Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Jazz Study Group: Autumn Leaves, ATTYA, etc.

David, can you experiment with a few different factors? First can you speed it up a little so we can see what that sounds like? (maybe 150bpm).

Second, can you try it without triplet feel? Straight eight notes. So no dotted eight + sixteenth. Eight + eight only. Keep the accents. It sounds about right.

Also is there a way to distribute the time of the Eights to some intermediate level between triplet feel and even eights?

On the Charleston Rhythm, could you try shortening LH chords to eight notes and 16 notes for comparison?

Then we'll have several versions to listen to that will give a lot of info for comparison.

This is very interesting. A machine can't lie so we can at least give it a good analysis.

I think we're going to learn a lot from this.

First post. Read through all the pages. Wow! This is so wicked!
Jazzwe, you have done SUCH a service with this thread. Never have I seen such a devoted bunch of ticklers.

I will definitely put my 2 öres worth in here too.

so let me jump here and write a little about swinging. hmmm such a subject . . . is difficult to write about, needs to be heard.
also, different ages (30-s, 40.s, 50.s, etc) all swung differently.
basically it's about anticipation (that's playing a little before the beat) and hanging (ehh hanging behind the beat). it's playing in the cracks and it's about triplets. yeah well sixteen's are in there also . . . sorry if i'm confusing you all . . . i usually teach this verbally and not in writing.
practicing scales in triplets (eight note triplets, then: swung triplets: triplet quarter note + triplet eighth) with a metronome marking 2 and 4 is essential (but ohh so tricky).
An exercise i do (and teach) is the 2-and.
It's a left hand comping drill. Bpm=80-120. Play any "jazz" chord on 1 and 2-and. The 2-and is the last triplet eight.

Give it a II-V motion:
and following AL's sequence:


Apologies if i'm butting in, but the thread just inspired me too.

If any of you want to read more about swing. Here's an Excellent article
(a .pdf-format file)
Not to forget: wikipedia\'s definition of swing with some more excellent articles - at the end

Help!!! I thought that I was doing pretty well playing a straight 1/7 LH and swinging the melody. Until I recorded it and listened. It sounds sooo forced... like i couldn't find the right key for the delayed pickup note on "the" until it was almost too late. Then, the "ing" sounds horribly isolated. I'm sure that there is something deperately the matter with the note on "fall", but sandwiched between the other two clunkers, one can hardly notice.

Does anybody remember the commercial for "Nut 'n Honey" cereal? A woman that reminds you of the "church lady" on Sat Night Live is torturing her ivories in the parlor, and when hubby asked what she is playing, her reply is "Nut'n, honey"? I sound like the church lady!!! I better go sit on my hands and watch TV for a while! I hope that everybody else is having a more productive Saturday morning than me!

http://www.box.net/shared/1fg4enxk48

I did a lead sheet of Autumn leaves if anyone need it. Let me know of any mistake.


Serge

I've been practicing swing feel for about an hour here without much luck. Just using scales. I created a computer generated track of the G scale and then edited it up so that the accents were on the offbeats and used "Play FX" to give the timing a swing feel. I then used that as a reference for what I was trying to achieve.

I never really got there. I can sort of accent the upbeats, but my timing is usually off. I seem to have this really strong innate tendency to accent the downbeats. I'd start the first half of the scale pretty well, but then on the way down, I'd revert back to accenting the downbeats. Looking at recordings of myself (the data) the accents are pretty good sometimes up and down, but my timing drifts. If I turn on a metronome, I almost always revert back to accenting the downbeats.

I have been practicing a straight half note LH of Autumn Leaves along with a swing-feel RH. That seems to be going better than my practice. It's going to be a tough uphill battle for me I guess.

Here's a new clean, computer-created midi that starts to bring in some swing elements. The bass hits eights on 1 and the + of 2 (don't I sound hip with the lingo?) and the melody does a little anticipation and hanging. It's still very mechanical, though. All notes are at the same volume and there's no variation in note lengths. Also the smallest note or rest used is an eighth.

Here's the straight midi:

http://www.box.net/shared/vg24meqgw8

And here it is rendered as an MP3 through a pretty decent piano VST with a teeny bit of reverb.

http://www.box.net/shared/s2getxxooc

I have to concentrate on a classical piece for a few days (so I don't thoroughly humiliate myself at my next lesson) but anyone who's into MIDI is welcome to jazz it up some more or try some new bass patterns.

