JGBE Virtual Jam (Round 7) - Nica's Dream

**TOMMO** · 03-02-2021, 05:04 PM

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

Nice laid back take. You can see there's parts where you were comfortable, and parts where you were hesitant...the comfortable parts sound great, so really all you need is time with the tune!

Where's pierrerichard when you need him?

Thanks Jeff. You got me hooked on that tune and it is now on my list of tunes that I frequently practice and work on.

**mr. beaumont** · 03-02-2021, 05:04 PM

Originally Posted by lawson-stone

I thought I'd just report that on this thread, with 3 or so days left on this tune, we have had 13 players posts clips of the tune. Some have posted more than one, but I think 13 people taking the time to bone up on the tune and post a clip is worth celebrating. We've also had a lot of talk about theory and aspects of this tune, but the playing is always, for me, the thing that counts.

Totally agree. I hope we can all keep up the energy with this weeks tune, Seraphic Light by John Coltrane!!!

(just kidding)

**christianm77** · 03-02-2021, 05:44 PM

Do I have to do a gypsy jazz version of it?

**rpjazzguitar** · 03-02-2021, 05:53 PM

Originally Posted by ragman1

I don't think you can imitate good timing if you ain't got it! You might start okay but it'll soon disintegrate. And regrettably I don't know the answer to it either.

I get the impression that, for some guys, it's their natural state, like a default option. If they play, the time is going to be great from the first note to the last.

For others, it's more of a struggle and it's quite possible (likely, even) that you can lose focus and not be fully aware that your time feel just suffered.

Some people talk about the "natural musician".

I can verify that's it's quite possible to love playing music even if you're not a natural in that sense.

**Mark M.** · 03-02-2021, 07:02 PM

I’m really enjoying this, guys. I’m hoping to join in soon.

**Peter C** · 03-02-2021, 07:23 PM

Initially could not find backing track for Seraphic Light.

**lawson-stone** · 03-02-2021, 07:30 PM

So I wanted to try again... I think I have the time feel a little better on the head, and I feel a lot more comfortable with the melody. I've upped the tempo a bit. Tried a few different ideas in the solo.... several times.. never quite got them right but wanted to try.

Observations and advice are always helpful.

**ragman1** · 03-02-2021, 07:38 PM

Originally Posted by christianm77

This Nica’s Dream piece

There’s a quite a lot to it isn’t there? I mean to actually play it right?

Do I have to do a gypsy jazz version of it?

No, you have to stop p***ing about and play something!

**ragman1** · 03-02-2021, 07:42 PM

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

Pierre Richard. Seraphic Light by John Coltrane!!

I wish I understood your allusions, professor, for I fear I do not

That Seraphic Light from His Holiness St John definitely did my brain in

**ragman1** · 03-02-2021, 07:46 PM

Originally Posted by Peter C

Initially could not find backing track for Seraphic Light.

Oh, just make a demented racket for a few minutes, that'll do

**rpjazzguitar** · 03-02-2021, 08:35 PM

Originally Posted by lawson-stone

So I wanted to try again... I think I have the time feel a little better on the head, and I feel a lot more comfortable with the melody. I've upped the tempo a bit. Tried a few different ideas in the solo.... several times.. never quite got them right but wanted to try.

Observations and advice are always helpful.

Good job!

Since you requested feedback, I'd cautiously (because I'm never that sure of myself in these things) offer the following.

The time on the backing track feels forward-leaning to me, if that makes any sense. They're on the front of the beat. There are other ways to play, but that's the way I hear this backing track.

Your style seems a little bit more of a behind the beat style. Nothing inherently wrong with that either (Paul Desmond often sounds laconic to me and he's my ATF).

But, a laid back style against a forward leaning backing may end up sounding like the improvisation is a little behind.

My recipe for working on this is the kind of advice that nobody actually follows, as follows.

Put a backing track into a DAW. I believe you can go from IRealPro ($10) to a MIDI file which Reaper (free to evaluate and $100 or so for the audio interface) can read. I think you can get separate tracks.

