Friday, August 16, 2013

Singer Sat In and Gig Stuff

Here's from tonight's gig. Singer sat in. She's pretty amazing and the crowd just loves her. She sat in a couple of times before. Just love it when musicians of this quality just drop by and it shows respect for what we can do as well.

Blue Bossa
https://app.box.com/s/c79on8hqv6m5g8b2ezfy

Here's another singer from another prior gig (June I think) doing Blue Bossa (who would have known that Blue Bossa had lyrics!).

Blue Bossa #2
https://app.box.com/s/fev5umo7zypfzra38k0d

I wonder how people judge these two singers. Both very good in different ways.

Also I should note that this is the first time I've played as a Trio and I was quite comfortable. I wasn't rushing and we pretty much played completely different tunes than on my set list in reaction to the crowd. But I didn't get fazed.

Now I felt stiffer than usual but I didn't feel that it affected anything I was actually doing other than perhaps not smiling much at the audience. Maybe time to learn things outside of music (like professional demeanor).





Friday, August 9, 2013

Recent Recordings August 2013

I've been a little busy and didn't have time to update the blog. However, the music goes on and gigs are still frequent. Here's a couple of recordings from a few days ago.

Afro Blue
https://app.box.com/s/ibqwa1f41ifzlquxydp0

Getting a little more comfortable with this modal kind of playing. Afro Blue is a one chord vamp so you really have to use your imagination. I have to think about Kenny Werner's mantra a lot here which is "There is No Wrong Note". Really works actually.

Night Dreamer
https://app.box.com/s/3772s73eb0qk30rlbt3c

This is a beautiful melody from Wayne Shorter and we gave it a try. I had only seen the changes the day  before and then realized it was actually quite difficult. But we survived and it actually sounds good. It will sound better when I actually know the tune. No one in the group has played it before so it was actually amazing.

Free Jam
https://app.box.com/s/vxy3rd781t7048urymdw

Here's another of the open style of playing. Unfortunately, there are other parts to this with the piano portion that did not get recorded. There's a theme here and I'm finding myself and the band moving to this more free style of jazz. Everyone in the band is liking the approach. Getting more hardcore jazz I suppose.

I have this one regular gig (Monthly) at a restaurant that just been turning into a big local hangout. We have this fabulous singer who can just work the crowd and an audience who specifically comes to listen to jazz. I've been playing here with my band for a year now and it's really a good feeling when you have a happy audience that really enjoys your music. I never thought I would experience this at my age.

But clearly, the band as whole is improving. Nowadays, we do this gig as a trio + singer. So I have to carry the load as the pianist. Not that intimidating at all. I'm just getting more confident about what I can do and the musicians around me are top notch.

I always look back to this mantra (second mantra for this blog post): "Always hang out with players better than you". This has paid dividends. Of course, after awhile, everyone equalizes as skill levels increase for all.

Practice time has been cut down lately due to numerous pressures on my time. However, I  noticed that development doesn't seem to stop as long as I keep thinking of what to improve. At my level, it isn't necessarily a technical skill but an awareness (developing an ear) for what's happening around me. This relates to both rhythm as well as solo lines.

I'm getting close to 9 years on the instrument so perhaps it is natural to expect to sound better. It looks like I'm on track to sound pro by 10 years. Of course, I'm already gigging regularly so this is more of a quality marker for me.

Need more chops though. Just can't seem to rush this.








Monday, April 29, 2013

April 28 Gig

Some recordings from tonight. Sax, Piano, Bass, Drums. Huge crowd that came specifically to see us and I was amazed. Somebody did some really good publicity at the venue.

Someday My Prince Will Come
https://www.box.com/s/pdrfmsi04rk09xramo0q

Night in Tunisia
https://www.box.com/s/k1lkw2miuk192s399iqg

Beatrice
https://www.box.com/s/q6p104va3drq4o384xp2

Friday, March 22, 2013

Gig!

I have been playing regularly at this particular restaurant for 7 months and it's just an awesome crowd and great vibe. This young woman sat in with the band. What an awesome singer! She knew exactly what she was doing.

