Vocabulary?

[BydoEmpire]

I heard an interesting interview w/ the great Scott Henderson on Oscar's Guitar Shop the other day, and he made an interesting comment.  Something to the effect of "Vocabulary is one of the least important things."  The most important thing is the passion and quality with which you play what you do know.  He was also getting at, it's better to know 10 licks and 1000 ways to use each, than know 1000 licks but not really know how to apply them to different situations.  I think it makes sense in that a lot of my favorite guitar players - Muddy Waters, BB King, Freddie King - aren't the most versatile, but damn do they move you.

I thought it was an interesting way to phrase it.  I always looked at it like "yeah, I need to keep expanding my vocabulary."  And that's a fine thing, it's great to keep expanding, but I wonder if knowing a little bit about a lot of things is doing me more harm than good because it's holding me back from nailing the delivery of my core strengths?  Everyone's on a unique journey, I'm not sure there's clear right and wrong, I just thought it was interesting.  I hadn't really thought about it like that before.

Your thoughts?

[jeremy_green]

Scott is a pro... has been for a long long time. So for him and in the pro ranks, nailing your shiz is super important. So his comment is bang on really. I find as a general statement, many players get caught up in 'practicing' allll the time. It's like they are preparing for some future event where they will blow peoples mind. So they shed and learn scales this and chords that and metronomes and licks and DVD's and youtube vids.... It like a huge pit of things they need to acquire.

 

The other side of that is simply to play effectively all the time. Make music all the time... If you think of it from this perspective then his comment makes perfect sense. Why would you play a bunch of barely effective things?

 

Now I am not saying you shouldnt leanr new lines.... But maybe just learn one instead of ten. Then work with it for long enough that it becomes part of your thing. Then drag something else in. Over time you will accumulate a large pallette of things and you always OWN what you do play along the way.

 

Scott is one of my favs and his input over the years has been HUGE in my development. I would never take his words lightly.

[phil-the-thrill]

It makes sense.

 

After you learn 10,000 licks you realize there is a huge amount of overlap.

 

It's always one note after another. And there's techniques you can apply to each note (bend, hammer on, etc).

 

Turns out it was just thousands of different ways to play ten licks.

 

It really depend on what your needs are. If you play in a band that takes requests, you may need to learn quite a few licks.

 

The reason to learn licks may be so you could steal their ideas. OOPS! I meant so that you could learn some techniques and learn to create your own style.

[Pine Apple Slim]

Yep. Nail what you do If I could play 2 chords and the melody as well as this guy, I'd be a real happy camper.

 

 

[1001gear]

Maybe he meant one should learn the fit and use of common vocabulary before turning hero.

[JonR]

---

BydoEmpire wrote:

I heard an interesting interview w/ the great Scott Henderson on Oscar's Guitar Shop the other day, and he made an interesting comment.  Something to the effect of "Vocabulary is one of the least important things."

  The most important thing is the passion and quality with which you play what you

do

know.

 He was

also 

getting at, it's better to know 10 licks and 1000 ways to use each, than know 1000 licks but not really know how to apply them to different situations.  I think it makes sense in that a lot of my favorite guitar players - Muddy Waters, BB King, Freddie King - aren't the most versatile, but damn do they move you.

I thought it was an interesting way to phrase it.  I always looked at it like "yeah, I need to keep expanding my vocabulary."  And that's a fine thing, it's great to keep expanding, but I wonder if knowing a little bit about a lot of things is doing me more harm than good because it's holding me back from

nailing

the delivery of my core strengths?  Everyone's on a unique journey, I'm not sure there's clear right and wrong, I just thought it was interesting.  I hadn't really thought about it like that before.

Your thoughts?

---

My thoughts are initially: without vocabulary, how are you going to say what you want to say?

As your own quote has it "Music is like the English language..." - the more vocabulary you know, the more varied and subtle your utterances, the more nuance of meaning you can convey. 

Yes, you "break rules" to be "hip" - but hip language has its own rules and vocabulary, otherwise no one will understand you.  There's a lot of BS talked about "breaking rules"...  following different rules is what it's about.

As for vocabulary - of course it's a mistake to focus only on that. That would be like memorising a dictionary, without understanding meaning or grammar.  I take Henderson's quote as a corrective to a narrow-minded attitude of just amassing information. 

IOW, it should be OBVIOUS that "the passion and quality with which you play what you do know" is what matters.  I'd be amazed if anybody didn't take that for granted,  but I guess some do forget it in the race to develop chops and build libraries of licks.  I guess some do get sidetracked into that crap.

So it's NOT correct to say "Vocabulary is one of the least important things."  Imagine going to a language class and  your teacher saying that!  It's no good for a jazz teacher to say "just play what you feel, man."  OK, yeah, but like HOW???

Vocabulary is CRUCIAL.  But it is only what you start from. That's what I guess he means. He takes his own vocabulary for granted, no doubt.  You need vocabulary. THEN you use it to say what you want to say.  And (true enough) you not need very much to say what you need to.  But you need to have the right "words".  If your vocabulary is too small, you'll get frustrated, or bored.  It has to be large enough for you to be able to select the right things.  It can't be too large - but  you can get too immersed in it.

