Find solution
How to do a Jazz Square?

What does it mean to be called square in Jazz music?

  • I am a Classically trained pianist in a Jazz band. Unfortunately, my instructor tells me that I am square all the time. He says I need to be triangle. What the heck does that mean?

  • Answer:

    Your best answer is the first answer. Give a listen to Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Oscar Peterson, Teddy Wilson, Cedar Walton on You Tube. Note how each uses different phrasings if you listen to each playing the same song. A couple of minimalists who come to mind who really could swing are Hampton Hawes and Ahmad Jamal. Bill Evans used a classical approach but he took swing to a new level- his work on the Miles Davis masterpiece "Kind Of Blue" changed jazz as we entered the 1960s.

UIR5LYRXFQ4YKXYFMOYSSGT2FQ at Yahoo! Answers Visit the source

Was this solution helpful to you?

Other answers

Square means that you don't swing. A good way to hear swing is to play a scale of eighth notes, then have your instructor play the same scale of eighth notes ( assuming that your instructor can swing). There should be a difference. Your classical eighth notes will be even, but your instructor's will not be even, they will swing.

Knotty Pine

I havent heard anyone use that term for a long time. It means you are not hip, not with the program whatever it is in his mind or too conventional.

Flower

You aren't "letting yourself go". You are being a technician, rather than a soulful improvisationalist. Step up the "cool" factor, and don't be too tight. If you were a portrait painter, I'd say start painting abstracts. It's in the FEEL of the playing, as opposed to hitting all the right notes.

pearlene

Your playing is too classically. You don't really feel the swing in the jazz. You don't lay back quite right when playing with jazz music. Never heard of triangle though.

Sax Man

You could ask your teacher. Obviously he wants you to swing, but what that means you'll need to find or (or better "feel") for yourself. I have never heard of being triangle -- that's a strange thing to say.

Dale M

Related Q & A:

Just Added Q & A:

Find solution

For every problem there is a solution! Proved by Solucija.

  • Got an issue and looking for advice?

  • Ask Solucija to search every corner of the Web for help.

  • Get workable solutions and helpful tips in a moment.

Just ask Solucija about an issue you face and immediately get a list of ready solutions, answers and tips from other Internet users. We always provide the most suitable and complete answer to your question at the top, along with a few good alternatives below.