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I'm not sure.
Originally Posted by kris
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05-15-2022 12:46 AM
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here’s a quick run through where we were practicing using the vamp as a transition between soloists. Which the pianist seemed to need some help with LOL.
https://youtu.be/m1_-J4Z6YAg
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I’ve been away for a few days, but I might have a go at this tune if I get a chance.
I was at the Norwich Festival to see Hermeto Pascoal and NYJO, great stuff. He is pretty good for 85!
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I work on fast tempos by practicing with iReal. For instance, if my goal is to get comfortable with a tune at we 230 BPM, I start slower, say 160, and play a head + 4 choruses + head. Then I increase the temp by 10-15 BPM and and do head + 4 + head again. Originally Posted by kris
Listening to the performances of all participants, the question arises: how to practice a tunes in fast tempos?
I once asked this question to one of the best guitarists in the world.
The answer was: that is a very good question.
I keep increasing the tempo this way until I'm above the goal I set and reach a tempo where I'm falling apart and really can't play the tune. Then I go back down to the tempo I set, and I'm usually ok at that tempo. This works up to a point - there's an absolute limit to how fast I can cleanly pick 8ths, which I'm gradually trying to improve.
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As I’ve been working on this tune, I’ve been trying the time compression thing—trying to feel the tune at half-time but with more chords per measure. I’m certainly not adept at it, but just from fumbling around a bit, I can see that this approach encourages horizontal melodies instead of vertically chasing changes.
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Originally Posted by kris
Listening to the performances of all participants, the question arises: how to practice a tunes in fast tempos?
I once asked this question to one of the best guitarists in the world.
The answer was: that is a very good question.
Not an expert on fast playing, but my big thing is to simplify chord progressions into "highlights." For example, I hear the first 4 bars here as Fmaj to A7alt and then anything that pulls to the G7.
Then it's C7 to F really, with that fun little chromatic approach to F if you want.
Trying to feel the form in bars of 4 or more...that's how I survive fast tunes.
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Full-tempo Aebersold kicked my ass tonight. Not worth posting yet, but will keep at it.
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I couldn't get on with the Aebersold at 240 bpm so I slowed it down to 230, which suits me better.
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Well done. I don't think it's that easy, even done bebop style, as I'm sure it should be. I've done a faster version and my style doesn't suit it. There's just something about the tune or progression.
There's a transcription of the Herbie Hancock solo on You tube. Quite interesting, to see how he got round it. A lot of it's chromatic and, like you did it, quite treble-y. Same with Miles' solo, that's pretty chromatic too.
I think probably it works because of the speed, it sort of needs to be fast. Or something
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In theory the changes shouldn’t be too hard on this tune, the A section is just a standard movement from major (F) to relative minor (Dm) then it goes to C7 to get back to F. What Bruce Forman calls ‘going round the cycle’. (The Eb business in bar 7 I just treated like a kind of C7alt returning to F, to me that’s how it sounds like Miles and co. deal with it).
The B section is just ascending in minor thirds, i.e. starts in C, then does a ii-V to Eb, then does one to Gb. For some reason I found this part tricky though. I think it’s because it stays in C for 3 bars, then the Eb and Gb bits are each for 2 bars. That kept throwing me.
Of course the tempo makes all this harder, that’s why I changed it to 230, just a bit more manageable for me.
George Coleman’s solo is the best one to study I think, he is very much a ‘play the changes’ guy.
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I know, it all looks so simple! F - A7 - Dm - G7... what could be simpler? Originally Posted by grahambop
Yes, I definitely had to feel that Eb coming in bar 4. I played Db (Gb lyd) in the next bit; the C instead of B nat sounded better. But there's a sort of disconnect between the Eb and the Gb that the brain doesn't like.The B section is just ascending in minor thirds, i.e. starts in C, then does a ii-V to Eb, then does one to Gb. For some reason I found this part tricky though. I think it’s because it stays in C for 3 bars, then the Eb and Gb bits are each for 2 bars. That kept throwing me.
Oh, fast enough, I reckon... not that I'm any good at speed these days. 230's tough enough.Of course the tempo makes all this harder, that’s why I changed it to 230, just a bit more manageable for me.
He's changed the chords on that. I'll have a closer look later.George Coleman’s solo is the best one to study I think, he is very much a ‘play the changes’ guy.
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yes I would probably want at least another week to work on this to get the lines joined up better, also I’d like to check out George Coleman’s solo to see how he navigates the bridge (I already have a transcription of it, I downloaded a load of sax transcriptions once). Originally Posted by kris
I hear the fascination of Jimmy Raney here.
Very good notes and great jazz phrasing.
I lack a little fluency in combining phrases, perhaps due to the fast tempo.
It would be an excellent take.
Nevertheless, it is very jazzy!
I nearly got thrown off course when the door closed with a loud bang at 2:50 (not audible on the video, but you can see it closing), a breeze suddenly blew through the house.
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Re. the Coleman transcription, making allowances for the Bb shift to G and other chord changes in the A section, he does basically play the changes. There's the odd chromatic run, but not often, and a descending bebop scale over the Ab, etc, etc.
