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Every morning, I transcribed a famous solo. The transcription takes a couple of days. Then I learn to play it. I mark down or remember key fingering. Then I speed it up. I did many Charlie Parker solos. This week, I'm doing Clifford Brown.
That's my technique exercise.

On each tune I learn, I run scales, arps and extended arps. That's good for technique too, and that helps me memorize the tunes.

this was the one from a couple week ago:

[video:youtube]-8sJPG0FFUE[/video]

By the end of next week, I should have Clifford Brown on all the things. Outrageous solo.

Jazwee,

What scales are you using for each measure of Naima?

One technique my teacher recommends is learning a fast, transcribed solo really well, so you can play it note for note at full tempo. She says that this gets yours hands used to intervals you might shy away from at high speed, and thinks it's beneficial even if you don't learn a specific lick from the solo. Right now, I'm transcribing some of Herbie's solo from One Finger Snap, which is certainly fast and amazing.

As for me, off to Jazz Camp on Sunday!

Learning a transcribed solo is a good idea. What's a good source? I forgot, I was building speed one time playing Chick Corea's Matrix. Maybe I should try that first.

jjo -- you hit exactly what I'm concerned about. At high speed you tend to avoid certain moves and I want to avoid that. I didn't realize this until I started soloing at 240bpm. At this tempo, I can hit notes of familiar shapes but there's too much hesitation for the unfamiliar.

This is just a technical exercise issue. I'm not really concerned if I learn a lick. I just want to avoid the hesitation, especially with larger intervals.

I might invent my own licks too. That's a good double exercise. I just want to do something short since I don't have an hour to spend on this each day.

BTW - I think working on Chopin 10/1 was good at actually building the speed. Too bad the moves aren't directly translatable (because a lot of it is in C).

I seem to be at the edge of jumping to another level here so I just want to push it a little.

Jazz+, using my changes...



|Bb Dorian | Eb Dorian | B Lydian Dominant | A Lydian Dominant | Ab Lydian |


|B Lydian | Bb H/W Dim | B Lydian | Bb H/W Dim | E Lydian Dominant | B Lydian | Ab | B |

>>Learning a transcribed solo is a good idea. What's a good source?
youtube or just your own collection.
I recommend non-pianists. Bird has some unbelievably good solos. Donna Lee isn't my favorite, but Moose, Perhaps, Nows the time, Yardbird and Cherokee (Warming up a riff) are all out of this world.Any blues blows you away also. With good chops, you can take some of those full speed. The easiest imho are those where he plays between 180 and 240. Faster is fast, and slower is a lot of 16th that are hard to play.
Fats and Clifford Brown are also great sources, the lines are more advanced harmonically.

If you must stick to pianists, I'd do Bud Powell before doing Chick. Celia, Tunisia. IT's all good. You jut gotta make sure you pick the stuff from his "good" period. Most would not be able to keep up with Bud's abilities, so you'd have to seriously slow it down.

Here's a good source for some transcriptions: University of South Carolina

My most recent transcription was Wynton Kelly's solo in This I Dig Of You, a great tune off Soul Station. It's a good solo if you want to work on that classic hard swingin' style.

Great ideas guys.

Knotty - from what I recall - Matrix was actually pretty good for what I was looking for technically. Lot's of intervallic movement, quartal patterns, chromatic. What was difficult with his stuff is getting the rhythm right based on the transcription and I was spending so much time with the rhythm rather than the notes.

Chick's lines are still Bebop based in general but he overlays a different harmony so it's just a different chord than you expect.

The problem with the more simplistic patterns is that I'm already used to them. Horn players are good though for breaking the pattern since it didn't originate from the limitations of a keyboard.

Isn't the Omnibook a good source? No one mentioned that. I never bought it.

The answer depends on exactly what the question is. Are you look to simply better your technique? Or are you trying to be able to "think faster". If it is the second, what cubop says above is good.

If it is the first, I have two suggestions. The first is to mix and match the exercises you already know. e.g. arpeggios going up, scales coming down. Alternate arpeggios and chords. etc. etc. etc.

The second one is a question of piano technique, rather than jazz technique. I would probably recommend Chopin Etudes, or short that - Gradus Ad Parnassum or School of Velocity. I know nothing in the jazz canon that will improve technique as fast as those.

scotpgot, I'm already doing Chopin 10/1. As I just mentioned, the only problem is that it is mostly in C so it develops a subset of skills as well as stretch. But definitely this is probably the biggest influence on my velocity issue. I actually highly recommend doing it. Jazz though is heavy on the black keys so a black key version of 10/1 might have been handy. The only problem in 10/1 vs. jazz is that 10/1 is linear up and down. There's always support at every move. Jazz is frequently broken up phrases so frequent hand lifting.

