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I picked the chords from Scott Piano Guy's fake book. I found another book with the same kind of your chords -- in Ab.

That should be interesting to work on Ab and I see what you mean by the RH motion moving 1/2 step of the 7 to the 3 of the next chord. This is so NEAT in stepwise movement. I love it.

Will do a recording on this soon. Thanx for the tips Jazzwee and all the goodies that come along to make this learning so EZ.

Funny, I've never thought of All the Things as being in Ab. The first chord is in Ab, then the 2nd chord is in Eb. Then back the Ab then, to Db. Then C. Then Cm. Then Ab. Then Eb. Then Ab, then G...etc.

I lost count of the keys

That's why for soloing this tune is really helpful for development. You go through several really popular keys which are used in so many tunes.

Here's the midi for inspection for ATTYA in the standard chords.
LH: 1 & 5
RH: 3 7 3

http://www.box.net/shared/mistk0f4kc

Jazzwee, if the above passes, then do I now do LH 1/5/9 and RH remains as above?

Rosa

Wow, Rosa that's really impressive!

Rosa, you're on a roll. I love it!

Very good Rosa! Yes, expand it to 1 5 9 on the LH. On the RH, remember that you're doing 3 7 3 and then reversing to 7 3 7. There are times when you don't do so. Examine to make sure that you are sounding the 7 and 3 on the RH at all times unless the melody messes you up. You did this amazingly fast

This tune is an example of one where the melody is based on thirds so this kind of split between the LH and RH works well.

In general, you will find that different tunes seem to lay differently on the hands and usually depends on where the melody is.

There are times when you'll want to mix LH 1/5/7 RH 9 3 with this version of playing (LH 1/5/9 RH 3 7 3).

Misty also works well with these two handed voicings, I find.

On the other hand there are tunes that really don't sound good with these types of voicings and work better with bass note + rootless chords. Examples are On Green Dolphin Street, Stella by Starlight. These require more dense harmonies IMO.

When soloing, doing an occasional bass note + rootless chord is a common element that must be mastered.

Thanks Woody, Barb and Jazzwee for your encouragment. I thought it would take me longer to master this but even tho' so many key changes, but the pattern repeats, so not too bad.

Jazzwee, just a short Q: For RH, is it that for ALL the melody notes -- get the 3 & 7 s in there? (In AL, we only did it to the first downbeat chord and for other melody tones we played only single note.)

Rosa

rosa on ATTTYA, I would hold down the chord while the melody is playing. And no different than Classical music, we always make the melody stand out.

Or maybe I don't understand the question...

Bump

Roll Call - What's everyone up to?

i've been doing the Bill Evans arp exercise - trying to build up some speed. I'm up to 90 bpm with my RH. When I add LH rootless to it, I'm at 55 bpm.

Plus, I decided it's time to actually memorize the AL chord progression. I've been relying on the lead sheet too much.

Plus, I'm playing the melody with jazzwee and his combo. I didn't like my last recording where the melody was up an octave. So, I took the melody down an octave, which made me learn a few new rootless positions.

That's it from me - You can say I am back to basics and it's a comfortable place for me to be right now.

Who's next?

Thanks for the update Barb. Your practice raises the question: Is everyone pretty good at doing fast multi-octave arpeggios (up and down)? This should be put into the practice routine in addition to scales since as you can see it is the backbone of the music vocabular (jazz and classical). The only difference is that one should 'swing' the arpeggios (accent upbeats).

Yes, Evans exercise -- to do the upbeat accent.

And the voicing with the 9th on the LH and RH 373 or 737 on ATTTYA. Almost there.

Working on the arp exercise too. Having much more trouble than I expected. Getting the arps to fall under the fingers across chord changes is tough! I find I really have to precompose my pattern and practice it several times until it comes out (at speed). Maybe I should be slowing things down too. I did take it down to around 108. I'll add multi-octave to the workout too.

I'm also working on the melody phrasing change that JW suggested (which wasn't too hard to incorporate). As well as rootless voicings. I still don't have those totally memorized.

Time for Check up.

Putting in the 9ths for ATTTYA

http://www.box.net/shared/x6pr0elggg

When it is all blacks or all whites, I can get LH 1/5/9 but when it is from white key to black key or black key to white key for the 9th, I have to roll the chord.

