Way to go gang! Thanks for everything
Friday, September 1, 2023
Friday, August 25, 2023
Week 7 - heading to the Gig next Week
Plan Ahead to attend the entire evening next Wednesday, August 30
Don Tran's rehearsal summary:
We’re nearing the last week the Jazz Colony!!
We revised and went over our original tune “Blume Bossa”, a mashup of “Song for My Father” and “Blue Bossa”. We went over what notes we can play and avoid on certain changes, but also how it shouldn’t limit us on our improv ideas. The rhythm section emphasized the importance of groove, and how complexity may sacrifice that groove, especially in the context of our song’s style.
I will post a iReal format sheet for anyone who still needs the written changes to practice over.
All of us keep sounding better and better on “Sandu”, I think the transcription and listening homework were been a big help.
I suggest going over “Take the A Train” again in case we don’t meet our time limit for our final performance.
Joel Steinke summary:
Not much to report as we approach the final concert. For those who were not present at this week's meeting, we spent some time learning how to make use of a metronome in our practice.
Instead of having the metronome click quarter notes, setting the beep and feeling it as "1" for every bar, or every other bar provides a much greater challenge and can inform us if our individual time is uneven, rushing, or dragging. There is the additional benefit that with the metronome only, you must begin to hear the harmony in your head as you outline the form. Much better than using modern play-alongs, in my experience. Please consider making use of the metronome! Stefan offered us an advanced exercise as well; place the beat of the metronome to an offbeat! For example, instead of hearing the beep as landing on 1, attempt to hear it on the and of 1, or the and of 4, etc. Not easy! But as Stefan mentioned, it can help instantiate rhythmic forms you would not otherwise be hearing or feeling. This is just the surface of metronomic practice, please incorporate some of this into your personal practice! And buy a metronome if you don’t already own one. Often times they are sold as a metronome/tuner combo.
We combined these metronomic exercises with our triadic workouts over Three Flowers. Playing the triads in various permutations with the metronome is essential for gaining the upper hand in soloing over any song.
We will spend next week running down our set front to back, and solidifying some backgrounds for solo sections. I hope everyone can be present for our last meeting!
Liam Salas's summary
This week, we played through our tunes again, and worked on putting together harmony parts for Little Sunflower. We spent a lot of time soloing, and Milo gave our drummer some great advice, which was relevant to everyone! Milo spoke to the importance of being convincing when you play and stressing the importance of actually playing at the tempo that we count the tune off to. Connor also let the horn players know that it is also our responsibility not to drag.
Another big development for this week is that we started working on background figures for Little Sunflower and possibly the blues. Instead of writing out "formal" backgrounds, we are practicing improvising them during the solo. We spent a lot of time working on this. Connor made it clear that the best way to do it is a little musical idea that is easily played in the background... shorter than a bar.
Dig combo summary
We spent the first half of the session on Sweet Georgia Brown/Dig, ending with us working out the arrangement for next week. The plan is to:
-play Dig as the head
-solos
-soli
-Dig or Sweet Georgia Brown out
While practicing the two melodies and chord changes (particularly the second half of the changes where the pattern deviates from the initial series of dominants), we discussed some of the differences between the written melody and what we transcribed and noted that we knew the melody to This I Dig of You (which we transcribed together in its entirety) better than Dig (which we transcribed with the help of written versions). Transcribing by ear always cements a tune in the memory better than reading one and trying to memorize it off the page. The second half of the tune gave us trouble, so we looped it to get used to the different pattern.
Andrew played an example of a more "vertical" chord based solo as found in early jazz styles. This is a perfectly valid way to improvise, but is distinct to the pre-bop era. This wasn't discussed on Tuesday, but something Andrew thought of later: approaches can be divided into:
-vertical, harmonic approach based on arpeggios (Coleman Hawkins) -> early jazz, swing 1920s-1940s
-horizontal, melodic approach based on scales and common tones (Lester Young) -> bop, West Coast jazz, etc 1950+
Of course, both approaches are important and appear in all periods. Consider the verticality of Coltrane's solo in Giant Steps...
Bebop is complex! Starting with basic chord tones is more manageable. Plus, it sounds good. Eventually you'll start exploring more intricate and dissonant structures. Or, if you like that 1920's sound, you could always just stay put.