Softly as in the Morning Sunrise
https://www.box.com/s/iwp536u5k0xxw6bcmanx

Girl from Ipanema
https://www.box.com/s/wh3zm3eyua5puiol9if6

The gig went over for 5-6 more tunes because no one wanted to stop. People were expecting us to finish and were already lined up to leave but they couldn't leave and ended up standing for 45 more minutes.

What a great gig!

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Piano Technique - My Two Cents

Rather than repeatedly type the same things over and over in forums, it's probably best just to consolidate my main ideas into this blog. So expect more of this in the future.

Part of my intent with creating this blog is to encourage and motivate others interested in Piano in general and Jazz Piano in particular (pick your poison, I deal with both). So this time I'm going to talk about my experience in Piano in general, and specifically about technique.

I can't say I have a lot of technique compared to classical pianists playing for 20+ years. It's passable now but being older, I thought it would be an impossible struggle. I spent an inordinate amount of time intellectualizing the study of technique from reading. I went to a Classical piano teacher who had incredible technique who learned directly from a 2nd generation student of Liszt. I debated technique on the Pianist Corner.

Now at 8 years into this journey, and post-tendonitis and various other injuries on my hand from overuse. I can say I've tried a lot of different things and what is fresh in my mind is what I'm learning. In fact this is what makes me unique as a story teller. I'm gone through these issues recently. Not like some old-time teacher who had to overcome technique issues at 8-10 years of age. And luckily, I can verbalize the experience specifically for adults.

I can play OK now. I can play fast 16ths on a jazz tune. I'm starting to solo in jazz at professional level tempos (above 250bpm). My tone is better and my finger legato is good. In other words, my technique has developed.

What Playing Feels Now

I need to capture this experience for newbies so they can sense if they're headed in the right direction or not. When I was playing piano in the early years, the feeling on the instrument is very different from how it feels now. It will be interesting to see if I read this blog-post 10 years from and have a change of opinion. But for now, I will give my current opinion.

Back then, I had to consciously apply movements I've learned intellectually like rotation, moving hands in and out (in relation to the fallboard), be conscious of the arm weight, shape of the hand, relaxation, height of the bench, tension in my body from shoulders to fingers, ...on and on.

Looking back, I think I overdid the intellectualization. I realize now that there is a natural tendency for the body to do it right. If you will let it. I realize now that allowing the body to be unrestricted is in fact the training required for good technique.

Unfortunately, I haven't found any short cuts. Everything still requires time. Maybe this is one of the first limitations I've discovered about starting piano after 8 years of age. Our body RESISTS naturally now, at least as an adult.  Or is it the brain that resists? Probably the brain. As an adult, the brain intellectualizes and applies logic instead of just letting go and letting the natural movements guide us.

Reminds me of the action of "falling". As a child, if you fall of a skateboard, you will likely land relaxed on the pavement and suffer little injury. As an adult, you will land stiff as a board, and you will suffer painfully from broken bones. This is not an idle statement. I broke an ankle to prove this point!

Piano playing, just like learning to skateboard as an adult, is not a natural thing to do. The body has to "memorize" distances perfectly and orchestrate a precise coordination of movements. But I've since discovered that the problem is, the adult brain, interferes and makes everything stiff.

Problem of Opposing Muscles

The issue with playing piano is that our natural tendency is to "hold back" and this results in that stiffness I describe. Everything is done at first with brute force (often with finger power). This is true of any adult beginner. Specifically, what happens is that instead of a particular muscle just contracting and performing the desired task directly, some other accessory muscle is always countering this movement. This is what is meant when someone says you have too much "tension". It is impossible to play the piano completely relaxed. Muscles have to contract. Muscles have to support. Muscles have to retain shape and structure such as the hand or position of the arm.

But every action is a balance. For example, holding one's arm in a fixed position is a balance between two sets of muscles pulling on the same sets of joints on opposite sides.  I don't need to get technical and describe these movements of tendons, ligaments and muscles.

