Songs to work on for technique and rhythm?

[jazznylon]

Hello everyone I'm thinking about dedicating an hour of my time for developing technique and rhythm however I would like to go at this from a repertoire learning approach (kind of like treating them as etudes). I tried looking for a list of tunes that specifically work on either those two things but couldn't find it. A good tune that works well for technique for example Donna Lee is one that comes to mind. For rhythm.. Au Privave? But yeah if anyone has any suggestions of tunes that excel in those things (rhythm or technique) that would be really helpful not just for me but for anyone who might look into this

[pamosmusic]

Bebop heads bebop heads bebop heads bebop heads.

Anything Charlie Parker.

They’re also great for vocab down the line.

Try and learn them in a few positions. Having them in two octaves is extremely practical. The others won’t be as immediately practical, but great for chops and great for vocabulary later.

[pamosmusic]

Any Parker but season tunes I think anyone would agree are pretty big:

Anthropology
Au Privave
Billies Bounce
Donna Lee
Oleo
Scrapple

then there’s probably ten others that are pretty common, but more or less so depending on the area or session.

Blues for Alice
Four (miles)
Dexterity
Dewey Square
Ornithology
Half Nelson (miles)
Straight No Chaser (monk)
Etc

[jazznylon]

Bebop heads bebop heads bebop heads bebop heads.

Anything Charlie Parker.

They’re also great for vocab down the line.

Try and learn them in a few positions. Having them in two octaves is extremely practical. The others won’t be as immediately practical, but great for chops and great for vocabulary later.

Bebop heads it is! Thank you I appreciate the advice

[AllanAllen]

If you find Peter’s tunes too difficult, you can also try easier ones like Perdido, Seven Come Eleven, Nows The Time or Doxy.

[rpjazzguitar]

Bebop head, sure. But the rhythms of the heads tend not to be very complex. So, I'd suggest some funk and "Latin" tunes to work on really nailing the rhythms of the comping. To suggest a simple one: Desafinado. The melody has a lot of upbeats, which are good to practice. And, the comping is worth getting down too, since American jazz bands routinely include Bossas.

[Bop Head]

Serious study of West African polyrhythms and a lot of listening to music based on them will help in achieving real rhythmic freedom much more than just learning tunes. (And I hope you did not intend to learn those just from the Real Book.)

[James W]

Yeah bebop heads. I would add 'Confirmation' whose bridge gets particularly intricate and challenging - I've been working on that one for a while and like most bop heads I've learnt I transcribed it myself.

I've also started learning Mike Stern's 'Chromazone' (not my own transcription this time) mostly because it's cool and good for alternate picking.

[Bop Head]

Continuing the thought of a deeper dive into polyrhythms:

Just found this podcast series about Brazilian music and culture:

Massa: Brazilian Music & Culture

[pamosmusic]

Bebop head, sure. But the rhythms of the heads tend not to be very complex.

Only insofar as they’re written down. Jazz tends not to have super super complex rhythms. Mostly eighth notes and then some triplet ornaments. The complexity is implied in the way the melodies are rendered. Charlie Parker was incredibly rhythmically sophisticated.

Anthropology is a great example. The first measure of that tune is just eighth notes but the accent pattern implies 3 over 4.

Au Privave is another classic example.

Thats characteristic of most jazz. Pretty simple underlying melodies, offset rhythmically by anticipation and delay, and with pretty complex patterns in the articulation.

[pamosmusic]

None of that is to say getting into bossa and samba stuff is a bad idea. Super complex in a similar way. And a big part of the repertoire.

Honestly never spent enough time on that. I spent way more time on the bebop stuff.

In case you couldn’t tell.

[Bop Head]

Thats characteristic of most jazz. Pretty simple underlying melodies, offset rhythmically by anticipation and delay, and with pretty complex patterns in the articulation.

IMO that is the European ("Western") view. In polyrhythm there is the simultaneousness of different groupings overlayed.

