Dave, yes there is a choice to be made stylistically about how to implement the LH. I'm using the outlining of the harmony as my base on the LH since I have to outline it somewhere. So from here I'm experimenting with some stepwise movement and moving it up the register. This was why I was asking about the fingering.

Some of this is subtle. In your videos, clearly I see you mixing it up. Maybe this is not so blatant as Jarrett or Mehldau as far as note choice, but it is the rhythmic side where I see a change. It's like moving away from the Quarter note pulse concept.

One thing I haven't tried much here is playing longer notes on the LH. It's either quarters or eighths for me right now.

Thanks jazwee for the explanation. I didn't realize you guys speak a foreign language.

No wonder I was confused.

I'll continue reading this thread to see what I can learn.

Hi Joe, please drop by often. You're very welcome here.

hey jazzwee,

found another example of the two handed linear stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjCGaqPGDLw

he gets into it on the first chorus, after the melody.

i'm addicted to this style too now...can't get enough!

Now this is probably the most interesting. He combines several LH variations here.

Everything we talked about, even walking bass! Fred Hersch is a monster. He's one of my favorites especially in solo piano.

I'm struggling with what to play on the LH. After awhile I sound the same and I need to break out with new approaches. At least I have the support of my teacher now to pursue this.

I don't have the dexterity to play LH lines like a solo so I'm stuck with some sort of chord outline and I'm just experimenting rhythmically first. What's a good next step away from a chord outline (1-3-5-7 combinations)? Because it's in the bass, I can't really deviate to much here I think as it will sound dissonant. More note freedom in the upper registers.

I just had to share this. This guy just has an incredible sound! I was looking for LH patterns, and this just stopped me cold with his playing.

Jarrett - Somewhere over the Rainbow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq0EWNuR1H8&feature=related

OK, I'm beginning to get this now.



Which brings me back to my question. Why the G? In fact, what is a G doing in a B7b9 anyway? Substitue question: What is a G doing in a C diminished?

That was amazing. Thanks for posting. I wanna play like that. That's the first time he's moved me.

Is there some typo somewhere? Point out the page for me (or post # is better since we have different paging).

post # 1010478

I quote:

V Chord (B7b9)
LH 1 3 RH same as above except move highest note down a half step to G.
LH B Eb RH A C G

endquote

Doesn't look like a type to me, or sound like one.

well, it's tough. i'm dealing with that too--trying to figure out what to play in the left hand.

i think you have to make some kind of melody in the lh, but at the same time you have to make sure that you don't stray too far from outlining the harmony. it's challenging.

it seems that we do have more freedom in the right hand.

if you feel that you are limited technically with what you can play in your lh hand i still think there is a lot you can do with rhythmic variation. you can take a motif and vary it, and play it in different spots in the time. you can twist it by playing it backwards, changing the notes, adding notes, etc. then you can introduce another motif and do the same thing

i'm going to devote all my practice time to this today. i didn't get a chance to work on it yesterday as i got sidetracked with some quasi stride patters and a mozart sonata.

Chris Bell's scales exercise (lesson #8):

http://www.box.net/shared/aluxzcgqp2

You hear it straight, then swung. I was trying to focus not so much on accenting the offbeats, but on softening everything else, and being really relaxed. I recorded it over and over, on a roll for about 10 minutes. What you hear is from the middle, between the beginning mistakes and the fatigue mistakes!

TLT, the main color tone was the G# for the F#m7b5. The move to G is just a voicing variation. What it does is voice the B7b9 as a B7(b9)(#5) which is basically an ALT. Very typical substitution for a Dom7(b9) chord.

In general, when jazzers see b9, #9, #5, we start thinking ALT voicing as a possibility.

An ALT chord is Dom7(b9)(#9)(#11)(#5).

When playing a Minor ii-V as in this | F-m7b5 B7b9 | progression, this is a nice voicing to remember. You could of course play it safe and move from G# to F# instead. But these 2+3 voicings strive for consistency with half step down voice leading. Easier to remember.

