Hammering on/pulling off onto the down beat

[Jehu]

Here's my transcription of Anthropology to give you an idea:

Hey PMB, that's a great fingering. You wouldn't happen to have something similar worked out for Confirmation, would you?

I've settled on fingerings that I'm happy with for others (Scrapple, Donna Lee, Billie's Bounce, etc.) but there are some awkward spots in Confirmation that I haven't found decent solutions for.

[christianm77]

@PMB, thanks for the info and transcription. I'll work through this today. I went through a big Hal Galper Forward Motion thing about 4 years ago, and I can certainly appreciate how the slurring thing fits in with that.

[christianm77]

Incidentally, Moreno appears to be suggesting in the video that it's preferable to play heads around 3rd - 5th position, if possible for a better tone and intonation - if I understand him right. That might be the sweet spot on his particular axe, but it's something to think about...

[PMB]

Hey PMB, that's a great fingering. You wouldn't happen to have something similar worked out for Confirmation, would you?

I've settled on fingerings that I'm happy with for others (Scrapple, Donna Lee, Billie's Bounce, etc.) but there are some awkward spots in Confirmation that I haven't found decent solutions for.

I've transcribed all those heads in the past although I don't know that I ever finished writing out Confirmation as I play it a little differently anyway. A lot of the ornamentation in that tune sounds improvised by Parker on the spot. I'll see what I can dig up. As for Billie's Bounce, that's a classic instance where going directly to the source is illuminating. Next to no one plays a b7 in the first bar but it's there and makes total sense when you check the harmony provided by Miles' trumpet line (smaller note heads):

[PMB]

Incidentally, Moreno appears to be suggesting in the video that it's preferable to play heads around 3rd - 5th position, if possible for a better tone and intonation - if I understand him right. That might be the sweet spot on his particular axe, but it's something to think about...

Sure, but the difficulty with transcribing Parker heads is that he played alto so you'll often find the more logical fingerings are up in his octave, i.e. around the 12th fret. For instance, I play Dexterity down the octave around the 3rd position but it's on the edge of becoming muddy. Jonathan Kreisberg's solution is to play the bridge up the octave whereas Peter Bernstein transposes the whole thing from Bb to F.

[christianm77]

Sure, but the difficulty with transcribing Parker heads is that he played alto so you'll often find the more logical fingerings are up in his octave, i.e. around the 12th fret. For instance, I play Dexterity down the octave around the 3rd position but it's on the edge of becoming muddy. Jonathan Kreisberg's solution is to play the bridge up the octave whereas Peter Bernstein transposes the whole thing from Bb to F.

I do that with Dexterity - bridge up an octave I mean. I also play most of my heads in the original (higher) register now, although really it's worth learning them in two octaves I think.

Moreno seems plays all the heads in the video transposed down an octave, and seems to prefer the sound in a certain area of the guitar (position 3 or 4 mostly.) I have to say I like the nutty, tight, articulate sound he gets down there. He seems to be saying that in his opinion high positions can sound a bit spongy and out of tune.

I'm not sure the point is that we should play the heads exactly like him (although I particularly like his sound on this material) more that he has spent a lot of time working on the sound as well as the articulation of the lines. The results speak for themselves.

That's a really good point about Billie's Bounce - I never noticed that Eb before.

You have decisions to make - in the case of Anthropology that first bar fingering works great with the slurring in that position, but I'm sure Moreno would choose to play it closer to the nut for a bit more snap.

If we play it in 3rd position we get a better sound (IMO) but we sacrifice the pull off from the D to the C. On the other hand if we shift down to 1st position the sound get a little too 'twangy' perhaps.

Anyway, there's not necessarily a right and wrong answer. I suspect Moreno would take tone over using a pull off here - and play the D to C with an upsweep.

[christianm77]

Anyway, working through your transcriptions are very helpful, thanks for taking the time.

I probably won't end up playing the heads using these fingerings for the reasons I mentioned, but it's good to work though that kind of rigorous fingering.

[christianm77]

@PMB - if you have a pdf of a Donna Lee fingering could you post it? It would be interesting to compare to Moreno's fingering.

[PMB]

Thanks for the comments and the review of the Moreno video. Sounds like it's worth a look.

I also like checking out other options (the Voelpel Parker transcription book offers some nice solutions) but in the end, it depends on what your priorities are. For me, hammers/pull-offs are an intrinsic part of the tone so I'll usually try to find a workable solution if I can. I really hear/feel a slur on that D to C at the beginning of Anthropology so I prefer to move position. It's worth mentioning that the guitar itself can play a part in where we choose to play a phrase. What works on your long-scale solid Tele might not transfer successfully to a short-scale hollow archtop.

