Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Jazz Study Group: Autumn Leaves, ATTYA, etc.

Great job Bluekeys! Sounded pretty good to me. Nice work.

Ok there's a lot of questions here so one at a time.

First of all Bluekeys, you are really getting it on the RH. That sounds great and actually has an original kind of sound to it. So leave the RH alone. That's pretty solid. Now on the LH, the rhythm has to be more solid.

Let me explain that in jazz, the LH is the rhythm section. So whatever pattern you play on the LH must really suggest the beat. This is pretty hard for a beginner so that's why I suggest use long half notes (i.e. played to full value) on the LH first so that the swing can be suggested by the RH. The RH and LH must be completely independent rhythmically. I would try that same version with a half notes and see if the swing is still suggested by the RH.

This is a very solid performance Bluekeys. You've got some jazz in you for sure

Emperor, welcome to our thread and hope you participate. Time to do solos then if you already know the tune.

LaValse, I'd like to comment on your statement.

Please don't take my 'lessons as gold. I realize that various teachers have different approaches to teaching jazz. I'm passing along some real lessons that I've had over the years. Others may have different experiences with their teachers but I've had good results with mine.

Now just a little historical reference, one of my teachers spent a full year on just blues riffs and LH chords. The idea of playing cliche blues riffs was to get the swing feel and some vocabulary. What we're doing here is skipping the vocabulary (memorizing cliche riffs), and instead just focusing on the swing feel.

This is developed at the same time as a steady LH with a steady beat (non-swing) playing chords, or even walking bass patterns.

Hopefully, whatever you learn here, you keep practicing for a year or two while we keep piling on new stuff. Then later, you will be surprised at some really solid jazz playing resulting from this.

If you read this stuff closely and also watch the videos, you will go through a lot of discoveries. Please feel free to ask what someone is doing since you can always specify the video and say what's Tristano doing at 15 seconds (actually go to the Tristano video and watch what he does at 15 seconds, he changes style for a moment).

Hi Stegerson, first let's clear up some terms.

As you know in music theory, any Major Key has a relative Minor key and both use the same scale. The minor key is in the 6th degree of the Major scale.

So in C, the relative minor is Am.
In G the relative minor is Em.

Expressed as a progression in the major scale, the sequence would be vii-iii-vi. Their intervals are exactly the same as ii-V-I. Fourths apart.

Remember the vii degree is a half diminished (minor 7 b5), and the iii is a minor. Except the iii chord (Bm7) doesn't create a dominant tonic relationship so the Bm7 is converted to B7 in Autumn Leaves.

Note that in the key of G, Em, there's no Db in the key (the 9th of B). So you play a B with a C (a half step away). That gives us the B7b9. Flat 9 is a half step interval. You can still play the b3 or really in this case it would be called #9 (which is D). So using the same scale you now have B7b9#9 which is pretty much the same as Bm7 except we focus on the b9 more. This kind of dominant is called an Altered dominant and is standard in a minor ii-V-i.

So in the end, a minor ii-V-i in Em is
F#m7b5 (Half Diminished) B7b9 (Altered Dominant) Em7 (Minor Seventh).

In Autumn Leaves, we can emphasize the presence of the minor ii-V-I vs. the major ii-V-I because the original composer, by calling it a B7 instead of Bm7, is telling us an intent. This has a big effect because in jazz, the scale played on each chord will be different once you get to a minor ii-V-i. These allow you to add color in note selection. In other words, it will justify us to use notes that are NOT in the 'G' scale.

In fact, the composer already uses this principle because the melody notes on the B7 use the Db and the Eb which are not in the G scale. How did the composer justify this? These notes are valid notes for altered dominant (B7b9)!

Let me stop here so you can proceed from this point or rehash anything unclear from what I said.

CHARLESTON RHYTHM

Rod/Frog52, Welcome to the study group.

That's a tough question you asked because to be honest I don't know exactly what I was doing so I had to go back to the piano and start counting it out.

There were multiple things going on in my totally 'amateurish' version.

First of all, realize that I was solidly counting. You could probably hear my foot tapping. So I was intent on landing the melody on fixed points in the measure.

