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Last edited by wizard3739; 08-05-2015 at 01:43 PM.
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08-05-2015 01:15 PM
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I think you should definitely post a sax version!
In the meantime, here's something to consider:
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The classic version by Billie:
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Here's mine. For a change, I used an 'ECM'-style backing from the Sessionband app.
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Sounds good Graham, nice tasteful/melodic solo, totally in keeping with the main tune.
Tom.
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Very nice, Graham, as always. An inspiration!
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Thanks guys!
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Man, unbelievable stuff Graham. Solid gold. I wish you could teach us how you do it, but I have a feeling you would just tell us to transcribe more!
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OK, before any more monsters post...
Basic fingerstyle chord melody. I actually tried some improv at the end as well. It kind of devolved into a rubato outro. Just dinking around at that point, and I had planned on deleting, but I've got to be done with this. I'm starting back with school and going back to cra-cra busy.
My goal in the future is to work more on improv, so I just left it, ugly parts and all. So, please feel free to offer feedback. Not really a jazzer or an improvisor. Thanks.
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Graham, I believe this is one of your best submissions and is a beautiful melodic line. To me, it sounds a lot like a Doug Raney version except I like your tone better. With your approval, I would like very much to transcribe this one. Thank you for joining us and sharing your music.
Originally Posted by grahambop
wizLast edited by wizard3739; 08-17-2015 at 02:05 AM.
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Thanks very much Jehu! What can I tell you? I already knew this melody pretty well by ear (though I had never played it), because I have listened to Billie Holiday's version for many years. So I hardly had to look at the chart, I was able to play it virtually 100% by ear. I did run through the chords a few times just to get familiar with the progression. But one thing I'm finding now, doing these tunes each month, is that I don't need to spend much time on the chords before I have sort of 'got it' in my head. Unless there's a tricky or unusual chord somewhere, but I don't think there was one in this tune. If there is a really awkward chord change, I just drill some arpeggios through it several times, and this gives me enough material to at least 'paper the crack'! An arp can sound quite musical if you break up the rhythm a bit, or play the notes out of sequence or something. Originally Posted by Jehu
I guess this proves the adage that just learning a load of tunes makes your ears grow. There's a lot of 'carry-over' knowledge from one tune to the next, I think. I don't even look at the chord chart now when I record, I find it just puts me off! For example, with this tune, while playing, consciously I just tended to think 'ok the first chord is C minor' each time it came round, but after that everything else was largely by ear or instinct or something.
When improvising, I think what really happens is that I already have a load of lines and ideas in my head. In fact not that many, really! When I listen to these recordings, I can certainly hear that I'm re-using certain lines or motifs quite often. Each tune seems to suggest certain ones more than others, then as I play a few more ideas just seem to come out of somewhere, in between the 'signature' lines if you can call them that. Sometimes all I'm really doing is 'tweaking' my usual lines a bit, leaving a space here or there, changing the rhythm a bit, etc. It's surprising how much mileage you can get this way.
I have been listening to jazz for over 30 years, so I think I've picked up some ideas for how to play a ballad from some of my favourites, e.g. Dexter Gordon and Chet Baker in particular. I haven't really transcribed that much, maybe a dozen solos or so over the years?
It's a bit of a mysterious process to me as well really!
I guess what I'm really saying is that once I've got to know a tune properly, I find there are already lines and ideas being generated in my head, all I've got to do is get them out onto the guitar! And in that process, a few new ones or 'tweaks' to old ones seem to come out as well.
Hope that helps a bit!
Graham
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Wiz, thanks very much, yes please transcribe away as much as you like! I've always loved this tune and Billie's version, I think that helped me really get into it. Originally Posted by wizard3739
There were a couple of bits where my time seriously went a bit wonky (always happens!) so you might have to do some creative interpretation!
As to the tone: I use D'Addario .012 flatwounds, and a Dunlop II pick (at least I think it's the II, it's the 'middle' one anyway).
On my ES175 I tend to pick right over the little gap between the end of the fingerboard and the pickup, as I like the tone there. I tend to alternate pick, but with quite a lot of left hand slurs/glisses/pull-offs etc. as I just like the feel and sound of that, rather than 100% 'plucked' notes.
I hold the pick in a slightly odd way, between thumb and second finger, with first finger just stabilising the edge with a touch. Maybe this is a sort of 'reverse Benson', I don't know! I just developed it over the years as it seemed to give a bigger sound, due to the pick going through the strings at an angle.
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Matt, I liked that. Great chord melody, if that was done 'on the fly' that is more than I could do! I find it a lot easier playing a solo over a backing track, so good job! Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
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Thanks, Graham. Not on the fly, but certainly not much time with it. Looked at it for a few minutes while the family was out one night this weekend. Right now, it's more about having a moment to sit down with a tune than having it finished. Probably shouldn't post crap versions, but if I put off til "finished", I wouldn't post at all. Not all pretty, but it's pretty close to what I can get together in short order. I'm graduating 3 kids in the next 4 years or so, and guitar time is sporadic. I shouldn't make excuses, but I don't have a golf game to whine about... Originally Posted by grahambop
Lately, I've been very much trying to get my melodic minor house more in order. So, there's a lot of thinking involved, even to play something like what I've got here. My ears are catching up, but I'm still new to a lot of the positions and applications. Time on the instrument solves all of these issues of course, and I'm booking that time for a future date.