[PMB]

@PMB - if you have a pdf of a Donna Lee fingering could you post it? It would be interesting to compare to Moreno's fingering.

I've come up with what I consider a good fingering for Donna Lee (don't know Mike Moreno's take on it) but the transcription got lost somewhere between computers. There's another tune that's become bastardised via being picked up from the original Real Book. Lots of mistakes whereas the Omnibook is mostly correct.

I move around a lot on the head for DL, once again to preserve the phrasing as I hear it. I'm in the studio all tomorrow and then gigging out of town over the next few days but it might be easier to put up a video when I get a chance. In the meantime, here's Barry Galbraith's fingerings (in a crappy xerox of his own manuscript). Some nice choices where it's legible:

[christianm77]

Nice! Did you study with Barry?

BTW - is the first note of the first phrase fingered on the 2nd string? Hard to read.

[christianm77]

Thanks for the comments and the review of the Moreno video. Sounds like it's worth a look.

I also like checking out other options (the Voelpel Parker transcription book offers some nice solutions) but in the end, it depends on what your priorities are. For me, hammers/pull-offs are an intrinsic part of the tone so I'll usually try to find a workable solution if I can. I really hear/feel a slur on that D to C at the beginning of Anthropology so I prefer to move position. It's worth mentioning that the guitar itself can play a part in where we choose to play a phrase. What works on your long-scale solid Tele might not transfer successfully to a short-scale hollow archtop.

Indeed... Sweet spots vary from instrument to instrument.

[princeplanet]

I presume you mean sliding into the down beat as well as hammering on or pulling off? I practice a stack of devices that approach or embellish chord tones. I do what many do, which is to find the fingerings and picking methods that are cleanest and most controlled. These are the ones that feel good and the ones you are most likely to include in your playing without "thinking".

But I practice these long etudes I make up, accenting the 1st of 4 16th notes as well as the first of every 3 or 6 triplet notes. Not because I play (or want to play) like this when I improvise, but because it ingrains my sense of time, like a fast ticking metronome underlying everything I feel, hear and play. So that I can dip in and out of the stream of 16th notes on any part of any bar. It helps me keep my place in tunes where I instinctively can just know where I am because of how it "feels"...

But to make this work for me, I have had to do years of practicing accenting downbeats, whether they're struck with a down or upstroke, hammered, pulled or slid... So I'm doing the opposite to a lot of you guys, I'm trying not to accent the up or off beat that is struck note before a legato downbeat. The reason is because it's the natural inclination to do that, and it is much harder IMO to avoid it. If I accent every main down beat, I feel the groove better, If I accent some notes because that the way the pick falls, I am at the mercy (dynamically) of the guitar's mechanics.

But wait - before you all reply saying that it's very UN bebop to learn to phrase that way, I am 100% aware of this necessary downside, and have always had a contingency plan where I allocate some practice time to counteract the tendency to sound like a metronome. I try alt picking and then eco picking, but I also do each starting on either up or downstrokes. The rationale is that if I can pick all sorts of ways and always be in control of accenting the downbeat, then I can pick all sorts of ways, and also be able to accent any off beat. Moreover, I can practice the etudes and experiment with where to throw in random accents, but still feel where the "one" is every time because of the years of disciplined "accent the one" practice.

When I listened to a lot of Bop, I was hearing the stop-start, angular phrasing trying to come out in my playing, but because I listen to mainly Hard Bop these days, the rhythmic cells are less random, and I find I'm not wishing I could phrase like Bird anymore, I'm happier to try and phrase more like Jackie Mclean, not because it's easier, but because I think it sounds cooler. The quirky stop-start Bop thing in Bird heads doesn't appeal to me these days, I always preferred to transcribe the solos. Am I the only one that finds Bird heads "Dorky" sounding?...

[joe2758]

[QUOTE=princeplanet;669270 Am I the only one that finds Bird heads "Dorky" sounding?... [/QUOTE] lol get outta here man you're too much

[christianm77]

What would be hip if we could all post videos of us playing Anthroplogy (for those who want to) not necessarily for critique, just to hear how different techniques and fingerings are chosen by different players and create a different effect.

