autumn leaves difficult ?

[pingu]

this tune is well worn I know ... sorry !

I can improv on a few tunes and changes at med tempo now
but I still find AL deceptively tricky ... really tricky

I was struck by Mr B saying that 'simple' changes can be more challenging than complex sometimes ....

Its all in the tonic G or rel minor Em so simple yeah ?

Anyone else find it disproportionately challenging or is it just me ?

[mr. beaumont]

Autumn Leaves is one of those "easy" tunes that it's difficult to sound REALLY great on, IMHO...

It's also pretty easy to get lost in the form, if your mind wanders...lots of repetition.

This is one where I like to make sure I'm suggesting something more than the "vanilla" changes. Because you can get noodly fast when everything stays so diatonic.

So yeah, I'd still call it an easy tune, and I do actually think it's a good one for beginners, as opposed to modal tunes like So What or Impressions, which I always rail against as not being "easy."

[pingu]

hi B,
I was hoping you'd respond !

so anyway I had to solo on AL the other day
following a sax player who just killed on it ...

aaargh !
so played real simple stuff on it and got away with it OK

got any more tips for AL
Time on the tune I guess ! (as usual)

[TH]

OK I know you're addressing this thread to Mr. B but if I might throw a few ideas to start a few more questions..

Autumn leaves is really not difficult once you understand the landscape of the form. Many recordings you might listen to are the product of players spending hundreds of hours looking to make it interesting. They are taking their best game to a form you're starting out on, so don't be intimidated. Once you understand it, you can have fun. You're not going into each chorus blind, are you? How well do you know the sections and what they mean?
How are you looking at the piece? Let me ask this before though, are you off book or are you reading from a page? I think an important part of playing on any tune is hearing it, certainly not reading it. In a piece like Autumn, the tonal centres are pretty long, so you can develop your phrases accordingly, not always treating the changes as individual obstacles to be knocked down one by one. If you are not beyond this, then it's a great thing to work on.
Remember, each phrase is going somewhere. Learn to hear how the original phrase gets there, and look for other melodic ways to do the same. That is helped by knowledge of the arpeggio and scale devices but look deeper. Look for a melody over a group of changes that gets you to where you want to go.
Maybe you can practice by vamping over the phrase sections, like a loop, until you can really hear them, you can use rhythms, you can use space, you can use a motif, you can ascend from a particular note, you can descend from a particular note, you can use contrasting dynamics to develop a sense of dimension.
Do you create lines that you can imagine someone singing? Do you ever sing lines without a guitar? Are you able to hear or imagine your lines being played by a horn player? All these things speak to a lyrical line. This is something that comes with practice, and then after that, into your playing.

Breathe. Wait. Hear an idea in little things you play, and know how to develop them. Maybe worth a moment's consideration?

David

[docbop]

hi B,
I was hoping you'd respond !

so anyway I had to solo on AL the other day
following a sax player who just killed on it ...

aaargh !
so played real simple stuff on it and got away with it OK

got any more tips for AL
Time on the tune I guess ! (as usual)

The key thing is can people tell where you are in the song from your solo. That's hard because it same notes for both keys the major and relative minor. So its a good tune to work on guide tones (hitting the 3rd and/or 7th of the chords in your lines), or thinking arpeggios and using approach notes so they don't sound so much like arpeggios. Being its in a key and it's relative minor its a simple tunes to sit without your guitar and write lines to thinking about guide tones or chord tones, then play with your guitar and see what they sound like. Writing lines out, then playing them is good for the ear/hand relationship.

[pingu]

OK I know you're addressing this thread to Mr. B but if I might throw a few ideas to start a few more questions..

Autumn leaves is really not difficult once you understand the landscape of the form. Many recordings you might listen to are the product of players spending hundreds of hours looking to make it interesting. They are taking their best game to a form you're starting out on, so don't be intimidated. Once you understand it, you can have fun. You're not going into each chorus blind, are you? How well do you know the sections and what they mean?
How are you looking at the piece? Let me ask this before though, are you off book or are you reading from a page? I think an important part of playing on any tune is hearing it, certainly not reading it. In a piece like Autumn, the tonal centres are pretty long, so you can develop your phrases accordingly, not always treating the changes as individual obstacles to be knocked down one by one. If you are not beyond this, then it's a great thing to work on.
Remember, each phrase is going somewhere. Learn to hear how the original phrase gets there, and look for other melodic ways to do the same. That is helped by knowledge of the arpeggio and scale devices but look deeper. Look for a melody over a group of changes that gets you to where you want to go.
Maybe you can practice by vamping over the phrase sections, like a loop, until you can really hear them, you can use rhythms, you can use space, you can use a motif, you can ascend from a particular note, you can descend from a particular note, you can use contrasting dynamics to develop a sense of dimension.
Do you create lines that you can imagine someone singing? Do you ever sing lines without a guitar? Are you able to hear or imagine your lines being played by a horn player? All these things speak to a lyrical line. This is something that comes with practice, and then after that, into your playing.