Second, as a stylistic thing, advanced comping on the LH (which I have not yet mastered), is typically done by putting the LH chords in empty areas, i.e. at times when there's no melody. This makes the melody stick out. My first LH 'stabbing' was done at '1+'. 'Leaves' was sung on beat 1 so it was half a beat later. Then I believed I stabbed again at 1.5 beats to land at beat 3, which was perfect for the pickup to the next line which started at 3+. So my intent was to stab where I had no melody.

By instinct I landed on 3+ which has an anticipatory effect and does sounds more swinging.

There's a reason for the 1.5 beats that I instinctively did. It's because the Charleston Rhythm, which is the source of the Jazz swing beat is based on
'Dotted Quarter Note + Eight Note'
or 1.5 beats + .5 beat.

In the old days, pre 1940's, jazz was played with this Rhythm on beat 1 so it will be on:
<1>+ 2<+> 3+ 4+ | <1>+ 2<+> 3+ 4+ |
Chord played on <>

If you have mastered the half notes on the LH, this is the next progression. To play the Charleston Rhythm. Again the chords briefly and lightly stabbed for better swing.

You could clap with your hands while you count loudly to get used to the rhythm.

My teacher made me constantly play a Charleston Rhythm on the LH. This will be the basis of more advanced LH comping later on.

I say my LH hasn't fully mastered comping because I wanted to stab extremely briefly (like staccato) and exactly on the correct beat. I felt like I was slightly off in time and this is because of an underdeveloped LH. So it's something I need to work on.

I have to say that I'm not that good on a Charleston Rhythm precisely because I don't have as good a technique on my LH compared to my right so I didn't want to record a version that was not perfectly correct in rhythm. Maybe Bluekeys can honor us with a MIDI version that's more accurate.

Jazzwee played his left hand chords stabs on the swung beats in the brackets:

1 <+> 2 + <3> + 4 <+>

In words, he played on the "+ of 1" on "3" and on the "+ of 4"

Note:
Musicians say the "+ of 1", not the "1 +"

Yes, ritincop that's apparently what I did.

Thinking back as to why it's half a beat off from the Charleston, I think I was playing the melody intentionally ahead by half a beat. So it was the melody that was different. I picked this up from Jazz pianist Kenny Werner and just did it automatically.

I could have played it without being ahead of the beat. That recording was a single live pass so I didn't even think of how I was doing it. So I applied an advanced concept and didn't even know it

Yeh i'm really getting into soloing this days, feels great, i will definetly try that

Bluekeys, for someone supposedly 6 pages behind the curve, that sounds pretty good to me!

Jazzwee, I too am having problems with the RH swing. I can detect the sound from the masters in the vid clips, but actually putting it into practice on the keyboard is my difficulty. Have I correctly understood, the swing sound, we are all after, is created by accenting eighth notes on the offbeat (ie the plus of the beat helpfully explained by Rintincop)?

This is my amateurish attempt to create a midi comparison (not with the keyboard), using an up & down G scale. The first theoretically represents a heavier swing, the second 1:1 & the third, no swing. Do these sounds convey the differences, or is it 'barking up the wrong tree'?

http://www.box.net/shared/jkmt7x6gw4

Or, do you have any tips or practice routines for emulating the correct swing sound. When playing a scale from beat 1 & trying to accent the eighth note on the plus of each beat, I tend to lengthen the accented note. Should I start by playing the scale from 1+, instead of 1 for instance?

Sorry for the long message, but it would help, if I, & perhaps others, are put on the right track.

David

Thanks for the comments folks. Always nice to hear you're well swung.

What I'll do is encode my RH into a clean MIDI and add an LH track that attempts to do the Charleston Rhythm as you describe above. I'll do all that on the computer.

Meanwhile, on the piano, I'll work on just doing the straight LH half notes against the RH swing first, then maybe try the Charleston.

David, what you successfully accomplished is a 'hard' swinging. Look back at the comparisons of swing styles. This would be closer to Wynton Kelly, or if you did this very fast, it would sound like Bill Evans. Straight swinging would have quite a bit more longer accented note as in the 15 seconds of the Tristano Video Tangerine. Try that next. It means you have to lean on the accented note longer. This is the more modern swing style.

