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I’m digging this tune a lot. Working on getting the head laid on top of the harmony—“chord melody” i guess (I hate that term). Spent some time just improvising over the A section tonight, by ear and an occasional glance at the chart. I’m finding that that’s how I prefer to play. You do it enough, make enough mistakes, and eventually the song just works its way into your brain. I’m pretty tired of “exercises”.
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03-29-2018 09:47 PM
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Yes!
Originally Posted by wzpgsr
This is our goal in this thread: To get to know yourself, and the natural affinity you can develop with the nature of music in jazz. Great! And the nice thing, once we move on to a new piece, this one still stays with you.
David
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This is a preparatory post in anticipation of this week's special treatment of our piece of the week: I'll Remember April.
Take a look at this piece. Have a listen and try to step back and look deeper at the same time. By this I mean, look at the piece as a whole and at the same time listen to how the sections sound and feel.
I've given one suggestion of how I break down the tune. It's not the only way to look at this tune.
Ask yourself :
Within each section, what is the most important note, or the place the phrase is going to?
Does it seem like a question, or an answer?
Within the tune, how does it fit with what came before?
How does direction of the phrase or the value of the notes effect the phrase?
Look at each section as a phrase, and ask "How does the phrase begin? How does it end? Is there thoughtful content?"
Just think about these things and ask yourself if you give this amount of attention to your own creative process.
We start with a proper introduction tomorrow.
David
Clifford Brown
Eric Dolphy takes it out
Frank Sinatra's lyrical approach
Sonny Stitt and the bebop approach
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I'll Remember April is a favorite tune of the Tristano guys...
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I'm getting so much more out of these tunes lately by focusing on the melody and its relationship to each chord. It's helping me navigate the fretboard, with my phrasing, my musicality, etc. I feel like I am playing a tune and not just a random set of chord changes. So although I am not following the regimen to a T, I think my limited practice time is being spent.
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I really like this version.
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This week's standard is one that'll do you well to know. Often called at jams and on the bandstand as a "must know" standard on gigs, for good reason. My Romance is a pretty well centred piece with a solid grounding in the key of Bb major.
First listen to the way the tune blocks out, where the important key areas are. Find your way around by ear first, and get to know the melody as a song.
The tune is in ABAC for of sorts, and uses that bVII7 modal dominant sound we've heard of late. It also features some time in the IV major area and the III minor tonal area, and how you look at these can vary from player to player. We'll talk further about these features later on, but get to know the tune for now.
Have Fun!
David
The famous Bill Evans Vanguard version
Sco's very personal version for guitar
A tune John loved, recorded from somebody's back pack apparently...
I had promised to do a step by step solo construction last week but the week got out of control, if I've got the time, let's take a look at soloing on this piece.
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Ron Carter with Kenny Barron and Herb Ellis
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Yikes, that wrist position. Injury waiting to happen. Do not play like that. Originally Posted by Gramps
Great tune though.
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This has been one of my favourite tunes since I first heard it. I personally think of Burt Bacharach as one of the great composers, and this tune is both classic and modern. Alfie is a melodic and harmonic masterpiece in my book, the melody is so singable, yet it does incorporate some of the hippest chord tone approaches, twists and some of the nicest rhythmic lines you'll ever find. Just the first 4 bars alone contains lyrics that ask questions, and melody lines that wonderfully follow and bring out the lyrical element. Take a look at how these lines take their turns converging on specific notes, like the words converge on word or thought. Listen for the way pickup notes set up new measures, and how the questions in the lyrics flow like pickup notes. Try to put those things into your thought process when putting together a solo. I included a version of the changes with lyrics too, so you can try to base your own solo ideas from the inspiration of the original tune and/or the intention lines of the lyric, as Burt did when he was working with Hal David's words.