Breathe. Wait. Hear an idea in little things you play, and know how to develop them. Maybe worth a moment's consideration?

David

thanks David yes I'm well off the book
I'm feeling it as a bunch of 2 5 1's
(i can improv over standards etc , I know my
arps etc)

I can absolutely get around the tune OK
and get
I also love the tune

I just can't get inside it somehow

[pingu]

The key thing is can people tell where you are in the song from your solo. That's hard because it same notes for both keys the major and relative minor. So its a good tune to work on guide tones (hitting the 3rd and/or 7th of the chords in your lines), or thinking arpeggios and using approach notes so they don't sound so much like arpeggios. Being its in a key and it's relative minor its a simple tunes to sit without your guitar and write lines to thinking about guide tones or chord tones, then play with your guitar and see what they sound like. Writing lines out, then playing them is good for the ear/hand relationship.

thanks man ,
I now think my weakness might be getting convincingly into the relative minor
world of the B section

but since you went away ...

[Jehu]

I'm no David or Jeff, but try Chet Baker:

This is one of the first solos I transcribed, and it's full of simple lines that really outline the changes well. If you play it on its own, you can really hear the progression, which is the challenge with something really diatonic like Autumn Leaves.

[pingu]

lovely yeah ... thanks
hadn't ever heard that version

I've discovered something that for me
is working .....

in Bb , Gmin yeah ....

If i think Eb maj stuff on the Amin7b5's

its helping me anyway

thanks everyone
yous guys is the best !

ps Ed Byrne once said when asked why
practice ?
'to feel the power on the gig !'

[docbop]

If i think Eb maj stuff on the Amin7b5's

want to experiment try C Melodic Minor on the Amin7b5

[pingu]

want to experiment try C Melodic Minor on the Amin7b5

thanks , will try some of that too

[Liarspoker]

Since the chords are almost all one bar long I play over each chord. Much easier to do with AL than with a tune with 2 chords per bar.

This take starts out diatonically then goes into the altered scale etc:

[TOMMO]

I'm no David or Jeff, but try Chet Baker:

This is one of the first solos I transcribed, and it's full of simple lines that really outline the changes well. If you play it on its own, you can really hear the progression, which is the challenge with something really diatonic like Autumn Leaves.

I couldn't listen to more than two minutes of this - I find the drumming very annoying....

[fep]

I bet we've all played this tune. Like Liarspoker, I pretty much address every chord. As mentioned previously, much of the tune is so diatonic that it can sound like noodling if you take a 'key-center' approach.

I like to play it in a way that my solo doesn't depart far from the tune and you can pretty much hear the progression in my solo. Playing with no bass or chord accompainment is a good way to practice this in my opinion.

Nothin' fancy, I'm pretty much a beginner.

[Groyniad]

its a great great tune

bill evans - portrait in jazz - is perhaps my favourite cut of all time

----

the great thing about it is the way the melody sits on the bar line

this allows for sensitive accompaniment (e.g. - in the gaps left by the melody)

and it allows you to use the gaps to provide 'comments' on the melody - try sticking to the tune but playing phrases that fit into the gaps

one of the best things to practice is making your fill-in phrase terminate in the melody note that begins the next part of the melody (joe pass reminds us somewhere not just to play 'fill's after the melodic phrase - but also into the next phrase of the melody)

(i used to have a thing that if bass players horn players piano players went 'errr - really?' when i called autumn leaves, i knew they didn't really know what they were doing (well not as well as the ones who relished the chance to have another go at it)

[grahambop]

Here's a version I did a few years ago - I don't know if you can get some ideas from this.

I think I just played phrases/lines around the chord tones - basically that's what I always do!

I think of this tune largely as a sequence of 2-5-1 changes - so it's good for practising lines/ideas suitable for 2-5-1 progressions.

[bobby d]

this tune is well worn I know ... sorry !