What's interesting is your perception. You think that you're lengthening the accented note but to my ears it's not lengthened much. Tap it without an accent using the same beat to see. Your second note is shorter.

Choose whichever you prefer. You're doing great!

Bluekeys, when you attempt duplicate the Charleston on MIDI, experiment with how long the notes of the chord is played at those beats. Try it really short (maybe a 16th note) and try it with an eight note. We'll see which sounds better. In modern comping, I tend to see more short staccato notes. But I think in the old days it was of longer value.

Stegerson, let's stick to that B7b9 for a moment.

Remember the G Scale is G A B C D E F# G.

A 'B minor 7' is in this scale (3rd degree of G)

B D F# A

Normally, the scale to be played over Bm7 is just the G scale notes as displayed above. There's a rule in jazz that if your chord is a dominant, you can then play notes outside of the scale. By playing the notes

B C Eb D F# A (which are all in the scale, except for the added Eb), the chord becomes a dominant which now has the following alterations.

C is b9 of the B7 chord, D is #9 of the chord. A dominant with a b9 and #9 is called an Altered Dominant. Lots of flexibility to play consonant tones over an altered dominant since practically every note of the scale is consonant with it (but not Bb). Over an altered dominant you can play an Altered Scale or the original G scale (and other variations in between). This allows the composer to put a melody that's outside of the G scale and opens it wide to multiple scale choices in improvisation.

The composer could have stuck the melody inside the scale (no Db Eb) and this tune wouldn't have the same impact.

Elssa's post (way back there somewhere) with a link, discusses this ingenious manuever of turning the Bm7 into B7 and changed the color of the tune completely.

So although for a beginning solo we say we will use the G scale, we are also going to add that Eb when playing B7 and other additional options when we get to the solo discussion.

We've only hit maybe 2% of Autumn Leaves if you can believe it.

Jazzwee

Apologies for not explaining myself very well in my last post. The midi file was not created from my playing. It was concocted from a computer keyboard in "Cakewalk". I was trying to represent roughly the sounds of swinging the eighths (basically accenting the relevant offbeat notes), but was not sure, if I correctly understood, exactly what was happening & was represented it properly.

From your remarks, the sound of the first two up & down scale runs seem to swing, so I now hope to emulate, that on the piano. Your reply helpfully gives me a starting point.

David

David, sorry I misinterpreted. Just for reference, in real life, playing swing will not be evenly divided as we cannot do it like a machine. But this is truly a helpful exercise to at least understand the pattern.

So try making the eights equal value then put more MIDI volume on the accent and then we'll see what it sounds like. This is kind of neat!

I think this idea of using MIDI as a tool is a great one. I wonder how else we could use it? For instance, take a MIDI of someone's performance. Can we look at it and say see, right there, you're playing those offbeats too early/late/soft/loud. Or, look, here's a prime example of someone playing with good swing style. Those offbeats are accented and timed just about perfectly.

I don't know too much about MIDI having just acquired my first keyboard. But I imagine once you take a MIDI performance into a nice sequencing program on a PC/Mac, it's gotta be pretty easy to look at the data this way.

I'm going to try and record myself swinging (or not) a scale before I try to make the leap all the way to Autumn Leaves.

Jazzwee,

Here is my second computer created midi file, which is based on equal length eighths(with triplet feel?).

http://www.box.net/shared/lbqibj6oks

The first 3 measures are an up & down run of the scale with LH shells lasting 4 beats each.

The next 3 measures are a duplication of the first 3, simply to lengthen the example further.

Measures 7 to 9 represents the same scale RH, but now over my attempt at the Charleston rythm.

Finally measures 10 to 12 are a repeat of 7 to 9.

I have left the difference between the downbeats (unaccented) & offbeats (accented) as before. The ratio is 35 (downbeats) & 100 (offbeats), where 127 = the maximum accent/ loudness & zero = minimum.

Tempo increased to 120

Deeluk, I agree with you about midi being useful in our learning adventure, but it is important, that we do not become over reliant upon it, but learn to play as naturally as possible.

David