How to go about learning a difficult piece

[Eminentbass]

I've finally plucked up the courage to work through the transcription of "Donna Lee" that I got from lucaspickford.com which is by far the most difficult piece of music I've ever tried to learn. I've worked through the head and figured out fingerings although it's not all memorized yet and I still have to read certain phrases.

How does one go about learning something like this? Does a person read through a whole piece and work on it slowly, addressing the problem areas or should I try it section by section e.g getting the head up to speed before moving onto the next section, which is the beginning of Jaco's solo?

[mat b]

how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time my friend!

[Altemo]

Just do whatever feels natural. Follow the basic guideline of working on any part that doesn't sound good.

I've always tackled big pieces slowly. Pick a part you want to learn (Start at the start, or where you like how it sounds etc), and just play it.

I usually go
1. Play all the notes, disregarding speed, feel, exact rhythm.
2/3. Once the notes are more in my fingers, get the rhythm correct.
3/2. Once the notes are more in my fingers, play through at the correct speed.
4. Rinse and repeat = progress.
5. Work on feel. Ensure that if you notice any repeated mistakes in rhythm, notes or anything, go right back to basics with that section.
6. Practice until perfect.

Both of the methods you described (working through the whole thing, or parts) are fine, I tend to do both i.e run everything through, run sections, run sections, attempt to run through (or as far as I can). Its difficult to do the isolated practice necessary if you only run the piece in its entirety. I always leave the solo until last. Sinister Minister is hurting me right now...

Good luck!

[jmattbassplaya]

1. Learn to sing the piece first. This often helps you internalize the music and helps you actually master the rhythmic portion of the song. Once you have the rhythm down it`s just a matter of hitting the right note at the right time on your bass.

2. Divide the piece up into small sections. This helps you "divide and conquer" the tune by allowing you to master individual sections first and it often makes memorizing much easier. Once this is done, take a section you want to learn and simply play the rhythm on your bass. Don`t worry about hitting the right notes, just get your fingers use to the rhythm. Once you got this, slow it down and attempt to play the section you are wanting to work on (I usually say about 20 bpm slower). If you get it in one try then speed it up. If you couldn`t nail it then try it even slower and just work on to it until you can get up to full speed. Typically I`d also say to learn to play the piece about 15 bpm faster than the original tune. This way if you ever cover it in a band you`ll be ready for any runaway tempos.

3. Repeat as needed.

And one quick tip when learning a song is to think of multiple ways to play a challenging line. Sometimes the easiest is the most obvious.

[m0nst3r]

Measure by measure is how I learned it. For me it was like a puzzle. I had to figure out the best fingering that worked for me for one measure, and then I had to figure out how it would flow with the fingering for the next measure. It took for freakin' ever, but the point of doing all that was to make the song as easy as possible by making it as fluid as possible.

[Eminentbass]

Thanks for the advice folks. I'll probably never get the opportunity to actually perform it but I just want to prove to myself that I have the discipline to actually pull it off. After years of just hearing it as a flurry of fast notes it's taken just a bit of study in jazz harmony to unlock my ear so that I can actually hear and appreciate the beauty of the music.

[Throckmorten]

I'm learning the Prelude to Bach's first Cello Suite. 50-odd measures.
I learn 2-4 measures at a time depending on their difficulty. I play each new group _very_ slowly until I know it.

Then play through from the beginning up to the next group of measures. I play through what I know till I feel comfortable with it, then add the next group. So I spend some time just playing through what I know till I move on.

As Altimo suggests, I learn the notes and the feel, then start working on speed, rhythm, nuance. Just the fingering sometimes is a challenge.

All of this, by the way, is terribly slow. But as you point out, the idea is to get deep into the music. I find that what I learn this way makes me faster and better in other ways.

Don't be afraid to go backwards. In a 4 meter stretch, learn, or play, the 4th, then the 3rd, etc. Depending on where you are, that can help.

[Schlyder]

Originally Posted by mat b

how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time my friend!

This...^..... great tune.
Take it bar by bar, phrase by phrase. And eventually you will get it.

I played this tune with a vibes player, as a duet, in college many years ago.
The melody sounded great in unison with vibes

[Ed Fuqua]

JAYMATT has excellent advice, I would recommend getting some device or software (the free download AUDACITY will do this) that will slow the melody to half speed. Sing along with the line (and use Bird, not Jaco. Jaco was using Bird and, just like the game TELEPHONE, the closer to the source the clearer the information) at half speed until you can sing it like YOU wrote it, do the same thing at full speed and THEN pick up your bass. At that point, I think you'll be surprised at how little you need to refer to the written music.

