I had such an incredible practice today. I had just been working on technical things the last few weeks related to speed. Today, I started playing ATTYA starting at 220bpm. Surprisingly I wasn't even breaking a sweat and was very relaxed. So I upped it to 240bpm. Still ok. I kept doing this until I was playing ATTYA full on with eighth notes at 280bpm which is the maximum on my metronome. I couldn't believe it!

Dave, you would be proud, you're my influence in this area.

I was very relaxed doing it and no tension at all. In fact I was doing it for over an hour and I didn't feel any strain.

I was also working on the LH soloing with the RH. LH is definitely feeling more in control so short melodic phrases are now coming out but I feel the LH is still rhythmically strained.

So someday, if anyone wants to learn how I went through this phase, just ask. I developed my own specific exercises based on spotted weaknesses. To play fast requires really full control of arm weight and finger velocity, and relaxation. So I had to recall a lot of my classical technique teacher taught me. What shocked me about what I achieved here was that I was able to go from my typical solo speed of 180bpm to probably 300bpm in a short time span. I don't think it's even been 3 months since I started this.

Of course I already had the basic skills since I could do scales at a pretty fast clip. Faster than I would ever have to solo. So it seems like scales is a necessity. I cheated though since I focused mostly on RH scales and 90% of the time I built my speed using the C and Db Scales. This means that speed transfers to everything that anyone does, not just what you're specifically practicing.

Though playing fast is not a requirement in jazz, what it does is allow the player to vary the texture more and whatever technical skills gained from playing fast seemed to also translate to better tone.

Way to go jazzwee. You are definitely burnin up those keys. That is such wonderful news. I am very excited for you.

Will you be shocking your teacher, or does he know that you have been working diligently on developing speed?

This thread is amazing. I know for a fact that we have lurkers on this thread. I keep having my boxnet links downloaded from here.

Your newer Reharmoniztion thread using Nursery Rhymes is also an amazing thread. Your PW presence deserves many .

Barb

That's fantastic jazzwee!

What it shows is the power of relaxation, and also the power of warming up properly. I bet you couldn't shred like that if you came to the keyboard cold.

I also agree with you about scales.

Thanks Barb and TLT.

On warming up, I never warm up. From the very beginning I trained myself to never need to warm up since as Jazz player, I figure I'd always be asked to play cold. So I never worry about. I've always done my technical practice at the end, not at the beginning to promote this. Just my way. Strange?

:waving icon inserted here:

Congratulations, jazzwee - it's a trip, isn't it, when speed finally comes. It's happened to me sometimes, too.

Cathy

Thanks Cathy. And yes, even when the thread is not visible, there's continuous daily downloads so we have a bunch of lurkers out there. Hopefully they'll start asking questions.

Hey Jazzwee, that sounds really exciting. You should record one of your sessions at some point.

take care.

The lurkers here are amazing. Someone has been downloading my first attempt at Autumn leave, my second attempt, the third.... attempts number 12, 13, 14, etc, the arpeggio exercise, etc, etc. I find it really amazing that anyone would find all of that interesting!

Also, I would also like to hear jazzwee again.

Don't worry. I will record soon. In fact, maybe I'll get in to the Recital and even the November forum. It's just extremely busy right now and TLT, thanks for the break last week

I don't know who these lurkers are. Maybe not even the regulars in ABF. But there's sure a ton of them possibly learning with us.

So playing fast consistently is the easy part, I found. I was playing a slow ballad at 70bpm. Much harder. In ballads you shift from quarters, to eighths (so quarters at 140), then to 16ths, which sounds like Eighths at 280bpm.

Now I can do 280bpm eighths fine because of all the practice. But it is hard to shift gears from quarters to eighths to triplet eighths to sixteenths in a ballad, particularly from quarters to 16ths. It is such a big jump and you have no time reference. Often I end up being off a beat. Frustrating!

I think what most people do is keep the sixteenths short, so you can always re-orient yourself to the time reference. I need a lot more practice with this...

hey jazzwee, that's great! i'll bet you be playing at 300 bpm and over in no time.

hey Dave, I was playing at 300bpm (I stopped there). 280bpm was the limit of my metronome. Isn't that great? I tried to duplicate your finger movements and patterns and I couldn't do it. So when I solved it (slowly analyzing each move), it worked! Took a couple of months.

I've been studying Herbie Hancock and I came across this

Herbie Hancock - Autumn Leaves Part 1

Herbie Hancock - Autumn Leaves Part 2

Listen to the way he plays. Straight eighths with very distinct upbeat accents. Then sometimes he'll syncopate with downbeat accents for short periods for effect. You'll also hear him pull back (time wise) by lengthening the accented upbeat.