Andrew mentioned two kinds of practice: playing a tune with a metronome (imagining the chord changes) and freely playing without a metronome. The metronome helps to develop time feel, diagnose time and rhythmic problems, and simulate the urgency of playing with a group. On the other hand, freely playing over changes without the time constraint imposed by the metronome allows us to "compose" slowly, to develop the ability to create purposive and logical improvisations. Improvising is like fast composition.
For the second half we worked on This I Dig of You. We took solos, and traded 4s. That unresolved 2-5 to B in the first half is tricky! Most of us don't often play in Db minor, Eb minor, or Bb minor depending on transposition, so it's worth looking at those two bars. Working something out that can be repeated down a half step is a good idea. The break can also be tricky. We all took turns playing over the break, where time feel counts for more than notes. We're more comfortable over these changes than Sweet Georgia Brown: lots of nice breaks and material lifted from the recording!
Other themes for the night:
- learning tunes takes time. The more you learn, the faster it will get, but at first it can go slowly. Learn tunes you like. Learn tunes in multiple keys. Many tunes are very similar.
- time feel is more important than lots of notes
Monday, August 21, 2023
Session #6 summary
Honeysuckle Rose Combo
Thank you all for your continued focus as we near the home stretch of this year’s Jazz Colony. At this point everyone is aware of what they need to be working on… so please do so! Three Flowers continues to stump us; remember, there are only 3 major tonalities that you need to concern yourself with. Become comfortable playing those 3 major triads and their inversions WITH a metronome. Add complexity from there, aiming to also play the dominant b7 chords that belong to each major tonality. That makes 6 discreet triads for you to focus on. Please take the 30-40 minutes necessary to explore these 6 triads and apply them in time with the form of the song. Looking forward to a few more sessions!
As always please reach out to me at joelsteinke@comcast.net with any questions. Happy practicing!
Joel
Little Sunflower Combo
On Tuesday, we started by playing through our two tunes. When playing Little Sunflower, we decided to experiment with the form and see what it was like when we changed the form to ABA as opposed to AABBAA. It felt very off, but overall it was a good experience for the students so they could be introduced to new musical concepts in a stress-free environment. After, talked about the music in general. Specifically, Connor played a video explaining how music is a language. We then reflected on that, and the students shared their thoughts on the video. One thing from the video that resonated with the students was that since music is a language, we should play with fluent speakers as much as possible and encourage mistakes, similar to how we learned our native languages when speaking with fluent adults.
We went back inside, played the blues again, and then we talked about how trading 4s should be one continued solo among multiple people instead of each person doing their own thing and passing it off to the next.
To illustrate this, Liam shared a recording of Larry Mckenna and Veronica Swift playing some live music (attached). Listen very closely to how it seems as if they almost finish each other's sentences.
This I Dig of You Combo - Bergevin/Weber
8/15 - Bergevin, Alex
In a band room as hot as a greenhouse, appropriately :)
We started by playing Sweet Georgia Brown and talking about how to play jazz music authentically, it's important to respect the "founders" of jazz. Instead of jumping straight to fast and difficult bebop, master the basics of the blues so that you can learn how to improvise over something simple. We learned that drum solos sound great even if it's one simple snare lick repeated for the entire solo!
We memorized a few small sections of the Dig soli and were encouraged to memorize the rest. Relying on memory rather than music on paper will help the authenticity and soul of the music. Accent the first, highest, and last note of the phrase if you're a horn and 2+4 if you're rhythm/especially drums with brushes. We also decided on a tentative order of operations for one of our songs on the 30th: 1. Dig head 2. Solos in a circle (likely trading with drums) 3. Written soli 4. Sweet Georgia Brown head
Check out the background for This I Dig of You Ralph Moore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3vUT45T2uc
We each soloed and traded 4's with drums to work on simplicity, cohesion, and connection between players. It's more fun to play when you move around a little and look at the people you're playing with!
Finished off with Jodi Grind and St. Thomas for fun (unless we can pull one together for the gig!) Any music will improve your jazz musicianship, and jazz will improve your general musicianship for other genres. Time, rhythm, and articulation are relevant to all music!
