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Here's an anecdote. To show you that a good musician is just a good musician.

Yesterday I was at the mid-atlantic jazz festival.
Saw a quintet with a singer perform. Thanks to spotless organization, they started 30 minutes late. Nevertheless, everyone waited and they got a full room.

They had no time to do a sound check. Lesson #1. Always do a sound check. Horrible levels. Piano very loud, can't hear the singer at all.

For the pianist, it was an uphill battle. The pianist is a very busy full time local pianist. All the hotel had there was a Casio keyboard, Peavey Guitar Amp, no sustain pedal, and a chair that was way too low.
Not surprisingly, not very impressive.
And because she had another gig lined up, she had to leave half way through.

So for the last 3 tunes, no pianist. Well, except yes, the drummer "played" piano. They asked someone from the audience (that they knew) to come play drums, and the new "pianist" sat to play tunes he did not know. He was just given a sheet.

Well, the guy came up with a cool intro, singer jumped right in. Poor piano sound suddenly got better and he delivered a monster solo.

That's the kind of drummer you want in your band ;-)

Sorry to inundate. This was from tonight...A little hard to hear the piano clearly. I haven't played Windows in awhile so I was a little unprepared. But it was fun because of the band interaction.

Windows
http://www.box.com/s/gh8eifc7hbe83hxotnkm

Blue in Green
http://www.box.com/s/ul60kdoxx4hrrras780l

You might like this video JW:

[video:youtube]cQPZRdCAVu8[/video]

I just reread this... I'm not sure that either Stella or Body and Soul have non functional harmonies. Lots of II V movement, but nothing unusually hard. Which chords were you thinking would prove problematic?

>>nothing unusually hard
1/2 step up, then 1/2 step down is unusually hard for me :-)

In Body and Soul, there's a lot of alterations in the chords. There's also reharms, Coltrane Changes (Giant steps progressions). A bridge with unusual progressions.

Now that I think it over more closely, the melodies to these difficult tunes guides the solo for me. And so the usual patterns that fingers gravitate to aren't usually appropriate.

You could say Very Early also is just a bunch of ii-V's. But there's an expected cycle to it, like 3-6-2-5-1 or some tritone sub thereof. But Very Early is melody driven too and pretty hard to analyze.

In contrast, the progressions in ATTYA are very consistent.

By the way Scep, on these tunes, I did a lot of just chord-like comping on the solo, something you were asking about earlier. Sometimes simplicity seemed better.

I'm supposed to play in a masterclass in 3 weeks and will be critiqued heavily I'm sure (in public). So since I know the tunes that will be done (Blue in Green is one of them), I'm going to plan out what to do in the solos ahead of time.

A masterclass is going to be more stressful than playing to an unsophisticated/uncritical audience I usually cater to. It will be like...like posting a tune in this thread!

Per the suggestions here, I'm transposing tunes to a couple of easy keys, to start. I do it one of three ways, depending upon my mood: (1) comp with rootless chords, (2) play it solo style with shell voicings in the left hand, or (3) play a VERY simple bass line with just one note on the root (I can do that easily; it's walking bass lines that challenge me to no end). So far, it's actually fun, and there is no question but that it's good both for making the tunes really solid in memory and also for general ear training. Ii can't do this at tempo until I've been through the tune several times. At some point, I'll try some tougher keys. I'm fully comfortable playing lead sheets in any keys but transposing to more complex keys is tougher.

Last summer at a jazz camp I attend I spent an evening in a vocal jam session. Some of the singers would bring up lead sheets but ask for a different key. I had to let a faculty member take over. Being able to transpose, on sight, tunes I may or may not know seems a far off goal, but journeys start with etc. etc.

Sorry to break in with a complete non-sequitur :

Do any of you fine Gentlemen have a Fender Rhodes sitting in the closet that you would like to turn into $$$ ? Post or PM. If you include a telephone number, I’ll call to discuss.

Thanks,
Ed

I had an interesting lesson today.

We discussed a lot of what we had talked about extensively here, including vocabulary. And he (AP) advised me to "stay the course". Clearly my direction is to do the unexpected and he understands how it will sound different. He basically said I was seeing music at a different level now and it will be my voice.

My note choices? He said they were good choices but I just have to be more deliberate about it. He gave me some really good ways to develop my own vocabulary and I probably have years of information just from this one lesson.

I've cut down on lessons lately and spending more time with introspective problem solving of what I need to work on. The lesson today was like one of these 'Tie a Ribbon' sessions to just frame everything I've learned since the beginning.

It was really enjoyable.

I wish

Working on your own vocabulary is a great thing to do. It is a slow process though. If I ever play anything I like (which is pretty rare) I really try to remember what it was and then to write it down and develop it through practice. Good original ideas are valuable as gold dust.

Here are a few tunes I was playing today ...

Autumn leaves in 5
http://soundcloud.com/david-beebee/autumn-leaves-in5

Beatrice
http://soundcloud.com/david-beebee/beatrice

Doxy
http://soundcloud.com/david-beebee/doxy

comments or questions welcomed

Clearly! Which is why I have it only in pieces. But he gave me a roadmap based on existing melodies (so not necessarily completely original). What was neat was he went through a process with me of analyzing something like an existing tune from all angles and using that as a basis for vocabulary. I actually didn't realize how many ways you can look at a head. Very imaginative guy.

There's some obvious ones but some I had never thought of. Like I said, it would take years

We were talking about how some of my vocabulary actually came from melodies I liked and that seems to influence what I do. But I realized today that I was only approaching it from a shallow view. There was much more I didn't see.

It was a fun discovery.

Wow Beeboss, how do you hear 5 on that percussion pattern? You have a very developed rhythmic perception. I can only think of it when there's clear separation between the 3 and the 2. That had more complex rhythms in there. I'd get lost so fast.

I gotta say...I think you've become a bit enamored with those drum tracks you've bought. Both on Beatrice and Doxy I couldn't help but be distracted by the busy drum playing, and the overly loud mix of the drums.
Of course, other than that your playing is as great as ever. Have you tried laying your own tracks yet? Mustang Sally would work with a bit of a lilt to it.

The bass keeps it more or less solid. I think i lost it badly in one place

Well its only for practice, but that is just the kind of drumming I like. In comparison with say the loops in logic these ones are about 10000x better. I could have mixed the piano louder, especially on doxy but its not going to be a cd. I do several of these each day, i listen to them once each and then move on.
I must say I am loving those drum tracks. before I would just play swing with a bass backing or just a metronome, but this is so much more like real music to me.
Autumn leaves in 5 was me playing percussion - hand drums and shakers, augmented with a few sampled sounds. I like doing my own loops but you can't swing with a hand drum.It is a lot of effort as well and I want to spend practicing and not recording loops.
My drumming isn't remotely up to it yet, maybe one day.

Nice stuff! I think the drum backing tracks are really cool... alot better than some computer generated loop. They give you some stuff to interact with.

Autumn Leaves in 5 is great! I was just trying to play along with it to get the feel for how to place the melody. That's tough. I'd like to get into odd times more. Maybe I can try this with my trio.

I'm still practicing Comrad Conrad in 12 keys. It's getting better... one of these days I'll record it and post it.