To depress a key on the piano swiftly and without hesitation requires a complete release of the opposing muscle. It's pretty hard to do. I don't know why, but the body seems to always act naturally to reserve the right to reverse the action so it doesn't let go and the muscles work against each other.

This is the unnecessary muscle contraction. This is under the control of our conscious mind. If our conscious mind doesn't interfere, you will use only the necessary muscles and not more.

In other words, the brain has to be taught to eliminate the stiffness and promote looseness. And the brain can be taught to do this, by playing SLOW.

Logic of Playing Slow

I don't always play slow. In fact, it's not something I do that often. However, when teachers say "play it slow" we need to dig deeper into what's being said and how to apply this to practice.

Let's say we're playing a technically difficult phrase (like a series of A arpeggios in Chopin's 10/1 Etude -- one of the toughest challenges I found in that piece). If you try to solve it by brute force, and you practice it day after day, the end result is just tendonitis. It's tough on the fingers and the shoulders get tense and strained.

Now technically speaking, teachers will talk about solutions like arm weight, wrist rotation, in/out motion. But instead of thinking about any of that, just play it VERY SLOWLY. Extremely, and excruciatingly slow. I mentioned this to someone and the reaction was that this sounds ludicrous.

But let's get to the point of it. By slowly, I mean that at every note keypress, make the most natural movement that your body follows in slow motion. LET YOUR BODY TEACH YOU. And then use the following questions to so if you're interfering or if you're letting go.
  1. Feel any tension in your body. Are you shoulders scrunched? Are you putting all your weight in the finger?
  2. Watch the angle of your wrist. Was there any rotation?
  3. Is there a need to move the hand in or out to cut down on motions and twisting? What does finger naturally do if you let it?
  4. Wiggle the finger on the note. Feel the support from your shoulder-arm-wrist-finger-joint. Does the finger need to be adjusted? Is it in the center of the key?
  5. How's the arm weight? Is there too much weight, too little weight?
  6. How about the other fingers that are unused? Wiggle them. Are they tense?
  7. What about the prior note (finger legato)? Is it being pulled up from the key too fast?
  8. Are you holding some fingers in an extended position from a note previously played?
  9. Is the wrist twisted (left-right position in relation to the arm) and not straight? Is your body promoting this twist by not moving the upper body (and your bottom) in relation to the wrist?
  10. Did I say WIGGLE? Let me repeat that. That's the test to make sure everything is loose. Did you wiggle once? Wiggle one more time with the only support being the tip of the finger on the key.
I'm sure there's more but the issue here is that when someone says "play slow", you need to dig deeper into what that means. Your body has to memorize the feeling of a non-tense keypress into every single note. EACH NOTE COULD BE DIFFERENT. It's just the nature of the beast. The movements are not necessarily symmetrical. Each movement has to be learned. This is why learning the piano is so hard. There's a million movements to remember automatically.

Just to make sure we're all on the same boat here, understand what slow means. The above is NOT metronome slow. IT IS SLOWER THAN THAT. I could be 5-10 seconds per note initially. And sped up as you eliminate the bad movements.

Result of this Conscious Analysis

Now if you really become conscious of every movement in slow motion, you will have time to address every tension and remove it. Then your body will memorize this and file this into your subconscious. And you will begin to use proper techniques as described in various technique schools like "relaxation", "rotation", and so on. You will then use a minimal amount of muscle contraction to play.

Mind you, there are stages to this. I certainly have a lot of work to do in this arena. Just because I'm writing this doesn't mean I've solved all my issues. But it takes time to practice all this slowly. Just a Scale alone is a monumental thing to practice in this manner.

But like everything else, we need to build a database of skills. Piano requires a lot of it. And from a technique point of view, these skills have to be accumulated since everything is different. Even playing a C scale has different effects on muscles depending on the register/octave.

Example Issue

On a regular basis, I play scales and then slowly listen for unevenness. Now usually my goal is to play scales pretty fast. Typically around 150bpm quarter notes (playing 16ths). When I do this, I listen for various problems like a common one is losing finger legato on the thumb, or unevenness in finger 4. Often, playing fast adds tension and then I recognize a weakness in technique.

