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Well his two handed improv isn't always improv. He'll do an ostinato on one hand and improvise on the other. So it's not as bad as it sounds. But definitely WAY BEYOND me.

Yeah, this is what the doo-duh-luh thing is for.



Playing with the metronome on the beat and feeling the triplet so as to target the 'let' is how I've worked on swing up to this point. Also, with the metronome on the beat and on the 'let'. My discovery has been that I'm not very solid on the 'let'. Sometimes it rushes and sometimes it's late. That's why I've been trying to play with the metronome on only the 'let' and just feel the downbeat. I can tell that it's making a difference already in my stability, albeit a small difference.




I don't think you really have to think about dragging the downbeat if you are secure with the 'let'. It seems to me you can just play with a more or less swung feel, keeping the upbeat locked in on the 'let' and let the downbeat fall where it falls. No analysis necessary... just feel.

You know, I was thinking about growing up listening to and playing rock and how it's all about the downbeat. I've practiced for years basing everything around a solid downbeat thinking that this was how you keep the time. Now it's the complete opposite... everything is based around a solid swung upbeat. No wonder it's not easy to do!

No I didn't transcribe him jazzwee, but I watched two different versions on YT and watched his left hand. He uses very closed voicings. Rootless. From what I hear. He has a bass player. I used chords from the original track in a book I have and voiced them with fifth and root rocking back and forth between the chord.

I am years away from getting past the melody too. Honestly beyond some chromatic things and substitutions I don't yet even understand what he is doing. But I like that. There is so much to still understand. Just recently I almost felt like stopping altogether. I felt over-whelmed by all there is to learn. I guess that happens often with adult beginners. You maybe have more to say (than a young person), but you lack the facility to say it.

Scott, I think you are absolutely correct here. Control of the 'let' frees you from having to worry about the rest of it. Now if I can only remember where 'let' is at 200bpm I'll be in good shape

When you play 'let' and drag the downbeat, it has a polyrhythmic feel to it. I was just playing around with it as I was driving. And then I understood what my teacher was saying. You can remember that "feel" which equates to a particular downbeat position and you'll know when you're there or not.

In the end, we're back to where we started Think of the 'let'. But it's a good thought process I think.

Well then be overwhelmed with the rest of us There's really no other solution other than to to pick on it a bit at a time. As an adult, hopefully you can have more focus. We can't master everything so we have to manage what we want to learn.


So don't give up. You have a nice touch BTW for someone just new at this. One can see that you're a true musician and just changing instruments.

Thanks jazzwee. That inspired me to keep at it. Seriously

Thanks Scott, both you and jazzwee's comments have inspired me to keep at this.

riverrun (or should I call you riverman ),

The chords didn't sound completely right. I've got to try it again. My understanding is that it's 5/4 played as:
| Dotted Quarter + Dotted Quarter + Quarter + Quarter |

BTW - rr, you have guts to try this I had no guts.

Not bad. Not bad indeed! A very nice rhythmic feel . . . well done!!

Riverman basic LH chords as a pdf


The basic chords are:
C(add2)|xxx|xxx|xxx||Cm(add2)|xxx|Eb7(9)|xxx|AbMaj7|xxx|C(add2)|xxx|

Question is: is it a 5/4 or 15/8 tune? It is definitely easier to notate it in 5/4

Chris that is brilliant! I wish I could transcribe like that. Without even going to the video it looks spot on. The c(add2) at the end of the chart is part of the next 4 bar phrase, and
it's definitely 5/4. Did you work this out from just listening or playing too?

jazzwee, go with these changes rather than mine and see how it sounds. I will be trying them later today. I 'reverse engineered' guitar tab for mine! lol

[riverrun is the first word in Joyce's masterpiece Finnegans wake, the last word is 'the', the whole book cycles round. ]

How did you do that Chris? With so much ease. Bionic Ears? Wow.

All thanks to my "Dunderöron", only $12.99 at your local IKEA.

