This is your idea of a joke with no punchline, isn’t it @JoshFossgreen? Admit it 
Billie Jean beat me at fast tempo, but this lesson has my brain screaming at me to stop & save myself.
I get it: without scales music sounds weird. Now can I please leave The Twighlight Zone? 
@PeteP yeah, Billie Jean sure is a back buster. I worked on it for a couple days before I finally just circled it on my scorecard with a note to myself to come back to it another time. It was holding up my progress and I just wanted to move on. Now, I get chills every time I hear that song!
@joergkutter yeah, i see. He referenced Billie Jean, that’s why I made that comment. Regarding the free jazz lesson, it’s hard to tell if you’re doing it right or wrong… it sounds bad either way 
I like a lot of jazz styles but have always thought ‘free jazz’ was utter crap for anybody other than the musicians. Now I think it may be just the same for them. The word ‘indulgent’ had sprung to mind in the past, but now I’m not sure who it was indulging. Jamming would find some sort of consensus - even if it was a contradictory one - but ‘free jazz’ is why people who don’t like jazz say things like “3 (or 4, 5, 6+) musicians all playing different tunes but at the same time”.
Sorry for the strong wording, but it actually exacerbated a poor mood this morning and put my head into a horrible place - and not just because I couldn’t play it.
Thankfully, the Cmaj scale lesson went some way to fix that. I’m going to play that one again right now to calm myself again. I’m going to use my B1on pedal for added fun.
I was well funked this morning. 
I can’t record direct and from experience I know that using the Mac mic sounds terrible because you get all the ambient noise such as string scratching - even with my flat wounds.
I plead guilty to being one of those people . . . 
me too
Yeah, I may have been a little disingenuous implying only other people used that phrase. 
There is no denying it - certain types of jazz are way more fun to play than to (have to ) listen to!
Haha! Lesson 2 is the punchline!
Also, to be fair to free jazz - what I tortured you with in that lesson is not real free jazz. It’s a half free, half scripted bass teacher torture device. This is better (but I still struggle with Don Cherry’s trumpet sound):
Wow. Is it just me or is he managing to make the trumpet sound like a quarter step flat? I don’t even know how you would do that consistently.
I’m sorry, but that is just flat awful! I’ve heard better music in a karaoke bar. If that’s “The Shape of Jazz to Come”, I’m swearing off jazz completely!
Haha, good job, @JoshFossgreen! But, really, Ornette can do MUCH better (or worse, depending) than this!
@PamPurrs: don’t give up on jazz just yet! It’s a bit like with the slapping - it’s great in doses, at the right moment, in the right “shape” and it can be so different and versatile (just like jazz) in different situations.
As far as free jazz is concerned, I stand by my statement that it is way more fun to play than to listen to. This guy here gives it ALL during his live gigs, but, man, it’s torture to have to sit through as a listener
Most wind instruments have some way of adjusting the overall pitch within a small range. Trumpets have a little U-shaped piece of the overall plumbing they can push in or pull out a bit, and wood winds adjust the position of the mouthpiece. In both cases, you alter the length of the resonating body/air column and thus adjust the pitch. So, maybe Don Cherry “de-tuned” his trumpet on purpose!?!
So I’m racing through the modules I’ve already completed in order to get back up to speed before pressing on through the modules I haven’t yet done. I’ve just gone over this lesson again and my thoughts were almost exactly the same this time as last.
I’m working towards a few simpler jazz tunes, but when I hear free jazz like this I want to throw something at a wall - possibly my head. It’s like a study in madness.
Look at it as an exercise to memorize a bass line that doesn’t enter easily into your musical memory (i.e., never really)!