Homework: memorize Dig Soli, learn dig head, make sure to keep up on your other stuff! Play along with recordings using headphones? AW
Thursday, August 10, 2023
#5 - Jazz Colony Summary of Rehearsals 8/8/23
Another colorful and fun Jazz Colony - Jazz Punishments Big Band also rehearsed from 8-9 PM and many students listened and jumped in to read due to some holes in the band. Thanks to Olivia Dunc for sitting in on alto!
Combo summaries:
Choir Room - Honeysuckle Rose - Steinke/Schatz
Great start to learning our second tune, Three Flowers by Mccoy Tyner. For those who were present, you received a leadsheet. There are three tonal centers within the song which require your attention. Eb maj, G maj, and E maj (concert). We discussed the importance of being able to play within these three tonal centers in time. It’s one thing to be able to play your G major triad, it’s another altogether to play it exactly where it lands in the form in time with the band. Many of you can play the triads, but as we found out applying them in time is hard.
We discussed using restrictive practicing (creating rules to follow so as to focus our practice more effectively) and a metronome (not a backing track) both on every beat and beat one only. These two methods of practice are essential when working on a new tune. I hope that by next week everyone can play the three major triads in a mix of inversions where they belong. Once you have managed the major triads, the next step is to be able to play the dominant 7th chord triads (which are major triads), then filling in the brief 2-5’s leading into the first ending and leading back to A sections. Add complexity with rhythmic phrases or other rules to improve your restrictive practicing, again all in time with a metronome.
Hopefully, by next week Three Flowers is in your ear to a greater extent. We will continue rehearsing it, and circle back on our Royal Garden Blues.
As always please reach out to me at joelsteinke@comcast.net with any questions. Happy practicing! Joel
Room 202 - Little Sunflower - Eisenmenger/Salas
This week, we got straight into playing and decided to revisit the concept of voice leading. To reinforce this concept, we looked at the relationship between the 3rds and 7ths of chords that are a 4th/5th apart. For example, when working on our Bb blues, we highlighted the 3rd of the Bb7 and then moved down a half step to Db to highlight the 7th of Eb7. We did that for entire tune, except on the ii7 V7 I7, we chose to highlight the 3rd of C-, which then becomes the 7th of F7, to resolve down to D, which is the 3rd of Bb7.
To reinforce this concept further, we decided to learn the head to Tenor Madness and went over chromatic enclosures. We specifically chose tenor madness because most of the head models this concept. We also had the students play the leading tones as backgrounds during the soloist's playing.
In the last bit of time, after the Coach left, Liam went over the importance of having the music in your ears and stressed even further learning the music by ear. Putting this into action, he began to teach the students "Bessie's Blues" by ear.
Stuff to work on: Learn Bessie's Blues from Trane's recording in Eb and then transpose the tune to Bb. - Liam
Choir Room - Hot House Combo - Glynn/Kimani -
The number one lesson for this session of jazz colony is to play with passion and emotion and energy! You have to convey a feeling to your audience especially when you are soloing. And play with confidence when you solo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
This is a perfect video to watch to see what I mean.
First we assigned the task of transcribing two measures of a great solo. We are working on honeysuckle rose and fried bananas and cedars blues.
Here are some great recordings of the songs to learn from and even transcribe from.
Ella with Count Basie - Honeysuckle Rose
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Dexter Gordon - Fried Bananas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Cedar's Blues - Cedar Walton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
We talked about how to get good at jazz you imitate good players. Like a toddler imitating it’s parents. Some great people to listen to are coltrane red mitchell and chet baker. We also talked about practicing starting your phrases on off beats. We played the f major scale in all off beats.
For the drums we talked about how the ride cymbal should lock in with the bass and the snare drum should lock in with the piano. To practice not getting lost in forms we practed saying 1, 3, 5, 7 every two measures. So you play for two measures than say 3. Then play for two measures and say 5. In jazz phrasing most of your phrases are 4 bars, or 2 bars. A good exercise is to play for 3.5 bars and breath for two beats and then play another 3.5 bars and so on. Or play for 1.5 bars breath for two beats and then play another 1.5 bars. Finally we talked about tension and release and talked about playing like you are a lead trumpet.
Stage - You Are My Sunshine Combo - Bennett/Tran
This week at the Colony was great. We managed to figure out Cassie’s melody and Mable’s hits for our new tune, Blume (or Bloom) Bossa. We were super impressed with how Cassie was able to come up with a completely new melody over Blue Bossa that sounds great and unique.