Also I tried to put 373 or 737 when the melody allows it on the RH.

Deeluk - for the arps, you need to slow the speed to whatever it takes to keep it "on time and perfect", so that it all feels comfortable. Then, just inch it up from there.

Rosa - just listened. Very, very nice sounding

Rosa, this requires a little bit of careful checking here but it looks to me like some of the notes are incorrect (on the 3/7/3).

It's hard to check because I really have to slow it down. The clue is that on the ii Chord as in Bbm7, to Eb7 the only note that should move (other than the melody) should be the 7th of Bbm7 (which is Ab). Ab moves down a half step to the third of Eb7, which is G. Since ATTTYA is mostly ii-V's, there will be many cases where only one note should move.

As in this example, it went quite fast but it seems like the Db on Bbm7 moved to Eb? That would mean it went to the root instead of staying in place in being the 7th of the new chord.

Let me explain the theory once again so it's clear.

In a ii-V sequence, the 7 of ii resolves to the 3rd of V by moving down a half step. This is ALWAYS true. So it is easy to think of fingering of this since only the middle finger holding the 7 will move all others stay put.

This particular technique leads to good voice leading which is what I'm trying to promote here. There is less motion on the hands while achieving a full sound. In this voicing scheme, most of the movement is the Root-Fifth of the LH, the RH moves at half the number of times. Even going to the root is moving the 7th down again.

So being specific here, the ii-V-I sequence:

Bbm7 - Eb7 - AbM7 should have a RH of
(Db Ab Db) - (Db G Db ) - (C G C )
(3 7 3) - (7 3 7 ) - (3 7 3)
Watch the motion of the lines.

Now just to clarify, the duplicate 3rd or 7th on top is really the melody. It just so happens that the melody is mostly the 3rd as shown here but that can move. What is constant is the left two notes (3 7, 7 3).

You also did it nicely at the end where you skipped the rules since the ending line doesn't allow regular fingering of 3 7 3. So it is good that you're using common sense here to follow these guidelines as long as it makes sense.

The 9ths looked good to me on the LH. You can cross check because the thumbs of the LH and RH should be either a half step or a whole step apart. They should be pretty close at all times.

Let me know if this doesn't make sense. Since it is hard to follow what you're playing on MIDI, you can give me specific questions on notes if you can document it.

Hope this makes sense!

Good luck.

Jazzwee, thanks for your patience.

I did a slow midi on the first line to show you what I did.

http://www.box.net/shared/gartl8ckko

Say for the first ii V

you said:
Bbm7 - Eb7 - AbM7 should have a RH of
(Db Ab Db) - (Db G Db ) - (C G C )
(3 7 3) - (7 3 7 ) - (3 7 3)

What I did:
RH: Db Ab Db -- then JUMPED to G Db G (because the melody note is G, so pinkie had to hit the G)

That's what I did in most of the ii V -- so my RH JUMPED almost an octave although I realize that I was only moving one tone.

But now I realize the way I do it is:
3 7 3 moving to 3 7 3 of the next chord and not 7 3 7 as you say.

But if I do 3 7 3 to 7 3 7 (and let the pinkie be on the upper 7, then that is not the melody note?)

Rosa

Rosa you can jump to the melody with your pinky but leave the left two fingers to the chords so it will be 3 7 x, or 7 3 x. "x", the melody note, will usually be 3rd in this tune but not always.

So only the pinky jumps to the melody note, the thumb and a middle finger (whichever), stays where they belong on the chord (playing the 7 or 3).

The 3 7 3 of the ii Chord, becomes the 7 3 7 of the V chord, just by moving the middle finger playing the 7.

Forget the pinky for moment:

Bbm7 - Eb7 - AbM7 should have a RH of
(Db Ab ) - (Db G ) - (C G )
(3 7) - (7 3 ) - (3 7 )

This is how the thumb and a middle finger should play this while the pinky is on the melody. But in this tune you will find that the pinky will MOSTLY play the same note as the thumb.

So keep the pinky independent as it is an upper melody voice. The harmony voices in the middle need to stand on their own.

Jszzwee, I did this in slow motion so that you can see what I am doing.

http://www.box.net/shared/inf1x3wcg8

LH remains the same.
RH -- not jumping but only moving that voice leading notes.