Autumn Leaves for beginners

[23skidoo]

Hey folks- another newbie....

I've decided to practice in public. Following my intuition, and the advice I've seen in old threads, I'm starting my jazz evolution with something basic, Autumn Leaves. It's always been one of my favorites.

I know I'm reinventing the wheel, but I'm trying to be thorough, really pick it apart and do some foundational learning.

I'm at the point of trying come up with an original (but by no means unique) arrangement. I've pulled together several charts from other threads and the web.

For other beginners, I think this one is great:
Autumn Leaves Chord Melody from Renaissance Man
No frills and it's easy to get it sounding good quickly. The pdf download link is buried down the page...

Autumn Leaves comp sheet from TedGreene.com
While I'm trying to move away from tab dependency, this is a really useful comp sheet from the Ted Greene site. A Mr. Leon White has graciously organized the original handout into two pdf's that a Philistine like me can make sense of.

I've put together a playlist in iTunes of twenty different arrangements, listening for bits and pieces that I like. I really love Keely Smith's vocals with Louis Prima. Lenny Breau's Warm Up and Improvisation on the Cabin Fever album is pretty inspiring. Link Wray does a simple, clean version that's great for hearing how the melody moves through the changes. Any other suggestions?

I'm trying to keep it simple, pay attention to guide tones, wrap my fingers around new chords, using a simple song to get time on the instrument and get more familiar with the notes on the fret board.

I'm not really sure why I'm posting this. I sort of feel like an exhibitionist. I also don't know how quickly I'll work, but I'll post my progress here and make you guys suffer through my birth pains. I'm glad there's a "Getting Started" forum because that's exactly what I'm doing. We'll see how it goes.

EDIT- be sure to scroll through the thread.... I'm going to keep trying to add links to good resources for this tune as I find them.

[JazzVocab]

Sounds like you're on the right path! My advice... I would strongly advise trying to sing through the song (on your own when everyones out the house to save embarrassment!) which will give you a 'pure' impro without getting hung up and sidetracked by the actual process of playing the guitar (scales, fingering etc) Record it and see if you can make any sense of it and learn it on guitar. I bet it will be simpler and more melodic than just noodling through scales. Something I try to do is to sing a phrase and try to make it fit the chords, for example try singing the tune of "happy birthday to you" and make it fit over the chords. OK that's a bit of a corny choice but I hope you get the idea. In fact the melody of Autumn Leaves pretty much follows the pattern of a phrase repeated through different chords anyway, try question and answer stuff too.
Hope this helps a bit

[Ron Stern]

Here's a thing I use for a kind of warm-up drill on Autumn Leaves. Kind of a tango. The point is that for each chord you use two voicings.

[23skidoo]

Ron - Thanks - it's a good drill for me, especially nice to see something written in another key. Gracias.

Dan - Thanks for the encouragement....I've been singing this all week, in the house, in the car.... my kids are getting sick of the tune. My seven year old asked me this morning 'Why are you singing that song again?' Teachable moment - an impromptu lesson on theme and variation, the idea of reinterpreting the standards and individuality in artistic expression.... She got one of those Squire mini stratocasters for her birthday.... she wants to be Hannah Montana, god help us....

[Ron Stern]

Sounds good to me. A chord melody treatment.

1. Don't worry about playing slow. Stick with the thing you have now and play as slowly as you have to in order to make no mistakes.

2. Write it down, i.e. transcribe it.

3. Learn to play the same thing different ways. Pick a chord or two and change the voicing. Move it all up or down an octave. I think the standard approach is to go all the way around the circle of fifths. That will take a while.

4. Do the minimalist thing, try to play 2 or at most three notes per chord. That generally means eliminating a couple. After you do that, do it again, using the ones you eliminated and eliminating the ones you used.

It's fun in an obsessive, masochistic kind of way. I find that in order to play with other people, i.e. comp, you need to play little but mix it up a lot, if you know what I mean. So you need lots of alternatives and different ways of combining them. No way to do that without a shipload of practice.

[jayx123]

You are on the right track.

[23skidoo]

Thanks for the feedback.

Ron- I've been doing a lot of the things you suggested. I started out with just basic shell chords and other 2/3 note voicings in different places - a great exercise for learning the fretboard and the different movable chord shapes... trying to pay attention to thirds and sevenths, the different inversions. I find that when I try to 'play' the song, though, my ear still wants fuller 4+ note chords - just what I'm used to hearing and trying to play in other styles. Once I get up to speed a little more, I'm going to try to play along with BIAB or my own backing and try to get the idea of a sparser sound in my ear. A lot of this - especially the speed thing - is just a matter of actually being able to play what I know, fluency..... time on the instrument.

Thanks again for the input.

[Jazzpunk]

Autumn Leaves comp sheet from TedGreene.com
While I'm trying to move away from tab dependency, this is a really useful comp sheet from the Ted Greene site.

Very nice, thanks!

[lotuscent]

keep it up!

[Laurits]

Very good job!

From what you write it seems you are very new to jazz, but you seem dedicated and your playing really isn't that bad. I actually liked the sound very much, so you just keep practicing what you do

I'm stealing some of your ideas for practicing, I'm new myself, and it seems this approach really worked well for you, so maybe it will help me too.

/Laurits

[23skidoo]

Thanks for the positive feedback, guys.

I've been working with what I had the last few days, trying to simplify the voicings (making it easier for me to play) and get a consistent arrangement together.... going slow, trying to get it right.... going to try to get it notated and posted for comments..... spending lots of time on the technique, trying not to practice it wrong, so it's slow going....