Clifford Brown has a swangin solo over Sandu, Eb blues, so for homework we wanted to transcribe the second chorus. Everyone was able to play it at 50%, and I wouldnt be surprised if they got it down by next week. Everyone was able to play a solo that was rhythmic and within the changes, and had great ideas.
For now, keep working on the blues, and if you’re feeling up to it, learn Clifford’s third solo chorus on Sandu. We wrote out the changes for the Blume Bossa head, so make sure you go over it occasionally.
Band Room - Bergevin, Alex
John Avery warm up
Sweet Georgia Brown - need to memorize the chords and form
Want to learn to play a bit faster? Take a moment to enjoy this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6OP8ZAypE4
Dig Soli - sight reading - Mr. B discussed how great improvisers will write songs in an effort to improve on a playing concept - basically it's a build your own Etude idea. Adam Maness and Peter Martin talk about this around 11:46 - said he learned this from Herbie Hancock biography.
Mr. B wrote a contrafact on Sweet Georgia Brown and we tried to learn it but there was an editing mistake so it was emailed out to members on Wednesday.
Sweet Georgia Brown trading 8 bar phrases
This I Dig of You rhythm section locking in! - What can we do to not drag?
Pro drummers Stefan Schatz and Matt Jorgensen both gave Kody a street beat lesson. While they had different methods (ride and snare vs bass drum and snare), the clave was pronounced in both. Played the head a few times and started making every part lock in together!
Matt talked about This I Dig of You masterclass and learning from Kenny Washington. Think of the swing session as the color red - drive!
Mr. B really enjoys this recording of Terrance Blanchard solo - thanks Matt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3vUT45T2uc
Wednesday, August 2, 2023
Session #4 - August 1
We gathered early with Jazz 1 students plus Max Bennett, Joel Steinke and Mike Perez to do some big band reading. 4:15 PM
Combo Rehearsal Summaries for 8/1 - 6 PM
"This I Dig Combo" - Bergevin, Alex W, Andrew Fox with Mike Perez
Everyone was here today! Hooray!
Thanks for hanging out with us Mike and Max Bartron! Happy birthday, Jon!
Warmed up on Joe Avery and encouraged dancing to help discover the soul of the music. Stick it in the pocket - All Night Long! Mike gave us a new summary of the pocket related to groove and locking in. Remember that while playing bebop licks is good, something simple is often more convincing and soulful. Jam on a single note!
We didn't talk about it in class, but check out this recording of Trombone Shorty at age 13: (playing with a few other big names) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9YUi3UhEPQ
Brief reminder that Dig should be on our radar, but if it's too difficult we will stick with Sweet Georgia Brown. Mr. B showed us a recording with a mean trumpet solo by Terrell Stafford at Centrum
Learn the melody! Practice licks that work over 2-5-1's as well as the bebop scale.
On This I Dig of You, we worked on finding something to confidently play over the break, going around in a circle one at a time with a sendoff to solo. Jon played a little drums and the rhythm section worked on locking in. Use the recording as a place to steal solo material!
Several students demonstrated good progress on their own. Nice work Addisyn and Oren!
Check out different recordings of every song, not just the "assigned" or "default" recording that we are learning from.
Ended with a little straight, no chaser to practice soloing over the blues. Make sure that when you solo by yourself (or even play the head by yourself) you are in time and sound good. That being said, everyone has bad solos, use each moment of shame and guilt as motivation to get better, not to beat yourself up.
Homework: practice this I dig breaks, bebop scale improvisation, nail down the melodies you don't know, spend some time on Dig? Use a metronome or backing track!
Bonus: learn how to play changes on piano, it will make you a better improviser.
***** Alex W (with Mr. B)
Little Sunflower Combo - Eisenmenger/Salas
This week we did a deep dive on the minor pentatonic scale and learned the tune “Trane’s Slo Blues.” We then spent a lot of time focusing on learning the modes of the major scale. We learned the names of the different modes, how they sound, how to play them, and how to use them in our playing.
Something new we did this week was having a “meditative” time where each person would have some time to noodle around and get familiar with each relevant mode to Little Sunflower, being D Dorian, Eb Lydian, and D Lydian. We then had another kind of this period but we added the drums to add a sense of tempo/time. The remainder of our time was spent playing over Little Sunflower.