The second thing is - fingering/phrasing (and this will relate to the first point), when I was playing electric there was a tendency to use the most convoluted and complicated fingering in order to keep position shifts to a minimum. But what you're playing is a saxophone line, and you really want to mimic (as much as possible) the "ease of phrasing". So rather than keeping the position shifts to a minimum AND making fingering as complex as possible, do the opposite. Take each phrase (or part of a phrase) and find out where on the instrument you can use the simplest and (what my teacher calls) most elegant fingering (that is, no contortions, knucklebuster, octopus looking shapes) and then shift positions to accommodate the line. Sure, you're moving up and down the fingerboard more, but you are retaining the"vocal" qualities of the line.

[lhoward]

To the OP: If you really want to see something that's just pure enjoyment to watch, check out Joe Pass and Neils Pedersen's interpretation of Donna Lee. Watching Joe Pass was always a pleasure, but also seeing Pedersen play the line in unison with him is just pure pleasure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI-1sq5dFD4

Lloyd Howard

[Eminentbass]

Originally Posted by Ed Fuqua

JAYMATT has excellent advice, I would recommend getting some device or software (the free download AUDACITY will do this) that will slow the melody to half speed. Sing along with the line (and use Bird, not Jaco. Jaco was using Bird and, just like the game TELEPHONE, the closer to the source the clearer the information) at half speed until you can sing it like YOU wrote it, do the same thing at full speed and THEN pick up your bass. At that point, I think you'll be surprised at how little you need to refer to the written music.

The second thing is - fingering/phrasing (and this will relate to the first point), when I was playing electric there was a tendency to use the most convoluted and complicated fingering in order to keep position shifts to a minimum. But what you're playing is a saxophone line, and you really want to mimic (as much as possible) the "ease of phrasing". So rather than keeping the position shifts to a minimum AND making fingering as complex as possible, do the opposite. Take each phrase (or part of a phrase) and find out where on the instrument you can use the simplest and (what my teacher calls) most elegant fingering (that is, no contortions, knucklebuster, octopus looking shapes) and then shift positions to accommodate the line. Sure, you're moving up and down the fingerboard more, but you are retaining the"vocal" qualities of the line.

Thank you for the input. I need to lay my hands on the original version as Jaco's is the one I'm most familiar with. A lot of the fingering I'm using is determined by the glisses and other expressions that I'm hearing on the cd, so I'm all over the fingerboard. The other challenge is that I'm playing a fretted bass, so I can't mimic Jaco completely. It's also been an exercise in ear-training because when referring to the cd I've had to listen in order to correct one or two mistakes in the transcription(or possibly just deviations from the original version which I still need to hear). Thanks for the software advice as well, although I don't own a pc at the moment(the ex wife got that) I hope to get one shortly

Part of my motivation in undertaking this task is that even though I may never perform the piece, I respect and admire the discipline a classical musician might take to master a piece and would like to instill some of that into my own learning process. Thanks again to all for the advice, it's been most helpful, I've now got the head under my fingers, albeit at a fraction of the required tempo.

[Eminentbass]

Originally Posted by lhoward

To the OP: If you really want to see something that's just pure enjoyment to watch, check out Joe Pass and Neils Pedersen's interpretation of Donna Lee. Watching Joe Pass was always a pleasure, but also seeing Pedersen play the line in unison with him is just pure pleasure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI-1sq5dFD4

Lloyd Howard

Thanks for the link, I'm pc-less(using my cell phone for this) but will make a plan to check it out. Joe Pass always manages to blow my mind.

[loungesurfer]

Originally Posted by Throckmorten

I'm learning the Prelude to Bach's first Cello Suite. 50-odd measures.
I learn 2-4 measures at a time depending on their difficulty. I play each new group _very_ slowly until I know it.

Then play through from the beginning up to the next group of measures. I play through what I know till I feel comfortable with it, then add the next group. So I spend some time just playing through what I know till I move on.

As Altimo suggests, I learn the notes and the feel, then start working on speed, rhythm, nuance. Just the fingering sometimes is a challenge.

All of this, by the way, is terribly slow. But as you point out, the idea is to get deep into the music. I find that what I learn this way makes me faster and better in other ways.

Don't be afraid to go backwards. In a 4 meter stretch, learn, or play, the 4th, then the 3rd, etc. Depending on where you are, that can help.