The harmony is also complex and simple at the same time. When I play this tune, I hear it as a C tonality going to a G major tonality in the B section, but that's not readily apparent from the changes outright. In fact, the changes don't really indicate a GM7 chord at all, but rather give colourations within that key area until it returns to C via G7. But listen, pick out your own idea of the harmony by ear and see what falls into your version of Alfie.
I hope you find this tune as satisfying as I do. I find something new, something new I can apply to it, some new path through the tune every time I play this. It's well worth the challenge of digging into.
David
Dionne Warwick's version was my first encounter, this one with Burt Bacharach on piano
Sco
Bill Evans played this beautifully
Babs and another take with lyrics
I hope to hear from you on your take and impressions on this great piece.
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I think I'll try to address some considerations in solo construction during this week. Each of these ideas is but one way of making music, putting together a thoughtful and satisfying composition in real time, so if you care to, keep these things in mind and try them out. See if it helps and guides you to a more engaging experience for you and the listener.
First, even if your writing/music paper skills are minimal, do these things with some kind of detailed documentation. Write your ideas down as you explore them on the guitar. It's all too easy to try out an idea, say "Cool, I like that", play it and when the moment passes, forget it and never play it in a soloing situation. Take good ideas, you might make a note "Pickup notes make fluid lines!" and write some phrases with that in mind. This is one way to increase your personal vocabulary. Just a suggestion.
Today's idea is Thinking in Phrases.
Now we are taught scales, positions, arpeggios, all sorts of building blocks to get the right notes and changes. That's fine. But we'll look at employing all those tools and building some kind of organic piece here. The phrase. For a horn player, it's more apparent: You've got to get an idea out and then you've got to breathe. Guitarists are cursed with the illusion that space can be ignored.
A phrase is an idea that stands out from the chaos of noise. It's the sound of a thought.
A phrase can be short: A two note burst that is answered by the imagination of the listener, or a chord from a piano player, or a drum fill...
A phrase can be longer, made up of an idea preceeded by embellishments, pickup notes announcing an impending statement, and then ending with a flourish.
A phrase can end with a connection to another phrase or it can end with a beautiful use of space, that lingers and frames your notes.
All of these things depend on YOUR determining the space a phrase fits in. This can be a tonal area, it can be a turnaround to a specific chord, it can be a 4 bar area where the key changes for a moment. You need to know and scope out the landscape of a piece to identify the phrase areas you want to plant ideas on. Phrases are in your ear, changes on a page are all equal to you eye; use your ear. Develop this awareness.
Some ideas for phrases:
Ascending ideas
Descending ideas
Ideas with twisting changes of directions (ask yourself WHY change direction and WHEN. Great thought exercise)
Motif ideas (a similarity within phrases, so you can recognize a commonality, rhythmic, melodic, shape, etc.)
Dynamic (does creating a contour of loud and soft change the breath of your solo?)
Come up with your own parameters for phrasing.
Suggestions for today:
Take a piece and get to know it by ear, so you see the places where things happen. Make some kind of map of the piece in your mind or on paper and for each phrase area, pick out an essential "germ" that you can build on. The simpler the better. Coming to grips with simplicity is a really powerful ability.
Play the piece through with an awareness of phrasing for each phrasing block. See what you think and share them if you will. I'd really appreciate that.
Next time, I'll talk about ways to isolate small phrase parts and we'll look at how to create linguistic embellishments that will adorn your ideas.
Until then, have fun!
David
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So many times I hear a solo on a piece, and once the soloists begins their solo, like a BANG and a starting gun, the original tune is left behind in the dust, never to be considered again. Worse than that, the solos that are created are so into a specific sound, that they're heavy with rote references, cliches and haunting habits.
I attended a talk recently with Wayne Krantz. Really good points he made, and when he mentioned "playing the same things over and over again..." heads nodded. We spend so much time by ourselves, practicing the things we're told we should know, doing what we're allowed to do to be right. And it's easy to forget the inspiration that comes from the original piece.