[christianm77]

@Prince - I know quite a few players who play downstrokes on the beats and upstrokes on the off beat - the challenge for them is to play an equalised strong upstroke, or be able to accent equally well on the upstroke or the downstroke.

I feel I should make the point that Moreno says he plays all downstrokes at a medium tempo, for this reason. I have to say on the occasions when I play this way, I really like the feel, I should do it more often.

The other thing that's interesting is that when I went to lute lessons - the technique is down beat/up beat picking with the fingers - so m goes on the beat and i, which is weaker in thumb in playing, plays the off beat (not like the modern im classical guitar technique, which is pure alternate starting on i.) The teacher tried to get me to play with more of a strong-weak lilt - that is accent the beat and not the upbeat, and my natural tendency was to play an equalised or accented upbeat.

Make of that what you will anyway. I think there's more than one way to go about this, but I do think that practicing a variety of different approaches can only help. It's good to practice all the varieties of articulation you can IMO.

[joe2758]

@Prince - I know quite a few players who play downstrokes on the beats and upstrokes on the off beat - the challenge for them is to play an equalised strong upstroke, or be able to accent equally well on the upstroke or the downstroke.

.

I basically use economy picking, and what happened over time in order to balance the sound I now play rest strokes almost all the time in both directions. I like my attack, but I am admittedly not very fast.

[PMB]

Nice! Did you study with Barry?

BTW - is the first note of the first phrase fingered on the 2nd string? Hard to read.

No, but a friend of mine did and it's from a lesson he took in the early '70s. I can't make that phrase out either but I play it from the 2nd string.

[princeplanet]

Yeah, picking is a bitch. I feel sure that it puts guitar players years behind other instruments in some ways. It's hard enough playing boring streams of 8ths or 16ths with regular picking and accenting, but with SOLID time.

So then there's mixing alt, eco and slurs while playing any rhythmic groupings against any even or odd meter, jumping and skipping strings, accenting anything at will and make it sound unacademic or unforced..... yeah, right! ....

[PMB]

Am I the only one that finds Bird heads "Dorky" sounding?...

Dorky Bird Head:

[christianm77]

Yeah, picking is a bitch. I feel sure that it puts guitar players years behind other instruments in some ways. It's hard enough playing boring streams of 8ths or 16ths with regular picking and accenting, but with SOLID time.

So then there's mixing alt, eco and slurs while playing any rhythmic groupings against any even or odd meter, jumping and skipping strings, accenting anything at will and make it sound unacademic or unforced..... yeah, right! ....

I've never had a problem with picking in general. While this might sound rather smug - I am lucky - the thing is it has blinded me to the possibility of using other articulations, because I just pick everything. But musically, that's not always the best solution.

After all, didn't John Scofield go his way because of his struggle with picking every note? If he'd been a great picker, perhaps he would never have been as original a player.

Hmm. I don't really see bebop phrases as strings of 8th notes. I mean, they kind of are, but in another sense, they are not. I tend to hear lines as having a direction towards a resolution note. I think Hal Galper's book was a big influence here...

Moreno repeats Hal's point in the video - if you hear something strongly enough, your body will make it happen. I firmly believe that focussing on technique too much can interfere with this. It's amazing how at any level, students find it so much easier to play a phrase once they have sung it through a few times. I think most of us know that.

Which is not to say that technical drills etc are a waste of time, or working through passages carefully exploring different options and polishing certain phrases.

[princeplanet]

lol get outta here man you're too much

With respect and apologies to the player above, these are what the heads sound like on guitar. Take away the sax underneath, and tell me if you think this sounds compelling to you on the guitar. I'd rather hear these heads played on the mouth organ, piano accordian, or tuned wine glasses! Contrast this to some nice Martino, Wes or GB lines that were written for the guitar...

Now don't get me wrong, I transcribe sax solos a fair bit, even Bird, but I still say the heads are usually square, the hip shit is in the solos. Sure, I understand people play them for skill training exercises, but if you're gonna shed stuff for hours, you might as well shed stuff that is actually useable on the bandstand. When I hear guitarists quoting Bird heads more than they should it's an instant turn off. I've never heard it sound commanding like it can on a horn, or even piano. Some things just weren't meant to be, like Stanley Jordan with his tap guitar wishing it was a piano. Yeah it's amazing (that anyone would bother...), and it's difficult and it's unique. Too bad it isn't entertaining!

[princeplanet]

Dorky Bird Head:

No way, that bird looks way cool!

[joe2758]

that you playing prince?

[christianm77]

What are you cats doing for eighth note triplets?