Thanks for the comment Jazzwee. Just got back from Menorca so started to practice some improv. I heard a trio perform Autumn leaves whilst on holiday - they where brilliant, I only recognized the bass of the track, the rest was improvised. Was great to hear it on holiday!

Maybe I got confused by his purple jacket . . . it is very purple.

Well, it is sort of feeling it in half-time. The point is not see view "it" as half-time, but full time. Which is tricky. After a while my foot starts to beat four-on-the-floor.
The point of the exercise is to incorporate the pulse within ones body. So there's only a one. And then another one. In between is swing, the beat, pocket. Left foot, right foot. It's akin to dancing.
ONE-2-3-4 ONE-2-3-4 the 2-3-4 are not counted or stated, only the ONE. Left foot right foot. Internalize the everything else. Try it standing up (watch that back!), and shake that booty. No kidding. Jazz's origin is Africa.

Interesting, I never thought of Jazz as anything but 100% American.

Take care

Hey Chris, for whatever reason, each time I play AL now it's at high speed, like 180bpm or more. Maybe the Jarrett influence. So at this speed, I have to think in half time, more half notes and it actually feels like I'm playing very slowly although the changes are zooming by. Is this sort of part of what you're talking about? I haven't played AL in awhile but I just noticed a change in my approach. I think I like it played at a faster tempo.

I think Dizzy Gillespie would say it has Afro-Cuban rhythmic roots. Blues has African roots.

But yes, jazz itself, combining all these elements was first done in the good 'ol USA.

Yes, that's what I mean. It's a strange, but wonderful feeling.

As to the Origins of Jazz. Please let me state - so that the discussion doesn't go somewhere I intended it to - and maybe correct my own fallible musings.
My point in writing what I wrote that is that the origin of syncopated rhythms is Africa via the Caribbean. (It's a sort of meta-physical pov, getting back to the roots of playing, why does this swing/not swing?) As we all, mankind, did originate in Africa, so does this magical music called Jazz.
As an art form however, it is purely American, it's birth could only have happened where and when it did (no small thanks to the law passed in 1897) and then the development into what we know it to be today.

For a very interesting discussion on jazz; read this.
JULIAN "CANNONBALL" ADDERLEY DAVE BRUBECK, JOHN "DIZZY" GILLESPIE , RALPH J. GLEASON, STAN KENTON CHARLES MINGUS, GERRY MULLIGAN GEORGE RUSSELL and GUNTHER SCHULLER talk jazz. From Playboy 1964.

Lately I've been approaching a lot of tunes like this, tunes I'm very familiar with. For me at least it makes me slow down and think of the melody. My playing at half time on a fast tempo, I am forced to not put too many notes in. It's illuminating.

At some point I'm probably going to play fast stuff over a fast tempo but that's not my goal at the moment. My goal right now is to always think melody and not scales or patterns.

My jazz teacher currently has me working on All The Things You Are.

I am now focusing on playing full chords in the right hand with the melody line as the top note to practice inverting chords.

However, I was told to only play the root note in the LH. What kind of patterns or ideas should I look for if I would want to fancy the LH up a bit?

KHZ, thanks for checking out our thread. Sorry in the slow response as I don't check here everyday.

As a starting point, I would start with playing root and 7th on the LH. Get the feeling down of automatically aligning your left hand along the root-7th being careful to always be sensitive to the quality of the chord when playing the 7th. This means this could be a b7 or a maj7 interval depending on the chord.

On All the things That You Are (otherwise known as ATTTYA for short on this thread), the melody not is mostly on the 3rd of the chird so you will find yourself fully stating the harmony with the Root-7th + Melody note.

Now somewhere in this thread, there's a more sophisticated two handed style that fits ATTTYA perfectly.

See Lesson 6 on Solo Piano 2 + 3 voicings. This teaches you some basics of two handed voicings which can be applied to ATTTYA.

Specifically to ATTYA though, I play it in the style of
LH 1 9[/b]
RH 3[/b] 7 Melody (which is usually 3rd too)

Note that the two bolded notes on the LH and RH are only a half-step apart. And the RH is playing an octave usually starting with the 3rd and ending typically with a 3rd on top (because that is usually the melody note in this tune). You will notice that the hand alignment in this tune is fairly fixed for this voicing so you can do it by feel after awhile.

This is for solo piano. For combo style, I would read the Rootless voicing section.

Hopefully this will give you a look ahead to what you will be learning from your teacher.