So once I hear the problem (there's another blog post about "hearing your faults"), this is now the time to apply the slow practice methodology above, again analyzing every movement in my entire body. Once you've isolated the correct movements (as taught to you by your body), you can start  speeding it up again until you've achieved perfection.

Summary

I don't have a regular teacher now. And I haven't been to a Technique teacher in a long time. But I've learned that all I need to do is to let my own body teach me how to do it. And it will do it if you press each note painstakingly slow when you have a technical problem.





Filing Skills into Your Subconscious Storage

Thank you to the many people who've been reading my blogs. The large readership has encouraged me to write more about things that help in developing one's piano skills.

I received a message from a friend who was surprised at how quickly I've developed in eight years from beginner to a becoming a paid (though mediocre) jazz pianist.  And frankly, after asking my friend about his daily practice plan, I don't see how anyone can be surprised. Those who develop quickly (like me) have no special skills other than methodical planning and discipline. When followed development is huge and is noticeable in large chunks of time (like every 6 months),

Dear friend, in asking your question, and in my asking about your practice plan, you can see how different our activities are. You start the session playing scales. Then you go play a series of tunes from the Real Book. Then you worked on playing tunes with two handed voicings. Then you played what your teacher asked you to do with shell voicings which was "Don't Blame Me".

Now what's wrong with this picture? What is missing is that none of your practice has any goals. Especially specific ones. Let's start with scales. I practice scales daily too. But it isn't important that I practice all scales. I do it with a specific objective. In my case, I speed it up a tad, then I listen for unevenness. At this stage of my playing, some of this is really subtle and frankly it requires a lot of focus now to hear the unevenness. But a beginner's ears are even worse. After a daily habit of plunking down a pattern of keystrokes, you may not realize unless someone else (like a teacher) points out that some notes may be played faster than others. So this is my constant task. Look for problems.

Next let's move on to the playing from the Real Book. This is even more vague. What is the objective? Picking out the chords and voicing it perfectly? Are you pausing? Do you have to watch your fingers lay out the voicings? If so, then it's TOO FAST. If you are pausing, you have just practiced PAUSING. You have just semi-permanently embedded a very bad pattern in your playing which you know have to undo for many many months.

The next thing you did was play "Don't Blame Me". Your teacher said play this with a metronome. Now I ought to emphasize that it's not so simple as saying "Play with a Metronome". This really should be translated to: Play it PERFECTLY with a metronome. And if you can't, SLOW IT DOWN UNTIL YOU DO.

Let's simplify all these in simple goals. First, it is not essential to practice the same issue for hours. Your objective should be to play it perfectly FIVE TIMES. Why 5 times? Well, that's what I learned from my teacher (world class jazz pianist). In the absence of any scientific alternative, I'll take that. It's not that easy to play something perfectly 5 times. If you make a mistake, the count goes back to zero. If you keep making a mistake, then slow it down. And then maybe the next day you do the same thing and increase the tempo up a tad.

I recently was doubtful myself of this technique because I was learning a very difficult "head" from the tune Inner Urge. It has this sequence of sixteenths that is played as fast as Chopin Etude 10/1 and involves several arpeggios including an A arpeggio. It seemed hopeless and impossible. But with patience, I was able to play it after a month (with some errors) and getting easier now. I just played it today and I'm now up to tempos exceeding 10/1. I don't have to work on it much. I just have to do it everyday. I don't even play the whole head. I just focus on the problem arpeggios and again the goal is to play it perfectly 5 times. Slowly at first and gradually speeding it up.

Again it has to be done PERFECTLY. It doesn't matter what the tempo is. 

What is the objective? As I know now, learning an instrument is about filing the knowledge or skill into subconscious storage. Doing something perfectly allows your mind to file the knowledge away for retrieval in automated mode. Those who have no practice strategy have not built any automated routines in their subconscious knowledge bank. Thus, every attempt to play requires too much conscious thought, and with a little stage fright and distraction, the performance will fail.

