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

Jazzwee,

Thank you for putting into words that Evans swing style. As you know, I am a VERY BIG Evans fan.

When we speak of a Swing style, I always think of it in 2 parts:

First part, hearing how close we come to a 2:1 triplet feel.

Second part, hearing whether or not those offbeat accents are there. Before this thread, I was clueless about accenting the offbeats. It takes concentration to play those accents. When I first started here, I noticed that my stomach muscles contracted when I accented the "ANDs" of those eighth notes. If I practiced it a lot, I actually ached the next day -- as if I were doing too many sit-ups.

You mentioned slowing down the music to hear the swing. When I was playing around with Donna Lee last year, I experimented a bit and I recorded it midi, at a slow speed, with lots of offbeat accents along with that almost triplet feel. Then, I listened to it in my Midi Notate program at a fast speed. It sounded very much like the Evans style you just described. I knew those offbeat accents were the "secret" ingredient for the sound my ears crave. You are the one who opened my eyes to that secret. A big THANK YOU for that!

Barb

it's interesting how every pianist has their own unique swing feel and way of playing 8th notes. it's like a fingerprint.

you can hear a strong triplet undercurrent in the 8th notes of bill evans and wynton kelly. oscar peterson also played with a triplet feel. but the bebop piano players played 8th notes that were much straighter. you don't really hear the triplet thing in the playing of pianists like sonny clark and barry harris and bud powell.

jazzwee, you brought up a great point: when playing 8th notes, if you over do it and exaggerate the triplet feel the playing will sound a little corny. that's so true. and that's why it hard to learn how to play really swinging 8th notes. you don't want them to be completely straight, obviously. but you dont want to over do it with the triplet feel either. you have to meet somewhere in the middle.

Barb, I'll give you a third context to listen to when listening to Evan's swing or any other player. Listen to when the notes start against the beat. Bill tends to push the beat (play slightly ahead). Most play behind the beat. It's interesting to listen to different playing styles.

Mehldau for example, relies mainly on positioning on the beat for the swing effect rather than any triplet feel. Or he will adjust the length of the note so it lands at some uneven point in the beat. I learned a little bit of how to do this from listening, then I noticed my teacher doing it and I brought it up.

That's why Jazz is so interesting because there's so many ways to bring up the 'imbalance' of swing.

As you develop the ears to recognize this, your own swing style improves. My teacher requires that his students be able to replicate several swing styles (your choice). I found it to be an excellent project because it helps a student refine his swing style based on his personal preference.

When I discuss swing here, it's always just an approximation. How someone actually executes it changes the feel to something unique to the player.

But don't forget what I said earlier, you can't swing if don't have good time. As you record yourself, you should listen for points when your swing is uneven (which causes the swing to disappear). Sometimes it's fingering related so often it is good to go back and practice the errant area over and over until you hear that it sounds good. Another thing I do is sway the swing from 2:1 to 1:1 and feel the variation in the line. No one swings at the same ratio constantly. It's part of the effect to vary it (while keeping fixed time). I'd keep a single phrase consistent though or it will sound like you're going off time.

Willie Myette's radio show for this week fits right in with these lessons on AL. He talks about the 1/7 1/3 shells in the left hand 4 note groups for improvising in the right. I can't put my link up here, because I don't think it would work since I'm a member of the lesson club, but it can be accessed through his jazzedge site.

OK, more on swing. I think I've got the rhythm to an acceptable level, now I'm working on accenting the offbeats. And I'm not finding this especially easy. Maybe I just need to work my abs harder!

I've made a couple of recordings. This is 'No Problem' from Richard's Exploring Jazz Piano, and it would be fairly easy, were it not for the accents. What you will here is (1) 16 bars played as written in the book (2) 16 bars of Richard's improvisation, copied from the CD and (3) repeat of (1), but with a few embellishments, again copied by ear from the CD.

http://www.box.net/shared/3vkyn5xuf8

I've played it a lot slower than Richards, and so help me God I did my best with those accents. But it's not perfect, I think. So then I slowed it down even further and played it again.

http://www.box.net/shared/mirvlf981p

So, here are my questions. Am I getting there? Is it worth my while sticking at the ridiculously slow stage, and then speeding up gradually? Or should I work at it both ways? I mean, just how do you teach your fingers to do this?

My trouble is not so much accenting the offbeats, as stopping myself accenting the downbeats. It feels like, after walking perfectly well all my life, I'm asking myself to limp. Not only do I have to spend longer on one leg than the other, but the leg I spend a short time, I need to really stomp.

Or, am I expecting too much of myself, and I should just let it come naturally over a long period of time? I beginning to wonder if I should spend a bit of time playing just jazz, and not any other kind of music. I wondering whether it's too much to ask my fingers to sometimes play like this, and sometimes like that.

