Hey man,

First of all I have to congratulate you on a great album!
I just picked it up from Itunes a week ago or so and I've really enjoyed it. Amazing playing throughout and great arranging and songwriting.

Anyways, my question is who plays the second solo on Time Stands Still? It's my absolute favorite solo right now and I just want to know to whom I owe thanks :)

edit: Hm.... I think I found it out on my own... is it Tim Miller?

Anyway I might as well fill out my post with an additional request for you to tell us a bit about the song... anything and everything will be highly appreciated! :)

http://www.timmillermusic.com Tim Miller teaches at Berklee in Boston. What ever you do, pick up his most recent solo album. It's pure gold. You'll be hearing much more about him in the future I'm sure. It's always a thrill to get to see him play. He's also the sweetest cat around. Here's a great picture from his website with Janek from Janek's recent tour to Venezuela:

http://img326.imageshack.us/img326/4106/timandjanek8gn.jpg

hi,

just about the only thing I can say about that song is that it's a bitch to play over!

Although Cats like Tim Miller and Mark Turner seem to play over it effortlessly. It's something I have to practice a lot to get together. It's started out a prgrammed demo with some drum loops and John Ellis playing all the horns. I might release that version as a bonus track on a box set in a few years. There were a few cool demos from before the album was made that i dig, and would like to release them in the not too distant future.

I'm working hard on a new album right now though, and we should be going into the studio in Oct to work on it. I'm producing a couple of albums for other people before hand, and am working with Tim at Berklee College of Music in Boston, including a trio gig with him and Terri Lynn Carringtong which should be lots of fun.

If anyone's up in Boston in Aug, hit me and up and come by the show.

Easy,

Janek

hi,

just about the only thing I can say about that song is that it's a bitch to play over!

Although Cats like Tim Miller and Mark Turner seem to play over it effortlessly. It's something I have to practice a lot to get together. It's started out a prgrammed demo with some drum loops and John Ellis playing all the horns. I might release that version as a bonus track on a box set in a few years. There were a few cool demos from before the album was made that i dig, and would like to release them in the not too distant future.

I'm working hard on a new album right now though, and we should be going into the studio in Oct to work on it. I'm producing a couple of albums for other people before hand, and am working with Tim at Berklee College of Music in Boston, including a trio gig with him and Terri Lynn Carringtong which should be lots of fun.

If anyone's up in Boston in Aug, hit me and up and come by the show.

Easy,

Janek


Wow man, you gonna be on that gig? I'll see you there for sure.

cool,

it's going to be a great one. Playing all tim's music and maybe a couple of mine too.

I'll be sure to spread the word.

Cool, thx for the info Janek. Too bad I won't be able to come to the gig, but I don't think I can afford a transatlantic flight for one gig :P

Anyway, I've started to transcribe the song and was hoping you could correct me.

Main Part Harmony:
Bbm7|Gbm7|Dmaj|Gbmaj(/Ab)|Gmaj|Emaj|Gm7|Ebm7

Anything out of wack?
Thanks again for the help.

nothing out of whack there at all! nice one. I just think of the third chord as being an Ab-7 chord and not a slash chord. It's all dorian sounding to me.

You say you are thinking of the 3rd chord as Ab-7...is that a tri-tone sub? and I saw a thread where you mentioned substituting triads over chord tones. i have been analysing some of your solos and your motifs are very contemporary. What ideas are you using. Or perhaps etter asked - what are you thinking whilst soloing over chord changes? Hope I asked it correctly. Second question is do you have a recording where you solo over 1 chord? Or can you point me to some material (perhaps by smeone else)? Cheers Janek

Hey,

my bad, I was talking about the 4th chord, not the third one. DOH!!!

You had it as a Gbmaj7/Ab and I just think of it as Ab-7.

I'm playing over one sound on the song that's first up on my myspace page. it's basically C lydian although the root changes from C to D every two bars.

You should check out Steve Grossman on "some Shapes to come" now that's some bad ****!!!! soloing over a vamp. some really contemporary stuff. Check out Dave Liebman, Holdsworth, Trane, Scott Henderson, Michael Brecker, Herbie Hancock.........

I'm trying not to think at all when I'm soloing. I'm drawing upon all the vocabulary I've transcribed and learnt over the years and trying to construct something new out of it.

Easy,

Janek

Just ordered the album. Now, do the skills to play all of the songs come with it? ;)

BTW Janek, none of the videos work on your site- are they just temporarily down?

