When anyone has tried the Time exercises above, let me know if you think it is easy or not.

My experience - the 1st exercise shows you that it is not easy. But the improvement is palpable on a daily basis. The sooner you start the sooner you benefit.

I see threads up here say, "I don't use a metronome". Or Gyro doing Metronome bashing. The best sounding players are VERY TIGHT with their time. Without good time, we all continue to sound like poor amateurs. And this is not a jazz thing. It applies to all music.

TLT, my teacher has said many times that she's not nearly as concerned about wrong notes as about rhythm & dynamics. (& anyway, Kenny Wheeler says there are no wrong notes! )

I just Googled Transcribe for Mac, & it's possible to download a 30-day trial (for either Mac or Windows). Don't think I'll do it just yet - I'll wait till my skills improve enough to make better use of it. But it's nice to know it's available.

Jazzwee,

I am intrigued by the exercises described above. I'm not sure I get it. This is probably something that's best explained face to face?
For example, does it matter how long you hold the note, or do you just need to hold it for the same duration each time.

I tried and it didn't seem that hard to me. I'm pretty sure I hit the click. But with you watching, maybe the feedback would be different?

Knotty, depends on your style of music. In jazz, you would hit it like a quarter note (somewhat detached). You can try different lenghths, including staccato.

Exercise 1 is obviously easier. But can you do it with your pinky?

You see Time is a nerve impulse on EACH finger. When I did all this, the most difficult was the pinky on the LH.

If you can hit 60bpm exactly (burying the click), then move on to the next exercise.

The problem is judging how exact you are. If you're accurate, you should NOT hear the click. That's pretty hard to do. You may be right that you're not judging this maybe like I am. You could record it.

Now if you're playing whole notes, then of course you will hide the click but it's not at the moment of key depression necessarily. If you don't do a good job at the beginning, the later exercises will be more difficult.

OK, I have a question about harmony. I am learning a lovely blues number from Tim Richards book, in the key of G. Bars 9 and 10 (of 12 bar blues) which I would expect to be chord V (D) go D7, then Eb7 D7. Richards points this out, but doesn't give any kind of explanation beyond - it's there, and it's a twist on the conventional.

Is there any limit to these bizarre chords? Is there any rhyme or reason to them? What do I call it? I mean, if I'm in G then D is V and E is vi, but what is Eb?

I've come across A - Ab - G before instead of a ii-V-I, but I've not seen this one.

TLT, these are chromatic chords. When you see a chromatic chord, it is a sub for a chord a tritone away to give a ii-V relationship. So the chord to look at as the original functional chord is 'A7'.

Just remember that any dominant can be substituted by its Tritone equivalent since the 3 and 7 of the chords are the same. In essence, the chromatic chord of Eb7 sounds like A7Alt (same notes).

I think I laid this out in a lesson in this thread (Tritone substitution).

So in this case if D is a V chord, then the Eb7 is functioning as the V of a V chord. You can string a bunch of V of V chords to provide some variety to the sound and it implies a temporary modulation. As an alternative to V of V chords, you will see chromatic chords. Again, they are the same thing.

Got it.

OK, here is said blues number. This is not a final performance, I was thinking of doing this for the recital, but it needs more work, and feedback would be great.

Slow Blues in G, Tim Richards (Improvising Blues Piano)
http://www.box.net/shared/xbbzqfbyl4

I'm playing it from memory - more on this later. The LH part is written out completely. The RH head is written out and the improvisation is copied from Tim Richard's CD, using Transcribe. Of course, just hearing it you have nothing to compare it to, but I'd like to know if the RH phrasing is OK.

I'm playing it now without pedal, so I can hear all the glitches, though I think it needs pedal. Those LH stretches are really awkard for me.

I was also thinking I might write another chorus for it. I'm not even attempting to improvise over anything as complex as that baseline.

Making myself memorise has been interesting. I notice that I'm thinking first about chords, then notes, whereas when I read music, I think notes first and chords second, if I have time.

Anyway, any thoughts appreciated!

Wow - NICE tremelo!!! I've been trying to do that for ages, & still can't make it sound good.

I've got to run so just a quicky comment from now ----

Your piano tone is gorgeous TLT! That right hand is perfect stylistically!

wow - I like that word - perfect. I did work quite hard on doing it like on the CD. Not exactly note for note, but trying to copy the spirit of what he played.

Joy - thanks.

TLT -- that piece sounded as good as the CD rendition. You definitely caught the spirit of those Blues. So, what is the trick for that tremolo?

Barb

TLT-the blues piece, very s m o o t h! Just great! There sure is alot of inspiration here!

TLT, so to continue...

There should be no pedal in Blues and I can't hear where you would need it. It would muddy it up here. That's why I was observing the beautiful tone in your playing absent pedal. It's perfect the way it is. Your time is very good, and contrary to Gyro, this really sounds great because it is in perfect time.

Now for more perfection, you could even out the left hand touch more. That's also where time can be improved on. I like how you balanced the LH and RH volume. It's just right. And the phrasing on the RH is the right kind of legato that we should here in Jazz (no matter the tempo).

You should compose your own melodies similar to this. I did that a lot in the early stages. But when you do, just be aware of what you're picking out and why (meaning apply all the chord tone concepts we've talked about here). Of course you already know to add the bluesy slide note which can be done on b5->5 also.

Remember what I told you about allocation of time between learning all other things and improvisation. I was blindly improvising in the 1st year. Of course it didn't sound great, but I had no fear as long as I was in the scale. I hope you do that at least in private (no need to post ).

Great job! I'm glad you're ready for recital. I'll just probably rustle up something at the last minute.

Thanks for all the comments, guys!