Re. the chord melody, I have put some time in playing CM and just reading through 100's of tunes. For me CM is what it's about, but I just play at home really. It's the in-between improv/soloing etc. that needs the work now. ....and vocabulary.... and voicings.... and reharm... and phrasing.... and a hundred other things... ha! :-)Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 08-17-2015 at 06:45 PM.
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Well I guess that's what keeps jazz interesting - you can't run out of things to do! Now I look at what you do, and I think, I must do a load of chord melody, I don't know nearly enough of that!
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Thanks for the detailed reply, Graham. This part actually surprised me a little bit:
From other posts you've made, I've kind of gotten the impression that you sort of learned through perpetual transcription. By the sounds of things you've really been maximizing your return on those dozen solos! Originally Posted by grahambop
So is there any deliberate method to the madness? Do you pull out phrases that you like and deconstruct them, intentionally trying to work them into your playing in various incarnations? Or is it more of an implicit process, a sort of learning by osmosis that comes out when you try to produce on the guitar what you hear in your head?
Sorry for the tangent, folks!
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Out of curiosity I checked and I've still got all my transcriptions. In fact I only made 9 in the first few years after I got into jazz, then in the last couple of years I've done another 4. These are the details: Originally Posted by Jehu
Joe Pass - Just Friends (Catch Me sessions)
Louis Stewart - I Thought About You (LP of the same name)
George Coleman (tenor sax) - Eye of the Hurricane (Herbie Hancock 'Maiden Voyage')
Miles Davis - Deception (Birth of the Cool)
Coltrane - Giant Steps (actually I copied this from a book but corrected it, as there were several mistakes in it)
Dexter Gordon - Body and Soul (The Panther)
Coleman Hawkins - The Breeze and I (from some 1950s session, can't remember which)
Charlie Parker - Now's the Time
Coltrane - Two Bass Hit (from a Miles Davis LP) - I only managed 3 choruses of this, it was too hard!
The recent ones are:
Jimmy Raney - What is this thing called Love (Raney 81)
Jimmy Raney - Dancing in the Dark (The Master) - only half done, got to finish it sometime!
Chet Baker - But Not For Me (The Touch of Your Lips)
Chet Baker - Just Friends (from a radio broadcast I recorded years ago, Camden Jazz Festival 1981).
Also I once learned a very long Wes Montgomery solo, Summertime from 'Live at Jorgies', but that was too hard to write down!
To be honest, I think the only one I really played a lot was the Joe Pass which was the first one I did. I got a lot of handy bebop vocab out of that. And of course the Wes one because I had to memorise it. As for the rest, I think the benefit was just in actually doing the transcription, it made me listen really hard over and over again to the same phrases. (The first 9 were before the era of slowdown software, so I had to use a reel-to-reel tape deck played at half speed!)
So I suppose I just absorbed ideas more by general listening than by playing through the transcriptions again. I think over time, these ideas formed a sort of 'pool' of ideas to improvise with. I have not pulled licks out of those transcriptions and played around with them, at least not after the first one or two (I guess I did do this with the Joe Pass one). So I think your 'osmosis' remark is nearer the truth.
GrahamLast edited by grahambop; 08-18-2015 at 07:28 AM.
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That would actually be a great thread... "solos you've transcribed". Need a few more non-gear threads. Originally Posted by grahambop
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Jehu, how comfortable are you with playing major scales in 5 positions on the fretboard , up, down and mixed up in all 12 keys?
IMO, this plus lots of listening should get you a long way down the road.
These are the foundations that all else is built on.
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Thanks again, Graham -- interesting stuff. I agree with Matt that this would make an interesting thread.
I would say "very". I actually come from a classical guitar background, and was playing at a reasonably high level before taking a decade-long break from the instrument. Scales are not my issue, but rather playing over changes and making it sound like Graham! Originally Posted by boatheelmusic
I'm always interested in the path that good players have taken to get to where they are. I'm not really looking for shortcuts or a silver bullet; I realise that it comes down to time on the instrument (and I do notice that I am making progress over time). I think that by looking at what good players have done you can get a good idea of where the best investments can be made. There is always the possibility that they are good despite the approach they've taken, but there's really no way around that.
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All good to hear, Jehu.
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Good Evening Heartbreak
My stumbles and meanderings around the tune... now i'm thinking it would make a nice medley with
Everything Happens To Me.Last edited by dogletnoir; 08-24-2015 at 12:33 AM.
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My contribution... definitely could have used another few takes (not to mention some mixing), but I wanted to get something in this month as I won't be able to participate next month due to travel.
As always, I'm open to critique (and there's plenty of critique to be had, I'm sure!).
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Sounds good to me Jehu. I like the acoustic sound and the way you handled the melody.
I don't like offering critiques but maybe there is an observation I can give which might be useful. It applies to me too! What I would say is focus on time. You're playing nice lines, now if you can really tighten up the time and make them sound more 'deliberate', they will sound even better.
I know that since I've been recording my own playing, it has made me more aware of this, so I've put in a lot of effort to lock my time into the underlying beat. Still not happy with it, it will be a lifetime process I think!
But if you're looking for a 'quick win', I think this is one.
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Thanks for the comments and the great tip, Graham. That is definitely something I need to work on. I feel as if I know where the beat is, but I'm a bit too quick to stray off of it before establishing it, and this results in me sounding all over the place. I think I also have a tendency to let lines trail off into nowhere, so I'd like to work on giving them a definitive start and end point. I guess it all comes back to what you mention: making the lines sound "deliberate".
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