The All-Encompassing truth:

To be a jazz player, it's not what you play, but how you arrive at what you play. There are countless players who memorize a bag of jazz licks and some percussive techniques but they are played from memory. This isn't what the jazz player does. The jazz player has conceptualized the instrument and coupled it with an innate talent for hearing the typical, as well as the progressive, resolutions. Anyone, even the beginner, soon realizes that his performance depends on how well he can internally visualize tablature and the relationship between chords. Once this strong internal vision is in place, than the acoustical and harmonic ideas that make up your particular talent can flow. Unless this internalizing takes place, there is no performance… no matter how talented you are.

Take a moment to examine the ones who are mastering the art of improvisation. These people are not rocket scientists. How do they achieve this ability? The following articles will discuss the system which has only been available to the closed fraternity of top-grade performers.

You must develop conceptual forms of reference on the fret board. No matter where you are, can you see everything else from that point? Players do not intellectualize during a performance! Good playing is done by ear. The jazzist is particularly interested in this truth because he must be able to play what he hears spontaneously. On the piano, these points of reference are apparent just by the linear sequence of the keys. Placing the steps in a chord becomes straightforward. On other instruments, this observation becomes more obscure.

The guitarist must train himself to visualize the four-note chord combinations that are the "parent" even to the creation of the instrument. The all-encompassing conceptual goal for the guitarist is to be able to visualize the FOUR NOTE chord and arpeggio as one great big pattern over the entire fret board. There are six points of origin for each chord and arpegio. Change the mode as you will but there are only six. ONE ON EACH STRING. Unless you achieve this observation and internalize it, you will remain in the player slump forever.

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