concepts of when and where to tongue and

how to tongue

we're going to be using our free monthly

etude as an example you can download it

in the link

below now before we get started i need

to announce that you will need the

master key

to unlock all questions related to

articulation

so stick around and we'll cover that as

well but first a tiny bit of

housekeeping we're in week

two of the free fundamentals course and

as many of you have noticed

our advanced etude is very challenging

so i've added a more intermediate

blues etude for those of you that aren't

quite up to speed on the faster etude

go ahead and download that it's free as

well and each month i'm gonna also try

to offer

an easier blues a2 to help get some of

you up to speed

secondly many of you have asked how do i

keep up with the monthly assignments

what happens if i fall behind don't

worry although i'm introducing free

content and free etudes each month

the course isn't going away it's going

to stick around long after we've

introduced a year

worth of content i'm going to make this

the first building block and what will

hopefully be a very large

library of free educational saxophone

content so take your time

and enjoy the course there's no rush now

today for articulation we're going to be

using the january etude and we're going

to be using the inductive

method of teaching we're going to take a

small sample and then later you can

extrapolate that

to more material so we're going to start

taking a look at

bar 12 in the etude so the first thing

you'll notice is there's

nary an articulation in sight and this

is by design

but you can't play this the way you

would literally read it in 6th grade

band class

[Music]

because obviously that's no good and i

know you know that but then you might

think okay well it just needs the swing

style

so i'll add the triplet feel and that'll

fix it right

obviously that doesn't work either now

we will add

a little bit of a lilt or kind of a

triplet feel

especially depending on tempo and the

genre of jazz we're playing

but for today because this is a bebop

style etude we're gonna largely keep the

eighth notes

generally straight in a smoother motion

with very

little if any lilt depending on tempo

the faster you go

the less lilt you're going to feel so

the end result hopefully for this phrase

will sound something like this

[Music]

now slowing this down a bit we're going

to hear the first core concept we're

talking about today

tonguing the offbeat and slurring to the

[Music]

downbeat

now depending on who you're listening to

and what era of jazz

you're going to hear different levels of

inflection or accent on those

offbeats but in general we want a fairly

light accent especially as we go

faster and remember the accents are done

with air

not the tongue the tongue ends the

previous note

air starts the accent accents are done

with air

not a heavy tongue sound now a common

trap that beginners fall into when they

start

tonguing the offbeat and slurring to the

downbeat is they start to clip

the down beam

[Music]

now i've obviously over exaggerated the

problem so you can really see what i'm

talking about

though some players do get very close to

that now if you or someone you love

is doing this how do we fix it well the

fix is actually fairly simple

step one remove any lilt and play the

eights completely straight

and then slur them

[Music]

we want to keep our airstream constant

the entire time playing one

long smooth slurred phrase don't let

your airstream

sag then lightly tongue the offbeats

without

altering your airstream and it may be

helpful to think of yourself as

crescendoing

to the end of the phrase to keep your

airstream supported the entire time

[Music]

now this concept alone will get you a

lot of mileage there's a lot of bebop

era tunes and jazz charts

where if you just tongue the offbeat to

the downbeat you're gonna get a pretty

decent swing or bob feel

but there's certainly exceptions we

don't want to always group our notes in

pairs of two

there's times where groups of three are

great like blind mice and

little pigs and wishes and also falling

arpeggiated figures

so let's take a look at the second half

of the bridge now bridge is just a fancy

music term

for the middle section this is an a a b

a

form it's the rhythm changes or i got

rhythm chord changes this is the end of

the b section we're talking about

starting in measure 22.

[Music]

now listen carefully to the falling

arpeggios that in this phrase

we're going to hear the second core

concept we're going to talk about today

which is to tongue and slitely accent

the tops of motives

now if we applied the previous concept

of always slurring

the offbeat to the downbeat that would

create a leap up

to the peak of the second arpeggio we

would slur up to it and it would sound

like this

as you can hear it puts the emphasis on

the wrong syllable it's not really bebop

style

so instead we're going to do another

very common pattern we see in bebop and

jazz

tongue 1 and slur 3.

you'll also find that in the slurred

group of three another concept comes

into play that we're not gonna talk

about in this video but go into much

more in depth

in a future video that the third note of

the slur or the little piggy that

made his house out of bricks is often

ghosted now that doesn't mean he doesn't

text his brothers back

it simply means that we're going to back

off this note there's a variety of ways

and techniques to do that and we're

going to talk about that much more in a

future video but right now just know

that ghosting is going to be very common

especially in the third note of the

grouping of three which really sets us

up to have a nice accent

on the peak of the motive now aside from

arpeggios there's tons of times we're

going to tongue 1 and group 3.

there's lots of more instances where

you're going to ghost a note you're

going to tongue off beats tongue down

beats

there's tons of exceptions and

variations depending on the style

and genre of jazz and who you're

listening to so how do we know when to

learn to tongue how do we learn

all these rules well that's where the

master key comes into play

and if you've watched this channel for

any length of time you've probably

guessed what the master key is so say it

with me and you can roll your eyes while

you say it

the master key is listening

charlie parker and dizzy gillespie

changed the face of music forever an

entire new language emerged in the 1940s

now they didn't give us a treatise or a

book on how to play bebop but they gave

us something better

a lot of recordings even if your teacher

marks

every slur in accent on the paper and

you're not doing the listening

it's not going to come out right jazz is

a rich oral tradition and every bit as

complex as the most complex

classical music it simply can't be

translated completely

to a piece of paper that's where

listening comes in it's a rich

oral tradition imagine trying to learn a

foreign accent by

reading a book you'd never really get

there you have to listen to native

speakers and that's where i know i sound

like a broken record

but there's just no substitute for

listening to the greats

it's also why in this fundamentals

course i'm not marking articulations

for you i need you listening to the

examples and applying that

to the etude if i mark them in for you

you're not getting the learning it's

like

paying someone else to do your push-ups

and that's just weird

so start listening to the provided

examples in the etudes and start

listening to the masters in this month's

musicianship assignment you're listening

to charlie parker and you really

you should be listening about twice as

much as you spend playing

and that's a good thing listening to the

greats is fun and if you don't enjoy

listening to jazz

why do you want to play it get to work

and we're going to talk about more of

these concepts

very soon including ghosting in an

upcoming video and talk about some

techniques

to make that happen now you will have

questions let me know in the comments

below

or in the course itself i will get to

the comments as fast as i possibly can

we've got more content coming up next

week and until then

go practice