Recently, I've been focused on vocalizing to improve my time and stay on form. I don't vocalize with a pitch reference. It's more rhythmic vocalization and sometimes it's just a mouth and tongue thing and I'm just whispering. I see Chick Corea do this all the time. (Typically I mouth cha-ka-cha-ka-cha-ka or chi-ka-chi-ka. I think of it as a drum thing).

My problem is that I don't find tapping the foot accurate enough. It can wander and there's not enough subdivisions. I can use my vocalizations to do time subdivisions. If anything, my problem is that I forget to always keep doing this. If I can just train myself to always do it, my time will improve.

I always play with better time (and swing) when I've done this. I've only started this in the last few months so it's new for me.

Custardapple, I have the lead sheet to Anthropology on my website if interested.
www.7notemode.com

To answer your other question. On youtube, I get a lot of emails asking me how to practice, how to learn a new song, etc.,so I wrote some copy about it and saved it. This is what I send out when asked. Here it is:

I have my own ritual for learning a new song. I don’t follow it myself like I should, but try it once and see if it works for you. One of the things I like about this ritual is that the practice of all the different playing style variations are built into the process of learning the song.

1) Figure out the structure of the song first - AABA, how many measures, repeats, etc. before playing the first note. Many tunes are irregular, but I get the structure in my head first. Find a couple of recordings of the tune you like and listen to them before playing the song. Vocalizing the head before playing the first note would be ideal.

2) I learn the melody playing with both, repeat: both hands locked together in octaves. Actively ignore chord changes. Memorize melody with no chord changes first - very important. Use a metronome that clicks only on two and four.

3) Play RH melody, focus on learning chord changes and comping with LH. Work out an arranged left hand comp. Those arranged elements will come back in other tunes as improvisations later.

4) Play LH melody, focus on learning chord changes and comping with RH. Again arrange the right hand comp, keep it simple, as the point is to learn the tune in as many playing configurations as possible.

5) Comp with both hands together, focusing exclusively on the chord changes. Again arrange your two handed comp. This will go in your toolbox and can be pulled out and used in other tunes later on.

6) Play the melody and work out a walking bass in the LH. Just the melody in the RH and an arranged walking bass line in the LH. No chords.

7) Every thing up to now has been about playing the melody, except for the two hand comping. Only now do I start to improvise. Improvise in the following order: RH w/LH comp, LH w/RH comp, Both hands locked in octaves, RH with walking bass in LH.

8) Finally: play the piece (slowly and badly) in the tritone key- just the melody in RH with the chord changes in the LH. It will fry your brain, but you see the song differently afterward.

I wish I actually did all of the above, but it is my “ideal” that I strive for.

I hope this summary is in some way useful.

Hi All,

Here's my progress so far: I started learning the melody last night by listening to the original version (Miles, Shorter et al), but I started away from the piano and was finding that some of the intervals in the middle section were off until I went to the piano to verify what I thought I was hearing.

After getting a bit frustrated listening to the original I checked out some other versions on Youtube, and tried to avoid looking at what the keyboard players were doing, but rather to listen to them instead. During the whole process of initially trying to learn the melody I realized I was trying to learn the changes at the same time and I kept on getting distracted with how the melody offered me so many possible choices for reharm. However, I still didn't really know the changes, so I wasn't happy about calling it reharm yet.

I then checked out some versions where I could hear the bass line better than the original version, which for some reason had a poor quality sound and I just couldn't hear the bass at all. Once I moved the computer (laptop) onto the piano and played along to learn the bass the whole song fell together for me.

With the bass line, and the help of listening to some guitar players, and piano trio versions I realized the chord changes were actually really simple to learn. I'm still not certain of the voicings or all of the alts/extentions per se but I'm not sure how accurate the versions on Youtube are either.

In the original version the melody (and the form that it appears to be based on) indicates to me that there are many possible chords that could go with it.

I'm also looking at the bass as stacked 4ths, both perfect and tritone, and their subs and then the form became easier for me to see (and to find ranges of chords I could play.)

What I found is that the bass could be constructed as such: Ab, Db, G, C (sometimes F#), B (sometimes to F), E/A (to Bb), A (to Eb), E, A, Bb, B, E, Eb, (sometimes to Bb) A, A (sometimes Eb). Just looking at that suggests to me that the chords choices were probably tritone subs with alterations when they weren't pure chords (like Ab maj when it is occasionally played).

