Hate Interval Exercise for Jazz Guitar? Just wait...

I have laid out conventional intervals (here). But, there are more!

A tritone is defined in music theory as three adjacent whole tones. In the video, Mary starts with A-B, B-C#, C#-Db where A-Db is the tritone. Moving across the next in fourths, A-D, the next tritone is D-G#. Where this pattern changes is from the G-B strings (4-5) where the fingering pattern is different but the tritone is still C-D, D-E, E-F#. The fingering is easy 1-2 except from the g-b string who is 1-3..

Skipping a string, same notes, the fingering is 4-(1-)

When Mary plays stacked triotones, she plays A-Db, Db-A, A-Db with fingering 1-2-3-4 on adjacent strings. This is an interesting sound because there are only two notes A and Db an octave apart. On the A-string, the fingering is 1-2-3-(4+) and on the D string the fingering is 1-2-(3+)-4.

Sous le Soleil

Notes

How to Play on Guitar

Lyrics

Sous le soleil (In the sun)

Allongée au soleil (Lying in the sun)

Mon coeur s'éveille (My heart comes alive)

Au frisson de plaisir (To the chills of pleasure)

Ne plus partir (Don’t leave again)

Ne plus partir (Don’t leave again)

(more)

https://lyricstranslate.com/en/sous-le-soleil-sun.html

Musicians: What is Deconstruction? What is Resistance? What is the System?

The Facebook posting above by Sebastien Ammann really opened my ears and mind. Right now, while the US is enduring the Neo-Fascist Trump 2 Administration, I don't really feel like making beautiful music.

My approach, so far, to making music is to take conventional jazz standards, deconstruct them, given them a new name and just improvise over the deconstruction. For me, musical deconstruction is tearing the song (chords and melody) apart and reassembling it in some other, updated form. For example, the jazz standard Our Love is Here to Stay becomes Fascism is Here to Stay.

Sebastiene Ammann points out that this type of improvisation is a form of resistance. Here's what I think he is saying. If you are a musician trying to become part of the current Music System (Rock, Pop, Jazz, Classical, whatever) you are involved in a very rigid even authoritarian endeavor. Even Jazz has become Academic and Classical with rigidly proscribed forms (Play the Head, Improvise, Play the Head, Out). If this is what you want to do, Great! I'm not criticizing** just saying that you are part of the System (just try playing like Eric Dolphy in your High School Jazz band, even though Dolphy is an established Jazz musician).

Let's also point out that The System is what brought us the Neo-Fascist Trump 2 Administration. Being part of it makes you complicit and Complicity is Painless. A more painful route is to Deconstruct and Resist. Can You Dig It CUDI? 

Notes

** I love listening to all kinds of music; it is great escapism. There is plenty of escapist music available. Making music is a different matter. I have to have some feelings and connection with what I'm playing, not just playing notes on a page. If you decide to resist the current music system and the SocioPolitical System it is embedded in, you will: (1) not make a lot of new friends, (2) hear your songs played on the radio or on Spotify, or (3) get much work as a professional musician. The only way to deal with the repercussions of resistance is develop a philosophy of not giving a fuck (DGAF). Figure out was it important to you and DGAF about the rest of it. Musicians who have been very successful at NGAF are (1) Time Berne, a DIY New York Jazz musician and (2) Mary Halvorson. Give them a listen.

Review: Mike Moynihan and Creosote Jazz Collective at the Tucson Jazz Festival

In a prior "review" of Valentines Eye by Kitty LaRoar I commented that since I'm a musician (and not a critic) I don't do reviews. But, here I go again with a "review" of Mike Moynihan and the Creosote Jazz Collective at the 2017 Tucson Jazz Festival (TJF). They played at the Downtown Jazz Fiesta for MLK Day on the Connect Coworking Stage. My reviews are only of performances I like so in that sense, I'm not a critic.