Honeysuckle Rose Combo - Steinke/Schatz
Our Royal Garden Blues is really coming along now. We have now learned the entire arrangement, our focus now for RGB is on soloing in Bb and transcribing a few more phrases of solos. Thanks to Stefan for bringing in his transcribed phrase of Sweets Edison. I look forward to hearing everyone’s transcribed phrase next week! If you have been absent, please make sure you can play the arrangement from the recording linked in the previous week’s blog from front to back. After our rhythm section left, us horns and guitar worked on voice leading on the blues, playing our own baselines using non-diatonic chromatic leading tones, like natural 7 and b9 to lead us to b7 or 1, respectively. If you want more detail on the concepts we discussed for your own voice-leading practice, please email me.
Here is the plan for our second tune if Green Chimneys doesn’t work out. Seems like more were interested in this McCoy Tyner tune Three Flowers. This will require some homework to pull off! I will need to leave rehearsal next week after the first hour, at which point you all will lead it and run reps on whatever you decide needs some love.
As always please reach out to me at joelsteinke@comcast.net with any questions. Happy practicing!
Thanks - Joel
You are my Sunshine combo summary - Bennett
The students that were there got a ton of playing in. Since some students did not write a Blue Bossa Contrafact we went ahead and voted on the ones that we had. We choose to play Cassie's tune (with a few edits) and use a portion of Mabel's tune as the intro (Mr. B may include it here on the blog?). It sounds great and I'm proud of what we have collectively accomplished. I think we might call it "Bloom Bossa (for a family member)". If you have yet to write a Contrafact, I would love to hear it next time. It would be an extremely informative learning experience; I regret not doing enough composition when I was in high school. The more you do, the better you get at it.
We also worked on Sandu. A few students transcribed the first few phrases of Cliffords second chorus (and a few did the first few phrases of the first chorus, although that is not required since it's a bit faster). We played about a thousand choruses of the blues and worked on a variety of things: 1) Getting familiar with the chord changes (you can't play those concert Gbs on bar 5 and 6, sorry y'all). 2) Using the last phrase of someone's solo to begin your own. 3) trying out some creative limitations to stretch our create abilities (ie. play a solo using only quarter notes, play a solo using only two notes, play a solo with a range of a perfect fifth, etc.). We will have a chance to talk and work on these things next time for the people that missed.
Homework: Compose Blue Bossa contrafact if you haven't already. Keep working on transcribing Cliffords second chorus of his solo (you can also do the first chorus is you want). Keep working on playing the chord tones on Sandu, and blue bossa. Work especially on measures 9-12 on Blue Bossa (ii-V in Db eeek). Develop your own creative limits in your solos. It's really fun.
-Max (Mr. Bennett)
Hothouse Combo - Glynn/Kimani
Today we talked about bebop. Gillian and Olivia were attending. We reviewed the songs Honeysuckle Rose by Fats Waller. We practiced improvising over the chords with it mostly being made of 2-5-1’s. We arpeggiated the chord changes 1,3,5,7. And we played with a lot of air and a big sound. We worked on playing with emotion and feeling and trying to translate that to the audience.
In bebop high notes get accented in the phrase. Some notes get “ghosted” and not played full volume or basically swallowed. One person to listen to for examples of this is sax player Yusef Lateef. We then talked about playing rhythmically like a drummer when playing. You should imagine you are a snare drum. Rhythm is king. When we played fried bananas we looked for notes to ghost, and not play full volume. Listen to Dexter gordon for examples of this.
Then we talked about enclosures and approach tones. You always approach a notes below from a half step down. And approach a note above from a diatonic pitch in the scale. So on a c major triad you would play the notes b d c then eb f e. Then f# a g.
You can also switch the order and do dcbc then f e eb e then a g f# g.
Over a d minor 7 chord you would have e d c# d. Then g f e f. Then b a ab a. Then D c b c.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
This helpful short video explains it all. As bonus challenge come back next session with a bebop line using a combination of enclosures, approach notes, and scales. Happy practicing! - Talli
Wednesday, July 26, 2023
July 25 - #3
Hello All,
Time to add some more fertilizer (go see live jazz and/or listen with friends).