So, thanks to anyone who's made it this far. Any thoughts? How did other people master this?

Tlt,

I think the frustration might come from the fact that what you are playing is basically not Jazz. I'm not sure how much you could make this swing.

I think you are beyond the level of that book to be honest with you. When you played Groove blues, you played it well, and it swang. Still, there was plenty of room for improvement, and that would come in time, if you kept imitating Ledonne or others. But from this source, I'm not so sure.

That might be challenging to someone who has not played before or who cannot read, but again, I think you are beyond that level. You need to challenge yourself a lot more.

The Snidero books are fun, but if you don't want to play from sheet, no problem with that. Create your own solos, write them down using 8th notes, little more than 8th notes and rest. Create your own lines. You can do a lot with just Autumn Leaves.
You start from a flow of 8th notes, at least you'll get a chance to make it swing. Use all the theory you want, or all the ears you want. It doesn't matter. But write down a couple lines and make them swing.

As far as asking your fingers to do stuff, you should work on your technique every day. I do swing 8ths scales in all sorts of ways daily. And that's how the fingers get in shape. An other way is to transcribe non pianists. This will challenge your fingers in creative ways. Trust me.

One of the most difficult things to achieve as a student is find a routine that works for you. A good teacher will not impose a routine, but will give you assignments that will automatically create a balanced routine for you. In my views, your routine must include :
- Just technique - challenge tempos
- improvisation / Composition.
- Theory.
- Ear training
- Sight reading.

Some exercises might cover several things at once. Sometimes, you may not be able to do all everyday. For example, I either compose or transcribe, because each takes at least an hour.

However, I am sure to play scales and/or arpeggios every single day.

This is the huge value you will get out of a good teacher.

I do not want to judge the Richards' book from this, I do not own the book. I am fairly convinced you are past the level of what you recorded here.

take care.

TLT - I just listened. It sounds wonderful -- very much like Richards playing it.

This jazz business is not going to come overnight. Patience is needed here.

Knotty - this is just track 3 in the book...out of 39 tracks. It does get a lot more challenging very quickly.

Barb

Ah - scales, the bane of my life! How I've missed them! (not)

I was treating No Problem pretty much as scale practice, because that's mostly what it is.

So, how do you practice scales then? HT? RH only? Swing? Major? Pentatonic? I know all the major and minor scales.

I can analyze what the problem is with what you played there TLT.

First, your LH is just playing on downbeats which is what makes it lose the jazz sound. That's the problem with many of these books in that the written music may propagate something that we we're trying to break here. The LH should either play a Charleston rhythm or just whole notes. The steady beat on downbeats will make it sound like pop music.

Now on the RH, it's not an accent problem, we're back to those extreme triplet sound which is what I was also trying to break. Focus on the accents but don't overemphasize that triplet feel. Even out the eights some. Extreme triplet sound is 'Corny'.

Focus on the legato sound too. Keith Jarrett would make it sound like a singing human voice. Once you play written music, it shouldn't break the rules that we've been establishing here.

Now this isn't difficult stuff to fix and it's good you bring it out early.

When you were playing the Snidero piece it sounded good. Stick with that style.

A good practice in scales is quarter notes on the RH and eigths on the RH. A ratio of 1 against 2. Then play it slow first. Maybe 100-120bpm.

The LH is on the downbeat so the RH should accent when the LH is not playing. I just thought about this: to simulate jazz playing, stop playing the RH at points (creating different length phrases) and keep playing the scale in your head when the RH is silent. The RH can run through the scale up and down and during the silent moments, just don't make a sound. Just run up and down the scale.

Can you remember when to put the upbeat accents when you start stop?

If this is too difficult, just do it with RH only.

Are scales important? Like Knotty, I play scales and arpeggios every day. Although I don't practice swinging it. Mostly I'm practicing it at 16th notes (which is played straight) at 150bpm quarters as my starting point. I also mostly focus on my RH since playing something fast on the LH would just sound muddy. Usually I play LH against RH with a ratio of 1 against 4 which simulates a walking bass speed against RH sixteenth notes.

Dave, I missed this earlier note, but the comment is so apropos as it is exactly what we're talking about here. This was the first lesson I got from my current teacher. I think it is actually harder to practice to straighten out the eights and just use accents maybe that's why I can never communicate that here. Once a player can do that, you can add more swing but never overdone.

It is true that Bill Evans uses a hard swing style but as I said before, he only does that at fast tempos so it nveer gets to sound corny. At slower tempos, the triplet feel is even more emphasized.

practicing scales is easy, challenging and fun.

I swing them, and I sing them. You don't have to. That's part of the method I'm in.

You know them, but do you?