What I liked about Mike Moynihan and his group was the blend of instruments and the beautiful sound they produced. The key to this great sound was Mike's decision to choose vibraphone and guitar for the septet. Listen to the video above. It is just selections from a few pieces, but I hope it gives you a sense of the beautiful sound, blend and interaction achieved by the group. I wish I had a complete recording of the entire hour (Mike tells me he is working on getting the full hour on line). Some beautiful moments, particularly in the endings where Tristan Rogers uses the vibraphone's motor, were missed. I hope at some time in the future, Mike records with this group, maybe even in a live, rather than a studio session. It's not easy to create this great a sound in a live setting and when you succeed it creates an exciting recording.

The interaction between guitarist Matt Mitchell and vibraphonist Tristan Rogers is important to appreciate. The guitar and vibraphone can both be played as chordal instruments. They can also be used to play only single-note, horn-like improvisational lines. Mitchell and Rogers used both approaches and never stepped on each other. Their interaction allowed Mike to sail over the top and allowed the rhythm section (Nathan Hooker on drums and Jack Wood on bass) to stay solid underneath. If you play any of these instruments and are a jazz musician, the Creosote Collective is worth your study.

Mike's first recording, Chronicles, got great reviews (here). You can download a copy of Chronicles from CdBaby here. You can read Mike's biography here.

The Creosote Jazz Collective consists of:

Nathan Hooker - drums

Matt Mitchell - guitar

Michael Moynihan - saxophone 

Tristan Rogers - vibraphone

Jack Wood - bass

Selections played at TJF (in set order with composers):

1. Wax and Wayne (Moynihan)

2. The Sickness (Moynihan)

3. The Infinite (Rogers)

4. To The Stars (Moynihan)

5. Kindness (Moynihan)

6: I Have A Dream (Moynihan)

As an extra treat, all the selections were original compositions by Moynihan and Rogers. They were all great! I wish I could play each one of them for you (if Mike gets the full set on line, I'll review each song in a future post)!

It's All About Education: Can You Dig It?

Why are there so few black male teachers? Chris Emdin of Columbia University suggests that a cycle of failure haunts students and their teachers (click below to enlarge):

Students act out, so teachers tighten the rules; more restrictions combined with dull and irrelevant curricula cause students to fail, and teachers quit -- thinking it’s their fault.

In the video above, Prof. Emdin raps his Humble Opinion on why the system needs to be changed. Prof. Emdin also has a book out titled For White Folk That Teach in the Hood...And, the rest of Y'all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education that's a very good read.

Gary Burton: How To Play Jazz Ballads

Gary Burton (who has an on-line jazz course from the Berklee School of Music here) has a simple recommendation for playing ballads: embellish the melody, don't play scales. His argument is that ballad melodies are always given a thoughtful treatment by the composer. If you like the ballad, it's unlikely that your improvisation will improve on it very much.

This is the same approach that Wes Montgomery used:

Improvisation on a given melody is a melodic variation of the established melody. When improvising in the style of Wes Montgomery, it is important to retain enough of the notes of the original melody to maintain the feeling of the tune (Lee Garson, Jimmy Stewart and Charles Stewart, 1968 Wes Montgomery Jazz Guitar Method Robbins Music, New York, page 18).

Gary Burton is playing the song For Heaven Sake (a song made famous by Billy Holiday, hear her version here), which Wes Montgomery also played.



This is not the easiest ballad Gary might have chosen for instruction. The melody has many non-scale tones and goes through three key changes. Here is the figured bass:

(F)  ||(V)||   II  V  |  I  VIx  |  II V  |  I  Ix   |
           |   IVm  bIVm  |  III  bIIIm7b5 |  II  V  |   I  ||
          ||   II  V  |  I  VIx  |  II V  |  I       |
           |   Ivm  bIVm  |  III  bIIIm7b5 |  II  V  |   I  ||
(Db)      ||   II  V  |  I  | II  V  | I (bVo  VIIx) |
(Eb)       |   II  VIIx  |  II  V  |  Vm  Ix  | (F) II V  ||
(F)       ||   II  V  |  I  VIx  |  II V  |  I  Ix   |
           |   IVm  bIVm  |  III  bIIIm7b5 |  II  V  |   I (V)  ||

And, here is a nice jam track with chord symbols displayed (there are some minor differences from the figured bass above, but the figured bass shows the repeating II-V-I and linear IVm-bIVm-III-bIII patterns that define the song).