Take e.g. swing with its 12/8 (triplet 8th) base in groupings of 3 for the main pulse (bold letters are the accents, play all triplets eights, let only the accents ring and mute the others to a percussive sound; play as single notes or chords):

1&a2&a3&a4&a1&a2&a3&a4&a

Play 2 against the groupings of 3 and get quarter triplets resp. shifted quarter triplets:

1&a2&a3&a4&a1&a2&a3&a4&a

1&a2&a3&a4&a1&a2&a3&a4&a

Play 5 (= 3 + 2) against the groupings of 3 and shift them:

1&a2&a3&a4&a1&a2&a3&a4&a

1&a2&a3&a4&a1&a2&a3&a4&a

1&a2&a3&a4&a1&a2&a3&a4&a

1&a2&a3&a4&a1&a2&a3&a4&a

1&a2&a3&a4&a1&a2&a3&a4&a

Now do the same with 7 (= 3 + 2 + 2) against 3:

1&a2&a3&a4&a1&a2&a3&a4&a

1&a2&a3&a4&a1&a2&a3&a4&a

1&a2&a3&a4&a1&a2&a3&a4&a

etc.

Practice all those until from the pure math in the beginning you reach a point where you really feel it. Try also to play longer patterns than the 2-bar patterns I have written above. (Of course you can also play 1-bar patterns.)

I have to admit that I am still in the process of learning those regarding 12/8, but I have had big success with that method regarding the (more or less) straight 8th and 16th of funk, reggae or latin (practicing 3, 5 or seven against 4). I have reached the point of immediately knowing what to play after a quick listen to the rest of the rhythm section while varying the rhythm all the time.

[Bop Head]

It helped my rhythm and time feel a lot when I started (following advice from Hal Galper and Barry Harris) padding my foot only on 1 and 3 for tempi from medium to fast.

[pamosmusic]

Sorry I thought it was clear I was referring to polyrhythm when I referenced the accent patterns in Anthropology. Au Privave is also a classic example—polyrhythm, implied by the melodic shape and accent patterns.

Point being that a lot of this stuff is right there in the music when you listen. Though not always when it’s written

[pamosmusic]

It helped my rhythm and time feel a lot when I started (following advice from Hal Galper and Barry Harris) padding my foot only on 1 and 3 for tempi from medium to fast.

+1

[Reg]

Yea... it's great to learn heads... but that's not going to get your technique and rhythmic skills together.

Work on rhythmic studies... with scales and arpeggios.

Typically two octave patterns in all positions.


Even more useful would be chord and voicing studies... with same organization.

Learning tunes is a different part of practice.

[pamosmusic]

Yea... it's great to learn heads... but that's not going to get your technique and rhythmic skills together.

Work on rhythmic studies... with scales and arpeggios.

Typically two octave patterns in all positions.

Honestly pretty strongly disagree with this.

Heads include scales and arpeggios but with organic rhythms as you encounter them in the wild along with other material that is pretty important for technique.

Things Donna Lee includes that scale and arpeggio studies don't:

Diatonic enclosures, chromatic enclosures, bebop scales, side-slipping, implications for articulation (slurring, accents, etc), ornaments, extensive half-step chromaticism.

The half-step chromaticism is a good example ... it just doesn't really occur naturally in technical studies unless you work on it specifically and it's very very difficult on guitar, especially when you take articulation and string-crossings into account. You could design studies that include lots of it, but at that point, why aren't you just playing the tune?

I would agree that *just* learning a tune isn't a substitute for technical practice, but you can put in effort to learn a tune in a way that is awesome for technique and probably better than just scale and arpeggio studies.

[mr. beaumont]

Well, I assume the OP is talking about being rhythmically solid and interesting in the context of improvising? "Developing rhythm" is a pretty vague ask.

[Bop Head]

Honestly pretty strongly disagree with this.

Heads include scales and arpeggios but with organic rhythms as you encounter them in the wild along with other material that is pretty important for technique.

Things Donna Lee includes that scale and arpeggio studies don't:

Diatonic enclosures, chromatic enclosures, bebop scales, side-slipping, implications for articulation (slurring, accents, etc), ornaments, extensive half-step chromaticism.

