Play a really fast tune with as few notes as possible challenge

[christianm77]

one of Grahambop’s post gave me an idea.

240 bpm+

At least 1 chorus

no backing, no click (discourages leaning on the backing for a sense of time.)

single notes only

want to hear the time and changes

don’t post name of tune, have to be able to hear it

don’t play the melody smartarse :-)

as few running eighth note lines as possible.

Faster = better
Fewer notes = betterer
More choruses = why not?
More melody = super better
Bebop licks = plus bad

tempo sustained throughout recording without dropping the beat or inverting it

can any of us do it?

[grahambop]

lol that’s basically how I play on fast tunes anyway (240 is probably about my limit for 8th notes).

[bonsritmos]

well i like this exercise because mastery of up tempo is definitly not how fast you play , but, how much control of the groove and time you have. how much understanding of holding your part and giving up some one.

have you ever seen those guys who have gobs of technique on medium tempos, huge fast runs , blistering with technique, but cant hold an up tempo bop ? why is that? they have the technique to do fast lines. its because its a groove . you have to treat it like a groove.

if you understand the groove and have mastered time, you can chose to play as few notes posible and lay it at the strategic pivot points of the song structure and right place in the groove for everyone on the bandstand and audience to know where you are at. and you can chose to run some fast lines at the right moment , making sure to come back right at the right hit to alert everyone you know where you are at in the groove and time

[christianm77]

[DB's Jazz Guitar Blog]

I hear it right away. Can I name the tune?

No I cannot. Got it.

DB

[Onlyserious]

How about playing the melody of Cherokee straight? Would that count?

[christianm77]

I hear it right away. Can I name the tune?

No I cannot. Got it.

DB

Then that’s got to be a fail because I’m sure you’d know it.

i didn’t say I could actually do this - I just feel like, I should.

[christianm77]

How about playing the melody of Cherokee straight? Would that count?

Nope

[ragman1]

As few notes as possible HA HA HA HA HA HA

Oh, sorry.

[DB's Jazz Guitar Blog]

As few notes as possible HA HA HA HA HA HA

Oh, sorry. All of me, take

Yeah, I was wondering about that too. The fewer notes, the harder to guess what tune is probably.

DB

[christianm77]

should have seen the first take.

anyway, obviously easier to recognise after more than one chorus.

[ragman1]

I'm not 100% sure it was All Of Me so I deleted that bit. But the name's not the main point, probably.

[djg]

was obvious after bar 4. i play it in F.















just friends

[mr. beaumont]

I'll be getting in on this, for sure. Very cool idea.

[ragman1]

Many happy repeats, I mean returns

[ragman1]

Keeping 120 in your head is easy, of course, and then play your tune twice as fast. Maybe not a problem. The problem is the 'few notes as possible' bit. Leaving stuff out but maintaining the tune/solo is difficult.

But why we should want to torture ourselves like this is strange... maybe I'm missing something. Must be Spring!

[christianm77]

Well people always moan about fast tempos requiring technique but no one actually wants to listen to an endless chain of 8ths accented on the beat. (Well apart from jazz guitarists maybe.) So that’s not the secret of making music with these tempos.

As a notey player this intrigues me, because I want options other than to spaff bebop on everything.

So. In order to play fast tempos musically you need to be able to play simple - or at least simpler - on them.

However OTOH if you just play even quarter notes you might as well be playing half time. So what’s the thing that gives the sense of the tempo? You have to find it and dig into it. As bons said its about the groove and rhythmic accuracy.

Not just in the syncopations but in the articulations and accents too.

Jim Hall was great at doing this

Its easy to play ‘simple’ if you are leaning on someone else’s time feel. Or just playing with no rhythmic energy, absolutely inert on the beat. And then blame the rhythm section when it slows down. That last bit is very important :-)

[christianm77]

A little slower than my challenge, but one of my favourite examples of how to burn without playing lots of notes:

[ragman1]

Well people always moan about fast tempos requiring technique but no one actually wants to listen to an endless chain of 8ths accented on the beat. (Well apart from jazz guitarists maybe.) So that’s not the secret of making music with these tempos.

So. In order to play fast tempos musically you need to be able to play simple - or at least simpler - on them.

I know.

However OTOH if you just play quarter notes you might as well be playing half time.

Boring.

So what’s the thing that gives the sense of the tempo? You have to find it and dig into it. As bons said its about the groove and rhythmic accuracy.

Swing, absolutely.

Its easy to play ‘simple’ if you are leaning on someone else’s time feel or a backing track. Or just playing with no rhythmic energy, absolutely inert on the beat.

Yes, but what's wrong with some backing? Nothing wrong with backing. 99% of tunes have backing of some kind. Why not? Some bad players may 'lean' but that's their lookout.

[christianm77]

I know.



Boring.



Swing, absolutely.



Yes, but what's wrong with some backing? Nothing wrong with backing. 99% of tunes have backing of some kind. Why not? Some bad players may 'lean' but that's their lookout.

Because there’s no hiding and you have to nail it. You also don’t have any help re slowing down or speeding up. So it’s obvious right away if you have the tempo internalised.

plus - ever play a duo gig?

[rpjazzguitar]

My ideas of the key to playing fewer notes.

1. Good melody.

2. Interesting syncopation.

3. Leave space for the rhythm section to sound good.

4. Build excitement --this is the trick,since you're not going to be doing it with a note flurry. It can be done with interesting harmony, lines soaring up and down over multiple octaves. Starting really quiet and sparse so that it sounds exciting when you play more, even if it isn't that much. I think it helps enormously to have some variation in the way the notes speak. Squeeze, shake, slide, hammer, pull, palm mute, apply processing with an expression or volume pedal and anything else you can apply musically.

I posted my take on Cherokee on the other thread, using a bunch of this stuff.

[ragman1]

Yes, I've played duo gigs. In fact, quite a lot.

You might think I was just piddling about with that Happy Birthday thing but I wasn't really. I wrote it out and took out the notes I thought were spurious and kept the ones I thought conveyed the tune. And it was 240.

But how few notes is 'few'? And with what sort of tune? Bop would be pretty hard, I should think. ATTYA would be quite easy, probably. But...

In any case, we should always internalise the tempo. It's what it's about.

(Mind you, 5/4 drives me potty)

[christianm77]

My ideas of the key to playing fewer notes.

1. Good melody.

2. Interesting syncopation.

3. Leave space for the rhythm section to sound good.

4. Build excitement --this is the trick,since you're not going to be doing it with a note flurry. It can be done with interesting harmony, lines soaring up and down over multiple octaves. Starting really quiet and sparse so that it sounds exciting when you play more, even if it isn't that much. I think it helps enormously to have some variation in the way the notes speak. Squeeze, shake, slide, hammer, pull, palm mute, apply processing with an expression or volume pedal and anything else you can apply musically.

I posted my take on Cherokee on the other thread, using a bunch of this stuff.

Can you do it without backing?

[Hep To The Jive]

A little slower than my challenge, but one of my favourite examples of how to burn without playing lots of notes:

Yea, it's all good, but the concept of playing fewer notes on fast tempos include playing off of each other, the rhythm section basically. People's ears get tired of endless 8th notes precisely because the sonic field becomes too dense.

Now when you play solo, nothing to play off of, busy lines actually do sound good, if you must avoid the chords or chord solos of course (no idea why you would though). OTOH, keeping it sparse with no chords just the lines sound unnatural and boring. So the challenge is how more uninspired you can get. That's just my observation, sorry. Because you don't really practice something of value to your performance with a band, if thats the point.

[rpjazzguitar]

Can you do it without backing?

I continued after the track stopped in the video I posted.