Good luck and keep asking away. Hit me with a PM if I don't see this quickly enough.

(Thanks for heads up Barb!)

Hello fellow leaver's!
Long time since any of us posted, maybe the leaves stopped falling . . hey, it's winter now . . .!

So, I just thought to share with you my joy in ploughing through the Charlie Parker Omnibook. I've stayed away from playing transcriptions until now, these are fun, these are the root of all music that bops along. These lines are wicked! And tricky for the pianist . . but rewarding.
The Omnibook contains the Head as well as Parker's solo for each tune. There's loads of II-V's that will inspire you, as well as heaps of Blues licks. At Amazon $13.95

Hey there!

So here's a little exercise I came up with. Well, not really, I got the idea from Metaphors for the musicians.
The idea is playing through a few tunes while strictly using chord tones. No other notes allowed !

This is indeed an interesting exercise. For starters, by the 2nd hour you do this, these changes are well into your head.
Then it really forces you to think what you play rather than let the fingers move in a scale.
This is a preliminary exercise to greater things.

So here's the challenge.
Play a solo on All the Things you are[/b]. Only chord tones.
Do what you want with LH hand:
- nothing
- comp
- octave with RH
Here I played with Aebersold. A metronome is fine is that's all you got.

experts: try it too so we can get a feel of how well this can be done using only chord tones.

Here are the changes I played:
F-7 | Bb-7 | Eb7 | AbM7 | DbM7 | G7 | CM7 | CM7
C-7 | F-7 | Bb7 | EbM7 | AbM7 | D7 | GM7 | GM7
A-7 | D7 | GM7 | GM7 | F#-7 | B7 | EM7 | C+7
F-7 | Bb7 | Eb7 | AbM7 | DbM7 | Db-7| Cm7| Bdim7
Bb-7| Eb7 | AbM7| G7 C7 |

And here's my entry:
http://www.box.net/shared/lcfv3ec3np

comments welcome.

Take care

Wow, Knotty. You are sounding like a pro! So, you are playing only 1,3,5,7 right?

Utterly amazing. Goes to show you that this Bill Evans' sound you have is achieved through excellent phrasing and a great left hand comp.

It is quite a challenge since you did set the standard very high.

I'll load it into Band in a Box and work on it. It will take a while to work up. I'll try to post in January.

Enjoy the holidays.

Chris - Glad you're having fun with the Charlie Parker Omnibook. I have that book, but it still is too scary to tackle.

I'm starting to dig into my "Tons of Runs" book by Andy Laverne. I'm working on a 4 measure 2-5-1 phrase (transposing it to all keys.) My Band in a Box group and I are having fun with it.

Hey Barb,

thanks! Aebersold does the comping, not me but if you want to comp with the LH, go for it. Right here, that wasn't the intent of the exercise. Maybe as a second step ...
It sure helps to play with a great rhythm section!

I'll let you tackle that second step Knotty. You are most definitely ready to add that left hand. I'll be playing around with right hand only.

It sounds like a great exercise.

Knotty, that's some fine sounding playing! It's swinging and so relaxed sounding. The phrasing is impeccable.

Glad to see every one is still around (once in awhile). I think we are at the 1 year anniversary of this thread...

thanks, jazzwee!

Jazzwee - sorry to make you work once again, but, you have been on vacation long enough here.

Knotty's challenge is such fun. I was playing the first 4 measures yesterday, and I added the next 4 measures today. (Looping forever with Band in a Box)

I wish I had Kotty's touch and phrasing. Please let me know how I can improve.

I'll be tackling this project a few measures each day and plan to post the whole song in a few weeks.

Thanks for listening. Here I am:

http://www.box.net/shared/lk5qtvxiy2

Nice swing you got going there Barb'

That's the secret I think, doing it a few bars at a time.

Don't you find that after a while, you start creating licks?
One lick I like on the M7 is simply arpegiatting from 7 - 1 - 3 - 5 - 7.
On AbM7 is like playing a Fm7 with a 9th in it. Gives it a bit of a bop sound.

It's interesting when you find a lick to try and apply it to all chords in all keys, transforming it as needed...

nice job!

Thanks for your kind words, knotty.

And also thanks for that 7-1-3-5-7 tip. I do like that sound.

I heard a lick you played that I think I will "borrow" from you. In that first measure, you played b3, root, then up an octave to the root, then b7 and 5 --- Very nice indeed.

I agree - It is fun creating little licks.