A professional musician is able to play with little effort. Why? Because his conscious mind is not focused on "voicings", "fingerings", "evenness", etc. He can just pay attention to the music and can alter the performance more for expression. In jazz, this allows more time to be "musical" when creating melodic lines. Now, I'm too early of a jazz pianist to be too successful at the musical side but I can tell from recordings that suddenly my solos are not so random anymore. It's still hit or miss but certainly it has changed. That's because, I have more brain power available when playing. I don't have to think about what my fingers are doing for the most part. Those have all been filed away.

So, my friend, what skills are  you filing in your Subconscious Storage?



Friday, February 15, 2013

Valentine's Gig

Our band is really doing well. Sometimes I can't believe that what was just a little challenge 8.25 years ago has turned into a real role as a professional musician. It's amazing. Lots of audience members talked to me after the show and during the break and I got so many nice compliments that I'm just overjoyed.

The place was packed. This was the first time this venue has ever done anything on Valentine's day. Usually it's a dead night for them as everyone goes to the fancy restaurants for a dinner date. But the owner took a risk and it paid off. I've never seen this place so filled up. No seating was available until the second set.

Tonight was a quintet with a guitar player, and vocals/percussion. Here's a sampling of some of the tunes. Lots of risk taking here. Playing something faster than we've ever done or something dangerously difficult like Con Alma.


Solar - uptempo
https://www.box.com/s/ygf6jucuydt1gcoe0yar

Con Alma -- my first try. My goal was just to survive. Too many notes, not enough content.
https://www.box.com/s/k8hnfiow6jglcjbvkj07

Footprints -- quite uptempo. 220-230? Tough!
https://www.box.com/s/vo21um7ocicropxvyv7g

Song For My Father
https://www.box.com/s/nxw9qxmv4tatym0t1niu

All the Things You Are
https://www.box.com/s/lyzshe9hhgb6se3n6qpd


Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Con Alma Transcription Project

I will keep updating this particular post as I complete the process of Transcribing Con Alma -- Alan Pasqua solo on the 'Standards' Album, this album was a Jazz Grammy Finalist, I think in 2010.

Now the whole point of this is to learn the reharmonization structures he uses to make this tune sound outside on the A section. It uses intervallic lines based around augmented triads. So this is a continuation of my discovery blog on 'Playing Outside'.

Unfortunately, I can't find the actual track on Youtube so below is a live performance so it will not match the transcription. After listening to this particular one, he's sticking to the same tonality and I can hear the same structure but he's playing it completely differently from the original record (as I would expect).




Anyway, the starting point is the leadsheet below. This sounds like what the bass player was playing.

Now this is an interesting version to figure out because if you listen to the original recording, you can hear that it sounds pretty 'out' on the A section.

Specifically,  AP reharmonized this with Maj7#5, Dom 7 with #5 b9 and #11 in the A section. The intervals used are primarily triad shapes. So they're made to imply harmony.

The B section is played completely inside the standard harmony as far as I could hear (I've transcribed the first chorus only). There are only two chords per bar so all extra chords beyond 2 are not played.




 
 
Transcription is based on this track: https://www.box.com/s/zjzfc3r5o7jsbgztrug4
 
 
Partial Transcription. First A section of solo.
 
As the transcription shows, all the Maj7 chords have a #5. The first EMaj7 has a #5 but before the first chord is played. The EMaj7 is implied I think since no chords are played on the pickup. Alterations on the dominants vary. Sometimes only a #5, and at the most b9, #11, and #5. The solo is heavy on triad shapes, including Augmented triads. I'm not sure if I positioned the triplets correctly on the bar line but it's close enough for analysis purposes. I'm just not good at notating rhythm.
 
As a practice strategy here, clearly one needs to visualize the various dominant alterations as triad shapes. To be able to pull this at will like below requires complete mastery of 12 tones for each chord.
 
-----
 
This whole Con Alma transcription project revealed some new shapes to me, like arpeggiations within a whole tone scale. When I got familiar with that, going a little out on Con Alma isn't that hard at all. The issue is how not to overdo it. I got a lot of ideas here. By looking for triad shapes in the WT scale, I could really have only one 'out' note. Either a #11 or a #5.
 
