10 things pub rock bands can learn from jazz musicians (Part Two)

Ah the pub rock band. Where would we be without it? The smell of leather, the bad haircuts, the 2K marshall stack in a room the size of a broom cupboard and the impertinence of youth/dusting off of teenage dreams (delete as appropriate).

Heady stuff. However, just as jazz musicians should take a leaf out of the pub-rock book every now and again, there's a couple of things the badly coiffured, riff-tastic tinnitus brigade could learn from jazz musicians.

If you haven't already, check out part one of this series/rant here. Go ahead, we'll wait.

Done? Then let's continue:

Learn some theory

It would be nice if some of you pub-rockers who 'play by ear' had even the slightest inkling of musical theory. I don't mean that you should be able to harmonise Bach chorales at sight or that you have impeccable knowledge of the idiomatic use of German Sixths, but it would be nice if you learned enough to be able to tell me, say, what notes you're actually playing.

I have played with a few non-jazz outfits in the past (I know, I know, but I was young and needed the money, and they made it look so sexy and glamorous) and having a rock band try to teach you their tunes is as painful as sliding down a nail-studded bannister on the day after you took your only pair of steel underpants to the cleaners.

Pub Rock Guitarist (PRG): Let's do one of our own tunes. We normally start with this one. It's an instrumental called 'Satanic Hamster Phallus Odyssey (Part III)'. Then we go straight into 'Sweet Home Alabama'.

Me: Ok. What key is it in then?

PRG: It's in A. It goes A, B E. A, B E...

Me: Hang on, so it's in E then?

PRG: No it's in A. The first chord is A, then it goes B, E.

Me: (sighing) Ok, then what?

PRG: Then it goes A, B E and then it goes like this...

He slides up the neck somewhere and half-hits a 'chord' that only half-sounds. What's more, there's so much distortion on the sound that the notes that do squeeze out sound like they're coming from a food processor rather than a guitar.

Me: And what chord is that then?

PRG: Erm, I'm not sure. Hang on. It goes A, B, E and then like this...

He repeats the procedure with the same results - this time, pushing the neck of the guitar towards me hopefully, as if it will allow me magically to absorb the 'chord' by some kind of osmosis.

Me: Ok hang on (plays). Is that it? C?

PRG: I dunno, it's just that...

He pushes the neck towards me, plays the strings and makes the food processor noise again.

At this point, the bass player, who has been gazing out of the window the whole time and wearing a look that suggests he smells something unpleasant, decides to intervene:

Pun Rock Bassist (PRB ): That's not how it goes. It goes like this. (plays the bass part)

Me: So the last chord is a semitone higher?

PRG: What? That's what I played! (plays the same progression as before)

PRB: Yeah, and it's not that. It's this. (plays the bass part again)

PRG: Yeah, exactly. (repeats his version)

PRB: No, it doesn't go like that. It's like this (plays bass part again).

PRG: That's what I'm DOING. Listen... (lifts plectrum)

Me:(to guitarist) Wait a minute, I think the bass part finishes on a note a semitone higher than you're playing.

PRG: How do you mean?

Me: The bass part finishes one fret higher than you do.

PRG: Does it? (plays his version again).

PRB: Yeah, and it finishes here (plays the bass part again and pushes the neck towards the guitarist whilst holding down the final note).

PRG: Oh....shit, yeah man. It's doesn't finish there. Hang on.

Three attempts later, the guitarist is now playing the progression finishing on a 'chord' a semitone higher than before.

Me:(looking at bassist) I can't quite hear the chord he's playing there. Is it C# major or minor?

PRB:I dunno. It just goes... (plays bass part consisting entirely of roots)

I look at my watch. Twenty minutes in and this is the first verse of the first song. There are 27 left to learn...

Better gear won't make you sound better

Many pub-rock musicians are infinitely better at buying/talking/reading about instruments than they are at actually playing them. They labour under the illusion that if they can get that limited edition American strat, as opposed to the Mexican one they have now, they'll sound totally different.

"You see", they'll explain at great lengths, "The American strats are made with better quality woods - they're made from either ash or alder. The ash ones are a little lighter, but I don't really feel that ash gives the same sustain as the alder ones. I mean, theoretically, I could put Seymour Duncans on my Mexican, but then I wouldn't get the 22nd fret that you get on the American models, which really expands the tonal range. Once I get the American, my next mod will be on my amp. I'm probably going tweak the tube pre-amps by swapping the 12AX7 for a 5751 so that the gain is lowered and doesn't get dirtied in pre-amp so I can get a huge fat tone when I crank the amp at the output stage."

For some rock musicians, tone is the only thing standing between them and musical immortality. If they could only get that perfect tone then they'd be signed immediately and would get to spend the rest of their lives snorting drugs off naked groupies while trashing hotel rooms.

The fact that they can't hold the form in a blues and have no ideas there are keys other than E and A isn't important. The fact that they consistently fluff notes, clatter chords and generally mess up every 10 seconds is not important. The fact they can't count to four without speeding up doesn't matter one iota. When jazz musicians are practising their scales (and not just the pentatonic ones either), these guys are poring over guitar magazines and searching internet forums for more tips on the killer mod that's going to give them killer tone.

It doesn't matter whether we're talking about guitarists, bass players or drummers, pub-rockers love gear. It's almost like they love the trappings of music and musicianship more than they music itself - and we all know that couldn't possibly be true!

By contrast, jazz musicians don't really care. Sure, there are a few sax pervs out there, but most jazzers are more interested in the music than the gear. Look at Charlie Parker, he happily pawned his sax at every opportunity and there are loads of stories of him playing gigs on borrowed plastic saxophones and still blowing everyone away. Dizzy Gillespie has been playing that trumpet that somebody sat on for years and Wynton Marsalis has never even bothered to replace the mouthpiece that somebody obviously stole years ago.

Jazz musicians know that their time is better spent learning to play than faffing about with gear - and they also know the golden rule when it comes to equipment and musicians: you can't polish a turd.

Tune up every now and then

Let's get one thing straight, unless we're talking about soprano saxes (and why on earth would we want to do that?), jazz musicians are great at playing in tune. I know that you pub-rockers out there may think that jazz is fundamentally out-of-tune, but the reality is that jazz may be dissonant, but not out of tune.

A jazz sax player will meticulously tune up before the gig because he wants you to know that the top harmonic he repeatedly hits is not out-of-tune, it's an totally deliberate, totally-hip Sharp Eleven.

This guy knows you can't play 'outside' the harmony if you haven't tuned up, because nobody would be able to tell when you're 'in'. By tuning up carefully before he starts, a jazz musician can make sure he doesn't play a consonant note all night and everybody will know it's because he's an artist, not because he's a bit tone-deaf.

By contrast, a pub rock band will often turn up, plug in and start playing with no attempt at tuning whatsoever. After the 'sound check' (playing all their favourite riffs individually), they'll lean their instruments against the nearest radiator and go to the bar.

You see, when a rock guitarist plays a chord, what matters is the shape he's playing, not what it sounds like. If he's playing an 'E' shape, then the chord must be E, even if he's a semitone flat. If he does find himself a semitone flat, the answer is NOT to tune up, but instead to put a capo on the first fret.

The alternative solution is just to turn the amp up or add more distortion and it'll be fine. Even if you are a bit tone-deaf, a rock musician knows not to waste valuable money on a digital tuner when it could go towards new pickups, a bigger bass cab or five more AC/DC t-shirts.

Until next time...

http://playjazz.blog.co.uk/2011/05/26/10-things-pub-rock-bands-can-learn-from-jazz-musicians-part-two-11219613/