EXERCISES

1. Write out the melody in the key of F by playing along with a recorded version and transcribing if necessary.
2. Study Gary Burton's and Wes Montgomery's solos carefully noticing how the melody is embellished but remains in the improvisations, even if only hinted.
3. Take other well know Jazz Ballads (see the list here that includes jam tracks and chord charts-- available when you choose a song). Use the same approach, first play the melody then elaborate the melody, do not run chord scales).
4. Take well know Bebop or Swing tunes (for example here) and see if you can use the same approach (melody embellishment). Can you use this simpler approach or, as Gary Burton suggests, is it necessary to run chord scales for these tunes? Let your ear be the guide.
5. On For Heaven's Sake try another approach: Play only within the major scales defined by the key changes F-Db-Eb-F. Try starting at different points in each scale and playing that mode. For example, starting on the second note (G-G in the F scale) is the Dorian mode. Starting on the sixth note (D-D in the F scale) is the Aeolian. The name of the mode is not as important as hearing that it will sound different. Personally, I like starting on the seventh (E-E in the F scale) which is the Locrian mode (a diminished sounding scale).
6. Finally, treat the entire song as a modal tune. Construct a scale that uses every note in the tune. Run the scale from D-D using all the non-chordal notes and the Bb in the key of F. How does this sound. Does it work across all the key changes or do you need to be careful?

Redman and Mehldau: The Nearness of You

In my last post (here) I introduced the current project of Joshua Redman & Brad Mehldau. Now, let's do something with that by integrating it in our own playing. Let's take the Jazz Standard The Nearness of You, a Hoagy Carmichael song from 1938. Here's the figured bass:

A:  (F) ||  I  | Vm  Ix  |  IV  |  IVo  |  III  bIIIx  |  II  V  | III bIIIx  |  II  V  ||

            ||  I  | Vm  Ix  |  IV  |  IVo  |  III  bIIIx  |  II  V  | I  bVIIx  |   I6     ||

B:        ||  II  |  V  |  I  Vm  |  Ix  |  IV  |  IIIo  VIx  |  II  |  V  ||

A:        ||  I  | Vm  Ix  |  IV  |  IVo  |  III  bIIIx  |  II  V  | I  (VI  |  II V)     ||

There are lots of special (III-bIIIx or IV-IVo or I-Vm-Ix, etc.) and standard (II-V-I) chord progressions that make the song interesting. There are also parts of the song that could be altered to add interest, for example a modal Gm bridge with the bass pedal on G. And, of course, Mehldau does a lot of interesting things with chord changes throughout the song. There is much to study here.

EXERCISES

1. If you play a chordal instrument (guitar, vibraphone or piano), find an interested musician who plays a single note instrument (brass or string instrument), make sure you know this song in-and-out, by memory and are comfortable with it (if not, find some other song you are). Then, try a free improvisational session in the style of Joshua Redman and Brad Mehldau. How did it work for you? What did you learn? (If you don't play a chordal instrument, find a guitar, piano or vibraphone player).
2. Use lines from the Redman-Mehldau version, particularly Brad Mehldau's introduction, and write a new song using those ideas and any parts of the figured bass above you find interesting. Play the song for some other musicians. If you've done this exercise correctly, they should not have been able to identify your new song as The Nearness of You. If you need more inspiration, listen to Milt Jackson's version (below), one of my favorites.