The problem, IOW, is not the size of your vocabulary, but the belief that you need to show off all of it all the time.  Music is like poetry in that sense; it's knowing how to choose just the right words for the moment, nothing superfluous, saying the most with the least.  It's not War And Peace....

It's also true - as you suggest - that some kinds of music make do with very small vocabulary; blues being one of those.  Blues (to mix metaphors) mines a very narrow seam, it just mines it real deep...

Jazz is different - and it's jazz where you get these injunctions about developing "vocabulary", because the language of jazz is far more extensive than blues.  At the same time, as Hal Galper says (see below) you can't learn everything - life's too short. So you learn what you like.  You listen to as much as you can, and just pick up anything that catches your ear: because that's the vocabulary that means most to you personally.  As long as you follow your instinct (stay connected with your "passion"), and just learn the stuff that MEANS something, you won't go wrong.

Then your instinct, your own "voice", lets you choose what you need out of the vocabulary you've learned.  I don't suppose Miles Davis had any less vocabulary than John Coltrane...    Just because you have a lot doesn't mean you use it all...

This guy is my main jazz guru (at the moment...):

 

 

[1001gear]

---

JonR wrote:

---

BydoEmpire wrote:

I heard an interesting interview w/ the great Scott Henderson on Oscar's Guitar Shop the other day, and he made an interesting comment.  Something to the effect of "Vocabulary is one of the least important things."

  The most important thing is the passion and quality with which you play what you

do

know.

 He was

also 

getting at, it's better to know 10 licks and 1000 ways to use each, than know 1000 licks but not really know how to apply them to different situations.  I think it makes sense in that a lot of my favorite guitar players - Muddy Waters, BB King, Freddie King - aren't the most versatile, but damn do they move you.

I thought it was an interesting way to phrase it.  I always looked at it like "yeah, I need to keep expanding my vocabulary."  And that's a fine thing, it's great to keep expanding, but I wonder if knowing a little bit about a lot of things is doing me more harm than good because it's holding me back from

nailing

the delivery of my core strengths?  Everyone's on a unique journey, I'm not sure there's clear right and wrong, I just thought it was interesting.  I hadn't really thought about it like that before.

Your thoughts?

---

My thoughts are initially: without vocabulary, how are you going to say what you want to say?

As your own quote has it "Music is like the English language..." - the more vocabulary you know, the more varied and subtle your utterances, the more nuance of meaning you can convey. 

Yes, you "break rules" to be "hip" - but hip language has its own rules and vocabulary, otherwise no one will understand you.  There's a lot of BS talked about "breaking rules"... 

following different rules

is what it's about.

As for vocabulary - of course it's a mistake to focus

only

on that. That would be like memorising a dictionary, without understanding meaning or grammar.  I take Henderson's quote as a corrective to a narrow-minded attitude of just amassing information. 

IOW, it should be OBVIOUS that "the passion and quality with which you play what you

do

know" is what matters.  I'd be amazed if anybody didn't take that for granted,  but I guess some do forget it in the race to develop chops and build libraries of licks.  I guess some do get sidetracked into that crap.

So it's NOT correct to say "Vocabulary is one of the least important things."

  Imagine going to a language class and  your teacher saying that!  It's no good for a jazz teacher to say "just play what you feel, man."  OK, yeah, but like HOW???

Vocabulary is CRUCIAL.  But it is only

what you start from.

That's what I guess he means. He takes his own vocabulary for granted, no doubt.  You need vocabulary. THEN you use it to say what you want to say.  And (true enough) you not need very much to say what you need to.  But you need to have the

right

"words".  If your vocabulary is too small, you'll get frustrated, or bored.  It has to be large enough for you to be able to select the right things.  It can't be too large - but  you can get too immersed in it.

The problem, IOW, is not the size of your vocabulary, but the belief that you need to show off all of it all the time.  Music is like poetry in that sense; it's knowing how to choose just the right words for the moment, nothing superfluous, saying the most with the least.  It's not War And Peace....

It's also true - as you suggest - that some kinds of music make do with very small vocabulary; blues being one of those.  Blues (to mix metaphors) mines a very narrow seam, it just mines it

real deep...

Jazz is different - and it's jazz where you get these injunctions about developing "vocabulary", because the language of jazz is far more extensive than blues.  At the same time, as Hal Galper says (see below) you can't learn everything - life's too short. So you learn what you

like. 

You listen to as much as you can, and just pick up anything that catches your ear: because that's the vocabulary that

means most to you personally.

  As long as you follow your instinct (stay connected with your "passion"), and just learn the stuff that MEANS something, you won't go wrong.

Then your instinct, your own "voice", lets you choose what you need out of the vocabulary you've learned.  I don't suppose Miles Davis had any less vocabulary than John Coltrane... 

  Just because you have a lot doesn't mean you use it all...

This guy is my main jazz guru (at the moment...):

 

 

---

 

Yeah that. That's what I meant.