What's everyone working on now? Now don't tell me you're all not working on anything.

My computer problems really put a downer on my free time so it's really difficult to record. But I might as well record something which will do double duty for recital.

Aside from GS practice, which I have to play for my teacher, I've started practicing Falling Grace. Good two-handed comping practice but the latin feel isn't coming so easily in solo piano. I guess I just have to just subtley imply the latin feel but I'm just not that good at it.

I'm working on learning standards. Reckoned I should learn all the ones I like...since that's what I'll be playing on anyway.

Working on a Dan Coates arrangement of Someone to Watch Over Me. Hopefully if I can learn this arrangement to the point of "owning the changes" I might be able to play around with it a bit some time in the future. Great tune. Jarrett's version is absolutely beautiful. (But I'm just a beginner and don't really belong on this advanced thread, so back into lurk mode )

Klink, which ones?

I've really been poor at learning new tunes. It's because I'm often focused on building a skill and my teacher actually snapped at me for moving too quickly away when I hit a wall.

One of my quitting moments was on 'Matrix'. I couldn't get the rhythm right because I was so poor at reading rhythm in written music

So this time, I'm not quitting on Giant Steps until I'm happy with my solo lines. Speed isn't my target though at the moment.

Sure you can post here JimF. Don't go into lurk mode.

This reminds me of a Brad Mehldau version of this tune in solo piano. If you listen to it, it sounds like there's a third hand playing...

That'll be quite a challenge even if someone notated the arrangement. What was complex was the inner voices that were even rhythmically independent.

In any case, great tune and agreed on Jarrett's version.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply I was playing a transcription/arrangement of Jarrett's version! Lordy, I will have died and gone to heaven when I can do that. But the Coates arrangement is nice and jazzy and uses those nice two handed voicing and upper right hand melody note you wrote about. Thats about all I can handle at this point.

"But not for me", "I didn't know what time it was", "I thought about you" "Night and Day" I've always envied the old farts that know billions of standards in 13 keys, and thought I'd be one of them.
I'm listening to Kate Ryan "Ella elle" and it's so incredible catchy and I'm wondering why I bother with this dead art no one cares about, learning these tunes that's absolutely impossible to remember. Next up http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUEkKl0EAvo now thats a good song...

I'm back! And here to ask what it is you mean by rhythmic independence? I'm not sure there technically is such a thing unless someone is playing independently of the meter, tempo and suggested divisions around them. Somewhat akin to a beginner trying to jam with studio musicians. Since I don't have the version that you're speaking of at hand, I can only assume that you mean it sounds as if the 'third hand' is doing something that doesn't seem to rely on the surrounding rhythm that is being implied by the bass and surrounding voicings?

In any case, I've finally been able to get back to the piano myself and am also working on standards again. Currently reviewing Somewhere Over the Rainbow, I Hear a Rhapsody, Beautiful Love, and Skylark to name a few.

WB, I hear a rhapsody, great tune.

Ya, I really like it. I might even post something on here. BTW, what is 'WB?'

Ok Scep, the word I suppose is counter-rhythm, something Mehldau is known for.

Wow - you disappeared all summer! Beeboss already gave the thread an Epitaph Is this like a teacher's summer hiatus?

Eventually you'll be an old fart like the rest of us I think we're already there...

I was practicing what you were asking about BTW - playing the varying rhythms in ballads. I posted in the other thread about how Barry Harris says, play ballads thinking of 6 instead of 4/4. I had to practice that to understand what he meant.

One thing that Giant Steps does is really improve my comfort with the key of B!

Are you all competent in B? As competent as in Eb? I spent most of my practice time exploring melodies and I realized I was approaching B more as a shape than in melodic content. Maybe because it's so intimidating.

I suck at B. Probably even more at A.

I learned years ago from listening to Piano Jazz with Marian McPartland that playing in other keys was a great thing to do. The musicians that play with you, though, don't really appreciate it when you call 'Cherokee' in B or Db. For those that have worked with singers (like me) I've gotten used to playing in 'weird' keys. In fact, mostly I play in F#, D and Db these days because they fit my fingers well. Also, the tritone subs are all of the chords that you'd normally play in D and G so its almost as if things are easier in those keys.