The half-step chromaticism is a good example ... it just doesn't really occur naturally in technical studies unless you work on it specifically and it's very very difficult on guitar, especially when you take articulation and string-crossings into account. You could design studies that include lots of it, but at that point, why aren't you just playing the tune?

I would agree that *just* learning a tune isn't a substitute for technical practice, but you can put in effort to learn a tune in a way that is awesome for technique and probably better than just scale and arpeggio studies.

Trying to play a certain tune will also show you where your weaknesses are. When figuring out fingerings and position changes that let me play a tune with good phrasing while still being as convenient as possible I sometimes just for reasons of technical practice stay on possibilities for parts of phrases that are not so convenient to play and that I will not end up using in the end.

[AllanAllen]

Honestly pretty strongly disagree with this.

Heads include scales and arpeggios but with organic rhythms as you encounter them in the wild along with other material that is pretty important for technique.

Things Donna Lee includes that scale and arpeggio studies don't:

Diatonic enclosures, chromatic enclosures, bebop scales, side-slipping, implications for articulation (slurring, accents, etc), ornaments, extensive half-step chromaticism.

The half-step chromaticism is a good example ... it just doesn't really occur naturally in technical studies unless you work on it specifically and it's very very difficult on guitar, especially when you take articulation and string-crossings into account. You could design studies that include lots of it, but at that point, why aren't you just playing the tune?

I would agree that *just* learning a tune isn't a substitute for technical practice, but you can put in effort to learn a tune in a way that is awesome for technique and probably better than just scale and arpeggio studies.

It all depends on the players level. If you
can’t run arpeggios through 12 keys you aren’t ready for Donna Lee. Well, you could do it, but it’s going to be hard and rote memorization.

[jazznylon]

Thanks everyone for the recommendations. Trying to clarify the rhythm thing I would want to steal small interesting rhythmical fragments from tunes so I can incorporate them into my improvisation in general

[mr. beaumont]

Thanks everyone for the recommendations. Trying to clarify the rhythm thing I would want to steal small interesting rhythmical fragments from tunes so I can incorporate them into my improvisation in general

For that I might practice singing some solos...internalize it.

[pamosmusic]

It all depends on the players level. If you
can’t run arpeggios through 12 keys you aren’t ready for Donna Lee. Well, you could do it, but it’s going to be hard and rote memorization.

Yeah, you're certainly not wrong here, but I think two points worth making:

If you're working on technique and rhythm, that sort of suggests a bit of fluency. Though I could be wrong.

And Reg suggested rhythm studies with scales and arpeggios which kind of suggests a certain level of competency also. You'd have to be literate in the scales and arpeggios to start applying advanced syncopations or cross-rhythms or whatever. At which point, I think a tune is a good place to be instead.

And for what it's worth ... I practice scales and arpeggios in various contexts all the time. Not knocking that. Just saying that for a lot of things, tunes might be better, in addition to being more practical in the end.

[rpjazzguitar]

I re-thought my response to this.

Since I don't know your place on the mountain, it's hard to be specific.

But, I think you've asked a really good question.

It's very easy, I think, to get so caught up in the scales/arps/etc work that you neglect rhythmic development. Don't ask how I know this.

For scales/arps/etc the entry points are easy. Very clear what to work on. But, for rhythm, it's harder. If it's fragments of rhythm you're looking for, songs are full of them. All you need to do is think of a rhythmic fragment from a tune and then play it over some other tune.

But, I'd add that doing that probably won't get you that much closer to a true classic jazz time-feel. Neither will abstract work on scales/arps/etc IMO. Reading lots of different material sounds like it would help, but I think really, not that much. Copying solos down to the last nuance probably will help.

What I've been doing to try to get a better jazz feel is watching Reg's youtube videos (reg523). You can hear and see exactly what he's doing. I strongly recommend it. And, a lot of the magic is in the comping, not just the soloing.

Usual caveat: however you go about this, there will be a great player who did it some other way. I don't expect others to agree with my views. We're different players, with different experience and one size most certainly does not fit all. I posted what I think currently. I didn't always think this way and I probably will change again.

[Christian Miller]

Reading through the Jimmy Raney Aebersold book today, that’s got some great rhythmic stuff in it.