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There is a Nat King Cole version of this without his singing on YouTube. It is a karaoke track. Maybe that would be okay....not sure yet.
Originally Posted by Ukena
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01-03-2025 09:29 AM
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Anyone ever notice this tune off of Pink Moon? It's the only instrumental, it's 1 minute 21 seconds long, it's called "Horn" and it's just a simple melody played thru a couple times. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
So strong though! Master class in how to make a guitar sound like a horn (without the compression/distortion/chorus of the 80s).
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Reminds me a bit of some of Paul Motian's compositions. Originally Posted by supersoul
Nick Drake was really something. Huge fan.
Oh, the melody only thread is happening. Just got to think of how I want to frame it.
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I woke up and started playing through this tune again.....and then you guys talking about chords, like possibly playing a sort of chord melody. I still know I am NOT ready to say I can confidently do it well.
But, I did try. Using the melody as my base to kind of "live off of". I removed Nat's vocals for this time. Sucks right?
These Foolish Things_mixdown.wav - Google Drive
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This is my favorite Derek Bailey album. It's quite stereo! Stereo mics, but also he is playing his guitar thru two volume pedals, each going to a separate amp, and he plays the space really well.
Sure, he's not for everyone, but he was doing it before anyone else. He found his own voice and stuck to it, and probably thru endless derision.
I'm not sure the exact story, but he was a working musician around London for years, playing very workmanlike gigs. Then the 60s happened, or LSD happened, or something, but he stopped doing that and started playing freely. I bet Ragman knows a lot better than me.
Anyone who claims to play free improvisation on the guitar has to at least acknowledge Mr. Bailey. Whether or not you like him is a different story, but he was a true artist who followed his own path.
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I think what Jeff and John were saying is that you learn to phrase a melody by copying. Nat King Cole is one of the best for that. Frank Sinatra is also a great one. Originally Posted by guitarvegas
But that you also want to have command of the melody as its own thing. How do you phrase it? What is actually happening in the melody? What is it doing relative to the harmony? How does it move through the scale or the tonal center or whatever?
I usually play along with a couple recordings I like and do that a lot, and then start making my own choices. Jeff is suggesting the reverse of that. Doesn’t really matter the order, but some understanding of how the melody works on its own is very important, as well as having a real familiarity with how that melody is rendered by folks who do it best.
An example: I literally don’t even know what the melody is for the bridge of On the Sunny Side of the Street because I always play the Sonny Side Up version. Or for my Baubles example — Eliane Elias sings it so straight and so beautifully, but Sarah Vaughan does this dissonant and extremely cool descending chromatic thing on the bridge, which I stole. My current tune is Mean to Me and I can’t play it any other way than how Paul Desmond does on Pure Desmond. But I have to play it a lot of different ways to start understanding how it works.
The other thing is that you can keep posting videos daily, but this is a long project. At this point I’ve been doing this for a long and have days where I’m pretty good at it, but I try to spend almost two weeks on a tune and I go back and review old tunes all the time. Learning songs IS the project. Buckle in for a long ride and don’t expect immediate results. Spend a few weeks on this tune and then a few weeks on another and another. The learning will get faster as you start to understand how these tunes work and how they relate to each other and how certain patterns show up in lots of tunes. It gets faster but only with more tunes under your belt. There is no short cut. It might seem like spending a lot of time on certain chord progressions or whatever should make things faster and there’s some truth, but context is everything.
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Wiki knows better than me :-) Originally Posted by supersoul
Derek Bailey (guitarist) - Wikipedia
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Gotta know chords, can't just guess and play anything, because they're usually wrong, as in this case.
Again, copying a simple melody is cake, but when you add chords is when the rubber hits the road, can't fake that.
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Now I have stepped away from any backing track at all, and letting my singing voice guide me. This is an interesting one. I play it really slow because I have to keep referencing the words on screen. This feels better than all the other to me. I don't know...I will see, but nothing to post right now so please don't worry (Because I am a song post whore...lol). When I think I have something I will let you know. Good news is that I can sing this fairly well.