So, The chords seem to be Abmaj, Dbmaj, Gmin7b5 (or with b9 as well), C alt, B13b5(or F alt), Amaj7 #11 (Eb7 #11), E9, A13sus, Bb alt, B13 sus, Esusb5, Eb7#11(or A7alt).

Are these close? Try them to see for yourselves.

In any case this is how far I've gotten. Talk to you all soon!

Ok then, what DO you do? That's what I'm really curious about.

Sceptical, Actually, that is how I learn a new song most of the time.

7, Oh, I see. The way you phrased it made it seem like it was an ideal, but perhaps only done when you're really intent on learning something in a serious way.

Also, you didn't mention how you actually learn the melody and changes. From a book or from recordings primarily and why? I ask because it seems when I learn from a book, like I used to do frequently my understanding of the song would be more superficial because of the ease of entry, so to speak. But if I force myself to learn it only by ear I find that the learning goes deeper probably because of the amount of repetitions of I need to hear certain things, and then those things make much more sense rather than just being changes that I need to play.

And for everyone: The Nefertiti that I'm now learning I'm completely convinced Shorter based the whole thing on the two types of 4ths and the resulting harmonies. Anyone else finding this, or something contrary?

...and it occurs to me that maybe what I'm doing may appear naive, and perhaps it is, but it is allowing me to believe that I have a better understanding of how the song actually was constructed by reducing it down to what I think are it's basic elements. I'd really appreciate any comments on this approach...

Another update:

Now I am breaking it down further using the 4ths, and then going to look at reconstructing from there so now I see the chords as:

Ab to Db to Gb (F#) to B to E to A to D to B to E to A to D (as the Ab as the beginning of the song again.) Some of the tonal centres stay longer than others. If you superimpose the pure major triads over the bass line everything works out. You can also extend the reharm to start the whole thing on D too (D to G to C to F etc and get the actual chords in many case that are used.)

At some point we'll link up here but I did GBPPH. I just finished memorizing the melody and just made sure I could remember the baseline. I noticed this tune seems to almost be like a walking bass line the way the chords run.

Well of course I should expect that from Mingus.

I did a pass through of voicings, rootless just to get a feel of the harmony. It's actually amazing how rich the harmony is without even doing anything special other than voicing the chords as is.

Here's my usual method of learning:

1. Listen to the tune first so that I can remember the melody.

2 Learn the melody while I play a shell voicing (root-7) in my LH, to get a sense of how the melody fits in the harmony.

3. Fill out the voicings LH only (rootless).

4. Sit down and analyze the progression. Mark 2-5-1's and Key centers.

5. Plan out two-handed voicing of the head.

6. Rough out the solo based on analysis.

7. Looking at Tune structure closely, look for connections in the progressions by analyzing common tones so the tune sounds like a whole. Or in other words, look for a horizontal theme and move away from vertical playing.


I've only gotten to #3. A couple of hours of work so far. #7 is pretty long term. Usually, I'd have to listen to the tune a million times (exaggeration ) to get it.

But in this particular tune, it's actually easier since the melody itself has a repetitive motif and all one has to highlight are the chord tones of the changes alongside it.

This is such a pretty tune. It's pretty similar to Round Midnight, I find.

7note, why do you feel this is important? I've never focused on this unless it's Oleo or Spain. I'm not sure I'd really want to learn Donna Lee in unison I might break my fingers.

Also once I've studied the tune for two-handed voicing, I guess that's automatically a comping (removing the melody).

JW, The sneaky answer is that it teaches the left hand how to swing so it can later take solo's.
Another answer is that this is how horn players take in musical information and is a different way for piano players to process new musical information. If you play the melody to a metronome in time, you are more likely to get the rhythm and phrasing down without the distraction of harmony.

The other reason is that this is most consistent with how we developmentally embrace musical knowledge. A child will listen to a song and learn to recognize it. Then they will learn to hum it or sing it on their own. That is the first way any of us 'learn' a song. These are the most primitive and robust neurological pathways for acquiring musical information. Playing single line melody is the shortest path from humming to reproducing the sound on piano, so it is a very fundamental type of knowing of a tune. Rhythm is even more recognizable than melody to young children and is an even more robust neural pathway.