Now, you set the Reaper tempo (before you input the tracks) to the tempo of the IrealPro track. Then, you can add in the metronome click and it will be perfect. Try a chorus with just bass and click by muting piano and percussion.

Now, if your notes are in time, you'll see it in the wave form. Sure, you have to get to the point where it's all ear, but visualizing it with wave forms can help along the way. If you're consistently behind, you can slide the waveform to the left and hear what it would sound like if you were on time. Or you can move individual notes and hear what they sound like ahead, on, and behind the click.

You can add the percussion back in and compare your time to that.

You can put the click on eighth notes to see if that helps. I like quarters and I like them loud.

At some point, you begin to better feel the gap between the click and the note. I say "feel" because you can feel time issues before you can clearly hear them.

The underlying principle here is that the simplest thing can sound good if the time is good. Nothing sounds good without good time. Its never a good idea to make an idea more important than executing all your ideas with good time.

**wzpgsr** · 03-02-2021, 08:49 PM

Originally Posted by christianm77

This Nica’s Dream piece

There’s a quite a lot to it isn’t there? I mean to actually play it right?

Yeah man. I spent a couple days getting the head down and a couple more practice sessions trying to feel my way around playing out of time. Put on an Aebersold backing track last night to give it a go at tempo and had my ass handed back to me before bar 6.

I plan to stick with this tune for a while and may eventually record something. Or, may record something sooner at a much slower tempo.

Its a challenge to connect the “parallel” Mm7 chords in a melodic way. Sometimes close voice leading sounds cool, other times not so cool. I have very little experience with this chord, let alone a vamp featuring Mm7 in two keys. The extensions can sound more consonant to my ear than the chord tones. One thing I discovered today is that the notes of a pentatonic scale made from a Bbm6 arpeggio with an added 4th belong to both Bb and Ab melodic minor scales. So something else to get lost in, I suppose.

**mr. beaumont** · 03-02-2021, 09:50 PM

Originally Posted by ragman1

I wish I understood your allusions, professor, for I fear I do not

That Seraphic Light from His Holiness St John definitely did my brain in

Lol, yeah "Light" would not be a jam session tune. But I do think I'll listen to that record tonight. Rasheid Ali is fucking killing it. What a great drummer.

PierreRichard was a long time member whose signature on every post he made was "time on the instrument." Great advice. Maybe "the" great advice.

Oh, and I have picked out this weeks tune, it's a nice easy one, and nobody has ANY reason not to participate.

**PickingMyEars** · 03-02-2021, 10:00 PM

Sephardic Light, Mr, B?

I SHOULD be able to play that tune easy...

My mom is Sephardic... from Morocco than Haifa when she was only a few years old. Did a thread on Moroccan drumming--sounded very similar to Art Blakey's approach.

Wish I could play Sephardic Light... love Coltrane. Coltrane. Coltrane. COLTRANE!!!

Cue up to 2:20 on this tune, my favorite moment in jazz history:

**ragman1** · 03-02-2021, 10:48 PM

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

Lol, yeah "Light" would not be a jam session tune. But I do think I'll listen to that record tonight. Rasheid Ali is fucking killing it. What a great drummer.

PierreRichard was a long time member whose signature on every post he made was "time on the instrument." Great advice. Maybe "the" great advice.

Thank you

Oh, and I have picked out this weeks tune, it's a nice easy one, and nobody has ANY reason not to participate.

Ha, you wait and see :-)

**PickingMyEars** · 03-02-2021, 10:53 PM

Is it "on the trail"?

Love that tune:

**rpjazzguitar** · 03-02-2021, 11:35 PM

Another strategy post.

Bbminmaj7 is associated with Bbmelmin scale. A Bb C Db Eb F G.

Abminmaj7 is associated with Abmelmin scale. Ab Bb Cb Db Eb F G.

Note that 6 notes are shared by the two scales. Bb C Db Eb F G.

And, there are two changes. A-->Ab, and C-->Cb.