This is what I do. Basically Hanons, in all keys.
Some triplets, mostly swing 8ths.
Find a good tempo where your comfortable.

Then find a tempo where it's challenging. And play at that in all keys. Hanons are good challenges, they help with finger independence. When you start playing versions of them in triplets, it gets tricky.
I play them with metronome on 2 & 4.
80 (1/2 note) is a good tempo. 100 starts getting seriously fast.

I play hands separately. My LH is way behind my right. I don't really try to keep up. I don't have time for that. If you have 4 hours a day, by all means. I only get one or 2 hours a day, so I pick my keys, hands, tunes, scales etc...

If you make those exercises fun, then it really takes care of the technique side of things, so you don't really need to play tunes fast. Better play those rights. Be sure you know what you play. Don't skip over the hard part for example. You know, like in all the things you are, there's that part in E. If you play it at 150, it's easy to just skip it. Then you never play that part.

That's the other reason I think composing your own solos is an awesome place to start. This is where you apply as much theory as you want, or let your ear guide you. You take your time.
This is also where you get to find out what sound you like, and what you don't really like. Big leaps, small leaps, long rests, short rest, favorite scales, etc...

Try composing a solo on a simple tune like Just Friends for example. You will be surprised. When you actually stop and think, it's hard to choose the right notes. Those you really like.

I'd be curious to hear those challenging tunes from the book. In particular, I'd like to see if they are the right kind of challenging. if you see what I mean.
I think it's just fine to play chords on 1, or 1 & 3. No need to get fancy there. If you play 8th in the RH, you'll swing just fine. However, choose your voicings. Again, use ear or theory, but choose carefully. In Jazz, it's important to know fancy voicings.
One day you'll play with someone (maybe). You get fancy, garanteed, the first thing they'll tell you is to pad (play whole notes), and keep the voicings not too tense, or else, you get in the way. So it's important to know that.

as an example of what I'm talking about, here's a simple line in A minor. The voicings are standard Jazz voicings, that you can apply on the minor ii-V of Autumn Leaves. The chord is played just on one. The RH plays 8ths.
That qualifies as Jazz to me, despite the simplicity.

http://www.box.net/shared/mrtk0zy5fl

BTW Knotty - Belated Happy birthday. I meant to post that yesterday but I got sidetracked.

You're so right about LH vs. RH. Unfortunately as adult learners, we don't have excess time in our hands so my LH is behind. Fortunately, I have little reason to worry since it is so rare in jazz that the LH would even play faster than 150bpm quarter notes. No sixteenths. I figure I don't have to try matching Brad Mehldau in my lifetime. I'm putting in a little effort now on my LH since I'm now more advanced. But it would have probably been a waste of time at the beginning.

Even the RH is rarely asked to play fast. I do it more for headroom. I try to get my ears developed enough to hear the lines at fast speed. As my teacher demonstrated, there really is no difference between slow playing and fast playing. Same notes, except the ideas come faster, if you are able to execute it. And fortunately, eighth notes are still the foundation of jazz.

Talking about swing styles, I just want to show what can be done differently in Jazz. This is Brad Mehldau playing a Beatles tune as a Jazz Waltz.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5wy24_3yf0&feature=related

Listen to the way he positions his notes along the beat. It's pretty hard to comprehend sometimes but notice that he will deliberately land a note off center. Then he'll abrubtly cut off the note so that it ends perfectly wherever he wants to and it swings. But yet he's playing all the notes in between straight. This is almost utter contrast to the way Bill Evans plays. So instead of swing eighths it's all about positioning the note against the beat.

I haven't completely understood how he does this. Nor can I duplicate it. I've seen simple variations of this but not to this level of skill.

I know this is way, way beyond beginner jazz but it shows how much more there is to learn.

I'm kind of lost on the subtleties of swing. For me, when I play a piece, sometimes I'll play it straight and sometimes swing...I don't really think about variations in swing, although I know it can be fast, slow, or medium swing...I just either play it straight or swing or alternate...

I don't think I even want to start to break it down, because right now it's not a problem, but when I read some posts, it seems to be complicated.

For me, it's straight or swing....I really don't want to start obsessing about the variations of swing...is that wrong?

hey knotty and jazzwee,

talking about getting the left hand in shape, have you ever seen this video?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlMLKyfYqU8

Okay, you didn't address this to me, but I took lessons from a classical pianist named Antonio Iturrioz, who wrote a book called "The Art of the Left Hand," for a few months. You should check him out. He had an injury to his right hand, and for several years specialized in pieces written just for the left hand.

http://www.theartofthelefthand.com/

nikalette, that post was for you too, of course

i'm going to check out the link you put up right now.

Check out the clips from the DVD, especially the 2nd piece. Antonio is a gentle and brilliant soul.