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

I don't want to add any instruction here, since Jazzwee is doing a great job at it and I can't think of anything to add that won't just confuse what everyone is learning so far.

However, I do want to make a comment on a video posted earlier: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89B6OmBuG4A

This has more to do with soloing, but it applies to piano playing in general...The video is Bill Evans playing Autumn Leaves. One of the toughest things to do when improvising is to remain calm and in control. regardless of your skill level, it is easy for us to speed up, get choppy, out of control, and downright unmusical at times - your brain is processing a lot of things on the fly.

Look at how in control he is. You can rest a cup of coffee on his left hand, as he lightly plays those open left hand chords jazzwee has been suggesting from the start. Around 2:58 into the song, you see something spectacular. Something, as a jazz pianist you hear your teacher say ALL THE TIME. Breathe.

Look at the long draw of breathe Bill takes after a phrase, as he sets himself up for the next run.

I can't say enough how important it is to relax. If you aren't relaxed playing how you are playing, try doing it a little simpler.

I know what you mean. I procrastinate recording - this one was made on the Clavinova near my office desk. It's easy to record on, and didn't take a whole lot of production.

My rig at home is more difficult to use, and quite frankly I have lost my touch with the electronics. My 2007 resolution was to become an expert in my home studio... that resolution was forwarded on to 2008, but I have yet to look at that email

Yes. The super articulated guitar is really something on the Clavinova. But all the sounds are high quality and fun to record with.

Thanks deeluk, and everyone else for the kind words. I intend to learn from this jazz study group too - making that recording was a learning experience for me, and wouldn't have happened unless jazzwee started the topic in the first place.

Jeff, you're obviously an advanced player and it shows in your solo. It was melodic and clearly outlined the chord changes and with a lot of technical flourish.

Unfortunately, no one has yet admitted to doing any solos and it's time to take the risk. Everyone, play those simple LH voicings and start 'noodling' on the RH to get things going and report your findings (if not your recordings). Tell us what your difficulties are.

I said much earlier that you can start your solos by first just playing thirds on the RH, then slowly introduce other notes and do it slow with lots of space (what jazzers call 'breathing' as you saw Jeff refer to it above).

The biggest mistake, I made as a beginner was doing too many notes at first. Now I realize that you develop those faster eight note lines better by training your ear to recognize simple melodies (using quarter notes and half notes). Certainly, this is within everyone's ability to play slow melodies (guided by the 3rd at first).

You don't have to master swing and the melody to start this. You could split up your practice time to handle all this simultaneously. Play just ballad style first and commit to soloing everyday. That's daily practice for jazzers.

OFF TOPIC - Jeff, is there a Stage Piano version of the Clavinova? I find that the S90ES I had was so complex. I'm looking now for something simple, with a few basic sounds (and excellent piano) and an ability to record. I'm looking at a Roland FP4/FP7. A Clavinova sounds great actually but they're expensive and non-portable.

Thanks, a very interesting link.

Serge

Well, I'm not up for solo or improv yet. At least, not for posting any recordings here. Here is my latest version with a Charleston LH rhythm:

http://www.box.net/shared/fv9ukahcso.

My brain shut down momentarily during that rendition...

I'll start working on my improv some more. I doubt I'll have the guts to post anything. As you said jazzwee, I find myself playing too many notes. And, I lose myself in the changes too. Usually that's with blues where you have more than a couple of bars of a given chord. Perhaps the AL changes might make it more obvious. We'll see how it goes. I still need to develop my rhythm further.

Is it paramount that you know exactly why you're playing a particular note when trying to noodle/solo at first, or, is some experimentation allowed based on what sounds good - and then work out why it sounds good afterwards; i.e. do some of the theory retrospectively rather than in real-time...

Deeluk (and everyone else), you don't have to post a solo. All we need to do for now is discuss problems you're having when you attempt to solo.

Of course we all expect that any solo will not sound like a jazz master. I don't sound like one either. But knowing how bad I sounded at the beginning, one starts to see how you can progress. That's the more important element here.

LaValse, feel free to noodle and experiment. That's what it's all about. The only rule I suggested was to play the third of each chord. Start with that. It will trigger the ideas.

The other rule I suggested is to play only quarter notes and half notes first and put a lot of space in there. Each line should be no longer than the way you speak and stop when you need to breath. For the rest of it, rely on your ears.

You don't have to swing it at first if you don't want to or even to have it be in strict rhythm. You can build towards that later. There's ear training involved here and it takes time.

You can ask Jeff Bauer, but he didn't learn to solo like that overnight.

Start with this and then as you gain more confidence we will deal with more solo 'Rules'. The more important step is that soloing become a routine of daily practice.

Perhaps Elssa can describe her method as well since she posted music in this style.

