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Thanks 10. I now know to submit recordings more often so that I don't keep on practising bad habits.

I only think of the Hanons in swing and can't imagine playing them straight. But maybe it's because I'm on Lesson 20 Hanons.
Yes the point of the Hanons is to develop swing, speed, fingers 4 & 5, and endurance.

>> Tomorrow should I go onto minor or further internalise major ?
Get with the minor key. Equally important to the major keys.
Find nice chord voicings, you can find some in the books.
The basic scale is the harmonic minor.
The 1 will be a minor with the 6 in it. The 7th, if played, will be major, but can be omitted.
So for the arp, you can experiment with 1 m3 5 6, or 1 m3 5 7

The 5 will have a flat 9 in it. so for arps, you can do 1357 and 3 5 7 b9

Thanks Knots especially for the examples as I haven't created a minor progression before. Can't wait to start on minor if you think this major one is OK.

It's Eb maj ii V I at 88 bpm.

http://www.box.net/shared/87schjzut2

you did all 12 major keys, right? like B, E, F#, all those?

Keep moving forward. Keep thinking about feeling in 4, at the same time, learning new progressions.

Yes but I ended up spending the most time on Eb maj because after my 1st recording, I had a lot of things to correct.

So are my counting-in-4 accents wrong for Phrases 1 and 3 ? I know this will take me a while to get right. Sorry to subject you to this !

When I listen to Bill Evans I think 'I can't do that'. When I listen to a recording here I think 'That sounds nice. What are they doing? Oh, I can do that!'

Will keep going with hanons.

>> So are my counting-in-4 accents wrong for Phrases 1 and 3 ?
Cus, you on the right track. Keep focusing on that feeling in 4 for each improv you do. It keeps the music flowing.

Here's my leaf line composition (both part A & B). Part A did not change. Part B required many revisions - this is version 11.2! I enjoyed doing this and learned a lot. And I also learned I have to record to really listen. I don't yet have the ability to really hear myself while I'm playing. The notes per hour (NPH) was very low. If this piece was a car I couldn't afford to drive it.

tf

pdf

mp3

Time, I'm not qualified to critique - but I just think it sounds great! I like the phrasing - it grabbed me and kept me interested.

I'm thinking maybe it's time for me to move onto lesson 2. I think I could spend a year on lesson 1. And doing these arpeggios over the ii-V-I's is a major undertaking. (Knotty, I've found the metronome grinds me to a halt and makes it not enjoyable. I'm just going to stick with it and allow myself the hesitations for now). Plus I've decided I really ought to do minor ones too.

I've found listening to Louis Armstrong is really inspiring. His vibrato is incredible - you could drive a bus through it. He is so careful that his phrases are never exactly matched or symetrical.

I also want to share this clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brqxEdwsTQs
I came across it while reading through Mark Levine's book, as he uses this for some examples. At the end there is the most fantastic example of circular breathing I have ever seen. I just timed him. He keeps it going for one minute 20 seconds! Just unbelievable. In the same shot there's another saxophonist who looks bored as anything. Ne - I hear this all the time.

How amazing was this, Time Flies ! Congratulations. I really enjoyed it. I'm so pleased you love composing and found the time-consuming revision process rewarding. As Knotty said, it is GOOD to have multiple revisions.
Composing is such a good way to drip-feed great stuff into your subconscious.

Re recording, I'm surprised at what I find out about my own playing. For example, I thought I was swinging until Knotty said I wasn't. Then I checked back to my recording which clearly showed that I had stopped swinging by Phrase 3.

Hi 10
I think you've spent a couple of weeks now on Lesson 1, I spent one and a half weeks on it.
And when you are doing Lesson 2, you should also be revising your Lesson 1 tunes. As well, you will return to Lesson 1 when you do your 1st composition.
How did you go with Exercise 3 voicings ?

I agree that one could spend a whole year on Lesson 1 to explore its beautiful melodies and voicings.

Re metronome, I think a lot of classical people such as ourselves will initially resist it, but over time, it will become your best friend.

Thanks for the incredible vid, I didn't know the sax player before, I can't imagine how long he spent practising that technique.

Tf,

That's a great composition. You have a natural talent, that's for sure.
Are you going through the entire method, or just a few elements?

Cus,
>> Then I checked back to my recording which clearly showed that I had stopped swinging by Phrase 3.
You will get this concept slowly. I'm still trying to get it. Each time you get it, the music flows. Simply focusing and reminding yourself will get you a long way. Listening to the samples before you play will help, too.