Welcom Chrisbell! What would be nice is if you recorded this LH comping so that everyone gets a feel. Looking forward to more input.

Looks good to me Serge. Thanks.

Deeluk, I think I intended this to me a long term project. There's a technique and quite a bit of control involved so let it simmer. I would practice it for short phrases instead of the whole scale continuously. The breaks will allow you to recover on the downbeat. You need to feel that offbeat in your bones and you'll naturally know where to lean that accent. So be patient. Breaking a line into short phrases is the typical way jazz lines are played anyway.

Just keep doing this and we'll move into further topics.

Hey Bluekeys. That really doesn't feel right. Partly the first 3 notes of each melody are played as all 8 notes and if you do that then it's missing an accent on the second note.

This shows where the human feel is so important. You could try the frst 3 notes as quarter note, but played short (i.e. like a 32th rest in between or something).

Charleston on the LH is supposed to feel relaxed but the hurried feel of the melody seemed to be a mismatch.

BTW - the MIDI teaches us something. In real playing, you don't have to play every beat on the LH. When I play, I skip LH comping when the melody is going, or introduce only comping at quiet moments. This has a good balancing effect. It's noticeable on a MIDI because the machine makes a relentless LH beat that sometimes doesn't belong. If you listen to masters comp on the LH, they vary the size of the notes all the time and it always sounds like it supports the RH, not just provide a fixed rhythm. Hard to do on a machine but in many ways, it teaches us why we play piano and not a machine.

Thanks for sharing that bluekeys. You're excused from practice while you do your classical. But you still have to read our thread

Very nice job, Serge! Looks very professional.
What program did you use to do this?

One of the things I discovered by doing this exercise is that it's very difficult to generate excitement or spontaneity when you're sitting at a computer typing in notes. There are, of course, skilled midi coders who can create beautiful music with the technology available today, and anything that can be played on a digital piano can theoretically be reproduced in midi, but it's never as authentic as playing it yourself.

Even though the result was less than stellar, this was a very valuable experience. I learned a ton about midi, and by coding it, I learned the song much more thoroughly than I would have just playing it. The time spent coding was at least as valuable as practice time.

Great topic Jazzwee. I have been following it with interest.

Would anyone here benefit from a downloadable MP3 of a back track without the piano part to play along with? I created a latin style version with acoustic guitar, percussion, and bass - it's a MIDI file, however I can convert it to MP3 with ease. It's arranged a little different, but nothing too difficult.

Can we please review the E Minor Melodic and Harmonic scales as they relate to Autumn Leaves? Thanks!

http://www.drpsychotic.com/strike_a_chord/e_m_minor_scale.html


AU 2 - E Harmonic minor Scale-tone Chords

"Now let us look at G major's related minor, E minor. Below you see the scale-tone chord progression for the E harmonic minor scale".

http://esvc001419.wic024u.server-web.com/articles/aut.htm

Harmonic minor scale: The same as the natural minor but with a chromatically raised seventh degree.

Would that raised seventh degree of the E minor harmonic scale be the D#/Eb note used in the B7 chord?

Serge 88. Thanks for the lead sheet of Autumn Leaves. I was just getting ready to ask if anyone could tell me where I could get a copy, and lo and behold, you had already written one out for us. Thanks again. Gaby Tu

Jazz wee, Here is one of my stupid questions.
In going over your explanation of the chords, I am a bit puzzled about how to spell the F#m7b5, which you describe as half diminished.
I have been playing F# A C Eb---which is a full diminished 7th.

I only had traditional classical theory--not jazz theory, and I do notice that some of the chords are notated differently, so excuse my ignorance.

My question is: Am I spelling (and playing) the chord correctly? I am brand new at playing anything other than classical, and am having a great time leaning something new. Gaby tu

I used Noteworthy composer.

http://www.noteworthysoftware.com/

I also have a midi file with piano and accompaniements, I muted the piano and play with it, it's really fun. I will upload the file later.

Now I need to practice the swing feel.

Serge

Jeff, I wondered when you would show up. That's a great idea. Please post it. I was going to eventually load a Band In the Box version of this as a play along but I have to reinstall BIAB and don't have much time. I may do it later.

By the way, guys, Jeff and I shared a couple of the same teachers. such a small world...

Please hang out with us Jeff.