But only when the rhythms are a part of that culture in some way or form. From my observations, I've found for the most part that when a student wants to reproduce a rhythm that is unfamiliar to them they will reduce it to something already familiar. For example North Americans trying to learn South American Rhythms and how they will have their cultural accent, if you will, attached to the rhythm. No?

Well as long as you're being sneaky about it, I guess it's fair My LH has been ignored for so long so I've begun to work on it specifically. I actually frequently use ATTYA as my platform and I let the LH solo by itself.

Another update:

I was curious and checked my real book to see the changes for Nefertiti. Some are wrong or in the slightly wrong place. Well, not completely, but definitely don't address the complexity of the chords involved. The rhythm is also wrong at the beginning too. But now I feel I have a deeper understanding of how they arrived at the changes, and can play it with more confidence than if I looked at the book first.

To clarify, I don't necessarily think that the changes or rhythm in the book are bad, and nor would I condemn anyone for learning tunes from books, but I've come to realize that for me to say I know a tune means that I need to approach it from my ears rather than eyes guiding the ears.

Thoughts? Comments?

Also, I've started to relearn GBPPH again. Such a great tune. However, for expedience sake after playing the melody from memory (because I 'learned' the piece before) I tried to reconstruct the changes. I got most right, but the ones I didn't get I did something equally as pleasing. In the case of this tune, from what I gather it is all i iv, V7, and chords based on the blues scale and their tritone subs. This is what made it easy to make it sound good (but wrong if trying to replicate the actual changes) by inserting any combination of chords based on the above.

So, Jazzwee,(or others) is this piece a candidate for reharm since that is how it started out in the beginning? I could see doing some ostinato stuff, or chordal reduction stuff that I might post.

JW and 7
Many thanks to both, I’ve printed out your tips and am comparing them. Once I start applying, I will come back with more questions/issues.
Initially I’m going to try the Dave Frank “New York New York” method to maximize the swing thought process for 8th notes. Combining both your methods, I will vocalize the rhythm before playing a note and I won’t worry about the tune when I vocalize so that I can concentrate on the swing.

sceptical, Beeboss already reharmed GBPPH so the door has been opened! I'm not as sophisticated as you guys that I can reharm a new tune. I think I'd have to really play the tune for awhile.

For example, should I really be thinking blues scale here? Or if I'm going to think Chick, I would think ALT which opens up more doors. This is really an exciting tune because the melody allows you to wander around the chords.

Skeptical, Nefertiti is so specific in it's voicing, I think looking at the book is mandatory on that one. That said, learning the melody and approximating the chords by ear is a really good exercise.

My apologies for the self reference, but here is a link to GBPPH I did a while back and posted to YT. The reharm was more of a revoicing to homogenize the sound. Strange. I don't remember doing it, and I don't remember any of those voicings.

Goodbye Pork Pie Hat on YouTube

7note, self reference is encouraged! This is really great reference for me. I may really build up your view counts here

BTW - Your LH is amazingly adept!

This is a really great jamming tune. I'm glad I'm learning it.

Quite an original approach on Goodbye Pork Pie Hat (solo piano). This is turning out to be an exciting project though perhaps more complex in its potential.

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

I'm not sure what you mean. Are you referring to what Herbie did on the original recording or something else? I couldn't really get a grip on what he was doing as far as specific voicings, and I didn't really like them that much either when it came right down to it! To tell you the truth, I arrived at the chords from the bottom bass note played by the bass player up combined it with the melody notes, and used my theory knowledge to fill in the gaps. Anything that I couldn't hear in the original I went to the Youtube performances and heard their takes, most of which it turns out seem to be lifted from the real book.

By the way, the real book I'm talking about is the original one written by the Berkelee Profs and students way back when. I've actually seen updated versions of some songs with the real changes and some tunes are radically different, but in any case I've never seen voicings specified in most real book charts I've read. Did I misunderstand something? I think so, but I'll let you explain, if you would. Thanks!

I'm just about to listen to your GBPPH now, so I'll get back to you on that later. Looking forward to it, though.

Ha!

I just accidentally clicked on the wrong link, not paying attention I clicked on Jazzwee's link, and couldn't get over your hair and radically different style of playing...

trying again...

Jazzwee,

I wouldn't stay on the blues scale for soloing, but may think of a moving system of #11s guided by the melody, which is kind of like a movable blues scale of sorts. Of course, the blues scale is a pretty good place to start, especially since the harmonic changes will make it sound far more hip in any event.

