Sunday, 23 October 2011

Week 13 - Fresh idea's

It was my last week of class for the year, so that brings good news and bad news. The good news is that I am finished, and will soon be able to spend more time to my jazz studies, the bad news is that its exam time for the next 3 weeks, so I will not be learning any new  jazz, as I must concentrate on my studies. I intend to graduate this year!

Academics aside, this was a good week of learning. I went back to the books again, namely the Jody Fischer ones, as well as some other pdf's I had around my computer. I had neglected the books, and was kinda doing my own thing for the last couple weeks. But its good to come back to material that specifically  teaches you something. The Jody Fisher one was quite helpful, it allowed me to explore the Melodic Minor scale, The diminished scale and the Whole tone scale, and how they can really make my solo's pop out. More noticeably, I read else where that I can try using some of these scales, more specifically the whole tone scale, on plain dominant chords. It will give it an interesting edge to it. For those of you who do not know anything of what I am talking about, all you need to know is that these three scales are very weird and somewhat dark sounding. You can't just play them here and there, they have a very unique sound and special application. This week I was experimenting with their application.  Experimenting with new idea's is essentially jazz is it not? I want my solo's to sound fresh and not so 'unoriginal'.
  -- Just listen to John Coltrane for weird stuff. He went into all this type of avant-garde jazz, whilst being heavily influenced by eastern spirituality/music. I can't say I am the biggest fan of his stuff, but I do respect him as a Great. He did after all, compose the song that to this day is still the song that Jazz musicians use as a benchmark of their skill, compared to others. i.e. "Giant Steps".

Another thing I learnt was to superimpose one arpeggio onto another, its a straight-forward concept, but I never really thought about it. If I play an Em7 arpeggio over a CMaj7, that is going to make the Cmaj7 sound more like a Cmaj9. If we take it one step further, and play an Emaj arpeggio over a dominant G7, its going to make the G7 sound like a G13b9! Now teats 'out the box'. Oh, I also learnt about playing Out-In the box, that's more to do with Tritone-substitution. It has the same principle of playing another chords scale/arpeggio over a different chord, but as long as its A TRITONE AWAY. For those of you studying jazz, don't overlook this concept, it seems daunting at first, but it sounds really awesome.

I did some transcribing too, but not jazz stuff, its actually a funk number by the Average White Band, song is called 'Pick up the Pieces'. I am confident that all of you have heard this song.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnH_zwVmiuE] <--- Link to song
I worked out both the chords and the melody. Was not that difficult, but just goes to show how this jazz study is helping me in non-jazz fields. I also learnt 2 standards. "Have you met miss Jones" and "Tune Up". Both are relatively easy to play, especially tune up, and they give you enough time to think of the chords and what solo to use over it.

Lastly, something that has interested me for a long while is walking bass on guitar. Namely, to play the chords of the song alongside a constant walking bass line. I've been dabbling here and there on my guitar with some lines, but nothing solid. On Friday and Saturday I looked up loads of video's on YouTube on some idea's and I got some great information. One video especially, which I will post up just now. So, I'm still a far way away form groovn' bass on the guitar, but I am definitely going in the right direction. I thought it would come in handy for the shows I do with Otis. Would be good to keep the rhythm as well as to outline each chord I play. Jazz bass is super fun.


I will go more into walking bass lines on guitar, but for now I must study. So time for a bit of a jazz break.

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