Tlt,
Knotty, I've found the metronome grinds me to a halt and makes it not enjoyable. I'm just going to stick with it and allow myself the hesitations for now.
Perhaps a drum beat would help then. It's really critical to get a good sense of time. The metronome is really a great friend, a dumb drummer, but one that keeps the beat.
I'm surprised by Cus' comment on classically trained musicians not using the metronome. I"m not sure I understand.
The single most important part of jazz is rhythm, and your ability to play notes at the right time depends on you being able to develop an internal pulse.
This should not block you.
Give in to the metronome slowly...

Sorry for being unclear. It was just a generalisation about amateur classical musicians from you-tube and my own experience. When some of the purely classical amateur dudes play something demanding such as Bach, it's clear they have not practised with a metronome. Also when I was learning classical, I hardly ever turned on my metronome, whereas now I use it regularly for jazz. In fact I was extremely uncomfortable with using the metronome when I first started JOI. Now I love using it for my JOI tunes, as you say, it is my drummer.

I meant that the rhythmic element in the practice of a jazzer, whether from a classical background or not, seems to play a more prominent role.

Guess what Knotty ?! It's me again, could I please check this with you as I'm not familiar with a ii V i minor progression.
I'm going to work on A min first.

What do you think of this progression ?
B min 7: F# G B D (5 6 R b3) for 1 measure
E7: F Ab B D (the dim chord b9 3 5 b7) for 1 measure
A min 6: F# A C E (6 R b3 5) for 2 measures

Do you think the A min 6 sounds unresolved ?

When you gave me arps I could practise for each measure, do you want me to take a more local approach ?
Because I remember that you said you think more globally when you improvise, like the whole progression is A min ?

Thanks !
cus

Sorry, I think it might have been me who was unclear about metronomes. Metronomes are my friends, in fact, I bought a new mechanical one the other day that has a little dinger of a bell for the first beat of the bar, and you can set it to 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 beats in the bar, or just straight clicks. I also use a live recording of a drummer at different speeds, which gives a more musical effect.

But the other day I started noodling around arpeggios over a ii-V-I progression, and knotty's comment (with which I won't argue) is that I should do it to a metronome. However, for me, it's been important to allow myself to noodle. The whole point being that I break the challenge of improvising into smaller chunks and work on them separately before expecting myself to be able to do it. So I do have several drills around ii-V-I's that I do to a metronome - but freely doing arpeggios up and down, well that will have to wait till I am comfortable doing it in all keys first. (Normally takes a couple of weeks).

Custard - it's interesting what you say about recordings. Randy Halberstadt talks a lot about listening to yourself as you play - but I think it's easier said than done. Recording's the next best thing! (Maybe actually a teacher is next best).

The B is a -7b5. The 5 is flat, so you gotta have an F natural in there. Also, extensions don't work all that great on these chords, so keep it simple. F A B D. or D F A B
Your E7 is good, only one voice is moving from the B-
The A-6 is good too.

>>When you gave me arps I could practise for each measure, do you want me to take a more local approach ?
>>Because I remember that you said you think more globally when you improvise, like the whole progression >>is A min ?
There's a time for practicing stuff mechanically, and a time for letting go. Exercises is where you can get mechanical with chords and arps.
When you solo, hopefully, you've absorbed a fair amount of sounds, and you will naturally let them come out.

++

Nicely stated, Cus.

Knotty, my intention is to go through the entire method. I recently downloaded Armstrong's "Struttin...". I'm going to try a monotone scat to at least pick up the rhythm and phrasing as TLT suggested.

Re listening to yourself and metronomes: Once I got this tune up to the tempo I wanted, I recorded and decided to run the metronome (with first beat emphasis) along with the recording. I discovered one measure had five beats! That's how bad a listener I am.

Hi custard, fine, thanks. The voicings are perhaps the less interesting of the exercises. Still, I do them.

Just goes to show, when you're concentrating on one thing, other things fly out the window. Like those experiments where they show a group of people passing a ball between them and ask observers to count how many times the ball is passed. While it runs, a guy in a bee suit joins the group, waves, and leaves. Once it's over, none of the observers noticed the guy in the bee suit.

Yeah Ten, it's really hard to do more than one thing at the same time. For me, my current challenge for improv is to swing and count in 4s at the same time.

I did the Exercise 3 voicings until I reached Lesson 19 when I started working on the major ii V I progressions.