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I'm awake!

Anyway, I finally found time to listen to this.
Outstanding! I had goosebumps at least half the time. I love the way Keith tries to stand a few times. Sometimes when I have an exciting idea or I am doing something very satisfying, I feel a real urge to move!

I hope to submit more AL pieces on vampire time tonight.

-Ted

Barb that's pretty good! I'll listen more carefully later to elevate you to the next level but you are really improvising there.

(sometimes work gets in the way )

I concur, you're all showing improvements, wow!

For soloing, I have some pointers. First; the piano. Yes I know it's very obvious, it's the instrument of our choice. But it also a finger instrument. and as we pianists tend to go, we forget to breathe when doing a solo. And by not breathing we play to many notes, all over the place (I know I tend to).
Exercise: (it's easier to "get it" if you have a BIAB or a metronome playing a beat/bassline) Start the song, don't play anything, close your eyes and hear/follow the song; resist the urge to play.

Now (with the metronome/BIAB playing, start your solo. But, do it when you exhale. So, take a deep breath, and play your solo whilst exhaling. When you have to inhale, don't play. So inhale and then exhale=play solo. (all the time your metronome/BIAB is just chugging along). Do this exercise several times.
The idea is to start to listen not only to the notes you are playing but to your breathing.
The exercise could transform to breath in 1 bar, breath out 1 bar. Or 2 bars. All depending on tempi.

and remember, Jazz is a living art, it's a true American art form.

“beware the prevailing view of “jazz” as some kind of history lesson that you have to sit through because it’s good for you… Understand that it is a living art from whose most esteemed practitioners are constantly evolving and engaging with the world around them.” - Vijay Iyer

I've been taking your advice and trying it again, and again, and again, LOL! Am I getting close yet? On the 2nd time thru I tried to put in the chord (sometimes) on the + of 2, otherwise I just played on the first beat, I hope!

Turning on that recording button can sure cause a lot of nerves and mistakes that you don't always make.

Appreciate any comments on what I need to do.
Edit: oops, forgot to include the link!

http://www.box.net/shared/6es9owp8o8


Thanks!
Alene

OK, here's my improv attempt. This one was from a few days ago. I intended to post this as an MP3, but I'm still having tech difficulties. Stuck with MIDI which loses a bit in translation. Unfortunately, it doesn't improve my playing whatsoever. Anyway here it is:

http://www.box.net/shared/o651edd8ow

Since I recorded this, I've really been focusing on jazzwee's solo attempts and am trying to incorporate those ideas into my playing. Somewhat at least. In this post, my phrasing is horrible. I tend to put the accent on the downbeats instead of up. I've been working on this a lot and it is getting better. I really have to concentrate on it tho. Not natural at all. Plus, I seem to play the same thing over and over.

I'll post more attempts soon. I'm falling way behind Barb in the posted recording category. Great job Barb! You're sounding great! Quite an improvement in a really short time.

Back to practicing...

Ted, I have high hopes for you with your good taste in music Waiting on those postings...

OK Barb, let's get to working on getting you to the next level. One thing that will improve your sound is to play those whole and half notes LOOOOOOOONG. Don't cut them short. The nice sounds comes from the contrast of long notes against short notes.

So to review:

1. Eight Notes - Legato, Swung, Accented.
2. Quarter Notes - Detached, not completely legato.
3. Half Notes/Whole Notes - Long and full value. Let 'er ring...

That's on the phrasing side.

Generally you picked notes that matched the chord. Now try this new exercise of picking ONLY chord tones. By chord tones I mean 1,3,5,7. Again slow it down first (i.e long notes). And add neighboring tones but focus on the chord tones. Then let's see what happens to your sound.

I'm not going to give you too much but get this right, and you'll have come a long way.

This is just an initial step. There's a lot to go here.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Alene:
<strong> I've been taking your advice and trying it again, and again, and again, LOL! Am I getting close yet? On the 2nd time thru I tried to put in the chord (sometimes) on the + of 2, otherwise I just played on the first beat, I hope!

Turning on that recording button can sure cause a lot of nerves and mistakes that you don't always make. That's some solid improvement there. Now just a minor minor phrasing point, just play those quarter notes short. Again not too short but definitely not connected/legato. That'll give that part of the melody some bounce.

I know I've repeated this a million times already but this is one of the tasks in jazz is to learn the phrasing.

Timing was fantastic. Nothing to criticize there.

Very good Deeluk! Now you may not think that but in it's simplicity you picked the right tones. It's heavily focused on thirds. So automatically you can't go wrong. Now from here venture out further with stepwise movements close to the same notes you picked (in the scale), up or down. Again stepwise only so you don't feel lost.

On the phrasing, you can cut the sing-songy lines. Meaning you're eighths are too short. It's sounding like a sixteenth + a quarter, or sixteenth + a half note. Play your eights longer. I said early on to not focus on swinging as much as the accents. This is why, because, everyone, including Barb originally, will tend to exaggerate it. Swing is light and relaxed.