He does one interesting thing at 1.26. Over FM7 he plays ACEG then DF#AC, which is a sort of Am7/D7 sub. Which then goes to Bbm7/Eb7.
Fascinating, but it's the speed and accuracy with which these guys can run through this stuff. It's easy to brush it off as extreme ingrained familiarity but I'm not sure, I think there's more to it.
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Here's a faster version. Not much use to bebop fans but there you go :-)
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Well I think it is familiarity, basically. If you practise playing lines long enough over any set of changes, you can get there. I found the A section not too bad because those changes are quite familiar. The B section was less so, I would need to work more on that. Originally Posted by ragman1
Apparently George Coleman used to practise the changes of the tunes a lot beforehand, Miles didn’t like him doing it though! (could be why he replaced him).
I believe Coltrane spent at least a year practising the Giant Steps changes before recording it.
As an aside, last night I saw Alan Wakeman (plays sax, also happens to be Rick Wakeman’s cousin!) and his Octet, and at one point they played an arrangement of Giant Steps, during which Alan and Art Themen played the whole Coltrane solo in unison at speed, quite a feat! I spoke to Art Themen afterwards and he said it was a bit nerve-wracking doing it!
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Great take! I too hear some Jimmy Raney. Which is never, ever a bad thing. Originally Posted by grahambop
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Thanks! I didn’t really feel that particularly while I was playing, but listening back to it I can hear what you mean. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
No surprise really, Jimmy is one of my all-time favourites and I spent a lot of time going through some of his solos in that aebersold book some years back. I know I started using a lot more chromatic lines after that.
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Absolutely, but I don't think it's just familiarity. I think some people have a facility for fast playing and some don't. Probably a question of brain wiring or something. Originally Posted by grahambop
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Slowed down maybe 25% or so:
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no, I think it’s just practice. I never used to be able to play much above 180 and assumed that was my limit, but gradually I have got up to 220-230 just by gradually playing at faster speeds. I expect I could take it further if I could be bothered to put the time in. However I suspect that at really fast tempos, most players rely a lot on patterns they’ve already got assimilated. Originally Posted by ragman1
Didn’t you say once you used to play bluegrass? Those guys have to practise to get up to speed, surely.
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Yes, but you had the potential ability in the first place. Originally Posted by grahambop
There's no doubt at all that practice, repetition, training, perseverance, and everything else, will improve a person's ability to do something, it's not just applicable to playing the guitar. Nevertheless, someone with natural ability will always be better than someone without it.
I did used to do a lot of bluegrass, with a pick, and could play rapidly and with accuracy. But I always knew I'd never go beyond a certain point no matter what I did. At some point I'd just seize up and shut down because I was forcing the unforceable.
I had a friend who was an excellent player. He had a natural ability for rapidity. Both hands flew over the strings like anything, light as a feather, effortlessly. We used to discuss it. He thought it was a brain thing too. Sometimes on gigs he used to kick off a tune too quickly for me and I'd just have to look a bit lame. Not his fault, it was the excitement of the moment, but we could both play and improvise and we both knew the tunes backward, so it wasn't that. Sometimes, because I'd played a tune more frequently, I could do it more easily but I couldn't match him when he got fast.
Athletes train because they have a natural physical ability. Professional runners, for example, all train their socks off but it doesn't mean they'll ever be as good as the top people.
After all, if that wasn't true we could all be world beaters if we just did whatever-it-is lots and lots and lots. Not true, unfortunately :-)
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For sure - and even the greats turned out some “default” solos. I remember realizing as a teenager that a lot of Oscar Peterson’s licks were repetitive. They were impressive in their speed and fluidity, but he definitely played the same phrases and lines in many tunes. And he seemed much more spirited and inventive the few times I got to see him live than he did on many of his studio recordings. Originally Posted by grahambop
Even Wes recycled some cliches, especially when he was stressed. Listen to his first live album from Ronnie Scott’s - flying across the Atlantic really shook him up, and his playing on the recording seems really subdued to me because of it.
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I don't think inability to play fast is usually due to a fundamental neuro-motor limit. I imagine all of us do have some limit beyond which our fingers and brains won't go, but I doubt many of us get anywhere near that limit. I think it's far more often due to some combination of not practicing systematically with speed as a goal, being stuck in some limitation of picking and/or fingering technique and organization that would require basically re-starting on the instrument to overcome, and not really caring enough about speed to go through the hard slog of what it would take to get significantly faster. Originally Posted by ragman1
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I've recognized my flat-fingered default left-hand technique as a roadblock (among others) to faster speeds. I've started playing what I think is called a "spider" warm-up for just a few minutes to reinforce a proper arching of the left-hand fingers. Slow and deliberate, 1-2-3-4 up each string, not moving each properly arched finger from the previous string until it's its turn. It has definitely started to take hold without too much extra effort. Main benefit, I think, is that maintaining an arch even when not fretting minimizes the distance each finger has to move to get into position to fret the next note. Executed properly, it's more like fine-tuning a spring lever into place versus hoisting a telephone pole from horizontal to vertical orientation. Originally Posted by John A.
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Absolutely, very well put. Originally Posted by John A.
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