May also need to do some weeding - what is distracting you? Try removing it from your practice space or your calendar?
Jams continue every Wednesday and Friday at the Port of Edmonds. Hope to see you.
Mr. B
Hothouse Combo - Kimani/Perez (sub for Glynn)
First the combo got set up to work on some new songs. We had Fried Bananas by Dexter Gordon. I counted the song very slowly and we practiced just playing the melody. We talked about properly articulating the eight notes using jazz articulation. Then we talked about improvisation over the song. The song is in Eb major so using notes from the Eb major scale will work great. Also using notes from the Eb major pentatonic scale and blues scale. We also talked about using chord tones to improvise and playing each chord change. We did an exercise in which one horn player would solo while the other four just played the melody and the person soloing would switch. We talked about being supportive to the other players in the group while they are soloing and being respectful by not talking.
Next we worked on Cedar’s Blues and improvising on the blues. We talked about playing with a big sound with lots of air and confidence. Especially when soloing. For the saxophone masterclass, Joel, Liam, Max and I talked specifically about tone for saxophone players. In order to play with a good tone your mouth should make the “haw” position. This will open up your throat and make playing the whole range of your saxophone much easier. We also talked about practicing overtones and matching the sound of the normal fingering with the overtone. Answer talked about playing crescendos on long tones.
In our last segment we played through Lotus Blossom. We had everyone trade 8 bar segments to get a feel for soloing on the song. We focused on playing with emotion and feeling and not playing the music straight off the page but improvising a little.
- Talli
Little Sunflower Combo - Eisenmenger/Salas
Today, we did a lot more work on arranging and being intentional with our improvising. We did a lot of playing on Bb blues. Specifically, we worked on learning Sonnymoon for Two in F, having half the players play in Bb and the other half play in F the first time, and then those two groups would switch the second time around.
We discussed more voice leading, getting into how you can find color notes for the proceeding chords that are nearby a note you are already playing. Additionally, we decided to have the participants scat a solo, and we discussed why it is important to be able to hear the melodic idea and to be able to sing it.
After the break, we transitioned to playing Little Sunflower, where we did more improvising over the chord changes. We also discussed the importance of playing in tune on long tunes with extended notes that are held for long periods. We spent some time learning the chord tones for the chords to Little Sunflower.
Homework: Learn the changes and melody to Little Sunflower - Liam Salas
7/25 - Bergevin, Alex Weber (Fox was absent)
Only four of us this week ... Jon and Oren too.
We started off playing Joe Avery's blues and had fun improvising over it. We passed the tambourine around to focus on SPIRIT, starting to lock in together! Hit the shed at home on this tune to gain confidence and STAND OUT during your solo. Don't let the harmony/rhythm section be the center of attention during your choruses of fame! This tune stays on the 5 in the last 4 bars (no 5 4 or 2 5). Stride piano playing is a "thing," just like knowing how to play with a singer/Latin playing/big band piano playing will get you more gigs. Check out Emmet Cohen?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzl3e0SsQyc&t=29s
Next, we spent some discussion time on Dig and how we can use Sweet Georgia Brown as a jumping off point for improvising over it. Since Dig is a difficult tune to transcribe, we started by learning the head/changes to Sweet Georgia Brown. It's okay to need iReal at the start!
(Sectionals break— brass had a great chat with Ms. E about having a practice routine!)
Spent a little more time feeling the groove on Sweet Georgia Brown. Went over the Major
Bebop scale for blowing, also switching to This I Dig of You. Listened to Mobley's recording many times for unification of rhythm and style (legato in piano). It's cool to play downbeats only, you often don't need more than that. Went over the importance of persistence when transcribing, even when the small details are hard to lock down.
Solo circle + traded 4's to learn the changes and practice playing the same riff/lick until it feels good. Don't throw out your good ideas, even if they don't sound good at first. Practice incorporating the chords into your solos, particularly the roots as a starting point.
To work on at home: Polish/work on blowing on this I dig of you/Sweet Georgia Brown/Joe Avery. Transcribe solos (and voicings) from the recordings for ideas? Use the recording (or your own recording if you play piano/bass) to improvise over. Definitely use a metronome if not. Begin learning Dig (Miles Davis). Don't forget about straight, no chaser?
