Journal Entries
Practicing Standard Forms
Posted Oct 23, 2010
Each day, like it or not, spend some time:
1. Blowing on a twelve bar blues form. Choose one key for each two days. Spend at least half the time playing at an uncomfortably up-tempo
2. On Rhythm changes. Start in Bf. Pick a Parker Head to work on each week. Work especially on the blowing. Work on up-tempo.For now, "Moose the Mooch."
3. Yes, work on "Confirmation." Play both rubato and up each day.
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Latest reply: Oct 23, 2010
Practice and Playing
Posted Oct 2, 2010
OK, so I now understand better how this works. I am moving the discussion of time in jazz to a guide entry. This is more keeping track of my direction in practice and my playing, meaning my playing in front of other people.
Playing:
I am working with a trumpet player, playing duo dates and studying the music. Last Sunday, we spent the afternoon in a really nice studio with a great piano that had just been tuned brilliantly. We played two tunes with a singer and a bass player, two tunes in a trio with the bass player, and three tunes as a duo. I have heard just a couple of the rough mixes and, OK, so I am really surprised at how we sounded. The last tune was "Solar," a beautiful, open, Miles Davis tune. The first take felt really careful, without a core. We were both pretty exhausted musically, but between takes, the trumpet player suggested that we hit it. So, in our exhaustion, we came at it pretty aggressively. I wasn't expecting much, but it probably worked better than anything else we played. It is the kind of playing I want to do-- lot's of space but with surprisingly faithful time. I got to a place, but just, where the playing and my head were relaxed.
Practice:
At the instrument:
1. A fair bit of rubato playing, allowing exploration by both hands of the harmonic landscape, both written and altered. The duo playing requires that I learn to work with both hands as separate but complementary instruments. I am really not there yet.
2. A fair bit of time working on just comping with no linear playing in the right hand. Learning to use a lot of the piano while leaving a lot of space. I need to do this until it feels completely natural-- until I feel the natural space and the natural conversation between hands.
3. Playing along with records, but only with my right hand. This is a practice aimed at learning how it feels to play relaxed time.
4. Over 2-3, keeping time on a larger scale. In 4/4, this means two bars are thought of as one for medium tempo tunes, and four bars are thought of as one for really up-tunes. This is where the my affliction becomes most obvious.
Away from the instrument:
1. Listening to a lot of duo and trio music without a drummer.
2. Learning to hear this music as 4, above, describes it. So I'm counting while I'm listening, often aloud. Embarrassing while driving.
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Latest reply: Oct 2, 2010
Time and the studio session
Posted Sep 27, 2010
I am trying to organize my thoughts about this journal. I can't allow it to take over my life, but I would like to be somewhat consistent in keeping it.
My own rules of the road:
1. I will expect a lot of editing of entries, so that I can add what might be useful information to anyone else facing the same challenges.
2. Whenever I feel the need for language stronger than, say, chamomile tea, I will just think WWDAD and use Belgium. It may be used as a noun or a verb.
3. Square brackets indicate places I know need work. I will come back to these, honest.
4. I will make more rules as I go along.
Preamble:
First, an explanation and an apology. Jazz is an almost embarrassing word. It is used to describe many kinds of music, and, frankly, its use feels a little pretentious. I'm using the word to describe mostly improvisational music, although there is some absolutely beautiful writing that is part of it. I may talk about this in another entry. I will not be discussing free-jazz here, because it's not what I'm working on. So, this is about improvisation over preexisting song forms, some of which can be original.
Time in Jazz:
There is another very nice entry about the use of harmony in jazz. I will learn how to link. It is useful because it discusses some of the musical vocabulary available. It discusses some of the scales we used and how they fit with certain chords. I'm going to replace the word "chords" with "changes", because that's how most musicians think about them. The distinction is useful because the word changes implies harmonic motion, rather than something static. Great improvisation moves seamlessly "over the bar line," meaning that the line that you play should reflect both where you're going and where you've been. So the changes are really propel the music, giving a moving harmonic landscape. [[While Entry (link) I think of that like the Matrix. Some rules can be bent. A nice discussion of rule bending can be found in the book "Proust was a Neuro-scientist" (needs author). [Again, something to return to.]]] My discussion and quest has to do with how the vocabulary sits in time. While I will talk a bit about various time signatures, these are not the crux of what makes this music so compelling. The time I'm trying to discuss is how we choose to play within any time signature. If you listen carefully, great musicians don't play right on the beat. Rather, they play behind it, or, less often, a little ahead. When they do this they are neither rushing (increasing the tempo), nor dragging. They are purposely phase shifted. I suffer from a nearly persistent tendency actually to rush. This is not unusual, but compelling playing is all about controlling this.
All for now. Don't worry, I will be editing.
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Latest reply: Sep 27, 2010
nardis_miles
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