The composer has put together a really unique and well thought out landscape to walk through; it's called the harmonic form.
The composer has put together a really unique and memorable way to get through that landscape; it's called the melody.
Each melody is made up of phrases, notes that contain strong notes and notes that "frame" and support those strengths. Identifying them is the first step in doing that in a beautiful solo yourself.
Sometimes a strong note, or peak can be highlighted by making it longer. Use not length to convey importance. Try this, take an otherwise mundane phrase or even one you think is good, and pick a note to highlight. Lead your notes to that one and instead of a steady stream of eighths, give that note the benefit of strength and length. What does a half note tell you? What does a quarter say in relation to eighths.
Now go to the original tune and look at the rhythmic weight of notes.
Try this: Pick a phrase, find a note of strength. Now using that or similar rhythm, play that phrase differently with the same or similar movement to the head. Play this several times, each time differently and when you've got something you like, put it in your own notebook construction of today's solo. Or you might take the same notes as the head and place a different rhythm under it. Keep the intention the same, vary the construction.
Try this: Play a phrase as written, then especially if the next phrase is an answering phrase, play your own phrase following. Then back to the head and the composer's head... and solo. Write down or record your ideas.
Let the head of the piece be your companion today, play to understand your companion and become real friends, then strive to bring your own toolset into the process.
Share what you come across!
Practice this way and it can give you something that you'll work with next time you're in the solo space. Have fun!
Tomorrow I'll talk about the language of embellishment, so you have specific things you can use and sound hip.
David
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This is such a great exercise, I can't remember where I first heard of it, it may well have been from you years ago. Originally Posted by TruthHertz
A "sort of" variation I love is trying to improvise melodic lines using the same melodic rhythm as the melody, but with different notes. It's a brainbuster
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Does this fit the parameters: use the opening “what’s it all about” phrase as the question, apply it across the tune as the harmony changes, and use my own answer phrases instead of “Alf-iiiiie”?
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Yes! Motif and variations. The more awareness you have of what's there, the more you can replace and vary on your own. I hear the question in the entire first two bars, then the answer for me comes in the next two bars started with a two note pickup note to launch it. Originally Posted by wzpgsr
Neat how our different perspectives can be.
Yeah I hear "What's it all about, Alfie?" as one phrase and "Is it just for the moment we live?" is my second phrase. So I might answer the musical version of "I don't know. You don't know. But we live." and that breaks into three small phrases, smaller rhythms and a different arc.
David
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Damn it, Alfie. What the hell js it all about??
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The Hokey Pokey is what it's all about. Originally Posted by wzpgsr
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Maybe it's because when we speak, we pay attention to the words, and not so much the cadences; that's supposed to come naturally, but often when learning to solo, rhythm is way down on the list. As a matter of fact, most guitar teachers don't dedicate a whole lot of time on rhythmic aptitude.
I was going to begin an introduction to embellishment and ornamentation (considered by many as the core of the bebop sound), and I realized that good use of eighth note phrases is as much a function of rhythm as it is note choice.
If we think scales, we play scales. If we think arpeggios, we play arpeggios. If we think rote transcriptions, we play other people's thoughts. But If we feel the rhythms, we play phrases. If we think phrases, the embellishments will make sense.
I've started to believe that a very important part of developing a personal solo approach comes from the unconscious and conscious use of space.
Take a solo, something that you've acquired a feeling for its form (off book) and go through that song, soloing just on rhythm. Tap it out, long notes and short notes, vocalize it, and sing it with just words (don't melodicize it, in other words). And make a series of phrases where you vary the next phrase based on the one you've just sung (played). Then at some point, do find some logic to how your phrases are made.
Straight eighths.
Phrases based on different numbers of attacks.
Long and short notes.
Starting on the beat.
Starting off the beat.
Ending with a long note.
Ending with a short note.
Same start as the last phrase, different end.
Shifting the pattern by an eighth note.
Syncopation.