(I'm confident that someone can contribute alternate ways of finding relationships -- please post them).

Now, the bassist is going to make sure you hear the Ab in bar 3. You could say that the change is heard as Bb-->Ab rather than A -->Ab.

So, to my ear, the key shift is C-->Cb. When I comp, I'm thinking xx7669 to xx6887; you'll need to hear the bass notes for that to sound right.

So, any little melody you can play with the notes of Bbmelmin, you can repeat, except, if you played an A or C, flatten them by a half step.

Then there's a ii V in Db. Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb C. You flatten the G to Gb.

When it lands on Gbmaj7, you could stay on the notes of Dbmajor, which is the same as Gblydian.

Then, it's a ii V to Bbminmaj7. I'll leave that one as an exercise for the reader, because it's a little harder.

**charlieparker** · 03-03-2021, 12:35 AM

Originally Posted by lawson-stone

So I wanted to try again... I think I have the time feel a little better on the head, and I feel a lot more comfortable with the melody. I've upped the tempo a bit. Tried a few different ideas in the solo.... several times.. never quite got them right but wanted to try.

Observations and advice are always helpful.

From where I sit much more solid. I thought you had some great lines in there with some nice chordal bits thrown in.

**christianm77** · 03-03-2021, 04:43 AM

I

Originally Posted by wzpgsr

Yeah man. I spent a couple days getting the head down and a couple more practice sessions trying to feel my way around playing out of time. Put on an Aebersold backing track last night to give it a go at tempo and had my ass handed back to me before bar 6.

I plan to stick with this tune for a while and may eventually record something. Or, may record something sooner at a much slower tempo.

Its a challenge to connect the “parallel” Mm7 chords in a melodic way. Sometimes close voice leading sounds cool, other times not so cool. I have very little experience with this chord, let alone a vamp featuring Mm7 in two keys. The extensions can sound more consonant to my ear than the chord tones. One thing I discovered today is that the notes of a pentatonic scale made from a Bbm6 arpeggio with an added 4th belong to both Bb and Ab melodic minor scales. So something else to get lost in, I suppose.

If it helps, those two min(maj7) chords can be connected by any passing chord you want - Eb7, A7, Am(maj7), a II V, whatever, in the final bar of the Bbm(maj7.) Just articulate it in your line and connect to the next chord.

Don’t sleep on the melody as a guide to how to solo on the tune.

This tune is not unlike Chelsea Bridge BTW

Anyway there’s a lot going on with the head arrangement which is intricate and subtle...

**christianm77** · 03-03-2021, 05:09 AM

Originally Posted by ragman1

No, you have to stop p***ing about and play something!

I’d rather post when I have something I feel is an advance on my last version tbh.

I’ve done enough jamming with backing tracks to last several lifetimes over the past year lol. So I want to do something that teaches me something. Either learn a new tune or get deeper into one I know.

Not much point otherwise...

**kris** · 03-03-2021, 06:24 AM

christianm 77 +1
There is no point in recording another version just to appear in the game.

**grahambop** · 03-03-2021, 10:55 AM

Here's mine. (Backing track is Aebersold.)

**ragman1** · 03-03-2021, 11:19 AM

Well done, Mr. G, tricky little thing, isn't it? Nice lines in there

**kris** · 03-03-2021, 11:24 AM

Originally Posted by grahambop

Here's mine. (Backing track is Aebersold.)

Everything is clear - a great sounding guitar and a nice balanced backing. It is a real pleasure for the listener and shows a real sensitivity and attention to detail of the performer.
Bravo grahambop!
Great playing!

**ragman1** · 03-03-2021, 11:25 AM

Originally Posted by christianm77

I’d rather post when I have something I feel is an advance on my last version tbh.

I’ve done enough jamming with backing tracks to last several lifetimes over the past year lol. So I want to do something that teaches me something. Either learn a new tune or get deeper into one I know.

Not much point otherwise...

Couldn't agree more. I must have been led astray by your quotes. You already did a gypsy version.