But you state a good point. Some of the issues are:

(a) Thinking of it -- at 250bpm is definitely a concern. The immediate answer is to think half time but that's not my goal though. I'd like to more comfortably stream longer eighth notes.

(b) Pure technique is always necessary -- My fingers will tend to gravitate to what it knows best (muscle memory) and I don't like that. Which translates to more linear lines, regular arpeggios, and nearby chromatic. I need to comfort to go anywhere (intervallic).

Not sure what the issue is. Maybe it's fingering at high speed. Maybe positioning. Maybe it's back to thinking.

It took me a while to even be able to solo at 240bpm without losing my place. So maybe it's just that I need more headroom.

I suppose the main limitation for me is hearing the individual notes at 250bpm. I think it was Hal Galper that said that it isn't the muscles, it's the brain.

I think I'm at some point of just about being ready to hear the individual notes at that tempo (which is fantastic -- whew! -- long road to get there).

I'm just excited to cross over and nudge it a little.

You need to remember there is a Bb pedal tone in the bass throughout the bridge, it acts as the the roots. So some of the scales you selected don't match the harmony in the bridge. The 1st, 3rd and 6th bars in the bridge are characteristic Bb Phrygian type chords (Bmaj7/Bb)...
The 2nd and 4th measures are Bb7 b9, thus diminished half-whole, not whole half. The 7th bar in the bridge is Bb7 sus , so it's a Bb Mixolydian scale... Your chord for the 8th measure should be E maj7 #4 (McCoy plays it)

Sorry, jazzwee, I missed a page...

All the suggestions are good. I'd like to add to the list of names (which are all excellent - particularly the horn players) Oscar Peterson and Art Tatum. (Perhaps they're on another page I'm not saying. Heh.)

The Omnibook is ok, but IMO, definitely and obviously dated.

This is one thing I struggle with as a teacher of intermediate students. We've all heard the saying "Learn your instrument. Learn the music. Forget all that and just play." But those first two steps are freakin' doozies. Playing piano, ideally, would be as natural as walking or reading or talking or eating or anything else you do in a day. In a very general sense, the best advice is going to be play as much as you can as often as you can.

Jazz+ -- I said Bb H/W not W/H so I think we're the same there.

Now on EMaj7#4, that's certainly something to think about. I've got to listen to that. D# instead of D. I've been using the D# as the resolution point in the next chord (BMaj). I want to see what it sounds like.

scotpgot, the problem is that now I'm an advanced student and the basic instructions need to be expanded.

One of my "woodshed" tunes is Giant Steps. I use this for testing. From months back, I would measure the tempo at which my mind is able to grasp being melodic without resorting to muscle memory or automaton licks.

I started off feeling comfortable at 150, then 180, and now i feel that I can finally feel like I'm hearing it at 200. I can play it faster of course but when I do it, I feel like I'm playing nonsense. Just a lot of useless notes (muscle memory).

I'm not sure what got me to hearing the note choices at 200. Maybe Chopin 10/1 or maybe just constant jams and gigs.

I'll just probably just get there automatically with time, but I'm excited and I want to push myself a little.

My teacher actually suggests the opposite. Play at 240 and just think half time and relax. So mostly that's ok too and that's when I thought about just bursting short very fast lines.

I don't hang with any players who can play at 240 and up. Mostly, we top out at 200 in a jam session. So my only real experience at these super fast tempos is a BIAB type of rhythm section.

>> The Omnibook is ok, but IMO, definitely and obviously dated.
What makes it dated?

I did want to ask that too. The recordings haven't changed...

Hey Jazz+, on New Real Book 2 it shows that bar as
| Ebsus add b9 /Bb (EMaj7/Bb) |

On the Colorado Book it's
| E7#11 |

So there's clear justification for your version. I liked the sound of it so I'm going to switch over to EMaj7#11/Bb.

BTW - thanks for forcing me to think of the scales. I was mostly just thinking of chord tones and I wasn't comfortable where I was going but after I wrote down the scales I was using, it felt more free.

Did you listen to my recording from earlier? Any obvious Faux Pas there?

knotty and jazzwee - please note well I said "IMO".

That said, the music of Charlie Parker is not the music of modern, mainstream jazz. If it is used to base learning on, that's great, as long as there is an understanding it is only a basis.

Hey scotpgot, I'm a modern influenced player myself. So I wonder who your modern influences are.

As I see what actually seeps into my playing it's probably Bill Evans and then Herbie.