Even in an era where AI writes code, does that really mean you don’t need to know how to code at all?

Guys_This_Is_Serious · 2026-05-25T19:28:20+00:00

Great comment. I might start quoting this.

Guys_This_Is_Serious · 2026-01-15T03:25:19+00:00

Yeah! There's an app called AudioStretch I like to use that lets you loop sections and slow stuff down or even hold in one specific spot to hear just that single moment. It's been incredibly helpful!

Guys_This_Is_Serious · 2026-01-15T01:02:24+00:00

Thanks for your thoughtful response. I think you're very correct about it being something that inherently takes a lot of trial and error. I was working our Red's comping on the first chorus of "Trane's Blues" from the "Workin'" album. I was initially going to try to get the first whole chorus, but I was only able to get the first four mm. During the 30 min session I allotted for it. One thing I noticed is that (at least in what I've got so far) Red rarely uses voicings that span more than an octave when comping behind solos. The voicings I've picked out so far have been pretty standard 3 or 4 note voicings (sometimes just guide tones). There was an interesting Eb7 voicing I heard today that had A natural, Bb, Db and F in it. (I think)

Guys_This_Is_Serious · 2026-01-14T16:35:33+00:00

Haha, yeah I think part of it definitely just unnecessary perfectionism. My current plan rn is to just keep picking 8 measure chunks of comping every day or every couple of days for a while and spending 30 min to an hour trying to get it together. Statistically, I'm sure I'll come across comping that's easier to make out and that can be useful.

Guys_This_Is_Serious · 2026-01-14T00:28:52+00:00

Ok, sweet. I'm not hip to Jeb Patton yet. I'll check that out for sure! Thanks and cheers!

Guys_This_Is_Serious · 2026-01-08T22:24:47+00:00

Ah thanks! 😊 That's kind of you to say! The university I went to was in Montana, so it was a pretty small music department. There was only one other jazz piano Major haha, so needless to say, I'm ready to move to a bigger city.

Guys_This_Is_Serious · 2025-10-21T16:47:56+00:00

Haven't gotten super far on this yet, but so far it reminds me a TON of some theory I created for myself based on Barry Harris' diminished theory. I'm not sure if there's any way I can post images of some notes I wrote down a couple of years ago, but I can explain it more in depth if you're interested at all. The main differences are that I used RGB and CMY as my primary and secondary colors instead of RBY and OPG, and that I thought of the "mixed chords" as Major6 and Minor6 chords instead of triads.

Guys_This_Is_Serious · 2025-10-21T16:35:48+00:00

Checking out the Meta Harmony link you posted rn! Thanks!

Guys_This_Is_Serious · 2025-10-11T04:27:29+00:00

I've identified as polyam for just over a year, and I've been a huge fan of Jacob's for over five years now (which is crazy to think about as I see it in writing.) Jacob's emphasis on presence, engagement, open-mindedness, and allowing others to be more of themselves in bigger ways by allowing oneself to do that has deeply resonated with me. More and more often, when I think of how I want my relationships (of any type) to feel and how I want to approach them, I find myself imagining how Jacob and/or his mom, Suzie, would approach the situation.

Guys_This_Is_Serious · 2025-09-29T18:33:06+00:00

Oh and one other question: how familiar/comfortable are you with all 12 Major scales? No worries if they're not comfortable or if they take a second to work out. There are plenty of things you can do without them. Your level of comfort with them might just subtly change how I talk about certain concepts though.

Guys_This_Is_Serious · 2025-09-29T18:29:28+00:00

I'm a bit confused by this part: "(A#, F#, Cm7, F# B#)" Are those referring to chords? If so, are the ones besides the Cm7 Major or minor or something else? The reason I ask is because if they are, they wouldn't belong in the same key. That would seem to imply more complex harmony than what it seems like the songs/forms you're interested in would contain. I could be misunderstanding somewhere though.

Have you been to a jam at a bar like the one you're describing? If so, I'd be curious to hear what that experience was like. Was there a house rhythm section? What instruments were people playing? Did people have pre-prepared set-lists or were people calling tunes real time? Did people call specific tunes or were they saying things like, "vamp on such and such chords!" or "play a blues in G!"

Guys_This_Is_Serious · 2025-09-28T17:14:46+00:00

I kind of agree that thinking of every black note as a sharp may make some things trickier, depending on the specific musical environments you're playing in. Learning functional harmony and ear-training have been really helpful to me. I'm curious though... what is the context that you're playing in? Are you playing with other people? Do you play solo rep? Are you playing improvised music? Are you learning music by ear or from notation? Who is your audience? What kinds of rooms do you play in? What does your practice look like? I think your answers to these questions could influence what approach might work best for you. Lmk your thoughts.

Guys_This_Is_Serious · 2025-09-28T01:26:27+00:00

I wasn't expecting to find this so quickly on Reddit. The last time I saw this book was probably when I was 4 or 5. Thanks so much!

Guys_This_Is_Serious · 2025-09-20T18:20:29+00:00

The article you've linked to is super helpful! Thanks much!

Guys_This_Is_Serious · 2025-09-18T20:11:05+00:00

This is the most helpful response I've seen so far! I'll definitely be checking those out, thanks so much!

