Real Book Fun!!

[PlanetEarth]

Ha, I don't wanna say "told ya so" but.... LOL!!!

Seriously though, yeah!!!! I know, I use it all the time to stay sharp and improve. You're gonna get the same holy-crap moment after doing the rhythm exercise in GNU Solfege and subsequently the site singing exercises. It comes quicker than you think if you're diligent about it and once you get to where you're picking up the book, singing the melodies and hearing the changes in your head before even picking up your instrument.... Well, it's very empowering and informative, you then have access to an entirely new language and all the information out there written in that language that you didn't have before. And it of course all just makes you that much more hire-able.... I do gigs frequently (in fact just last week, a last minute call @ 6pm on a Fri. night for a 9pm gig) where the artist had all original tunes I'd never heard, was musically illiterate in terms of being able to speak the language enough to call changes, and had no charts. So basically I showed up, set-up, she started playing and I just had to jump in the fire. It was a total test of every bit of academia I've ever picked up on to get through it - long story short, she called me the next day to book me through the rest of the year. Since then, I picked up all 3 of her albums and have 2 of them charted so far...

-PE

[RocketMusic]

I've got my next tune together! Originally a fairly tame Afro/Latin 3/4 piece for flute by Mongo Santamaria, I made it a rockin' 6/8 number in Ab (inspired by Derek Truck's version). Here's my take on:

Afro Blue

This was all done with this incredibly gorgeous Gadow Custom 5-string and my usual signal chain (Alembic F1X/Alembix SF2 -> Lexion Alpha USB interface -> PC/Sonar Producer 8.5).

[PlanetEarth]

^ Yeah man!!!! Look out, Greg's bringin` it full steam!!!! This man's on a mission fer sure!!

I'm going to practice...

Greg, how about posting your rhythm tracks??

-PE

[RocketMusic]

Great minds think alike, Brian! I just finished mixing down some of the individual tracks. I was trying to better show off the tone of the Gadow bass by breaking down the mix a bit.

If you want to play along, by all means - please do! And record it! And post it!

Here are some submixes:

Afro Blue (Bass Only)
Afro Blue (Leads Only)
Afro Blue (Rhythm Section)

The bass line was all neck pickup, and I was going for grungy and gnarly. I think I went beyond were I meant to go, though, by accidentally overdriving the USB interface. There are a couple spots of unintended distortion in there. Sorry 'bout that!

The "leads" are really 5 different takes (3 solos & 2 verses). The verses leaned on the neck pickup 10-15%, and the solos were all bridge pickup with a little bass boost. Both have a very pleasant bell-like quality, a really beautiful tone. And a little delay was thrown on to fatten the leads up a smidge.

The rhythm track once again showcases my favorite part of the project - the chords. I guess I'm a closet rhythm guitar player at heart. I never would have imagined that.

[RocketMusic]

I just posted a fairly rockin' version of John Coltrane's "Mr. P.C." over in this thread.

This is me skipping around in the Real Book, which I didn't want to do. But I've been unsuccessful in trying to muster some enthusiasm for the next page in the Real Book: "Afternoon In Paris". It's a lovely tune, just a bit square for me. I'm going to try to re-imagine it somehow, I won't be stopped! I'll have to ask myself "what would Derek Trucks do with this tune?".

[VroomVroom]

Nice take, Greg! Nothing wrong with skipping around. I still have the first Real Book copy I bought - back in 1990 - and I'd guess there's at least half the book I haven't touched.

Speaking of Mr. Trucks...have you heard his take on 'Mr. PC' from his first album? It was a lot of fun. (It's also amazing to hear how that band has blossomed since then.)

You're already on to the idea of changing things up rhythmically, but a common and enjoyable turn on some of these tunes is to flip 'em around completely. Take a ballad, for example, and turn it into a burning samba. Or, the other way around works too. "Giant Steps" as a slow bossa makes it possible for lunkheads like me to almost grasp the changes.

[RocketMusic]

Here's the latest tune I did out of The Real Book!

