All The Things You Are

Scrybe · #1 03-14-2010, 10:07 AM

Man, did I hate this tune! We ran it a couple of times in practice for the quartet I'm in and I kept getting lost in it, and hated the lame third of the chord melody too.

But I've been running it today as a practice tool and have realised just how mighty a practice tool it is! As much as I prefer other tunes (and shall do similar with than also), for now I'm finding this one hard to beat as a workout.

Okay, so it's simple, but I've been practicing comping. Then ran major scales going through the changes, then did the chord scales for each chord in it, then arpeggios, then fooled around a bit with the melody. And I really am just getting started. I only tried it with because it was proving so hard for me to remember, so I thought I'd take it apart n use it in practice sessions til I had the whole thing down in my blood.

I'll be fooling with this one (and others!) for a while. Here's some stuff I'm gonna try, feel free to chip in with other ideas. Is it just me and my inexperience, or is ATTYA a particularly good rune for practicing this sort of stuff?

I'm gonna....

Play it at different speeds, but also try playing it (comping and then melody, then improv) in dfferent time signatures. The melody's simple enough for me to see how I'm changing stuff n not get lost or accidently creat extra bars.

Play it in diff keys (obv)

reharmonize it a stack of times to observe how that affect the melody's strength and flow.

Use it to practice phrasing - again, the melody alone is so basic it benefits from tasteful phrasing - bends, vibrato, octaves, etc, will all get toyed with as I work.

Use it to practice embellishing a melody

try out octave displacement playing the head

Try out diff chord substitutions when soloing or decorating the head

try playing each note in the first 8 bars as triplets (so...a set of triplets against the whole note, then corresponding ones for the half note, then corresponding ones for the quarter note, so I can switch between eg crochet triplets n quaver triplets with ease - right now I get stuck on stuff like that).

Get to grips with the whole "approach note" thing (i think I may do this already, intuitively, but this will giv me a chance to really figure out what I'm doing n the how n why and all).

All in all, the tune has grown on me, and once I tackled it head on I found it easy to learn. It's still far from being a favourite of mine (I think I go more for tunes with interesting rhythms and/or harmonic content and this is a little too plain and twee for me, heh heh), but it's really become my favourite bit of practice kit, after my guitar of course. For the first time, scale practice has genuinely sounded musical!!!!

If ATTYA is special in this way, are there any other key tunes I should look at as great practice tools? Either for their malleability in practice exercises, or for important jazz changes or wotnot? Thx!

derek · #2 03-15-2010, 09:32 AM

Boy are you ever right. ATTYA is a great tune for getting your stuff together. With changes one to the bar, you have time to work out ideas, but the thing keeps moving around so you can't get too focused on any one key center. I have always found the melody to be very lovely. Great example of a solid jazz tune, which is why it is used so much I think. Cheers.

RunningBeagle · #3 03-25-2010, 12:54 AM

A good exercise, if you want to really get inside a tune, is to take a piece of paper and write out blank bars for each bar of the tune. In each bar, write either "play" or "space" at random. Then turn on the metronome and improvise on the changes, playing during the "play" bars and not playing during the "space" bars.

You also get used to the sound of space this way.

Then play the entire tune on one string, then another string. Then play the tune using two strings, and then two non-adjacent strings. Then play the entire tune in one position.

FatJeff · #4 03-25-2010, 12:59 PM

Another great tune for learning is Cherokee. The B section is in a key one half step above the A section, so no matter what key you play it in, you're forced into both sharp and flat keys!

BTW, that's an interesting idea that Beagle has. I'll have to give that a try.

mr. beaumont · #5 03-25-2010, 01:02 PM

call me crazy, but i still like AATYA. i've been playing the B section with a latin feel as of late.

so let's see....songs that are great for practicing things...

"blue bossa"-- minor ii V i's

"my funny valentine"-- ah, the minor cliche! and your job is to make it not sound "tired."

"tune up"-- major ii V's, several keys

"stella by starlight" --pretty much everything about "stella" is good practice, especially those hip chords near the end.

mr. beaumont · #6 03-25-2010, 01:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RunningBeagle

A good exercise, if you want to really get inside a tune, is to take a piece of paper and write out blank bars for each bar of the tune. In each bar, write either "play" or "space" at random. Then turn on the metronome and improvise on the changes, playing during the "play" bars and not playing during the "space" bars.

You also get used to the sound of space this way.

Then play the entire tune on one string, then another string. Then play the tune using two strings, and then two non-adjacent strings. Then play the entire tune in one position.

i really like this.

Scrybe · #7 03-25-2010, 01:12 PM

Yeah, deffo gonna try that idea out (in about half an hour in fact...). May also try the latin thing - as I get more comfortable with playing latin stuff, I wanna take my repertoire and try to run it with a latin feel anyways.

Argh, first lesson tomorrow! Must must must must must go practice some more, totally bricking it. And then the weekend comes and it's my birthday, celebrated by learning latin stuff and trying to transcribe Minor. Well, at least I won't be waking up on the lawns of Somerville College with a sever hangover and a lawnmower next to my right ear providing a rather distasteful alarm clock...

RunningBeagle · #8 03-25-2010, 01:37 PM

The space thing is a Hal Crook/Mick Goodrick staple, not my idea. I don't know which of the two started it, if either.

Here's a Hal Crook text that contains a similar idea:

Hal Crook - How to Improvise (an Approach to Practicing Improvisation)

Lofty title, but good stuff in there.

Mick once gave us a sheet of paper with the changes to Stella written out twice. Both sets had "play" and "space" written in them, but the second set was inverted. That is, where the first said "play" the second said "space", and vice versa. Then two of us would play on the chart, with one person doing the top, and the other doing the bottom. Obviously you then get one continuous solo, but the idea was to play off of what the other person was doing and try to make it sound coherent.