Hey Janek, I know I'm cheating here but I'm trying to get your solo from the Circles Snippet on your mypage onto Sound Forge so I can slow it down for the faster runs. I can't download it from your site though. Is there a way that I can download the clip?

Bryan:

Thanks for ordering the album. All new orders will be shipped out tomorrow. The videos aren't working on my site right now, but there are two up on the myspace page and a few on youtube I think if you search my name.

EMJAZZ:

That is cheating..... gotta stick to my **** and ask you to work some of that stuff out without slowing it down!! sorry. It's better for you in the long run. And you shouldn't be transcribing my stuff..... get that language from the real masters. Transcribe Trane, Bird, Miles, Herbie, Chick, Metheny. That's where I learnt so much stuff from, and how I, and many other players arrived at playing that stuff.


Easy,

Janek

Bryan:

Thanks for ordering the album. All new orders will be shipped out tomorrow. The videos aren't working on my site right now, but there are two up on the myspace page and a few on youtube I think if you search my name.

EMJAZZ:

That is cheating..... gotta stick to my **** and ask you to work some of that stuff out without slowing it down!! sorry. It's better for you in the long run. And you shouldn't be transcribing my stuff..... get that language from the real masters. Transcribe Trane, Bird, Miles, Herbie, Chick, Metheny. That's where I learnt so much stuff from, and how I, and many other players arrived at playing that stuff.


Easy,

Janek


Hey, is there a run in there that you got from Daniele Camarda?

I doubt it..... as much as I love the guy and he is a great friend of mine, I never transcribed any of his stuff. He is one truely great bass player with a totally unique sound. Too bad he lives in Scicily and doesn't get out so much. But I'm sure his music will surface in a big way someday.

this is a great tune that i've really been getting into a lot lately. Could any one give some insight to what the bridge chords are? I'm having a hard time hearing them since it's a unison line and I can barely hear the harmony in the GospelChops Bass sampler vid (though that's a killin vid!). Thanks for any and all help.

James

Also, could anyone explain to me how you would analyze those changes harmonically with their function (roman numeral analysis etc.)? I'm having a hard time grasping the harmonic concept. Thanks!

I really don't think you're going to get the most out of the chords if you start giving them roman numeral analysis. They're just straight major chords, what you might call constant structure motion where each chord is exactly the same shape.

rather than trying to think about the structure of the chords, just play over the changes over and over again until the get the sound of the root motion, and harmony into your playing. Then you can start coming up with melodies and improvising over the chords without having to think about anything, getting closer to true expression of what's going on in your brain through the instrument.

Easy,

Janek

Janek,

Thanks for the quick response. I was actually asking about the harmonic functions of the chords in the verse, not the bridge (I worded the question incorrectly). Being a Berklee student I'm accustomed to just automatically thinking of chords and progressions in a tonal universe where everything has a function as opposed to just disregarding that and thinking of chord sound. Is this how you approach your tunes harmonically? If so, do you ever think analytically when composing? Thanks!

James

i just put together sounds I like when I'm writing. I may have to look at them in a more theoretical way when I expand the chords for multiple instruments and do orchestrations, but the basis of all my compositions is totally based on what sounds I like.

Easy,

Janek

Janek,

Thanks for the quick response. I was actually asking about the harmonic functions of the chords in the verse, not the bridge (I worded the question incorrectly). Being a Berklee student I'm accustomed to just automatically thinking of chords and progressions in a tonal universe where everything has a function as opposed to just disregarding that and thinking of chord sound. Is this how you approach your tunes harmonically? If so, do you ever think analytically when composing? Thanks!

James

I guess you could think in terms of how the chords are moving. There's some mediant harmony (a la Giant Steps) - movement in major thirds - Bb- to F#-, F#- to Dmaj. The second 4 bars also has a nice kind of symmetry that I can't really nail any kind of theoretical explanation to. As Janek says, best just to get inside the sound. Here's something interesting; if you play the 7th chord arpeggios over the changes, just say quarter notes, and go up an inversion each bar (starting with the first chord on 1st inversion), your first note for the first 3 bars will be C#, and your first note for bars 4 and 5 will be B. There's a lot of interesting little patterns that crop up from the unusual harmonic movement if you dig in just a little bit. How useful are they? Who knows, they certainly don't come out in my improvising, but it's always cool to get as far inside a tune as you can, particularly to find new ways to practice.