It's now familiar territory, and we achieved deeper understanding...
This week, we stayed with the same material as last time, continuing
to dig into the tunes and the concepts we've been building on
throughout the summer.
We focused again on “Summertime” in D minor, using it to strengthen
our improvisation and listening skills. The group is becoming more
confident with navigating the changes and finding space within the
form to develop ideas.
On the theory side, we’re still honing our ability to recognize chord
quality by listening for certain scale degrees, and thinking up
rhythmic lines to go along with them. This continues to be a key tool
for soloing (and comping) more intentionally.
We had some interesting conversations about film music, their
composers, and how artists can have drastic changes in their
discography later in their musical careers, which may reflect where
they find themselves in their own lives. Remember to play, make, and
listen to music that YOU enjoy. While it takes a lot of studying,
practicing, hard work and discipline, music is also supposed to be a
place where you can be yourself.
Our current repertoire:
Baseball Boogie (Eb version)
Watermelon Man (Herbie Hancock)
Summertime (John Coltrane version in D minor)
Even though the material hasn't changed, the music is growing.
Repetition with focus is helping everyone sound more connected and
expressive. Keep practicing, and keep showing up ready to play.
-Don Tran
We started learning Mack the Knife a few weeks ago, but not everyone was here, now we are working on making sure everyone is on the same page with the melody. We learned it by ear, we listened to the Sonny Rollins recording, we also listened to a bunch of other recordings, including some old ones from the 20s, but we found that the Sonny Rollins recording was the most clear.
We then broke down each chord and arpeggiated each of the chords, and went over some basic tips for improvising over these chords, using the chord tones 1 3 and 5 mostly. We all took solos at the same time, then we went down the line and took individual solos. Some of us were having a hard time hearing when the chorus starts, so we broke down the chorus into two separate parts. We looped the first 8 bars, focusing on making smooth transitions in between the chord changes. We then looped the second 8 bars, emphasizing the big 2-5-1 turnaround so we can hear when the chorus starts and finishes.
- Max Bartron
Jazz Artist of the week to check out: Lester Young
From Talli:
Get inspired about jazz, or any type of music. Music is most fun when you have skill on your instrument, then you can express yourself as much as possible. The better you are at something, the more fun and enjoyment you can have. You all should focus on playing with soul, heart
, and passion on your instruments. Strive to be better, seek out songs that feature your instruments of any genre, and play along with them and learn to sound like the players on the original song.
HW: Find just 1 song that you genuinely like to listen to that features your instrument prominently (upright bass, tenor sax, alto sax, trumpet) and listen to it, not for homework but for pleasure. It can be any genre. Just find something you like that will inspire you to practice your instrument more.
Joel’s Teachings:
Balance in life is very important Joel Steinke. Society values people who go all or nothing for one thing, but Joel believes balance is important. Joel seemed to support not going all in for just one thing, but instead living a balanced life
"Try and be great at many things, not just one" - Joel Steinke
If all you do is practice in a practice room,m you’ll sound sad, and jazz is about expressing the feelings of life, not the practice room. This is very important, music is about feelings and expressing yourself so like I said in previous blogs, play you!
Harmonic Wisdom
You can treat every two-five chord progression just like a five. So instead of worrying about G minor 7 and C7 just worry about C7. This will simplify your solo work. Another example is if you have a 2 -5 chord progression like F-7 to Bb 7, just improvise over Bb7.
Follow the closet three and 7 of each chord. This is voice leading. One note per bar of each chord. Move to whichever third and seventh is closer to each bar. Over the song devilete, this works well on the bridge, starting on the 3rd and seventh (either one) of the first chord of the bridge and continuing to play the closest 4th or seventh of the next chord. You will either not change notes or only have to move by the distance of a whole step at the maximum.
Key tip: If you don't know where to start, just play the chord tones (1,3,b,7) of a given chord and improvise using just them. Practice your improvisation for just 10 minutes a day, and you will see extreme gains very fast!!
Other Knowledge
Pay attention to the form of the songs!!
The form is ABA for Devilette
Rushing is better than dragging generally, but not changing the tempo is preferable.
To make soloing more fun, incorporate background, short riffs played by horns and guitar that are implemented behind a soloist. These make a song way more fun and interesting to listen to. They are almost always included in big bands, but you can include them in small combos.
Anything longer than a dotted quarter gotta be shaped.
- Talli Kimani
Tunes:
- After You’ve Gone
- Mo’ Better Blues
- The Intimacy of the Blues
- Lady Bird
Concepts:
Suspended Chords:
we ran into suspended chords for the first time on Mo' Better Blues here's a recap of what they are:
- suspended chords replace the third in a chord with either the 2nd or 4th, which is often specified as sus2 or sus4, respectively.
- for the sake of simplicity as well as in the context of Mo' Better Blues, sus chords are often considered as "passing chords" and function similarly enough to dominant chords, and therefore can be treated as such with minimal conflict.
Leave Space!
- Leaving space gives what we do play a stronger sense of intention and purpose.
- This also gives us a moment to either reflect on what we have played or think about what we would like to play next.
- It also encourages greater creativity within constraints, as now we are not only thinking about “when, where and what will I play?” but “when and where will I finish what I am playing.”
- This will also improve our musicianship in the sense that it is easier to keep track of where we are if we continued to play along with the changes, but in the moment we are not playing, it can be more difficult to do so, which is similar to the idea that people tend to get lost while reading rests, rather than notes.
Striving for Complexity
- This idea expands on something Andrew Fox went over in the large group discussion. In practice, it is great to challenge yourself to try things that on unconventionally challenging in order to satisfy our desires to improve our playing ability, however, we shouldn’t lose track of the idea that we are trying to make music at the end of the day.
- Music is just like any other art form, it can be interesting and stimulating to read a highly theoretical textbook where the writing is strictly informative and direct every now and then, similar to how it can be nice to listen to or play highly technical bebop, or post-modern music. But it can also be nice to read a poem or short story, similar to perhaps playing the blues.
- Overall, the idea is that it is okay to go through periods of intense focus on a certain area of skillset, it is important not to lose track of our goal to become well-rounded musicians.
Observations from Listening (“Devilette” – Dexter Gordon)
Harmony & Notes (Practice Concepts)
Bebop Principle