Well, I guess the best way to describe my "method" there is a very lame attempt to sound remotely like Roger Williams. But as you say, I was sometimes changing octaves and playing chords/octaves or just octaves with the right hand. The left hand was mostly arpeggios, sometimes in a Chopin etude style/pattern.


I'm working on the jazzy soloing now..I really like the way this guy is playing what sounds like some kind of a walking bass (starting in the bridge). Do you know what he's doing with the left hand there - is he just walking up the scale tones of each chord?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Q4ROIVRH8WU

Hi Elssa, what you are referring to is in fact a 'Walking Bass' and there's a specific instruction for this. It's again advanced but I think it's worth discussing. No, it is not built on arpeggios (although it could include them).

When I first did Walking bass, it took a year for me to walk and solo at the same time. Nothing wrong with practicing it now and developing this skill. I will do a writeup of this later and I'm sure others like Chris Bell might step in.

For listening purposes, one of the masters of this style is Dave McKenna. You'll find some of his playing on YouTube.

One thing about Walking the bass is that it really swings the tune. A typical approach is to play with shells, then walk a couple of choruses and then go back to chords. It's a very nice effect for solo piano.

Another style I'll discuss later is what I call 'modified Stride' (no official name for this), where you play an occasional bass note then followed by a rootless chord on the LH. A very modern playing style and something that needs to be heavily discussed. But this has to come after we talk about Voicings (still early here). It's not a regular old time stride because the bass note is irregular.

A good soloist would mix about all these styles all in one tune and takes one from the realm of 'cocktail piano' to real jazz playing.

Anyway, wait for a later post when I have a bit more time.

Thanks for the explanation. Sorry, but I didn't mean that I thought he was playing the actual chord (triad) tones. I thought he was just sort of walking up the scale tones, changing the scale with each change of chord required. Will wait for when you have time to go into this further, though. I've played a little walking bass in the past (Mack the Knife, etc).

If you want to move this or delete this till a later time, that's really fine!

Here's the problem that I always encounter:

- I don't know what note to play next.

In my mind, I go through logic like: A chord tone is probably a safe choice, maybe a diatonic tone from the current key, how about something from the scale associated with the current chord?

I go through this kind of logic in my head, and produce broken, choppy, sequences of notes in an uneven tempo that almost never sound good.

Anybody else in the same boat?

The good news is that my normal playing has improved 100% since I started following this thread. I have great hopes now about my soloing potential.

Well, no. I have the opposite problem. I have zillions of melodies running through my head, and most of them work very nicely if I slow everything way down, separate the hands, practice them like a classical etude, and only put everything back together after its "perfect."

Maybe it's from slugging shots and peeling off blues riffs on a beat up guitar for 30 years, but I don't have any problem knowing what I *want* to play, I just can't seem to get the pinkies on the right keys.

Keyboardjungle, let's approach your problem first.

1. First, for now think ONLY about the G Scale. Don't think of scales per chord right now.

2. Aside from the G Scale, just make sure you can pull out the third of every chord. That's the only chord tone you need to think of first.

3. If you stay close to the third, moving no more than a step or two away from the third of a particular chord, again, staying within the G scale, it should sound melodic. Make sure you can do this first before you jump into anything else.

This is like ear training. The beginner's mistake is to think that to solo is all about memorizing scale note choices. In reality, we end up training our ear to hear the melodies. This takes awhile BTW, in my experience and in the meantime, one is stuck to mechanical note choices. But the above exercise should help you hear first.

The reason it works is that the Third is instrumental in hearing the chord. The seventh on the other hand leads to the next chord (leading tone). For each chord, the third will orient you. So once the harmonic structure is defined in your ear, intervallic moves that are close by (no more than a major 2nd - 3 half steps), tend to sound less tense and will be good for initial melody making. It takes more hearing skill to hear shapes of large intervallic moves.

This is just an exercise, I wouldn't want you to draw from this a permanent solo structure. This is ear training.

Bluekeys, for you the solution is more simple. What you need is SPACE. Cut your lines short and breathe in between (leave empty space). This will allow you to reorient yourself. I would also slow it down. The exercise I was taught in this case was to play only quarter notes. Playing slowly at first builds up your speed for later. This will allow your technique to catch up with what you hear.

Must be using a definition of leading tone other than the conventional one.

My teacher's explanation is the 7th is already being played. Remember we're doing 1/7 shells.

Seventh leads to 3rd of next chord in ii-V. If you kept playing alternating 3's and 7's you'll hear this constant half step moving down to each third. The point isn't that 3rds become your solo. It's about hearing the thirds move and supporting your shell chords.

Lesson 5- Walking Bass Lines on LH

Here's a way to do walking bass lines on a tune like Autumn Leaves. Walking a bass involves a pulsing quarter note usually in the first full Octave of the piano and usually in a medium swing tempo. It takes a bit of hand independence to walk a bass in the LH and then solo in the RH, but fortunately there are stages.

