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

Jazzwee - Thank you for that heads up. I love that tune --- I love all of Monk. I enjoyed your rendition. Very, very nice. Your lessons are really paying off.

Hey, you play a mean guitar.

TLT, listen to this:

Swing Snippet

You will hear

1. Straight Eighths
2. Swing Eights
3. Eighth Pair Starting on Downbeat
4. Eighth Pair Starting on Upbeat

This is the basics right here. These are the extreme or "Hard" version of swing (meaning very uneven eighths). Often a teacher will start with this and play simple melodies but using this kind of phrasing.

In practice (as you will hard the modern artists play like Jarrett and Mehldau), it will sound between #1 and #2 with the most important characteristic being the smooth legato sound.

So let's stick to this as the other explanations are too advanced.

Now on LESSON 3. Before you do that lesson, you have to be comfortable playing all the chords using 1/7 on the left hand.

1 = Root
7 = 7th of the chord (it may be a Maj7 or a b7 depending on the chord).

Root is played with the pinky and 7th is played with the thumb. This is played instead of chords and is placed in the register below middle C. The thumb will not cross middle C.

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Side comment: Although this sounds awfully simple, the two tunes I play that are in the June Piano Bar are played only with 1/7 on the LH. The rest are filled by the RH. So this is a basic skill that will be used forever.

This kind of voicing gives a good solid bass sound and the actual extra notes are crammed between the thumb and forefingers of both hands. This gives a non-muddy chord sound.

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(note that I did not discuss 1/3. Not important right now).

Here's my next offering:
http://www.box.net/shared/mqh0vf96sd

What I've done is: LH 1/7, Charleston.
RH *detached* crotchets (now why were they so difficult?) 1st chorus melody, 2nd chorus improvising 3,5,7,9 of the chord, with plenty of rests.
Amp set to 'swing'.

I've spent a fair bit of time just drilling pretty boring stuff, so hopefully this is now something worth listening to!

Jazzwee - I understand about this being a jazz group, not an Autumn Leaves group. 'Fraid I don't get the 'swing sample' above. Without any rhythmic context, it just sounds like random rhythms and accents to me. I have ordered a book on jazz which I'm hoping will fill in some of the more basic blanks for me.

while I'm downloading this, you must notice the difference between #1 and #2 right?

#1 has no swing.
#2 has swing

So you have to practice being able to duplicate #2

I'm so proud of you TLT! That was quite an accomplishment!

There are many things you accomplished there that was amazing. First you did the Charleston perfectly on the left hand. Next you were playing the Quarters short (detached). That was perfect.

And the most amazing part was the improvisation. Again very well done.

Keep doing this more and than instead of Quarter notes, start mixing in the Eighth notes. Occasionally only at first. That's where that swing exercise above comes in. That swing sound doesn't appear in what you're playing because you're not using Eighth notes yet so it sounds out of context.

One more thing to advance your skill a little, play the improv just slightly behind the beat. Just drag your RH a little. It will happen when you relax.

This is fantastic!

TLT -- way to go! You are going to progress nicely in this thread. I can't wait to hear your next improvisation.

Barb

Thanks guys!

For quavers - do I still stick to the notes of the chord?

Also, do you have any other suggestions for rhythms in the LH? Maybe beats 2 and 4, or even 1 and 4?

Left hand, the only alternative you should practice is playing whole notes on Beat 1. Do not play beat 2 and 4. Also it is not always necessary to play on the LH at every charleston beat. Pros will play the LH mostly on quiet times.

When playing eighths, you can mix in other notes of the scale but at this early stage I would only use them as approach notes to the chord tones, and only use non-chord tones on upbeats.

One thing to try now is repeats. Repeated note patterns are GOOD. It is not necessary that each phrase be unique. A typical blues approach is to repeat a line 2 times and then vary it slightly a third time.

OK, here goes:

http://www.box.net/shared/rv7aoqyzak

Quavers included. All I focussed on was getting them in there, and trying to get the phrasing. I realise, listening to the recording, that sometimes I have got the phrasing as I wanted it, and sometimes it's just perpetual staccato. Anyway, I wasn't thinking about accents *at all*.