Clip: "All Blues" (Miles Davis)
Bass: Roscoe Century-3006-J

[fesem]

Wow! Fantastic bass orchestra, great playing and great tone. We've done that tune a few times in the blues band with Bob playing the horn parts on his lap steel. I think I like your version better, even though the lap steel sounds killer as well.

[RocketMusic]

^^ Thanks, Steve!

In another thread where I also posted this clip, Jerry posted the following which lead to a bit of a lightbulb moment for me last night:

Originally Posted by VroomVroom

Ahh...you hit on the "argument" of how to play 'All Blues'. Fifth bar....do you go to C7, or do you play Gm6? The answer, for me, is always...."whatever the piano player says." Generally that's C7, with reference toward Gm6 during the solos.

I made a harmony mistake in this clip that I think is a shining example of the most shocking (in a good way) thing I heard at Victor's Bass/Nature Camp. At one point, Anthony Wellington said something to the effect of "the bass player is usually the most musically ignorant member of the band." After I got over the initial reaction of being insulted, I started thinking about it and realized he's probably right. We bass players are fortunate to typically only have to play single notes. If we want to be ignorant of the chords and melody lines that are being played on top, we can very easily do that and get away with it. G7? We play G. G9? We play G. Gmin6? We play G. etc.

When I recorded this clip, I was thinking to myself "hang on the G" when the melody moves to the C7. The part I forgot to take into account is what Jerry mentioned. When the tune goes to the C7 in Bar 5, the "G" changes from G7 to Gmin6. That's only a one note difference (the third becomes a flat third, or B becomes Bb). In my original recording, I didn't flat that third in one of the harmony parts, so you can hear some "unusual" (some might say "wrong") harmony against the melody.

I figure this thread is a great place to expose and explore a topic like this. Most of us (except the cats like Jerry and Brian) can probably learn something from this. So I'll break down the harmony piece by piece so you guys can hear where the train comes off the tracks.

Here's the original "bad" harmony. The mistake happens in Bar 5 when I start holding the notes instead of using quick, short ones. Now the interesting thing here is that the mistake is in the very first line I share (clip #1). But it won't sound "bad" until I put the melody line in at the end (clip #4).

"All Blues Bad Harmony #1" (here's me playing the major third all the way through - shame on me!!)
"All Blues Bad Harmony #2" (here's a second harmony part, building a tritone)
"All Blues Bad Harmony #3" (here's the bass part added)
"All Blues Bad Harmony #4" (and finally, here's the melody. Only now does it sound "funny" in Bar 5)

So I really only had to fix 2 notes. That first harmony line is B C D C (the 3, 4, & 5 of G7). In Bar 5, it should turn to Bb C D C (the 3, 4, & 5 of Gmin6). Rather than break out the bass, try to match the tone and punch in the fix, I just isolated those two notes in Sonar and pitch corrected them with the software. Cheating? You betcha!! But, hey, the mental part is the important thing here, it's not like it's a difficult part to play. Anyway, here's the harmony breakdown again, but this time the way it "should" sound.

"All Blues Good Harmony #1" (can you hear the fix? All I changed were two notes in this line.)
"All Blues Good Harmony #2"
"All Blues Good Harmony #3"
"All Blues Good Harmony #4" (ahhhhh... perfect!)

So here's the original version ("bad" harmony):
"Original All Blues w/ FX" (Miles Davis)

And here's the latest version with the improved harmony:
"All Blues w/ FX" (Miles Davis)

I hope this is as useful to somebody out there as it was to me! And thanks for the info, Jerry. My ear could hear that something was "off", but your comment made my lightbulb go off!

[RocketMusic]

Oh, and it's also probably useful to point out what's going on here. It's fairly common in blues tunes for the I, IV and V to all be dominant (aka 7) chords. For those of you who know your modes of the major scale, you know there's only one dominant chord in a given key (and it's always the V).

So if G7 is the first chord AND we know that the 7 chord is the V, what key are we in when this chord is playing? ANSWER: C (because G is the fifth of C)

When the tune moves to C7 (another dominant chord), what just happened? Well, we changed keys. C7 is the fifth of what key? ANSWER: F So if F is the new key, what does that make the Gm6 chord? ANSWER: It's the ii.