I also have this idea of chromatic bass that I'm going to record with the head and see if works.

7,

Nice stuff on GBPPH. And the hair didn't distract me this time.

Sceptical, you're apparently moving at an awesome pace. I'm at an overload mode right now so I probably can't spend more than a couple of hours a day figuring this out. So bear with me.

I'll slowly start listening and studying Nefertiti (away from a piano) so I can at least keep track of what you're talking about.

Just so we're on track, what Real book are you using? I'm referencing, for both tunes, Real Book 1 (the original, not the new one).

Yes, that's the one that has the suspect rhythm and changes. What it misses is all the alterations and the triplet stuff at the beginning.
Also, I haven't mentioned it yet, but I'm not actually concentrating on the rhythm too much yet, except enough to notice that when I played it from the book that it wasn't quite right. I think even though I'm a drummer I'm not interested in the rhythm of this piece as much as the harmonic possibilities it offers. Also, when I tried to sing along to the original I couldn't for the life of me get the exact rhythm after a number of attempts, so I abandoned that aspect in favor of the other stuff. It's weird how easily I give up sometimes. I'm going to listen to it again and see if I can nail it this time.

And as for moving at an awesome pace, no, I don't think so really, it's that I now have a place to put some of my chromatic ideas that needed decent tunes to work. I've done similar stuff with Alone Together and a few others that have are in minor keys. I find it a nice challenge to make chromatic chords work with the melody, such as the blues fall from C7, B7, Bb7 to get to A7, but applying this throughout the form.

I'll try to post some recordings of my ideas tomorrow when I get home and show you how I started looking at the tunes. I'm not going to polish anything at this point, but want to get feed back about the direction I'm starting to go.

In a way I feel like a Cubist painter in that for whatever reason when I study the song instead of seeing it as an entire landscape I see the possibilities of each section, and want to reduce them to what I think are their main components, then put them back together. Unfortunately not many people appreciate the Cubists as much as the Bob Ross' of the world. And for what it's worth, I was always mesmerized at what Bob Ross did on those PBS shows "and now we'll add some trees here..."

And I actually am pretty bothered at times by my tendencies for Cubism because I still don't quite get it all the time in order to feel that I can do it perfectly, but it's what I'm best at concentrating at these days. And yes, I'll look into swing again one day too.

I have a question for you, or anyone about swing: How did it develop? Is there a concensus about it's beginnings? It seems to me that it was a way to emphasize the chord changes that musicians were soloing on, ie spending more time on the outline of the chord and less time on the passing tones, hence long short long short. And then, (for lack of my historic training) the swing eventually became more even when the chord tones became replaced by extended chords, and more complex scales so it wasn't necessary to swing anymore. Am I nuts?

Swing - strange question Sceptical. Only because the historical reference is not mentioned (African rhythms) and Blues. Presumably that's where it came from. And Dizzy Gillespie (in his Biography) speaks also of his search for other Afro-Cuban rhythmic influences.

Except for the fact that the ability to play sixteenths has been presumed to be commonplace (it is not), swing has not disappeared at all. Certainly it is ever present in Beeboss' playing or the Gentleman (Virtuousic1) who played the Donna Lee version I posted earlier. He's playing sixteenths and yet he's full of swing. It's because he manages to balance between eighths and sixteenths.

My teacher (who has roots with the original deceased masters) will tell me that eighth notes is the lifeblood of jazz soloing. Lately it's been overrun by the likes of young classically trained jazz players who play soley with pyrotechnics but little content. Is there a melody inside that stream of 16ths or is just a scale run?

Now having said the above, swing style has changed over the years. The hard swing leaning towards triplet feel has lost popularity and is called hokey. My teacher makes a point to reduce the swing ratio. And he's correct because it's what I hear played by the living jazz masters.

Jazzwee,

I wasn't implying that people don't do it anymore when playing older jazz styles, but wonder why it does not continue in its original form in current compositions. I understand the 12/8 rhythm connections from African rhythms, but I wonder if those rhythms were derived from the scales they used, and how the language influenced how things were sung, or if perhaps swing was a result of a kind of a melting pot of many different influences still based on emphasizing the chord tones and deemphasizing the 'blue' notes, which would lead to why swing does not have the same weight as it did when things were harmonically more simple.