When I do these two handed voicings, I vary it quite a bit from what is stated in this lesson. But this was the starting point. And the reason for the variation is just variety in "Voicing".

Note that once the #5 is added it is no longer the same as C Dim7. So the substitution rule does not apply.

TLT, your first one was not completely straight. It had a nice slight swing to it. If you accented the offbeats hard on that one it would be perfect at this tempo. At this tempo, you should be near straight.

The Second one is triplet feel and too extreme especially at this tempo. When doing triplet feel, you should really exaggerate the offbeat accents as it really sounds corny. That would at least improve it.

Not what you expected right? You think I'm off my rocker. But that's what I've been saying consistently for a couple of thousand posts now.

Here's the rule. The slower you play, the more pronounced the swing. The faster you play the less the swing. That first one sound like 170bpm. That's definitely time for playing straight. Triplet feel should start fading past 120bpm. Swing is maximum at 100-120. Below this speed it is ballad style so I wouldn't swing that either (unless it's for technique practice).

Ah, got it!

So, what you're saying is if I want to swing it, do it slower? Either way I need to accent the offbeats more?



It is.



LOL! Not at all. And please don't feel like a broken record! But what I'm finding is that intellectualising only gets me so far - trial and error seems to be the way forward.

Thanks for your input.

Interesting soft I found called noteflight to create sheets. It's free and easy to use, unfortunately, you can't use your midi keyboard. But one interesting thing is you can set the swing ratio. Anything from 0 to 30% is going to sound ok.

Let me know if this document I shared works for you all:

http://www.noteflight.com/scores/view/c0e86a19151ba324a9586bdc7292a357f64fc15d

you can change the sheet all you want, I don't care, you can also play with the swing ratio. Kinda fun.

++

TLT, some of this comes from listening. If you listen to a lot of jazz this will be like a lightbulb turning on. First as you go faster, it's going to be hard having any extreme kind of swing. You played the 2nd exercise slower than the first. Because instinctively you couldn't do a triplet feel at 170bpm.

Part of the skill in playing is being able to recognize and adjust to various tempos.

I love the fact that Dave Solazzo is in our thread so you can just watch his video and he can speak for it. Here's Dave with a slow Blues in F.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUQsiL0KwSM

Now this is probably near 120bpm. Do you hear a strong triplet feel sound? No. Pretty swinging with no extremeness or corny feel.

TLT, For an exercise, you really should make extreme offbeat accents so you can really feel the swing effect it imparts. That's how you should practice. As you learn then you can adjust it to your tastes later. I start thinking of it as hard accents is more swing, lesser accents is less swing. So instead of triplet feel you rely on the accents to create the effect.

OK Dave, back to our project. I just spent some time on the keyboard. Here's my trials and tribulations today.

First doing this LH/RH stuff really has to make me so aware of the form. Some of ATTYA, I know from muscle memory so I really had to think out each chord. Now the reason it was of concern was the issue of Harmony on the LH. If we waver from the harmony then it starts going outside. I want to make sure it's not random for me.

So I've made a mental decision for myself that when playing ii and I chords to just stick to 1/3/5/7. I've made a point to do my "variations" from the regular chord tones on the dominants. Let's see, today I experimented with various diminished scale patterns and even some chromatics to imply ALT.

Rhythmically, I worked on adding half notes, and short stacatto notes (copying from Fred Hersch). I need to work in that line where he does stacattao notes alternating LH and RH. I also heard him time some of the LH notes like a Charleston.

I tried doing a melody on the RH and then doing some call/response with the LH but in fast playing, I think I will stumble here. I have to put this on the backburner.

I would interested in other variations on the I and ii chords you might come up with.

One other thing, I felt I needed to state the root on I and II chords. I tended to skip the roots on V chords.