Bada-bing, bada-boom. Welcome to jazz hell.

Jerry and Brian - I'd be really interested to hear if this is how you think of things, too. Both when you sit back & analyze AND when you're playing on the fly. If it's not how you think of it when you're playing, how DO you think of it (if you even have to think at all)?

[VroomVroom]

Good stuff, Greg. Ain't theory a beotch? Very nice job in describing some of the jewels of this tune. I think the only thing I can add is to remember that other important tone @ bar 5...'E'. It's either the third of the C7 chord, or the sixth in the Gm6. Lots of rich and dense possibilities there since, as you know, the melody excludes it, and the three-part harmony underneath only give it a passing glance. (Yet another avenue to explore...particularly if you like diminished and chromatic scales: the B-F tritone (third and seventh, respectively, of that G7 chord) move down a half-step at bar five, to Bb-E. For the turnaround, move 'em up a half step (C-F#) and you're into D7 territory. Yada yada.

Speaking of that sweet harmony line, this was really a catalyst for me. Learning that chord movement opened up a lot of things - not the least of which is that the root note can be implied simply by the presence of other chord tones. Playing that line also makes for a nice change on the gig - let the piano player roam with his/her left hand, while you provide the harmony. As wonderful and monumental as the bass line may be, after you've played it a few hundred times, it's nice to mix things up a bit.

I love the question about thinking about this stuff. I'm always curious too. I try my best to subscribe to Chick's theory...learn all you can, but forget about it on the gig. Instead, I'd rather interact with the other players and try to move the dialog forward. I don't always succeed...heck, I rarely succeed...but for me that's where the joy sits. And the chase can be fun even if you don't get the rabbit.

[RocketMusic]

^^ Thanks, Jerry!

As for the "thinking" part, I was afraid that's what you'd say. All the guys who can improv their butts off seem to say that. And most of them seem confused when I ask the question. "Think? Who's thinking?".

I'm still mired in thinking, unfortunately... I have had a few instances where my brain turned off while playing, and it does usually turn out to be some of the better playing I do... either that or a complete trainwreck. The fear of the trainwreck keeps my thinking, but I gotta get over that.

[VroomVroom]

Don't get me wrong, Greg....I think. Overthink, usually. The cat who says he doesn't is either Herbie Hancock or a really good salesman. FWIW, I'll generally try to pay some respect to the melody, look for phrases or rhythmic hooks based on what the other folks have played/are playing, or look for complementary keys/scales to avoid the usual traps...i.e. playing arpeggios and linear scales. I'm also guilty as hell of quoting other tunes. Which, when done well, is sophisticated, humorous, and technically challenging (best example, piano player at a NYE gig two years ago played Wayne Shorter's "Witch Hunt" over "My Favorite Things." Bad. Ass.). When I do it, it's juvenile, hack-eyed, and usually the humor equivalent of a fart joke in church. But I still do it. "Iron Man" over "Days of Wine & Roses"? Guilty as charged, your honor.

[Darkstrike]

I tried to read these recent posts, and now my head hurts....

[RocketMusic]

Ah, that makes sense, Jerry. My theory is that you just have to make this stuff soooooo natural that the thinking you do about it can be super quick (almost to the point of NOT thinking, you're almost just reacting). You see C7 on the page (or even a longer series of chords), and you just reach into your bag of tricks for the right thing(s) with hardly any thought at all.

That's what Victor's music-as-language analogy is all about. Most of us don't have to think about conjugating verbs as we speak our native language, we just do it. But ask us to speak in a foreign language, and we're back to thinking as we speak (and we stutter and stumble to find the words).

[VroomVroom]

Bill, not to push the point here, but if you're at all interested in this stuff, "All Blues" is a great launching point, and Greg's posts above offer some really valuable information. The wonderful thing...at the heart of the tune...it's a blues! You can approach it as simply as you'd like and still make some wonderful music.

Greg, you nailed it. Moving one more step forward, the challenge becomes keeping things fresh and avoiding patterns, licks, etc...that you've fallen back on in the past. Of course, then you run the risk of playing something different just for the sake of not repeating anything...which is just as much a crime.