If you listen to my solo, again, I was swinging but I'm not exaggerating (and I was not playing it 'straight').

You're going to develop from this very quickly.

Excellent advice Chris My teacher had me do this too as the operative word was TOO MANY NOTES

So hopefully, even I improved with my solo examples since I DID NOT play too many notes.

Doing these lessons remind me of what I went through with my teachers. And it gets imprinted in my head more.

Now that I can swing rightly with my RH, I tried to do the Charleston on my LH. I did a few recordings and listening to them, I was surprised to find that I was sometimes doing the Charleston beat on the 2nd beat or on the 3rd and not steady on the + of the 2.

So I decided not to do the melody tone and just play the guide tones of the RH and concentrate on the LH.

I recorded a few times and found that my Charleston beat was not steady at all.

This recording is the 10th time and I wonder if I am able to get the LH groove.

http://www.box.net/shared/8r6hsiko4k

Rosa

YES BARB....you are leading the way for sure. I need binoculars to see you ....I want to eventually do solo improvisation too. But I want to get the basics down and firm before rushing on.

Deeluk....good to see you submitting your recordings. This is GREAT FUN to hear one another

Al...you are doing GREAT too.

Actually you almost have it right Rosa. Delay the second stab a little more. Just make it a little lazier. Your beat is sometimes almost at 2+, then occasionally it goes back to 2 but leaning more towards the 2+. If you stab shells on the RH on the even beat 1 and 2, then you should have a noticeable delay in the LH on 2+. Try it by tapping as I described earlier. I just want you to emphasize that delay more and you're there.

Now listen up everyone -- It is not necessary to master either swing or Charleston to improvise. In the end they get combined but you can improvise just even at ballad speed and straight notes. Or whole notes on the LH.

This is independent practice. I really recommend just whole notes on the LH or NO LH (use the Midi files for comping). Practice improvising with RH only.

Preferrably not too slow (140-150bpm), to force you to pick long notes first. It is actually harder to improvise on a ballad since you have more notes to fill.

So Rosa, try it out. I think you're ready.

jazzwee,

I get it! Man, do I get it.

I know, it's probably hard for you to believe, but I had never heard of Jarrett. I came across a reference to him in another post, which had links to some of his videos on YouTube.

He is amazing. A-MAZING!

Man, I wish I was good enough to hop on to this thread and tag along. You know I'll be looking for this thread in about a year.

Thank you for this gift.

Practice, practice, practice...

l's dad

I am so THRILLED about your response Jazzwee.

Thank you for being so prompt. So all these things can go alongside.

I REALLY REALLY WANT to get on to improvising.

I will do both at the same time.

Rosa

Welcome Lizzy dad......post something for us to listen.

jazzwee, can you phone my piano teacher and please explain to him exactly when Mozart rewrote the Dmin Fantasy to sound suspiciously like Autumn Leaves... I have to say though, he took it very well, although I suspect he'll keep teaching the original...

Hi Fellow Classmates and Mentors,

Chord tones - this has been a trip. An extremely enjoyable 3 hour trip.

You may ask - well, why did it take so long? The reasons:

I printed out each solo - Sometimes I wasn't hitting chord tones. I kept wanting to play a D natural for that B7 (ouch).

Next, I was hitting those chord tones, but I was not happy about how I was playing my quarter notes - they were too legato.

jazzwee - Here it is. Thank you again for your help.

http://www.box.net/shared/d99tkpuwwo


Chris - I tried that breathing exercise last night - I got light headed from all that oxygen on my inhales. PLUS, I noticed that at the exhale, I kept starting with descending passages - too funny!

Alene and Rosa - fantastic progress!

deeluk - thank you sooo much for diving into this solo business. It gets easier the more you do it.

TED - WAKE UP!

lizzy's dad - I'm looking forward to you joining this party.

LaValse - come on and post (PLEASE)

Yes absolutely fantastic! For me, maybe 0.01%. And that will be a stretch.

What are those chord runs he's doing around 0:50 I think? Are those block chords? I don't want to get ahead of our lessons here, just wondering what I'm hearing.

I love how he has the lead sheets (presumably?) sitting inside the piano. Like he really needs them

Hey man, I'm a dummy with regards to Classical...but I could think of a lot of tunes that follow the Circle of fifths like AL. This is one of the reasons I suggested this tune. It's a building block to so many compositions.

OF COURSE your're good enough! I learned AL as my first piece of music. I didn't even know a single chord at the time. My first teacher just wrote out the notes like I did here.

After 1 year, you should be able to play rings around AL.

Thank you Jazzwee...you are a fantastic teacher to listen to all these and take the time to tell us each what we need to do to improve. I certainly appreciate it and this is SO much fun! What a fun place to be!

Everyone is doing so well and so much fun to listen and hear the progress.

Barb, thanks for the comments, and you are leading the way, girl! You are making great progress.

Deeluk, you are also doing good with the soloing. This is very encouraging for me to hear the progress both of you are making.

Rosa and I are trying to get to that point too...Rosa you sounded good!

Hope more join in and Jazzwee your help is terrific!