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I've heard the expression - get it under your fingers - which to me really means memorizing note by note. I would think this phrase would mean get a sense for the music so the notes natuarally fall. Not by memorization but by understanding the structure of the song - regardless of whether you play the same notes or not - as long as the concept remains the same.

So, am I missing something or maybe memorization is the path to getting to the place where the notes naturally come to mind/fingers?

Fire away - Thanks!

[Eminentbass]

Originally Posted by loungesurfer

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I've heard the expression - get it under your fingers - which to me really means memorizing note by note. I would think this phrase would mean get a sense for the music so the notes natuarally fall. Not by memorization but by understanding the structure of the song - regardless of whether you play the same notes or not - as long as the concept remains the same.

So, am I missing something or maybe memorization is the path to getting to the place where the notes naturally come to mind/fingers?

Fire away - Thanks!

I may be misunderstanding your question but I'll give it a bash. In the case of the piece I'm working on, memorization has come relatively easily because I've had to work through portions slowly due to the fact that I've had to work through maybe two bars at a time to figure out the best fingering and because I'm not a fantastic reader. This process helped me memorize how each phrase sounds and can now sing what I've worked on.

In real time I'm not even 30 seconds into the song and even though I've memorized that portion I'm finding the hardest part isn't actually that I don't have the technical facility to play it but rather that I haven't mastered recalling the memorized information at tempo(or even at half tempo). This is where the constant repetition of maybe just one small problem passage is coming in useful.

I think that for any player who has passed a certain level the issue of dexterity becomes less of stumbling block and gets replaced by the ability to absorb and recall more complex information. I'm not sure if I answered correctly or just waffled on but that's my perception

[somegeezer]

Do it 4 bars at a time... Or by a section at a time. Whatever you feel comfortable with. I think a really good way to learn is by starting off slower than the original... working your way up to faster than the orginal. If you can play it faster than it is meant to be without mistakes, you should be fine doing it at the right speed, plus the added bonus of working on your speed. =D

[zachoff]

Start slow.

[Funkturnal]

Some excellent advice so far. The only thing I can think to add would be that understanding how the melody relates to the chord changes would not only give you a greater insight into the tune, it would also make the melody easier to memorize and perhaps even help you with playing it as you begin to recognize phrases and "bebop-isms" that are embedded in the melody.

I remember when I first learned to play it. At the time, I didn't know anything about the changes, and I saw it as a complex succession of notes woven together. I tenaciously tackled it "rote memorization" style until I had it down under my fingers, but not in my ears.

From a technical point of view, it is a challenge to play, and play well (cleanly, in time etc). It's a busy melody, covering a pretty wide range of notes, that is challenging enough to play without being "mindful" of the chord changes, especially if you haven't played other bebop heads or transcribed some bebop solos.

IMO, it's sort of a balancing between understanding the theory behind the melody (ie why it works over the chord changes) and just getting it under your fingers without thinking about it. But slow is the key, and take it one phrase at a time.

Good luck!

[LARUMBLE]

break it down into chunks,practice slowly and work on your intervals,triads as most tunes are off those ideas.

[Eminentbass]

Originally Posted by Funkturnal

Some excellent advice so far. The only thing I can think to add would be that understanding how the melody relates to the chord changes would not only give you a greater insight into the tune, it would also make the melody easier to memorize and perhaps even help you with playing it as you begin to recognize phrases and "bebop-isms" that are embedded in the melody.

I remember when I first learned to play it. At the time, I didn't know anything about the changes, and I saw it as a complex succession of notes woven together. I tenaciously tackled it "rote memorization" style until I had it down under my fingers, but not in my ears.

From a technical point of view, it is a challenge to play, and play well (cleanly, in time etc). It's a busy melody, covering a pretty wide range of notes, that is challenging enough to play without being "mindful" of the chord changes, especially if you haven't played other bebop heads or transcribed some bebop solos.

IMO, it's sort of a balancing between understanding the theory behind the melody (ie why it works over the chord changes) and just getting it under your fingers without thinking about it. But slow is the key, and take it one phrase at a time.

Good luck!

Thank you. I heard the original version this morning for the first time and it blew my mind. Hearing the melody interacting with the changes made me realise how deep the composition really is and I might tackle transcribing the solos on there as well just for the insight value.

I'm now about 34 bars into the Jaco version up to where he hits his first harmonics and with the amount of time I've put in on tackling small portions I'm noticing that it's becoming easier to digest little segments than when I started.