[RocketMusic]

Originally Posted by Darkstrike

I tried to read these recent posts, and now my head hurts....

I was right there with you, Bill, just like 3-4 years ago. When you're a babe in the woods with theory, there's so much terminology that gets in the way of learning.

Looking back at my first post this morning, I tried to imagine myself reading it as someone ignorant of theory. That very quickly and very vividly brought back the frustration I used to feel when I'd try to understand something like this. Years ago, I would have gotten to a term like "Bar 5", and everything after that would be "blah, blah, blah" because I'd be stuck trying to figure out what the heck "Bar 5" means. Especially in a 6/8 tune like this, it's hard to find the individual bars until you're comfortable counting 6's. If you're stuck there, then all the chord talk after that is pretty much wasted words.

My advice is to pick something simple out of this discussion, dissect it and really try to come to an understanding of it.

If counting bars in 6/8 is not something you can do, work on that first. You should be able to count in time with the clips:

"1-2-3-4-5-6 / 2-2-3-4-5-6 / 3-2-3-4-5-6 / 4-2-3-4-5-6 / 5-2-3-4-5-6"

That should lead you be able to say "Bar 5 starts at X seconds into the clip". Can you tell me what X is?

The other frustrating thing is there are so many terms that mean loosely the same thing. "Dominant", "7", and "Mixolydian" all mean basically the same thing to me. Sure, there are nuances ("Dominant" and "7" refer to chords, "Mixolydian" refers to a scale). But when I was first learning this stuff, I would latch onto one of the terms, and then I'd have to do some mental gymnastics if I was speaking with someone who used a different variation. Like I initially thought of it as "7", but my teacher liked to use the big words ("mixolydian"). He'd use the "mixolydian" term, and I'd be lost and miss the next 5 minutes of whatever he was saying because I was still trying to figure out what "mixolydian" meant.

But the more you work with it, the more natural it becomes. Don't give up!

[Darkstrike]

To be quite honest, I don't think I've ever even tried counting in 6's, so that's exactly where I'll start.

[Bipslapper]

Originally Posted by RocketMusic

"Dominant", "7", and "Mixolydian" all mean basically the same thing to me. Sure, there are nuances ("Dominant" and "7" refer to chords, "Mixolydian" refers to a scale). But when I was first learning this stuff, I would latch onto one of the terms, and then I'd have to do some mental gymnastics if I was speaking with someone who used a different variation. Like I initially thought of it as "7", but my teacher liked to use the big words ("mixolydian"). He'd use the "mixolydian" term, and I'd be lost and miss the next 5 minutes of whatever he was saying because I was still trying to figure out what "mixolydian" meant.

But the more you work with it, the more natural it becomes. Don't give up!

Thanks Greg and Jerry, great review and I am learning a lot. To add to the 6/8 time sig and correlate the recent posts regarding Rush- Behind the lighted stage, listen to a song like YYZ- many different time sigs. As a young Rush / Zeppelin fan, I was fortuante to have great drummers to play with that helped me learn how to play in different time signatures, especially within the song like Rush. I have learned the modes and scales, names and when to use them, but I am a believer in playing the patterns. While the others are taking a solo, I can tell by ear the "mode" that I should play in a walking bass, or the time changes. I know mixolydian but I rely on the pattern in which I learned how to play modes so I can concentrate on the rhythm.

For fun, listen to a song like The Crunge (Zeppelin) or YYZ (Rush) and count the time sigs and how many times they change. (What is really cool is when Neil plays one time sig and Geddy and Alex do another).

Then pick up the bass and play along. It makes it more scientific at first b/c you are concentrating, but after a while you can tell by ear where the melody is and where it is going. I now play in a band that plays a great deal of improv and it really helped my chops. Starts with LISTENING.

Now- finding a good drummer who can go in and out of the time sigs, Good Luck!

[LilRay]

Originally Posted by Darkstrike

I tried to read these recent posts, and now my head hurts....

+1

Originally Posted by Darkstrike

To be quite honest, I don't think I've ever even tried counting in 6's, so that's exactly where I'll start.

You gotta count???? Damn! Lemme take my shoes off.



God Bless, Ray