Learn Syncopated Subdivided Rhythms - Lesson 7 Practice Patterns 701-710
Extreme uses of space.
Delay your entrance and become comfortable with that.
Do this until you really feel a rhythmic identity. Listen to people like Kenny Clark, Art Blakey, Max Roach, Alan Dawson.
Create phrases that allow others to interact with you.
Do all these things without playing melody.
Next time we rejoin the world of melody but with a sense of rhythm. We'll do this with embellishments and note "framing".
Have fun!
David
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How's this piece going for you? Seeing the way it flows? How's the ear going? Originally Posted by wzpgsr
It's a nice piece because it's got a strong sense of harmony but the changes don't always state the most obvious signposts to it. Do feel to share your questions and reservations about the piece(s) and let's let discussion and our own failures and successes help each other.
David
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I originally had scheduled Send In The Clowns, a favourite piece of mine to play as a solo piece, but alas, I couldn't find a lead sheet for the piece that I could post. So sorry for the change of plans, today we'll look at a piece that's long been overdue in my list of tunes to really get to know. Steve Swallow's Eiderdown.
Steve Swallow is one of the great composers in the modern jazz genre. His tunes, a huge number of which are through composed, possess a real sense of melody and lyric, and always a harmonic structure that's engaging and satisfying.
I wanted to do one of his tunes because tonight I met up with him again, and the reverberations of his music are far reaching and long lasting. I hope you find something new and eye opening in Eiderdown. Learn this one by ear. There is so much of this piece that defies an easy traditional analysis, yet playing it by ear reveals a simplicity, one of those things that marks Swallow's tunes.
This is a great piece to look at slowly and then explore with different tempos. Let me know what you think
David
Stephane Grapelli with Gary Burton
I love Swallow's bass on this
Bill Evans
The guys who were there at the beginning, where it all started
Last edited by TH; 04-22-2018 at 05:08 AM.
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That was quite a concert this evening wasn't it? Hearing Steve Swallow live is always a treat!
As much as I love Eiderdown, it is a form I have always felt somewhat adrift in. Be interesting to look at it in a focused way again...
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To be honest, I didn’t like the tune all that much at first. But over the week it’s grown on me quite a bit. There’s something about the sound of the melody over that Ebdim7 chord and again over the B section that gives me shivers. I’m actually going to be taking a second week with this one because I didn’t get to dive in as deeply as I wanted to in one week. I’ve got the melody down as of today, but I need to spend another week doing the improv work. Originally Posted by TruthHertz
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I'm in a real immersion of Eiderdown and I have to say I'm loving it like I never had before. Let me share a few observations.
Much like Throughout, this piece is a really excellent call/response, question/answer piece. It’s got things that play off of one another and pulls you into working with the form. In each line, each system (4 bars on the page), you’ve got a play between some feeling of major and minor. First system is a G or E minor sound. The next 4 bars are G minor or Bb. Back and forth between these different sounds, until you come to the bridge section. This is a change in the format, and here you’re playing with a section of F Major, drop down to Eb (whole step drop, feel familiar?) and then a fun section of almost beboppish turnarounds to F… then back to the final restating of the original two systems.
Isn’t this lovely and elegant?
Later this week we can weigh in on this piece, and relate it to the ongoing look at how to make an engaging solo.
Until then, hope this is helpful or thought provoking
David
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Yeah, that's great. The piece gets more interesting each time I look at it. Honestly. Go for it! It's got a lot to offer. Going from C to G is actually like building a road to a new scenic area, and the transition back is equally exciting to learn to hear and be creative with. A lot of energy and surprise in those transitions. Originally Posted by wzpgsr
David
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Well, Eiderdown is such a great tune I had to move on to it. Head is not that tough, hopefully can get this one under my belt by tomorrow and actually get to some recorded improv.
The B natural over E-7 sounds so cool when you’ve still got the Bb over C-7 in your ear.
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