The phrasing is no different from how I would treat Mozart. Except, with Mozart, I read off a page and do it the same every time, whereas here, I need to think for every phrase.

I also realise that the recording has blips in it - bit where it misses a fraction of a beat. I would blame my poor time-keeping, but the amp is out too, so it's just the limits of my technology, not my technique!

TLT - very, very nice. You have a good handle on this stuff. Keep following our leader here. Jazzwee will take you to faraway places.

That's what I do - I have faith!

hehehe the blind leading the blind...



Well done TLT! You already have a natural swing so just play your eights VERY Legato. And it will already improve 100% just from that.

You are very comfortable with improvising so just keep trying different things.

Mix arpeggiated lines in there (of the chord) with step-wise lines (of the scale).


Moazart does not sound like this

Now, I want you to know, I *am* expecting a desert island paradise!

Mozart does not sound like this, but this is how I approach a phrase in Mozart. Emphasise the first quaver, very light touch, almost staccato, on the last. That's what I was taught, anyway.

You mention 'the scale' - which one? G/E min? I'm getting a bit confused with my scales these days...

tlt,

I thought your choice of notes was really good.
The first thing I would do is kill the drum machine. This is probably a crutch right now.
Play to a metronome instead.

And then to improve your phrasing, at the risk of sounding like a broken record:
Play / sing on top of Louis Armstrong. This is the key. The lines are awesome, there's a lot of play on rhythm and expression. This is the quickest and surest way to develop swing. I'm talking early 20s stuff. Struttin', Cornet Chop Suey, that stuff.

Good to see you back Knotty.

Excellent advice for TLT. Not that I'm holding back TLT, but I just want to see what happens if you transform your eighth notes(quavers) to legato. I heard you play the blues and you have a natural swing and don't realize it. That may be the best kind. Maybe you're not really from Scotland.

The scale is the G scale (which of course has the same notes as Em). The only difference with Mozart is to accent the 2nd and 4th eighth in the bar instead of the first. But I wouldn't worry about that right now. One step at a time. Legato first. Short last note is very good (same as Mozart).

Hi knotty!



Interesting. I don't normally play to the metronome or the machine. I normally just play! But when I tried playing to the amp, what I found was that it frees me from the feeling that I need to fill *every* beat with something.

I'm very much just experimenting just now. I'm not even sure exactly what I'm trying to achieve.



I have some Louis Armstrong. Will listen to him some more!

That's it. I can only really concentrate on one thing at a go. Meanwhile, the LH is feeling more natural and taking up less brain-space.



I really am! But I've never tossed a caber...

I have an acute sense of rhythm. Sometimes too acute. I bought a book on blues, it said treat swing as triplets (or 12/8), that's what I did and you heard the result. Then you said that's a common misconception, to treat swing as triplets. Now, I don't have a problem with there being different opinions or different interpretations, or 'swing' meaning one thing in blues and something different in jazz. But then, I couldn't understand what you were saying swing is, not in words and not musically. :)So I thought, fine, I'll just play this straight.

One thing at a time, we'll get there!

Right, the secret to jazz is listening. Everyone knows that, right?
So you have 2 options, listen to a variety or jazz musicians for many years.
Or, listen to one record, one solo, but learn all the notes, how they're played. Copy-cat the guy. It's like listening on steroids. You're really paying attention.
You will develop many things extremely fast. Your ear will get sharp, your sense of swing will get better. It's important to do this away from the piano, because if you can't swing while swinging along to Louis' trumpet solo, you will not be able to swing at the keyboard.
People tend to think Louis' sound is old. The recordings are old. The lines are fresh, still are, you will be amazed by how clean, simple and melodic they are when you listen close. You will get more out of listening to Armstrong than you will listening to Coltrane, unless you are ready for Coltrane. see what I mean?

As for filling every beat, don't worry about that. Let the keys ring. It's fine to play a chord every 4 beats.
In your recording, you obviously made it an exercise of independence, and that's cool.
From a listener's point of view, one chord on the 1 of each measure is fine.