Listening to Tim Richard's CD for this book - a lot of it is very uninspired. He says in the comments he mostly didn't improvise because of space considerations. This is one of the few tracks where he improvises. And when I heard it I just stopped what I was doing and said - wow - I want to sound like that. So I thought I would give it a bash, even though I know I'm not improvising at all, and can't hope to over that baseline.



If I knew that, I would write a book on it and make my millions!

Seriously though, I do a tremolo of a 3rd between fingers 2 and 4. If I try 1 and 3, or 3 and 5 it doesn't come out nearly so smooth. Then I just treat it like a classical trill. I spent many hours as a child trilling on table-tops. Only in this one, I liked the sound of starting it out slow and building up the speed.

I struggle much more with the octave trill in some things.

The LH is different for the head and the solo. For the solo I have a bass note on beats 1 and 3, and upper harmonies on beats 2 and 4. I lift my hand - all sounds fine.

For the solo I have a broken chord, stretched out over a 10th. I'm supposed to hold the bass note down while playing the upper part of the chord. Now, I can reach an octave. So my choices are, to use pedal, or to lose the full length of the bass notes.

Now, as I played it, I lost the length of the bass notes. There are a few places I could cover the LH upper notes with the RH - and it sounds better. Honest, it sounds loads better. Howeveer, I can't keep it up - so then it sounds inconsistent, which is even worse. Plus, I have found that to 'think harmony' - I need to let the LH take care of that by itself, or I get all confused.

So - all in all - keep away from the pedal and accept the size God made my hands?



The LH could be more even. Problem is I have this wrist problem (guitar-related injury). It hurts when I pivot.



I was noticing how he makes his melody lines. A lot of it is in the pickup.



Good point!



I look forward to hearing it. Them that can rustle, should rustle!

This one's all jazzwee's fault:

http://www.box.net/shared/ryn8io8auq

Wow TLT! You're really showing off today! That's great work with 3rds!

BTW - on your two note improvisations, how about trying full eighth notes instead of the 16th pickup? That way you start relaxing a little on that...

TLT -- I just loved your Blue Monk. Excellent work.

Barb

I tried at first, couldn't do it. Then noticed Richards wrote out the fingering. Now, for all the I curse the man for giving me fingering I can't reach, this fingering works. Let me know if you want it, it made a huge difference, and I really couldn't have worked it out for myself.





uh - I thought that was a quaver.

Well then the swing is over-exaggerated...

Notice how different that phrasing is from the Blues phrasing that you've been doing. What changed from reading notes to improvisation?

This is really a good exercise. Write out an improvised line and study your phrasing. Match those blues tunes. Very legato.

TLT, yes, please post. I looked at my fingering from Blue Monk and am thinking now that my fingering was more complex than it had to be. After all these years, I tried a different one (based on listening to you) and I wondered to myself why I never did it this new way.

Well the bad news is that I learned the original fingering from a Classical teacher. Now can I undo it after all this time? I can really play it pretty fast with this complex fingering now...

On your question of fingerng tenths, I just want to ask: Are you learning Jazz/Blues or Classical?

This is not Classical so make up your own notes. Just because Richards plays with tenths doesn't mean you have to. You can create alternate effects with two hands for example, and not necessarily copying the original. That's part of the Jazz challenge is to create alternatives to voicings, solos, tempos.

You'll have to decide if you'll be in the 'sheet music' category

Blue Monk, key of Bb, in 3rds.

First phrase:
Bb and D - 2 and 4
C and Eb - 1 and 3
C# and E Nat - 2 and 4
D and F - 3 and 5

Second phrase:
Eb and G - 2 and 4
F and Ab - 1 and 3
F# and A nat - 2 and 4
G and Bb - 1 and 3

Edit:
Phrase 3 later.

I'll tell you what I did and it will be interesting to compare to your fingering...

It's the 3rd phrase that's at issue for me and that is the move from
Db and E - 2 and 4
C and E - 2 and 4 (I kept 2/4 here with the intent of freeing the thumb).

So what I was doing was keeping finger 4 somewhat in place for legato while the 2 slid down to the C.

But now looking back, I realize that I could keep finger 4 at Eb (to maintain legato) while moving the thumb back to F.

So, alternatively, I could have done
Db and E - 2 and 4
C and E - 1 and 4
Then still holding 4 down, I could move 1 to F. It still sounds legato.


So all these years I was doing 2/4 to 2/4 which is very hard to do cleanly. Except now I can do it

This is clearly a case of the classical teacher overthinking the technique because of not knowing the tune. The issue is legato and now FINALLY I have the independent brains to decide that there was an alternative!

Now what was the Richards way?

Dang! it got deleted. Third phrase again:
D and F - 1 and 3 (that's the secret)
Eb and G - 2 and 4
D and F - 1 and 3
C# and E - 3 and 5
C nat and Eb - 2 and 4

etc, etc, etc.

Smoothe as a baby's bottom.

That's a big difference! It does seem better.

I was using
D and F - 1 and 4
Eb and G - 3 and 5
D and F - 1 and 4
C# and E - 2 and 4
C and Eb - 2 and 4 (which I wanted to change).

Amazing...:)

That's the thing. You think: D and F, and I have to go down. So you don't think to use 1 and 3. But you need to.

Pass. I'm not sure what you mean. I just keep doing Blue Monk, and I do that bass line because I like it. If I have the strength to do anything, however simple, with the RH, I do it. Maybe a 3rd or a root.

But I have been doing some noodling too.

You're right, though the 10ths are there because they sound good. Today I was able to pay more attention to how the LH was moving, and that helped. Probably a good skill to learn.

Phrasing is something that is a language in Jazz and it is based on Blues phrasing. It follows some fairly fixed rules. As you learn anything in Blues just make sure you actually can repeat the same phrasing in a different context. It's stuff I talk about here. Like when is an eighth note short, or long, quarters detached.