Now AP isn't just using a WT scale. Lots of triad upper structures. But if I'm going to have a take on what I learned here, it's that I shouldn't abuse the 'color'.
 
One could play this tune completely inside at moments than subtly switch to what AP is doing. And thus it really offers some fun opportunities for playing with tension/release and surprise the audience a little.
 
I guess these realizations are the payback for the hard transcription work.
 

  
 

 

 
 
 


Playing 'Outside' Part 3

So far, I've only discussed my forays into structured approaches to playing outside (or adding colors).

There's an alternative strategy and one that I've just recently gotten comfortable with. This is the Kenny Werner version of "Free" playing. His idea is THERE IS NO WRONG NOTE.

This is a little different because how does the ear perceive a mistake in jazz vs. an intent? Each time I start a gig now, before the band starts, I just get into a Kenny Werner mode of just playing random notes on the piano. And I have to admit, that because I do it with intent, it doesn't sound out of place or dissonant.

I think when we lack intent, it becomes obvious in the phrasing. We leave the dissonant note extremely fast in our embarrassment. But it really sounds different when you hold on to a dissonant note. It may actually start to fit the harmony after a few bars. I'm actually amazed at some unusual harmonies that come out of free play.

What's more important here is that phrasing a line dominates more than the actual notes selected. At least this has been my observation.

Now do I have the guts to play free while there's a combo backing me up and I'd have to conflict with the bass player? At this point, I don't have that confidence to try it at a gig. Maybe once of these days I'll experiment at a jam when it's the last tune or something.

In the end, music is, as my teacher would emphasize, is a play on tension and release.  How we arrive at the tension and how much of it, is a personal taste and can be of the Cecil Taylor extreme, or the more mild one or two note dissonances. This is the art of it.

I thought the Jaki Byard's dissonant notes were fine. It added interest for me. Apparently it's even too much for some. I have to admit that when I first started learning about Jazz in late 2004, I actually searched for tunes that had unexpected 'outside' colors. So maybe I'm outside (no pun intended) the norm here. Maybe it's why I like Modern jazz more because there's more of this.

Time to listen to more Herbie and Wayne Shorter! (I have tickets for May 2013). When I heard them before, they will just play the melody and switch keys so the melody was more important than the key. I think this year, I will have more understanding of what's going on.

Playing 'Outside' Part 2

Over a year ago, I took a few lessons from a teacher from the East Coast and one of the earliest comments I got was my lack of 'hip' colors in my playing. My lines were completely diatonic (excluding passing tones) and I didn't play anything out. He told me to work on that.

A year later, and I'm just beginning to foray using a little bit and there for live performances. It still takes too much thinking so often I have to prepare for it tune by tune (studying the progressions).

So to force myself to apply this in my playing, I'm going to lay out some of the specific exercises I need to do so I can integrate some hip colors in my solo, starting with the easiest.

1.       One of the easier places to play out is in a Dorian mode. This I do apply frequently. In the tune So What, which is in D Dorian, and then Eb Dorian, you have an example of being able to clearly see when you are playing out.

When in D Dorian (Dm), all the white notes can be used in the solo. All those notes are diatonic. So if one uses some black notes, then you are clearly outside of the harmony and you are a half-step up. I saw this done in a video on Youtube and it sounded good. You can control how much you play out by how often you go to a black note (which is in effect playing Eb Dorian over Dm). This one is easily implemented and I do it now for a portion of my solo in So What.

Now where I can take this further is not to think of the scale but actually come up with a melodic line in D Dorian and then translate it a half step up to Eb Dorian. That would be an excellent practice strategy for me to move this up a notch.

2.      Another area that I could easily implement on playing with more colors or more outside sounding lines, is to do diminished cycle substitutions on my dominants. I did practice it before but I slacked off. The idea here is to sub a dominant a minor third away so you have 4 variations, b9, b5, #11, and 13. It's pretty easy to do. Just move the rootless (7)(13) voicing up and down in minor thirds. What I'm not implementing correctly though is the translate the LH voicing to a RH triad shapes which apply to the color of the LH voicing. So more woodshedding to be done here.