You are a great motivator.

Knotty, great improv, you really have the swing feel down pat.

Barb, you're sounding so good, I could hardly resist the temptation to play along!

Knotty, your discussion of the AbMaj7 arp reminded me of a cool one I've been messing around with:

Left hand plays G7 shell (G, F), while

Right hand arpeggiates Ab minor major 9th:

Ab B Eb G Bb B Eb G Bb….

Ed

Hi Barb, always willing to help, just don't make me record as I'm strapped for time...

This is an excellent tune for really working on changes BTW. My teacher spent a lot of time with me on this a couple of years ago. It is great for practicing solo piano voicings as well as learning to improvise on chord tones. What's particularly interesting about using chord tones on this tune is that you can anchor most of the chords on the third of the chord and you wouldn't stray away from the melody much (which mostly lands on 3rds too).

So a couple of tips for you:

1. Build your melodies with the 3rd being a dominant element. Complexity of the melody is not that important at the beginning. Knotty's melodies are beautifully simple in fact and I can hear the 3rds guiding the tones.

2. What makes Knotty's playing sound so nice is his mastery of swing. I would listen to how Knotty balances each pair of eight notes. Most of the time the notes are not of equal accent. It's not so obvious here because he's playing a lot of quarter notes and half notes but you will notice the requisite "dragging". Meaning the notes are slightly behind. This gives it a relaxed feeling.

Funny thing in jazz is that once you master the swing, one can sound really good even with simple note selection like chord tones. That's why we spend so much time on learning swing here since this is the primary "technical" issue in jazz. Miles Davis was very simple many times too. Always beautiful.

Hey JW..

Just noticed this thread....holy moly, this is longer than the Reharm Room over at KC.

You are an excellent host. Who would have thought you would have this many pages?!

Great job everyone. Keep practicing and stay with it!

Jazzwee - Thank you for a tips. My brain does understand where I am having problems here. I wish my fingers would cooperate.

Thank you, Riddler. No need to resist the temptation. Why don't you record and post a bit of Knotty's chord tone challenge for this tune?

You guys are being way too nice to me.

In response to JW's post. You really shouldn't listen to me all that much. I can think of many other pianists. Recently I've been into Barry Harris. There's someone who doesn't show off much, but man can he swing. Get that album called 'Barry Harris plays Tadd Dameron'. That's the kind of feel I really dig.

I never understood what swing meant. Playing behind the beat, OooOooO or whatever. For the record, I never got it... All I know is that sometimes I feel it. Rarely actually, but once in a while, the foot taps harder and the mind starts floating...

Best is to play along with non-pianists. Miles, Armstrong, Lester Young for example. To me, a good pianist only tried to emulate a great horn player with the RH, while playing a great rhythm section with the LH. Or some variation of this ...

Hey Dave F., nice of you to visit. Yup this thing has been a year of work now! Although I have been absent of late.

Knotty, the compliments are richly deserved! There's style in your phrasing there and I can hear it coming out. Put in some left hand stuff and go to town man. It's going to sound great. Sometimes the swing comes out as a result of the phrasing. I've tried in all these 60 pages to describe swing but in the end, you really have to arrive at feeling it and it reflects in the delivery of each note.

Barb, the thing about swing is it is asymmetric. When notes land exactly on the beat without something to create asymmetry (either accent or time allocation), then it doesn't sound swinging. Your version sounded like the notes are landing at the exact top of the beat. Very symmetrical. Thus no swing feel.

I wish we could together in one room. It really is easier to show in person than to describe. But go back to our early discussions (particularly between the two of us) of swing as I think you've forgotten some of it.

BTW - the swing style that Knotty demonstrates is typical of slow tempo tunes (like 120 bpm). As you speed it up, the dragging feel disappears and becomes almost accent based. And the eight notes even up.

I was just playing ATTTYA a moment ago in my usual tempo (fast) and then tried it slow and I can notice significant changes in swing style. I don't even think about it. It just happens. So when listening to swing, realize that the tempo changes the style. For learning beginning swing, I would start with slow tempo tunes (particularly versions of ATTTYA) so you can hear a more exaggerated version of the swing.

You may not recognize the details of swing at 150bpm and faster.

Sorry I don't have time to record right now but maybe I'll get time in January. I'm just able to put a few notes in here every once in awhile.

It would be nice to actually spend a lot of time on ATTTYA for a change. It's a great tune and never gets old. It also remains a challenge.