For me personally, I'm studying his syncopation style.

Chick's version. Neat stuff popping up on Youtube.

Chick Corea - Autumn Leaves/with Bobby McFerrin

It would be interesting to see Chick's reharmonization of AL. Sounded cool.

Again for a swing style comparison, Chick swings (later in the video) with an extremely straight style -- very even eighths.

Here's an ATTYA improv with a syncopated style ala Brad Mehldau. But my time is a bit off. I'm getting used to the LH/RH syncopation thing. So this is like practice stage here. Single take. It's pretty fast tempo wise. Maybe close to 240bpm.

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

Jazzwee,

That was awesome, very creative, great time. I really enjoyed that. That piano sounded good, too.

Hi Jazzwee - I am speechless. Really -- you are amazing. You have entered a new dimension in your playing.

I say:
Move over, Mehldau.
Jazzwee is starting to breathe down your neck!

You two are so kind. Knotty, how can you say the time was good? My eighth notes were going off time a little. It's because it was too fast. It's probably 250bpm. I have a couple of weeks to clean it up...

I did discover something that allows me to understand what Mehldau is doing finally. It was a revelation that occurred while studying Herbie. I was over-analyzing Mehldau. Then I listened to everyhing he was doing and he was repeating the same thing in ALL his records.

Hey, I could have told ya that, Jazzwee. Once he finds something good, he uses it -- and uses it --- and uses it!

no man, you slipped a couple times but it absolutely doesn't matter. It's a good idea to clean it up a bit, but it's really great nonetheless.

after you have you've submitted to the recital, you should record one for AL give us some ideas.

++

Knotty, I could play the exact same style in AL. In fact I was doing that yesterday. But this was terribly fast. If I just slowed it down a tad it would not stress me out. I cringe with my time disasters. If my teacher were present he would stop me immediately and slow me down.

You know most people don't appreciate Jazz so I was thinking of doing a ballad for the Recital. It was already stretching it to submit it to the 'Bar'. But you guys know what goes into this. It's tough.

that's because Jazz has become music for musicians.


Just play what makes you happy. Seems like you've been working on this stuff for quite a while now, so in my mind, it's recital worthy.

++

Actually Knotty, you'd be surprised. I actually stopped working on this stuff and just focused on technique for awhile. Then yesterday, while I was analyzing Mehldau, I just clearly saw what he was doing and just pounced on the keyboard.

I saw a couple of things that was really interesting. If I can just keep my time good at this tempo, and just relax so I can focus on the melody, it really does follow Mehldau's style. I'd say 6 months from now, I'd come close.

What's funny was that I was actually studying Herbie and then I realized that what Mehldau was doing was just a more exaggerated form of what Herbie was doing. And what Mehldau was doing was also similar to what Fred Hersch was doing (his teacher). Then a lightbulb turned on

The key word is "Syncopation".

Hey jazzwee, you're going places!

I am speechless!

Wow TLT, what a compliment! Thanks.

I was trying to copy this. Let me know if you hear the similarities. I can't do part 1 yet (LH stuff) so compare only against Part 2. Obviously my biggest problem right now is technical (time). But I think I can work that out in the short term. Also I was a little tense so I was getting repetitive.

Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph48xoGjl1c&feature=related
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPMQ3R28KXU&feature=related

Here's another ATTYA Take. This time I just did regular swing just for comparison to the "Mehldau"-like try. As far as who this emulates. Just me I guess.

http://www.box.net/shared/jyax0vnzbu

The Mehldau style is not to swing from the eighth notes but to swing from syncopation. This version is a laid back medium tempo and the swing is from the eighth notes.

An incredible two handed version of ATTYA by Keith Jarrett (Bach Style). Never seen/heard this before. Solo Piano.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVV2vIwz1TA&feature=related

hey jazzwee,

i just heard that recently on youtube.

that's some pretty serious playing!

hey jazzwee,

i like what you played in your new attya recordings. nice!

also, thanks for posting the herbie autumn leaves video. i was playing along with that today, trying to cop some of his phrases. i love the way he slips and slides in and out of the changes. i'm always trying to get more of that into my playing.

Yes I can hear the basic contrapuntal idea. Brad is sharper in his timing, but I prefer your versions, jazzwee, especially the first, but also the second one you posted. You stay close enough to the theme (or dip back into it from time to time) whereas Brad, to my ears, goes awol. I also like your endings. They make me smile. It's like you're saying, 'yes I can do all this fancy stuff, but... all the things you are, are mine!'