Both.
I knew what the chords were (their tonal colours) the first time I heard the piece. Majadd2, Minadd2, 7, Maj7, etc
Also, the "trick" to figuring out the chords is to listen to the bass line. Tonic, up a minor third, down a fifth, up a major third. It also helps being British, ND is English, this chordal pattern is "English".
Just kidding, slightly - it's Friday.
But to get the actual notes I need to sit at the piano and play what I hear in my head. (it also helps being slightly manic obsessive about music, when I hear something I like I always try and figure it out. Which used to annoy my two older kids whenever we would look at a film, I would rush to the piano, shout: "pause the flix!" and proceed to bang out the chords or voicing I just heard in a specific scene. I don't do that anymore, I just go "m7 riff going up a minor third" in my head instead. Not sure which is the better way though. )

At jams, a sure-fire way of annoying other players is picking up their lines and flinging them back at them. But it is good ear practice.

So it's Friday. I was looking over some music I had done in the past and found this. Another Nick Drake composition called Northern Sky. I am uploading this for weekend amusement value only.

I did this way before I had started piano studies and was trialling a beta plug-in VST for saxophone (note to self: never use virtual wind instruments). The piano solos are pretty funny and absurd to me on this now. Seriously OTT. Programmed manually in Cubase. There is some pretty slick drums on it though

This is an example of what can happen when you have too many plug-ins and too little knowledge. LMAO

The mix is awful too.

Anyway, enjoy

http://www.box.net/shared/n3c0rfqgg1

Chris, great advice. I'm a long way off from recognizing intervals when I hear them like that. I can do it whilst singing at the piano, but not so easily when just listening to a piece of music. Something else to work on

Here's a great exercise:

Sing the notes as One Three Five Three, etc The idea is to be able to switch tone placement in your head (root becomes Third becomes Fifth, etc). This is major triads, next is minor triads, then Major 7's, dominant 7's, minor 7's and so on. Not easy, but fun, once one starts to get the switch.

Another exercise is to write down any melody you can think of. Three blind mice, write it down on paper, no piano, choose whatever key you like. Then take another melody, Twinkle twinkle little star and so on.

Play along to a Beatles song (or any pop tune), get the bass notes (roots) first, then get the chords, skip the melody for now. Move on to the next song. Do this in real time, no slowing down the song.

_riverrun - nice production BTW.

Now back to the rhythm discussion. After careful thought, it is clear that to do this properly, the entire triplet subdivision must be mastered exactly.

I was listening once again to Mehldau for the last couple of days and really deeply paying attention to this. And on his standards, he's just taking advantage of single notes landing exactly on that offbeat. Instead of playing a line, maybe the key is just hitting just one note and ignoring the downbeat. He'll do several of this in a row. Certainly on "I Don't Know What Time It Was" (Art of the Trio Vol 1).

BUT - he does more. It is obvious he's got some other subdivision going here since he's also landing notes at intermediate spots that I cannot grasp. I think it is a subdivision of 5 as riverrun alluded to earlier. Maybe we'll have to parse that recording to get to it. These are clearly not random key strikes. Even the length of each note seems perfectly timed.

In the meantime, clearly mastery of the single note offbeat position is essential it seems. I already know my teacher lands EXACTLY on the 'Luh' of 'Duh-Duh-Luh'. In my head I start think of it as Luh-Duh-Duh (in reverse) so I can start the key press at right moment.

This is really difficult and it has to be mastered at all tempos. So I'm just going to go with straight metronome on the beat and see how well I subdivide.

Got an interesting reminder today, Chuck Israels on-line arranging course
http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/showthread.php/57277-Lesson-1-Intro-amp-Rhythm

Check out and listen to the last example on this page, (check them all out - its a great lesson on Jazz - all the lessons).

Chris,
interesting lesson. Could you tell me if I understand well. When he says:
----
In jazz and most popular music, harmonic changes take place on the first and third beats of common time music. The accents on the second and fourth beats in jazz function to balance the emphasis that accrues to the down beats as a result of the changes of harmony, and should be played as strongly as they need to be to fulfill that function and no stronger. Accenting the second and fourth beats heavily, as so many school musicians are taught to do, only serves to unbalance the music in the other direction and is as destructive to the swing as overemphasizing one and three. The only time heavy accents are needed on the off beats is when there is an equally strong emphasis on the down beats in a passage that needs a powerful “two beat” feel. In that case, the heavier off beats restore the balance.
----
Is he calling beat 1 and 3 downbeats, and beat 2 and 4, offbeats?

Also, on example 1-3, beats 1 and 3 are often accentuated. How does that link to the paragraph above, where one should only slightly accent beat 2 & 4.