Laurits - thanks for the comments. As I said in another thread, I played a lot of jazz saxophone, at a pretty basic level, 15 years ago, but I've always listened to a lot of jazz and I've got it in my ear. Just trying to translate years of playing straight ahead open/barre chord rock and country into more serious jazz playing..... as pierre richard always notes - 'time on the instrument'.....

[henry b]

You are on the right track.

Where is the Song Book on this app ,please .

[matt.guitarteacher]

Dude, your first video is flipped, or are you ambidextrous?

[czardas]

Hey 23Skidoo, are you from Liverpool then? I have very little time ATM, but seeing as you asked, take a look where your little finger on your left hand hangs out. It could be kept a lot closer to the fretboard when idle. Then it would be more readily available to play the notes when called upon. That's my first observation. Good luck with it.

[23skidoo]

czardas -

yah, I know, the pinkie..... been working on it, discussed exercises to control it in another thread. It's getting better, although in making this arrangement easier to play, I got rid of the need for using the pinkie at all.... concentrating so much on playing well, reverted to bad form. Thanks for pointing it out - obviously need to continue working on it....

I'm in Atlanta, a yank, just a Liverpool fan. It's been a rough couple of seasons, but one of the reasons I love this shirt is that it celebrates the club's new American owners. They also own the Boston Red Sox, a pro baseball team here in the states.... turned the team around, won a World Series, returned them to powerhouse status... the shirt looks just like the classic Red Sox shirt. Hopefully they can help Liverpool get back on track....

[whatswisdom]

They also own the Boston Red Sox, a pro baseball team here in the states.... turned the team around, won a World Series, returned them to powerhouse status... the shirt looks just like the classic Red Sox shirt. Hopefully they can help Liverpool get back on track....

Kind of like Kenny Daglish turning Liverpool around. They've had a great season. Nice work with Autumn Leaves. Keep it up. What's with the left-handed acoustic vs. right-handed electric?

[czardas]

I have an excersise for helping to control the little finger. It's very simple, yet seems almost impossible to do.

Excersise for pinky

On one of the inner strings perform a pull off from the third to the second finger of the left hand. To minimize movement do this apoyando (as a flamenco player would do), by landing with the third finger (LH) on the adjacent string below. Now repeat this movement but, try to keep your pinky in line with the strings as you play. It will not stay put, because it wants to follow the movement of the third finger.

The trick is to try it very slowly with a very light touch, while focusing all the attention on the little finger. If you can get it to move less then you have acheived something.

[23skidoo]

thanks for the tip, czardas, I'll give it a try.

whatswisdom - thanks for the encouragement. And I'm a rightie - the acoustic video was my first recording attempt and I hadn't figured how to flip the video - my mac laptop's built in webcam defaults to recording a flipped image, I guess to accomodate online chatting? And bringing King Kenny in was almost as good a decision as selling Fernando Torres. I've always liked Hodgson, and I'm glad he's doing well with West Brom, but it's good to see the Reds in such a strong position at the end of the season - hard to believe after the way they started....

[czardas]

thanks for the tip, czardas, I'll give it a try.

Most people will find this exercise quite hard. I have been trying to get my little finger to stay still for years, and I still find it difficult. It does help to pay close attention to such details in the long term.

[gingerjazz]

Skidoo your getting there with the playing,two things i would ask do you practice with a metronome you should if you dont,in my opinion its better to play slow and in time and hit all the notes than fast and missing notes and pausing when forming new chords.The other question is do you know which chords you are playing and how they are constructed and where each degree of the chords is in the shapes you are playing or have you learnt them just as finger shapes.I believe it is no good learning a piece of music just as a seres of finger shapes without knowing the theory behind it all,this is one of my beefs with tab people can learn to play things with no understanding of the theory behind what they are playing,which is fine if you want to spend your life playing other peoples music and never expressing your own musical ideas.Please understand i am in no way trying to put down what you have achieved i just want to make sure you continue on the right road and save you having to turn back later on,as its easier to learn something right first time than it is to relearn something later on,i know i speak from experience.peace.

[23skidoo]

ginger-

thanks for the feedback.... I pretty much always practice and play with a metronome or backing track. I think the phasing is a little better in the second video, but definitely still needs work.... I've actually got a metronome going, slower than usual, trying to play clean.... my best is getting better, slowly.

As far as the notes I'm playing, I do pay close attention, or try to.... came up with this arrangement building each chord, trying to voice lead, move around the fretboard for variety, made some subs based solely on my untrained ear.... I'm also trying it in a couple of other keys, learning the melody and changes in different places, just really trying to learn the song. I'm working on other tunes, but this is really the first jazz tune I've tried to play, first time I've tried to do anything other than cowboy and barre chords..... progress is slow but steady.

I'm also working on comping and basic improv using BIAB. Check back and you'll see some more painful amateur exhibitionism in the near future...


thanks again for the comments, hope nobody minds me practicing in public....

[whatswisdom]

And bringing King Kenny in was almost as good a decision as selling Fernando Torres.

A master stroke bringing in King Kenny to be sure. Torres substituted at Stamford Bridge today and Kalou comes on and scores the winner--as well as Lampard's goal that didn't cross the line. What a bizzare day...

[Lwhite]

I'm glad the sheet helped. I used to have more time for that kind of thing. There are MANY more there under 'student lessons' or similar heading. I think they're super.
Regards
Leon White

[23skidoo]

Leon-

Thanks again.... there is a lot of great stuff on the Ted Greene site from former students.... here's the link for those interested:

TedGreene.com - Teachings - From Students

I'm making my way slowly, but I've got it bookmarked....