So my question is not should one study swing, or try to play in a swing style when playing music from the earlier jazz styles, but rather, given that it's presumed origins have influenced it's original sound in a certain way, and that those parameters no longer exist ie the influences that affect jazz are not only it's African roots but also the array of music and musicians from various backgrounds and musical cultures that have shaped jazz, does it not make sense that swing, as we knew it and understood it cannot exist given the evolution of the music and the musicians that are looking towards the future, rather than referencing the past?

I think the reason I personally cannot swing like I'd want to is because I don't have enough exposure to it and that because even though I want to, I'm far more interested and able to go in the opposite direction.

Does that clear things up?

Not quite clear on your premise Scep.

In essence, if you emphasize upbeats (which is where the accent lies), we in fact focus on the non-chord tones. So in the blues, swing emphasizes blue notes.

You'd have to think of the accent and not the length of the notes. Longer notes doesn't imply emphasis. It's the abrupt shortness of the upbeat in hard swing that actually gets the focus.

That's why when you listen to Herbie in that clip I pointed out for Custard Apple, Herbie clearly accents the upbeat.

Since Jazz thrives on the dissonance and tension, this focus on the unexpected, I think is responsible for the added tension in jazz. Then over the years, this has evolved to all the dissonant voicings and now are not dissonant to our ears.

If you listen closely to Brad Mehldau, he plays straight eighth notes but he emphasizes that upbeat eighth by dragging it (thereby creating that same tension in swing).

So in summary, to me Jazz is characterized as having all these tensions which are at a much higher level than for other genres. And every one of these tools contribute.

I have both the original Real Book Vol I and the official Real Book Vol I. (Actually I have the three volumes of both). The unofficial and official versions have different tunes in them. The chords in Nefertiti are sometimes just voicing differences of the same chord and are very difficult to get by ear alone, at least for me. A player should always know the most common "book" changes of a tune in case he/she is playing out with others. Subs come after that.
My .02

Yes, agreed 100%, but by voicings you seem to mean the actual chords used ie Abmaj7 #11, Dbmaj #11 etc, rather than how they are voiced from top to bottom, and with this I also agree, but only when they are completely accurate.
For example, there is a Bbmin7 chord that I believe is not actually in the original, but if you use this (unaltered, because from what I found this particular chord is more of a type of F7 over a Bb bass) you'll end up playing an Ab in the chord, and it shouldn't be there. Same with the third chord, listed as G7#11 I think.

Wait!!!! I just found another updated version, and I've confirmed that the original IS wrong in the first fake book!!!!! I didn't have this copy at home. It makes much more sense, and it has a FAR better flow to the chords than the Real Book that is not published by Hal Leonard. I'm still disputing one or two changes that doesn't seem to be right, but I'll get back to you all on that one. Again, I'm basing this on the original version of the recording on the Album Nefertiti, and not some later version that Shorter may have played or rewritten for another group.

For those that have it, the 6th edition The Real Book Hal Leonard Corp has the accurate changes! However, they still assume that you know the additional notes that can (and should) be present in some of the chords, such as the G-7b5 out to have an Ab (b9) in the chord as well, and the C7b9 should also have an F# (#11) in it. I can understand how these would be much harder to read, but they are the actual chords played, at least from what I heard.)

So, the fake book is important, but I think I'll still continue to use my ears first to learn a tune, and then see how it matches up with the book later. Honestly, if I just went with the original Real Book I, among others, would be playing it wrong and probably wouldn't know the difference because so many have played it wrong.

Another question for all: What is ertext (sp) then? Which IS the original version, and is it important to adhere to it, especially when there may be better versions available, such as the middle part of Well You Needn't can be played with different changes depending on which version, both by Monk you choose to follow.

I suppose it's becoming clear that I'm not really a traditionalist, and that I'm more in favor of the continued evolution of jazz, but I really don't mean to insult anyone here, or to belittle the process of playing standards in the way that they ought to be played to maintain their authenticity.

Sorry if I'm offending anyone in this thread!

Scep, I've had experience with wrong changes listed in the Real Book. For example, the changes for Dolphin Dance are apparently wrong in the Real Books. My teacher was writing all over the changes to correct it and discovered that the correct changes are in the 'Colorado' book.

So I think we seem to all agree on the premise that we must first learn the original exactly as is (assuming we are aware of which source has the right changes). And then once we understand the structure of the original, we can then take steps outside of it.

Apparently you have really good ears to spot all these yourself. I can't do that.