16th note lines over II V I

[mooncef]

How do you guys harness the power of your bread and butter devices to build up a 16Th note line a la pat martino ! ?

[christianm77]

This is one way:

Step 1
Transcribe some pat martino lines

Step 2
Analyse using bread and butter devices

Step 3
Apply to create your own lines

[christianm77]

I'm sure we can help if you hit any snags

[mooncef]

I'm sure we can help if you hit any snags

If you don't mind sharing a solo of martino containing a good 16th line i can start with , that would help !

[JakeAcci]

If you don't mind sharing a solo of martino containing a good 16th line i can start with , that would help !

Here.ya.go:

[AndrewPat]

Helped me a lot:

loop 2 5 1 progression build up to a reasonable speed, then half tempo. Keep playing at same speed despite tempo halved.

Double the length of the bars line so u get used to feeling like you're on the chord for longer. 2 bars II, 2 bars V, 4 bars I. Build this up to double the tempo you want to double time at.

Be able to play your scales at the desired semi quaver speed before begin trying to improvise there.

[christianm77]

So mooncef, how would you analyse JakeAcci's line?

BTW it is better if you choose you own line of a recording. Find something that jumps out to you, catches your ear. But let's start with the line above.

[Lionelsax]

I know it's not a guitar but Randy Brecker explains it very well.

[christianm77]

I know it's not a guitar but Randy Brecker explains it very well.

All the more reason to watch it as horn players tend to swing a lot harder than most guitarists:-)

[Lionelsax]

All the more reason to watch it as horn players tend to swing a lot harder than most guitarists:-)

Not sure of that : look at this, or listen, nothing to do with 16th notes, which are very hard to swing if the right articulation on 8th note is not mastered.

One day Philippe Petrucciani came to visite us when I was a student and he showed us his right hand technique, he just picks with the thumb, so all his articulation comes from his left hand.

[christianm77]

I said most guitar players. You cannot use Bruce Foreman as a counter example on account of him being a motherfucker. :-)

Most semi-pro/jobbing pro horn players (in my experience) have better feel than guitar players at the same level. Guitarists tend to rush, and even when they have good time, they often tend to play rather straight.

There are all sorts of reasons for this - one big one (I think) is the fact that most horn players do a lot of section work and big band work. Learning to synchronise your phrasing with experienced musicians is something guitarists don't do that much, unless we are playing unison lines in a quartet or something.

Definitely agree with the left hand thing.

RE: 16th notes... Well it depends how you look at it. Hal Galper views up tempo jazz as being in 2/4, in which case what we think of 8th notes become 16ths.

[matt.guitarteacher]

All a bit out of my league I guess. I do wonder about what the op is actually asking. On first read, I assumed it was kind of related to form more. Like "How do you shape phrases with twice as many notes in them?.

[JakeAcci]

yeah...as often is the case, hard to give a good answer with knowing more info. A good question, but at this point vague.

[Lionelsax]

But it's difficult, the best way is to try it on a ballad, I don't agree when people say be bop or kind of such genre is ternary, for me it's polyrhythmic, playing 8th with ternary feel is "easy", triplet of 4th too (the easiest), triplet of 8th a bit more difficult if you're dragging or rushing,
16th notes, it's the more difficult.
In up tempo, you may play legato.
I'm a saxophonist and I know it's not so easy.
One day I've tried 16th and I recorded it, and I don't really know if I was playing 16th notes, it wasn't so accurate.
I'm sorry to share that.

Not a ballad but a blues.

[princeplanet]

For me, the challenge with 16 note lines is in filling between chord tones. A basic way is to train yourself to play "bebop" scales which guarantee you will land chord tones on every other notes. This sounds terrible to me, but I did it for a couple of years a while back just to get my right hand happening because 16th notes have to be articulated with a jazz feel which has a lot to do with right hand dynamics and time control.

I suppose you could then, as I did, move on to dozens of more interesting ways to diatonically and chromatically link chord tones. Here you use your own discretion, or taste - whatever sounds good to you. For example, as I don't like more than 3 arpeggiated notes in a row as much as I dislike playing too many scale tones in a row, it becomes all about embellishment for me- enclosures, passing or approach tones, dithering, patterned devices ("Honeysuckle" etc). I tend to develop my own ideas in groups of 4, 8, 16 or 32 notes. I practice them in all positions until they're as automated as speaking "words". So I'm linking these "words" as I go, obviously differently every time.

The important thing for me is to have enough "words" in my vocabulary, which is a real bitch, it is taking me years to accrue! I get ideas from great recordings where people play modally so you know that all the notes are pertaining to a single chord. Of course the greats use all 12 notes in all sorts of ways- chromatic embellishment, implying superimposed harmony or substitutions, sidestepping etc. Any idea you steal or compose can be patterned or sequenced, or you can just get the Jerry Coker book on Jazz patterns.

I like to practice using my growing vocab in modal settings, so I can develop an ability to "pre hear" words leading into other words. It's hundreds of hours of trial and error, remember, we're talking 16th note lines so we're essentially learning to burn. Learning to do this in stages, I think, is imperative. The next stage is to tackle changes at burning tempos, the hardest thing to do well and the reason why a large vocab is important, otherwise you can sound like you're just running scales and arps. Now, even if you can successfully stitch together varied material against Donna Lee or something, there's still higher levels to work towards- i.e., creating melodically compelling "stories" instead of playing line games. As was quoted around these parts recently " aim for poetry, not crossword puzzles"...

Of course, there's nothing wrong with not learning to play long fast lines on the guitar, leaving the shredding to the piano and horns!

[matt.guitarteacher]

I thought that, too. From my own work-in-progress perspective, I tend to think of adding implied changes:
Dm7 to G7 could become Dm7, A7b9, Dm7, G7b9 or Dm7, Ab13, G13, Db13, etc.

Yep. That's where I thought it was going.

[M-ster]

How do you guys harness the power of your bread and butter devices to build up a 16Th note line a la pat martino ! ?

16th note lines (as well as slower harmonic rhythms) present the opportunity to introduce more chromaticism.

In addition to Martino, listen to Andreas Oberg. (There are many others.)