I'm also a big proponent of playing tunes that you like in a variety of keys, if not just to discover new voicings that aren't possible in some keys are quite easy in others.

In my case, I can solo in any key. But I don't think that necessarily implies comfort. My issue is that in the Keys of E, B, and A, F# (though the worst is probaby B and F#), I tend to lose my melodic bent. In the other keys, I don't have to think about it. But with these two keys, I realized I was playing it more like a scale. I'm comfortable with the scale though.

So I'm probably beyond the "I suck stage" but it wasn't until I tried to play some melodic snippets that I might play on another key that I realized, it didn't sound the same. It was mind bending to actually be conscious of it and I actually felt I played B differently than I did before.

As I was saying though, my goal was to make my lines melodic in B. Then as I recalled some Chick Corea lines in B, I started to wonder:

What does being melodic mean? Does McCoy Tyner's quartals count? Chick's playing? Bebop generally sounds melodic, whatever that means. At least to me. What about playing diminished scales on a dominant, can that be melodic? Or is this a useless value judgement?

Typically, I would have associated the words melodic with chord tones and a lot of stepwise movement. But then I realized that what I was doing in B before was more of a pattern and didn't sound melodic. I don't know exactly why.

How about some discussion?

That is a pretty difficult question to answer I think, partly becasue we often use the word melodic in different ways. The most common is to associate a melody with the vocal line of a song, a quite simple line with not many fast notes that is usually pretty diatonic with not that many large intervals in it. Under that definition a jazz solo gradually gets less melodic as it deviates more and more from the theme.
Alternative definitions could be 'a single line that is quite consonant with the harmony it goes over' or 'a melody that sounds good' or any of many others.
Melody is really a mystery. There is so much theory in harmony but I am struggling to think of even a single useful melodic rule.

I think of a melodic solo in terms of whether singing it feels right.

A few examples to me are
Space. If there is no space for a really long time, or spaces are not delimited, then often, it doesn't feel right
If there are successions of wide leaps, 6 or more, then it usually won't be melodic.
If there is the concept of tension release as found in natural language, it will generally come out as melodic.
If there is a climax towards the end of a solo, that is a good sign of being melodic.

Overall, it's really a feeling thing. I think of it in terms of reading a book to someone. There's got to be some effort put into it. If one reads the book without any stop, expressions, accents, fear etc... it won't feel very good.

To me, there are really 2 things that feel good when playing.
1. Swing, you know you got it when you got it because things happen
2. Melodies. That's when you listen to what you are playing and go "woo!" that felt right

Absolutely.

Interesting comments Beeboss and Knotty.

I think it is an important question because as players, we always say we seek to sound melodic. Maybe because it is one of those buzzword statements from the original bebop days. However, I tend to distinguish rhythm discussions from this (swing) because the concept crosses genres.

Not really knowing what the answer is, I agree that multiple leaps of large intervals tends to make me lose track of a melodic flow. And I think that's what it is, it's some sort of flow that a listener is able to follow.

When something is played fast, I think it can be still understood as melodic, by those that can follow that flow, although I'm going to guess that a certain part of the population will drop off from calling it melodic.

In general, I would guess that something melodic is some balance of tension and release (meaning it has to be some mix of these) that's easy to remember for someone. (I think SPACE is an essental element here)

But I'm not sure my playing goal should be to be completely melodic under this definition. I gave a specific example earlier of playing a diminished scale over a dominant, or fourth patterns, or large intervals playing a H-W Diminished scale, and so on, and I personally think it sounds great.

Overdone though, it doesn't sound too good. So I'm going off some internal guideline for myself that melodic often means stepwise and thirds (diatonic) moves with a preponderance of chord tones. And that this mixed with the more dissonant sounding playing provides some generally pleasing balance.

I'm really tested to think about this when playing Giant Steps because it does seem to be boring after awhile to stick to just my short cut definition of "melodic" above.

I didn't see a comment on this but Bebop, being a lot of stepwise and third movements with the up and down motion really feels like a basic definition of melodic. But Modern Jazz tends to deviate from this. Chick's playing for example cannot be defined by this.

Yet here's Jarrett, the master of melodies, what does he do?

hey guys, melodies, hard to explain so why don't we list a few songs where we think the melody is really strong:

For me, Herbie and Wayne's songs have very distinct melodies. Those are the ones I can hum in my head after many listens.