In the most involved and advanced use, some one could conceive of an improvised walking bass line on the LH while also improvising on the RH. With most people this comes as a shifting of the brain back and forth from right to left so the other hand tones down a bit while the other hand is active.

There are intermediate variations, such as mixing up a few variations of a walking bass line, or in the most basic form, just memorizing a pre-set walking bass line pattern.

Although this may seemingly be an advanced lesson, it really isn't because you can actually just play the LH alone, such was when making a recording. This is not that hard to do when you're laying down a track at a time. It's hard to do in solo piano.

I learned how to Walk a bass line from my first studies of Jazz so it is something that deserves early introduction. It is however, something that may take a long time to master in it's most advanced form. So for the moment, we will preconcieve a bass line and you can just memorize it and repeat it over and over. That's how I learned it. You'd have to play the bass line in your LH while you read the paper. or while having a conversation. It has to be fully automatic or you will not be able to solo.

Construction of the Bass Line

The logic of a bass line is actually not too complicated. There just a few rules, especially important for a piano player who is one's own rhythm section.

First think of the beats in each measure.

| 1 2 3 4 | 1 2 3 4 | 1 2 3 4 | 1 2 3 4 |

We're doing quarter notes so we have to fill in 4 bass notes per measure.

Rules:

Rule 1: Start with the Root on Beat 1. So for Autumn Leaves, the first four measures will look like this:

| A . . . | D . . . | G . . . | C . . . |

I've placed dots on other notes that are unfilled at this time. So far so good because this is no different than the roots we've been playing in the 1/7 shells.

Rule 1: The next note we will fill is the "LEADING TONE". What do I mean here? To the bassist, one of the key notes is to strongly lead into the next chord and that means you pick a note a half step away from the next Root. This note is placed on Beat 4. So I will make a new measure with a leading tone. In this example, I will come from a half step below. In reality you can come from a half step below or above.

| A . . Db | D . . Gb | G . . Cb | C . . F |

Rule 3: Fill in the notes in the middle. Now what notes should we put in the middle? Here's the funny part. IT DOESN'T MATTER! You could put chord tones like 3rd and 5th, or you could go chromatically. Or you could find a way to the leading town downwards instead of upwards. Your basic task is connect the root to the leading tone.

I'm going to make an example here where in each measure I go upwards from the root to the leading tone.

| (Up) A B C Db | (Up) D E F Gb | (Down) G A Bb B | (Up) C Eb E F | F# ...

Read this as each succeeding note after the root is going upwards to the leading tone. The root here will actually jump up and down an octave to keep in the right register. So in the above example, the G is played down again.

This is actually a common pattern for a memorized walking bass line. If you want to sound passable, just memorize this pattern of chromatic movement to the next root.

Another common method for ii-V-I progressions is to alternate going up and down.

| (Up) A B C Eb | D (Down) C B Gb | (Up) G A C Db | (Down) C B G F | F# ...


Rule 4: To give it more swing, accent beats 2 and 4 when you play it.

| x 2 x 4 | x 2 x 4 | x 2 x 4 | x 2 x 4 |...

More: There are other tricks in the book that I was taught that I cannot describe in print. One has to listen to it. There's a rhythmic play one does on beat 1 that sounds like 'Pig-in-a-poke' (say it rhythmically and quickly )played as sixteenths and mixed in with blurry lower bass notes. Maybe someone can explain this better. It's not something one always uses but it is an added flair.

Rule 5: Play each quarter note LEGATO.

Fingering: A prior teacher of mine was pretty good with walking bass lines and taught me to do this to make backing tracks on recordings. And I noticed that he fingered most of his bass notes using just fingers 1,2,3 of his LH, reserving the other fingers for quickly moving backwards and doing a 'pig-in-a-poke' manuever.


Experts, please feel free to provide full pre-written walking bass line examples for Autumn Leaves. There are many ways of doing this.

Let me just pass a final experience here. I transcribed a walking bass to a Blues Tune by Master Bass Player Ray Brown. I have to say, in just one single tune, I learned so many variations of how to walk. There was enough in one single transcription. So I just passed you the basics. The rest you can learn on your own direct from the masters. Listening is what it's about guys.

Just another note about Walking Bass lines.

I had two teachers that dealt with Walking Bass Lines in early lessons. My current teacher DOES NOT WALK THE BASS. This is a matter of stylistic choice. He has never taught me anything on Walking bass at all.

So the choice is yours. It is possible to play jazz and never really master walking the bass while soloing. For those with digital keyboards/synths, walking is kind of neat because you can split the keyboard and have multiple parts going.

If you intend to make your own recordings, I think walking is important at least doing LH alone. Nowadays, I hardly ever do any Walking bass. My skill at this has deteriorated from lack of practice. It took me two years of practice of this to get this so I can actually solo while I walk. Now I'd probably stick to a few patterns.