(AW)
This I Dig of You Combo (Bergevin notes),
Plenty of fun work to do. I recommend spending some time trying to lift this by ear before you use the cheat sheet. There are no shortcuts if you'd like to get good.
Dig - Miles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Every song (and every moment) has something to teach us. Great slammin' loud hi-hat here. Simple but effective piano comping. Remember that this tune is built on Sweet Georgia Brown.
Alex W had a good question yesterday, which recording might be good to listen to in order to learn Sweet Georgia Brown? I wasn't sure. Here's what I found.
Buttery clarinet from Louis Armstrong group.
Especially cool slap tonguing demonstration. Also some cool melodic comping from pianist.
Mr. B
Bloom Bossa - Tran/Bennett
To remember: transcription tools to add to blog summary: using audio playback function in YouTube video, using audacity or another free DAW, anytune app or amazing slow downer apps (have to own and downloaded the song on your device)
Hw: begin transcribing second chorus of Clifford browns solo (trumpet) on sandu. Continue to work on improvising over tunes. A good place to start is to know and be able to play chord tones on the various chords (1,3,5,7) of all the tunes. Think about playing melodies. Write blue boss’s contra fact (melody over the existing changes) if you haven’t already. Either write it down and play it for me or make a recording. (DT)
Honeysuckle Rose Combo - Steinke
For those who missed our third meeting, we have continued to rehearse our royal garden blues working on various rule-based systems for practicing soloing on the Bb blues. Because no one has yet to do any of the assignments from the last two weeks of the blog posts, the first half of your assignment this week is to catch up on undue work! It makes it difficult for us to work on the arrangement of the music if you have not learned your part! The second half of your assignment is to transcribe the head out and ending of our Royal Garden Blues. This begins at 4:40 in the recording. Please note there is a tag ending, so the ending phrase is repeated three times. Brass players will transcribe Edison’s line, reed players will transcribe Hodges’ line.
Next week we will begin working on Green Chimneys with Stefan, so our focus will be shifting there. Do listen to the recording!
As always please reach out to me at joelsteinke@comcast.net with any questions. Happy practicing!
Wednesday, July 19, 2023
Session 2 - July 18, 2023 - Flourish
Here is this week's recap:
Schatz/Steinke - A103
HONEYSUCKLE ROSE COMBO
For our second meeting, we familiarized ourselves with the recording of
Royal Garden Blues which we plan to lift (transcribe). The particular recording
is linked here:
Important note for those who were not present for this week’s meeting, we have
learned the arrangement up to the 1:18 mark, so please come to week 3 with
this much already memorized, in addition to this week's assignments. The
tune is actually a blues in two different keys, F and Bb, and at 1:18 the
band switches to playing a Bb blues.
There are four assignments for next week’s meeting. First, practice the melody
up to the key change to Bb (1:18). Second, learn one of the two melody lines that are
played when the band plays in Bb (1:18 onwards to the blowing sections). Saxophones,
please learn Johnny Hodges’ melody, brass players, please learn
Harry “Sweets” Edison’s, harmony players, please choose one of your liking.
Thirdly, transcribe one phrase from any one solo from the recording. If you
are feeling ambitious, transcribe more! We will share our transcribed phrases next
week and try to incorporate them into our arrangement.
Lastly, please continue to practice the week one blues exercises in our soloing key of Bb.
As we look forward to learning our second tune, please feel free to start listening to it!
As always please reach out to me at joelsteinke@comcast.net with any questions.
Happy practicing!
Thanks,
Joel
ReplyForward |
This I Dig of You 7/18 - Bergevin, Andrew Fox, Alex Weber, (with Goeff Cooke and Mike Perez)
We finished by taking a break and improvising over the F blues! Learn “Straight, No Chaser?” The heart of the music lies within repetition of riffs. You don’t need to play something complicated and impressive to make it feel good.
To work on at home: Improvise over Bb and F blues. Focus on the time/groove! Don’t be afraid of repeating simple phrases. Learn Sweet Georgia Brown and This I Dig of You heads (and maybe Straight, No Chaser?) Focus on the tricky parts first, slow down YouTube recordings and play along, one small section at a time.