3.      An easy trick on dominants is to play a minor triad a half step up from the root. So you end up with a b9-3-#5. This is easy to visualize so I've been doing this a lot now and it's very commonly used (heard it on the AP and Herbie videos too). But thinking about this more, one can modify the triad to 9-3-#5, 1-3-#5, b9-3-5 (in inversions) so that you don't overdo the color. This requires really deep visualization of all the possibilities in real time. I can do it without thinking now on many ii-V's but some are not handy to the fingers.

On a related point, I transcribed a little lick that melodically inserts the  #5 in the dominant. The main feature of the ii-V-I lick was a descending chromatic series of 3 notes where the first note is the 9 of the ii,  middle note lands on the #5 of the V and the last note ends on the 9 of the I.

4.     Specifically applicable to dominants, I need to start implementing playing of alternate scales such as H-W Diminished, Whole-Tone, and ALT. And ALT scale would imply a full Tritone sub, while the H-W diminished gives the next level of outside tones (b9, #9, #11) and then the Whole-Tone scale gives 2 notes of outside tones (#11, #5). So here it's a matter of degree of color needed.

I did transcribe some Chick Corea lines to see how he handled H-W Diminished. It's too easy to think of these as scales. I really haven't worked them to the level of intervallic playing or triad shapes. I need to do that.

This reminds me, someone on the forum was saying that at the Aebersold camp, they were pushing the use of Lydian Dominants (Dom7#11). Maybe I need to find lines that show this is an example since I don't know why they were pushing for Lydian specifically vs. any of the other color options above. I guess Lydian would be the lightest alteration scale wise. Only 1 color tone. Maybe this is the easiest to absorb? I don't know.

5.      Something easily done (and copied from Herbie) was the use of chromatic chord movements on minor chords. For example, if a tune stays for a long time in Cm7, then one can voice C#m7, Bm7 as passing chords. This means the melodic lines can sway back and forth like that too. I've been using this a lot in slower minor blues or Footprints.

6.       A more advanced technique that requires intense practice is the use of Augmented triads. I mentioned this as the technique being used by Alan in the prior video. Basically it involves reharmonization of a ii-V-I along the lines of using augmented triads as follows:
ii --> min(maj)7 #5  - Aug Triad shape centered on b3.
V --> Dom 7 #5 - Aug Triad shape centered on 3
I --> Maj7 #5 - Aug Triad shape centered on 3

So each of the above chords in a ii-V-I receives one note that is outside the expected diatonic harmony. I just transcribed a portion of the use of this in Alan's version of Con Alma. Clearly, one needs to be more aware of melodic movement and not just think of the triad. There's a lot more to learn here.

7.      Rhythmic Displacement is another technique to bring out tension notes. The problem is that I haven't studied were this is best used. It's not so interesting when used for example in delaying the ii in a ii-V (sounds like a Sus chord) or anticipating the V (sounds like a ii(m6) ). It has to be used where the next chord or prior chord is a modulation or at least enough difference in the notes that you know exactly which note is being sounded out as dissonant. I really haven't studied this one deeply enough. It requires a lot more research. All I know is that in a ii-V, there are alternate explanations (like delayed resolution) that translate really to reharms like Sus chords and Cm6 tonic sounds etc.

8.      A specific sound that I learned from Stolen Moments is how the C-7 chord gets some color by playing Dm7(9) voicing underneath as a passing chord. This gets into forays into shifting from major to minor. I don't think this is particularly being outside but it provides color if there's no conflict in playing the 3 instead of the b3 on C-7.

The above is my starting point. I should master the above before proceeding to other things but at least I need to expand the list.

In my early discovery here, I've noticed that one can play with this and work it out on the keyboard. The best outside lines seem to be ones that only highlight a note or two as having dissonance. So one could attack this as upper structure triads too.

I haven't really gone into thinking about this as upper structure triads because I've gone to more specific identification of the alterations. For example playing D/CMaj7  gives as a nice #11. But it's too obvious to me. I already know where the #11 is. I don't need to think of D since the #11 is the more important color. But that's just me.