Shorter: Nefertiti, Ana Maria, Infant Eyes, Black Nile,

Hancock: Maiden Voyage, Dolphin Dance, Chan's song, Speak like a child

Miles Davis: Pinocchio

I love that last song, there's 2 versions on the Nef album, completely different rhythms and moods. Miles and Wayne basically play the head over and over again, and the rhythm section improvises but not the horns.

Jarrett takes songs and standards and just milks the melodies. I love his version of Only the Lonely, sung by Frank Sinatra.

I transcribed that song, and although it's in C major, it uses all the blues notes, b3, b5, b7. And his rendition of I Remember Clifford is awesome.

I think JW's question is "what makes a solo sound melodic", and what the term melodic means in this context.

I don't think you can really put rules on melodies, the best is if it catches your ear, kinda like those pop "hooks".

Miles Davis was the king of melodies, for a guy who played one note at a time, he put maximum expressiveness into each note.

I'd rather leave it as a musical mystery than try to decipher what makes a good melody.


Off topic, has anyone heard of Denny Zeitlin? This guy plays some great jazz, just put out a new solo album.

I actually like that question. Perhaps you can't put rules on it, but it makes for a good discussion to try and understand what people mean when they say that so and so is melodic.


Different question.
How to you approach playing ballads rubato and make it feel like it's in time. I asked Dave Frank that question and got an interesting answer, I am wondering what everyone else's take is on it.
How do you feel the time when playing rubato?

I'd rather know the secret so I could become very rich and famous, and an amazing musician as well! But there isn't one, and after hundreds of years of musical analysis there is still no way to decide which melody is good except by subjective listening.

My thoughts are that really there is nothing much in the notes themselves, or rather maybe that other factors are much more important that the actual notes. If you gave the same combination of notes to Miles Davis and Kenny G one would play a beautiful melody and one would just make a horrible noise. Keith Jarrett could turn a nursery rhyme into a beautiful piece of music.

ps - Zeitlin is good.

It is an important question because we are always told -- make your solos "melodic". Well, if we don't know what it means then how can we accomplish that?

Beeboss, is it all in the phrasing, is that what you mean? I agree that it is a significant part of it. Although I'd like to understand that too. What is good phrasing? (aside from the space issue which is obvious).

Maybe we can at least say what is NOT melodic. Here's the beginnings of a questionnaire. Build on this:

[ ] Can we agree that continuous large leaps are not melodic?
[ ] Could we say that playing constant dissonance is not melodic?
[ ] Is the lack of variety non-melodic?
[ ] Is the lack of space non-melodic?
[ ] Does the use of only eighth notes make it non-melodic?

If we come up with many of these and each one of us puts a check mark, then maybe we'll have something to go on.

I don't know how Dave Frank answered this but my teacher never teaches me to play rubato without some definite time pulse.

As I mentioned earlier, I was watching the Barry Harris Masterclass video and he was playing a lot of ballads, and all of it was in strict time. That's when he mentioned that Ballads should be though of in 6.

Maybe this is what separates Cocktail from Jazz.

When I think of melodies I think of movement - a group of notes that goes somewhere.

I'm listening to Jarrett play Mona Lisa and he takes those first 12 simple notes and sets the whole mood with them. Everything else almost seems like variation on a theme.

Now there's another tidbit there. If one builds on an idea, it assumes the idea is constant. So constant reference (repeating parts of the idea), is that what makes it melodic? Like reinforcement in the mind of the listener?

If this is true, anything can be melodic if you build on it. Meaning an idea that you just skim through may not be perceived as melodic.

On a video, Mehldau says this is how he does his solos (starts on an idea and then builds on it), so maybe this is the secret? It is approachable as a soloing strategy.

This could also translate to: too many ideas, too confusing to be melodic. (my problem - now that I think about it).

JW,

as an example, listen to Monty Alexander in Maybeck, or some of his other solo albums. It's phenomenal solo playing. With some exceptions, it's played Rubato. I don't have a Barry Harris solo piano album to compare, but surely you can come up with an example of a solo piano piece played Rubato.
Bill Evans plays of lot of it. How to you play Rubato like Bill. What's the secret to playing Rubato, yet sounding like it's perfectly in time?