Where Does this Pattern Fit?

[lawson-stone]

Forcing yourself to like and learn a bad riff because it's in a book isn't growth. :P

Whether or not it's a "bad riff" is I suppose a matter of opinion. Also, really, it took 10 minutes to learn. I was just curious about where it could be used. I have a lot of respect for David Baker. It's not because it's "in a book" but because it's in his book so I give it the benefit of the doubt. People on here, whom I've never heard play or improvise, are unknowns.

[lawson-stone]

Well, it might be. One interesting story I heard about Aleister Crowley (whose teachings and thinking are absolutely not for me apart from this story) was that he told his students in Sicily to look for the most physically unattractive woman they could find, start a relationship with her and learn to really love her. If you manage to do that it is inner growth. But it still involves that you find something in her that resonates with(in) you.

The operative word here is "find." If we don't seek, we won't find. I know of many marriages of decades-long happiness where both will confess that when they first met, they were definitely not resonating with each other. But time and exposure revealed something.

Also, my musical tastes have a pattern of sudden epiphanies where something I've just really disliked suddenly leads to an "ears opening" moment and I get it, and the music becomes part of my favorites.

I have learned to treat my own predilections with a dose of skepticism.

[pamosmusic]

Whether or not it's a "bad riff" is I suppose a matter of opinion. Also, really, it took 10 minutes to learn. I was just curious about where it could be used. I have a lot of respect for David Baker. It's not because it's "in a book" but because it's in his book so I give it the benefit of the doubt. People on here, whom I've never heard play or improvise, are unknowns.

Yeah I guess there’s always opportunity cost — like if you have limited time, then you want to allot your time wisely — but I’ve never really minded practicing line that I turn out not to love. You can always get something out of it and you can always move on.

[John A.]

I hear it as a C altered dominant, and it might be something to play if the comping instrument is hanging out on a C7#9 chord.

[lawson-stone]

Yeah I guess there’s always opportunity cost — like if you have limited time, then you want to allot your time wisely — but I’ve never really minded practicing line that I turn out not to love. You can always get something out of it and you can always move on.

Thanks, I feel that way too. But I'm interested in the fact that I just asked how such a line might be used, and most posts are criticizing the line itself, criticizing the practice of learning lines from a book, or talking bout music notation typesetting... just a few posts actually helping with the line,

Turns out, I learned more from the book than i did from this thread. But these days that's not a big surprise.

[pamosmusic]

Thanks, I feel that way too. But I'm interested in the fact that I just asked how such a line might be used, and most posts are criticizing the line itself, criticizing the practice of learning lines from a book, or talking bout music notation typesetting... just a few posts actually helping with the line,

Turns out, I learned more from the book than i did from this thread. But these days that's not a big surprise.

“Tell me you’re on JGO without telling me you’re on JGO.”

People sometimes forget that licks in books (at least good ones like Dave Bakers) and licks from solos are categorically different things.

A lick from a solo is going to be the best thing a particular person could play at a particular moment. So there will be excellent vocabulary but limited material in there.

A lick from a (good) book is going to be for educational purposes. Which seems like an obvious thing, but it’s easy to forget.

Meaning that Dave Baker probably didn’t set out to write a killer blues lick, per se. He probably set out to write “a lick that uses lots of diminished stuff in the context of a blues.” So I would treat them more like etudes. When I played an etude in classical guitar lessons, the important question was always “what is this sonofagun supposed to be teaching me.”

So I’m not sure finding the best single place for it in a blues is exactly the right strategy. I think taking small segments that you like and trying them in different contexts would be the move.

[Mick-7]

I've been playing with the "patterns" in David Baker's "The Blues" in his Patterns for Improvisation series. And I'm stuck on #5. It is supposed to be played over a C7 chord in a jazz-blues context. It's not hard to play but for the life of me, I cannot "hear" how it fits in the blues over a C7.

Here's the pattern

That's just diminished scales a 1/2 step apart - Bar 1 > Bar 2.

Or if you want to get simpler, the note B in the line is the only one that is "inadmissable," all others are diatonic or altered tones.


P.S. - I see now that I repeated what PMB said earlier:

"The opening is a "blues scale" phrase using notes extracted from the C diminished (whole-half) that's filled out in the remainder of bar 1. The second bar is a Coltrane-type pattern from the diminished located a semitone below. Strangely enough, the expected altered diminished sound over a C7 (C half-whole) is the one choice not used here!"

But he contradicted himself in his last sentence, the first bar is from the C (Eb/Gb/A) diminished scale, second bar is dim. scale 1/2 step higher (except for the final C note).