This is like building a new LH vocabulary! Am I trying to intellectualize here? I don't know how to play this otherwise. The comment from Aebersold "if you have a wrong note, just move a half step" doesn't cut it on a bass line IMHO

It goes without saying that doing all this thinking is distracting to the RH and solo content as well as my time. But I felt good today that I actually made progress. Yesterday it didn't feel like it.

hey jazzwee,

it sounds like you have a good plan here for making progress.

this style is so cool because, regardless of your playing level, it's like learning to play all over again. but i love that. it really makes you push yourself.

so you're varying more from the chord tones on V chords? that's got to work nicely because you're resolving to a I chord, so i think you have a lot more leeway with the notes you can play. and you can get away with slipping more of the outside stuff in here.

the call and response thing between the hands...i've been working on that a lot myself. i think that is a big part of this style.

i think you're almost ready to do your next recording. i've been a little late with mine. but i'm going to have it up in the next 48 hours, for sure... pretty sure.

i'm having a ball with this!

Dave, another discovery - the problem is that being a bass note, there could be dissonant overtones if I go really off from 1/5 on the lower registers. So I've tended to go up higher on the register when I get to the V chord. The effect is that I resolve to the lower bass note on the I chord. At least it sounded good to my ears.

I didn't really think of it much but instinctively that's what's happened when I look back. You will see my analytical nature here. Since I'm not at your level, my catching up to learn to play jazz has been to maximize what I can learn in a short time and that approach is to really analyze what's going on.

Like I said the Call/response thing is beyond my technical ability to execute other than at slow tempo. Too much hand thinking. Piece of cake for you though. So I have to cover with some pattern playing.

I didn't get much practice last night and the last time I tried it on Sunday, I was looking for a Eureka, but it didn't show up till last night. I'm looking to come up with something else. In order to play this, I have to not think too much of the LH. So I'm trying to think of some vocabulary in advance.

piece of cake...i wish it were that easy.

i spent about an hour on this today. i'm going to do some more right now.

i'm looking for that eureka moment too. maybe i'll get lucky tonight.

Dave, I did try to record, but the time kind of sucked. When I do it sort of free time, I'm coming up with something. But too many things going on. I'll try again later tonight. I'm glad it's not just difficult for me

Dave, more LH from Fred Hersch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usW8j1W91yU&feature=related

hey jazzwee,

i like fred hersch's playing here a lot. it's very relaxed.

i think his playing is a little more right hand dominant too when he's doing the two handed stuff.

btw, i was listening to mehlday yesterday, his solo album, elegiac cycle. he does some absolutely insane two handed improv on that album. have you heard it?

It's the only album I don't happen to have. It's misplaced on Itunes. I just found it and bought it now. Thanks for the lead!

When you're practicing this LH stuff, what tune are you using? What is a good tempo to use for ATTYA when doing this? Ballad? So far I've been doing medium swing. At this speed there's not a lot of time to do actual left hand melodies unless I memorize it.

Fred Hersch has a more simplified LH here so maybe I can pick up more snippets. The other thing is to gauge stylistically what works for me.

hey jazzwee,

i just stumbled onto a very interesting article that relates to what we are doing here.

check this out:

http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/MusicPapers/baroque.html

i've been practicing this stuff on all the things you are, and i've also been messing around with it on some other standards --autumn leaves, i've never been in love before, a train etc.

i'm doing it on the tunes that i've played a lot, the tunes that i feel very comfortable with.

tempo wise i've been mixing it up.

it's actually harder for me on the slower tempos. i have an easier time when the tempo is faster. i don't know why that is.

I haven't tried anything slow other than for just free time to check out possibilities. Rhythmically, when it was slow it was more difficult for me too. Notice how my first try was actually fast. Maybe because I have less notes to play on the LH when it's fast

That article on Baroque gave me some ideas, like chromatic contrary motion, and runs. I haven't done any Bach stuff so I finally visualized those sounds from memory. I haven't used them at all so I'm going to try that in the mix.

Unfortunately, I need some technical/scale work on the LH. I've left it alone for so long. It just doesn't feel like I have control, especially with time.