Octaves lesson?

[Sam G]

i think it would be great to have a lesson on improvising with wes-style octaves. something with some technical exercises and example licks. if there's already something like this, can someone point me in the right direction?

[bako]

I practice all the things that I play with single notes but only slower.
Also I work on different ways to integrate slurs (slides) and individual attacks to create variety in phrasing.

[nu_mike]

Don Mock published a book & disk set on using octaves mainly in the style of Wes, as opposed to George Benson.

I think you can still get it - do a search on amazon under his name.

[franco6719]

You know, it's a technical skill like playing arpeggios or complex chord voicings. It's just something that you have to practice and practice and practice if you really want to get proficient at it, it seems to me. I used to play octaves pretty well when I was a college student, for example. Since I stopped playing for a long time, I really lost the coordination and facility with that sort of thing. I was transcribing a lot of Wes just lately, and I found that I would sometimes figure out the lines at half speed and then not be able to keep up at full speed. You have to practice the lines, just like you would practice arpeggios and things like that.

But there are a few books that have Wes lines already translated and this might help out as well, for example. Just pick a nice-sounding phrase and work it up to speed.