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Guitarvegas, here we go.
Just the melody.
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Ok. I won't share the singing stuff with you guys....just the melody. When I tell you I wander....I mean it....without a leash, who knows where I end up. Lol Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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Yeah, I didn't realize that gv plays completely by ear. That can work for rock/blues players, but as we know, jazz requires a greater knowledge of the fretboard and musical theory. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
It does have a pedal point though, that can make a real difference. Originally Posted by supersoul
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I was a hendrix and blues guy forever, and lived in my pentatonic world. Then when I broke out and tried to step into jazz, that was when I knew that I knew absolutely NOTHING! My guitar actually bitch slapped me...lol Originally Posted by Mick-7
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Okay, tell you what...I have been singing while playing this late in the day today, and I really like where it is going. I must see this thru, then I will get back to the "simple" melody. I gotta sing this one, and you know what....it is gonna be beautiful. Once I have recorded it to my complete satisfaction, I will post one.
After that, I plan to take lyrical versions of all the greats doing it, and string them together in my recording program so I can play that melody thru. Maybe a few different keys, which will help me explore the neck a little more. The more work, the more answers. I will find it.
Thabk you everyone. I know sometimes it feels like time wasted with me, but you have all given me so much to work towards. It will help me. Starting to do some actual work. Noodling is cool, but playing a song is even cooler. I know some of my chord voicings seem unusual, but trust me on this one....let me do this sung version with the guitar, and I believe good will come from it.
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01-03-2025, 10:44 PM #115Mulgrew Miller Guest Originally Posted by guitarvegas
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It will be. Give me time on this. Originally Posted by Mulgrew Miller
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So true. Herb Ellis recommended this and used the idea himself. Originally Posted by guitarvegas
Lester Young said that you should also learn the lyrics of the songs to get a better understanding of their emotional ambience. Dexter Gordon often recited parts of the lyrics when he announced the next tune at his live gigs.
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oh no, AI is now weighing in on jazz! Originally Posted by oldane
But yeah, I think Sonny Rollins also talked about always knowing the lyrics. These were usually the pop tunes of the day, so they probably knew the lyrics whether they wanted to or not!
Coltrane famously "sang" the poem to A Love Supreme in the last movement. If you read the poem you can hear him play it on the saxophone.
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No AI used. I read it in books years ago. Books, you know, was those paper thingies with print that we used to learn from before we got internet and smartphones. Originally Posted by supersoul
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For anyone following this, I have begun to employ singing with my guitar, because I believe it gives me essential keys and guides through what I am playing. I think this is shaping for me, but I still have not worked out the bridge, as you will hear. This is two recordings from today back to back. Playing really slow, partly because I am still memorizing the lyrics...so it has this long drawn out feel, which is kind of nice. I like that.
I gotta work out the bridge solid, then I will feel much better about what I am doing.
I know some might say, oh, you're using the wrong chords, but doesn't it kind of work mostly? I think it does, but I am always searching for other voicings, or ones that are stronger.
Let me know your thoughts, if you think this is a good approach for me. And yes, I like my singing on this.....and I believe this can get better still.
These Foolish Things 2.wav - Google Drive
Thanks for all of your support so far through this journey.
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"but doesn't it kind of work mostly?"
uh, no, sorry
as I've said many times now that you're at the point where you're using chords you can't fake them
and that's what you're doing....
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Okay, but you must admit that this is so much better than my very first improvised recording I tried to do last week sometime....right? Originally Posted by wintermoon
I mean, I can hear the song now.
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now that you've added singing your single line melody playing is suffering and the chords are just as wrong as they've always been, not trying to rain on your parade but I don't see any improvement. Originally Posted by guitarvegas
it's pretty simple, you can't keep faking it and expect improvement. if you don't learn chords I'm afraid you'll never get it.
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What would you do if you were me? Stop the singing for now, and go back to the single line melody? Originally Posted by wintermoon
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