I can improv on a few tunes and changes at med tempo now
but I still find AL deceptively tricky ... really tricky

I was struck by Mr B saying that 'simple' changes can be more challenging than complex sometimes ....

Its all in the tonic G or rel minor Em so simple yeah ?

Anyone else find it disproportionately challenging or is it just me ?

Not difficult to me, I've played it hundreds of times! But even when I first started playing it, there wasn't much difficulty. When you get to the B7 chord the G tonic doesn't apply any longer because of the D#. I've never really thought of it as all in G Major even though it is until the B7 chord comes along. Of course, there are other scales that can be used throughout to make solos more interesting.

One thing I've developed from playing the song so much is finding most of the inversions and different positions of the minor-5 chord. This has turned out to be very useful with other songs that have a minor-5 chord, and there are many when it comes to Jazz standards.

[Lobomov]

AL has been a pain for me. There is something about the up down up down up down structure of the melody that is very hard to escape.

da do da do da do

or pa da dap .. dap da pa ... staircase up staircase down.


It is extremely difficult to sound melodic on.

[JazzPadd]

Thanks all, this is very helpful. I sat in with a combo last week doing this in Gm, and it was more difficult than I thought to sound interesting. I concur, very prone to get lost or be redundant. Prepping it in Cm now to work with a singer, will give the chord approach for solos a whirl and maybe also try playing it with long phrases.

[lawson-stone]

You can play the theme song to M*A*S*H, with a few alterations near the end over the "Autumn Leaves" changes, which gives me a kind of inner melodic key that helps keep me from just echoing or mirroring the AL melody itself.

[coolvinny]

I don't think there are any easy tunes. Some tunes have particularly tricky changes or are at very fast tempos (or very slow tempos!) and those are an extra challenge, but beyond that I think it just comes down to how well you know the tune.

[jameslovestal]

You can play the theme song to M*A*S*H, with a few alterations near the end over the "Autumn Leaves" changes, which gives me a kind of inner melodic key that helps keep me from just echoing or mirroring the AL melody itself.

Good for me to know I'm not the only one using this Mash theme song idea (which I believe I heard from an album, from a horn player). I have found that throwing this in is one way to break from the redundancy.

[fasstrack]

When in doubt, play the melody---or USE it. The song will tell you what to play.

The song has French roots, not sure of the original title. But the bridge has the same changes as a song by another Frenchman: Legrand's You Must Believe in Spring. I've found myself quoting it, and---now that I think about it---pairing the 2 songs wouldn't be a bad idea, b/c of the seasonal theme and similar harmony.

Anyway, you answered your own question: when in doubt, simple, short, sweet---and out. And instead of being intimidated by the last solo, if it's killing, build YOURS off his/her last phrase. That's a conversation, and shows that you're listening and not merely in your own head or insecurity.

That last recommendation is an important one, I think. It's not only effective interplay, but proper etiquette. There's an alto player back in NY I ran into occasionally when we both sat in. He never waited for my solo to end, just jumped in and 'talked' over me. Played good, but do you think I'd ever hire someone like that?


'I listen for a living'----Bob Brookmeyer...

[ragman1]

This is nice:

[jordanklemons]

I was struck by Mr B saying that 'simple' changes can be more challenging than complex sometimes ....

Its all in the tonic G or rel minor Em so simple yeah ?

Anyone else find it disproportionately challenging or is it just me ?

I think what often happens is that with complex tunes, if we get good enough to run changes, is that we're able to hide behind the complexity and the movement built into the tune. We might not necessarily be playing musically or thematically or melodically... we're just keeping up... and because the tune has so much meat to it, that's enough to make it seem like something is really happening.

With simple tunes, there really nowhere to hide. Either you're able to express musical ideas that respect the tune or you're not. If you're not able to - say for instance - hold onto a motif or a theme and allow it to morph as it develops without letting go of it, or create some kind of melodic, lyrical statements that are not dependent upon the tune but that instead dance with the tune, then the tune itself might not have enough complexity and drive to lean on. Just running the changes might sound old and stale. On a more complicated tune, sure, it'll sound cool. But when the tune is on the simpler end of the spectrum, we've got to find ways to make things happen and take control of the tune.

Especially a tune like Autumn Leaves that can easily fall into just simple diatonic scale running. It's really easy to get lost in that world and sort of lose the arch of the melody and the form.


***EDIT***
Just realized this thread was like over 2 years old. So you know... whatevs.