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.


Emmet's Place #70 - Struttin' With Some BBQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUCYkGc4v18


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?v=dhBruSqKfsU


Dexter Gordon - Fried Bananas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIbZbNCtWm8&pp=ygUMZnJpZWQgYmFubmFz


Cedar's Blues - Cedar Walton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EwfYQ-C6JY&pp=ygUMY2VkYXJzIGJsdWVz


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?v=DwESkieP8OA


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