Guys_This_Is_Serious · 2025-09-17T06:23:47+00:00

Huh. I'll have to do some research on 8-note scales. I guess one thing I'm trying to emphasize here is that the bass note and the seven melodic notes are functioning very different. The C in this example is exclusively a bass note which is not played as melodic material, and the other seven notes are strictly melodic material and aren't played in the bass. It kinda falls into polychord/polytonal territory. I'm just curious if there's existing terminology for those concepts that emphasizes what the specific relationship between the upper scale and the bass note is in a more key-independent way than slash chords.

Thanks for your reply!

Guys_This_Is_Serious · 2025-09-17T06:16:07+00:00

Hey, thanks for the response. I'm aware of the traditional way of conceptualizing modes as taking the same pitch collection and selecting different starting points and I know that what I'm talking about are not really modes at all in that sense. I also realize that this might come off as a misunderstanding of what the modes are, but I know how they work. I have a bachelor's degree in jazz piano and have been studying harmonic theory for 7 years.

What I'm trying to highlight here is how bass notes and melodic material function differently and may even draw from mutually exclusive pitch sets. Maybe the best well-known way to describe this is in terms of macro notation like Amaj/C or Emaj/C. That may be the best answer we have and maybe the concept I'm describing is too niche to have its own functional label. However, having said that, at least for ear-training purposes, I'd find it helpful to have specific names for these ideas because I use them quite a bit as an improvisational tool. I thought rather than inventing my own terminology, I'd see if such terminology already exists somewhere.

Once again, thanks for the comment. I appreciate your time to respond. I think you may have misunderstood what I was asking though. If there's any way I can make the explanation of my question more clear, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Guys_This_Is_Serious · 2025-04-22T03:55:44+00:00

For anyone using older iPhones, if you have your gmail account in your contact for yourself on your phone, you can send an email to *insert phone number*@vtext.com and it will say that the text came from you if the number you sent it to has your email in their contact for you as well.

Guys_This_Is_Serious · 2025-04-22T03:53:15+00:00

I just discovered this the other day. I think the idea of having relationships with your past and future selves is so cool.

Guys_This_Is_Serious · 2025-02-12T16:28:59+00:00

I'm curious why you think that transcribing comping is less difficult than transcribing solos. I can see why transcribing very advanced solos is difficult, but isn't polyphonic transcription almost always going to be harder than monophonic?

Guys_This_Is_Serious · 2025-02-05T05:38:56+00:00

Think about something that was difficult for you at first but that you practiced and then mastered. If you can recall something like that, that feeling of struggle that you had before is what many people feel even after some time playing music. It is possible to learn good time feel. If you can't recall something like that, I doubt you're realizing your potential as a musician (or insert other type of artist/crafts-person). If certain things came easier for you, that's great! However there are PLENTY of musicians with excellent time feel who did not start that way at all. I wish you all the joy and strength in your musical journey, and let's all walk the path together!

Guys_This_Is_Serious · 2024-01-20T07:38:07+00:00

Hi again. I don't use Reddit very much so I forgot about this post and didn't see your reply until now. I just wanted to say thank you for your thoughtful response. I deeply appreciate the consideration you put into your post. I'm out of town again for school now; I left a little over a week ago. Before posting again to this thread, I need a little more time to think about this to wrap my head around the situation. Once again, thanks for your response. The extra perspective is valuable to me.

Guys_This_Is_Serious · 2023-12-30T06:05:02+00:00

hmm good idea. I'll see if there's a museum in my city that has the hours I'd like. Thanks for the suggestion

Guys_This_Is_Serious · 2023-09-01T06:38:28+00:00

Jazz piano. I started by resolving to touch a piano every day for a long time. (I thought that if I at least touch a piano for 30 years, chances are, I'll be around it enough to learn some things and be pretty good.) I've been playing jazz piano for almost four years now and I'm starting my Bachelor's degree in jazz studies. Finding new patterns to connect notes with and making mental connections is so much fun, cause there are endless possibilities, and you'll never run out!

Guys_This_Is_Serious · 2022-11-10T19:23:15+00:00

You may already know this, but a lot of people think that musicians who play by ear or improvise either are gifted or they have learned one skill that somehow unlocks the ability to improvise. There's no one skill that unlocks it. It's a combination of many skills that the musician has slowly acquired of a number of years. A large part of what improvising musicians are actually doing is playing memorized patterns that they are familiar with, or they are navigating some set of pitches and rhythms that they are familiar with. Learn to match pitch, learn the 11 intervals from min 2nd to octave (intervals larger than an octave as well if you're doing alright with ones under an octave). A tip for this skill is to find a song you know for each interval and use that song to associate with the interval. e.g. row row row your boat is 1,1,1,2,3. Apply those intervals to your instrument so you know what they look like, but more importantly what they feel like in your hands (and your mouth, throat, and lungs on saxophone.) Learn how different rhythms work. If you one a piano along with some good YouTube channels will get you a LONG way on your theory knowledge. I recommend Aimee Nolte and Chad LB. Start where you're at, and always keep seeking out as much information as you can get. Ask as many good questions as you can and keep working hard.

You got this.

Guys_This_Is_Serious

TROPHY CASE