Bonus homework: diatonic patterns in Bb concert (like repeating triads up and down the scale: 1,3,5 - 2,4,6 - 3-5-7, etc
Here’s some youtube recordings:
Dig with Miles and Bird
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUcj_vPwkEI
Here’s Bird, Dizzy, and Lester Young playing Sweet Georgie Brown. Stride piano followed by bebop saxophone, what a contrast!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSZNlfISNvU
For even worse recording quality, here’s Cab Calloway singing it in 1931. Notice how he abandons the melody and sings like a trumpet player might play it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGGeuiw1QPc
And Monk’s recording of Straight, No Chaser. You can hear Monk humming along with his own playing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJs2eCqhTN0
(Fox and Weber)
HOT HOUSE COMBO - A111 Glynn/Kimani
First the combo got set up to work on Cedar Blues by Cedar Walton. We talked about embracing the dissonant harmony of cedar blues in which the horns are voiced in three part harmony. Then we talked about playing loud solos, especially the saxophones Olivia and Ian. This is to show confidence the saxophones are to use lots of breath support and loosen up the embouchure so that the reed vibrates in order to get a bigger sound. Furthermore their posture must be straight and they shouldn't slouch.
Then Forest talked about self love when practicing and how we shouldn’t beat ourselves up when we don’t feel like practicing as we can’t be perfect all the time we are not robots. I talked about discipline vs passion. This is important as you need both discipline and passion to succeed in playing music. You must have a deep love for jazz music, practicing, and playing with other musicians. But this is not enough as you must have discipline for practicing. This is because even if you love something you're realistically not going to want to do it every day. You must practice your instrument everyday for even a short amount like 30 minutes and you will improve so much. So it takes both passion and discipline to succeed. You won’t get far if you like jazz and music but aren’t disciplined to practice. You also won’t get far if you have great discipline to practice but you don’t even like playing music or jazz.
For our next song lotus blossom we talked about changing the melody up rhythmically and playing the exact melody of the page. We talked about bringing out the volume of the highest note of the song and phrasing the melody like a singer. WE also talked about Johnny Hodges and his use of bends and wide vibrato which can be heard on I got it bad.Duke Ellington & Johnny Hodges "I Got it Bad" (1958)
For improvisation on lotus blossom we talked about using chord tones of each chord which is the 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 of each chord. So for a C-7 chord the chord tones would be c, eb, g, bb, and d. We discussed playing along to recordings to work on improving sound and improvisation. Finally we analyzed the harmony and its use of 2 5 1. (Talli Kimani)
BLUME BLOSSOM (Bennett/Tran - Stage)
This week was also a little loose since a couple people were gone and its only the second week. However, almost everyone did their homework and came up with a melody over “Blue Bossa” changes. We listened to each of us perform our pieces, and I personally think everyone did a great job. All of them were unique and most of them followed the changes pretty well. Someone said they tried to use repetition more so it sounds more like a recurring melody instead of a improv solo, and I think thats a great method to write music.
We went over “Take the A-Train” again, this time learning the changes by number. We also played the changes by their roots, thirds, triads, and sevenths chords. We understood Minor7, Major7, Major6, and Major Dominant chords. We made sure to understand what it means to play a flat 5th, sharp 5th, and the 6th of a chord. We then took turns soloing over the tune, with the non-soloists playing chord tones for a chorus. Everyone had great ears and played well.
We went over “Sandu”, an Eb blues, while trying to to do the same thing again. Since most of us were familiar with this tune, we played through it pretty easily and everyone sounded great.
For homework, we decided that everyone go home and learn their major and minor scales in every way possible (thirds, triads, sevenths, going down, etc) and do any revisions with their Blue Bossa melody if they want to. We decided that we will finally share and decide on a melody once we get everyone in our group to show up.
Here are links to each tune:
- Played sonnymoon for two again
- Learned about altering one phrase to fit the changes
- Looked at little sunflower (learned the tune, looked at the changes)
- Learned what the modes are, looked at the D Dorian scale.
- Learned how to derive modes from the Ionian mode
- Talked about little sunflower’s irregular form (AABBAA)
- Played more blues
- Discussed the difference between modal tunes and more “traditional/bebop” tunes. (Specifically referring to the changes and how fast/slow they come)
Homework:
Find a bossa nova or other you enjoy - Liam Salas
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