Playing 'Outside' - Part 1

We're having a discussion about playing outside in the Piano Forum ABF and I'd like to blog some of that for posterity.

The debate arose when we listened to Beatrice (Sam Rivers) and specifically to Jaki Byard's solo in the middle of the video.






The issue here is that during Jaki Byard's solo, over a progression of | Dm7 | EbMaj7#11 | he plays a D dorian run emphasizing B and then E twice. The problem is using standard harmonic rules, one could say that playing the b9, and #5 on an EbMaj7#11 is a no-no. The line in question can be heard at 2:59 in the video above.

I think there's no question that here he is playing outside. To try to explain this as some chord EbMaj7(b9)(#11)(#5) would be a waste of energy. The question raised was if this was a mistake or intentional. Of course we can only look in hindsight and we can't ask Jaki since he died long ago. Later on I think the #5 can be justified in current practice so I would assume this was no mistake,

So anyway it raised some discussions on approaches to playing outside. Is it "structured" or just "free play"? I only react from what I was taught since my teacher was a student of Jaki Byard. From what I know, going outside has always been a structured matter, where one becomes ever so conscious of the underlying harmony and selectively choosing just a note or two outside of the expected harmony to titillate the senses. At least that's my sense of it when done well.

When playing completely outside (no connection to current harmony -- such as playing a scale 1/2 step up) it may be perceived as a mistake. I have a recording (that I will NOT post) that proves this. We were playing Windows in B- and the Sax player soloed over it in Bb-. Wow that grated my ears big time.

Now listen to these two recordings. One by the Alan Pasqua/Peter Erskine Trio and the other is Herbie Hancock playing Autumn Leaves. Both sounding really out.




 



So the question here is, are the above indicative of outside playing? Most of the current versions of outside playing have been formulaic and pre-determined based on the copying what others have done before.

I will note to you that some of it I can hear in the Herbie Clip, particulary #5 and b9 triads in dominants, playing a half-step up, playing minor chords half-step up and then back down, and tons more I don't yet understand particularly on non-dominants.These sound like formulas too (reharmonizations) but he just had so much in there that I'd have to try to study it very carefully.

The AP version of outside playing was based on specific decisions about doing harmonic overlays (i.e. reharmonization). I know specifically what was done above.  I worked on it bar by bar. I use it sometimes but cannot sustain it. It is based on augmented triad shapes and developed using the following reharmonization concepts in ii-V-I's.
ii --> min(maj)7
V --> V7(#5)
I --> Maj7(#5)
With the above reharmonizations you can see that augmented triads can be found and this results in ONE note in each chord sounding "out". It's interesting in that (a) the 'outside' sound is not sustained in all notes. You just hear the occasional dissonance. (b) normally we think of going outside on dominant chords and this particular reharmonization sounds out on the entire ii-V-I, but not obsessively so.

In addition to the harmonic overlays, AP did rhythmic displacement (chord anticipation).  I was told that this rhythmic displacement existed with Bud Powell, Tristano, Bill Evans. I couldn't tell you the tunes but it was demonstrated to me in person by my teacher.

So at least in the AP instance above, clearly it wasn't some random playing to go outside. Neither was it some random effect like playing a melody in a different key. AP actually studied the sound and used some particular substitutions.

You will hear a similar sound in his version of  Con Alma. Now did he learn this from Jaki Byard? I don't know.  He doesn't play like Jaki. Not even close. Their sounds are completely opposite.

(To be Continued)

Friday, January 18, 2013

January 2013

Some tunes from tonight's gig.

Inner Urge
https://www.box.com/s/zwa4yxba9o4x1ma693d4

Summertime
https://www.box.com/s/n655qn8kj3gi6ijr490z

Solar
https://www.box.com/s/sk2o0qbcnl7xvklccaf9


Inner Urge is a new tune that I've been working on. Tough! Anyway, I couldn't get the head perfectly each time. There was always some little problem. This is a work in progress. But it's a great challenge since I seem to learn something new each time I play it. It's also very fast and doesn't sound good slow.