"Musical Distance" and levels of interaction

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Definitions

"Musical Distance" (MD): the performer's relationship to a written part.

By written, I mean one or several of the following:

1) orally conceived and passed on

2) notated

3) recorded

in other words: any way(s) of setting the part in stone!

Degrees

Of course, since a given performer could position himself anywhere in between rendering a part exactly (and even then, the music would differ from one musician playing the part to the next) and improvising freely, the notion of "Musical Distance" is extremely loose. However, I'd like to submit 5 very general positioning possibilities to your consideration:

0: part played as close as possible to written part

1: part interpreted

2: improvisation based on part

3: improvisation based on part context (the context could be one or several of the following: key(s), chord changes, meter(s), feel(s)...)

4: improvisation not obviously related to part

Application

In a group setting, it could be interesting to implement this idea by assigning a given MD degree to each band member. Different levels of interaction (between the musicians in the band) could thus be achieved using different combinations of MDs (e.g. at a given point in a tune and in the case of a trio: MD for the pianist could be 3, MD for the bassist could be 2, and MD for the drummer could be 1.) Each particular section of a tune could be assigned a particular MD combination if desired, which would give the composer an extra tool to participate in controlling the level of musical interaction throughout the piece. Conversely, MD combinations needn't be planned at all shall the composer wish to delegate this responsibility to the performers entirely.

Solo de synthétiseur par Larry Williams sur Spain (I Can Recall)

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→ voir le relevé (PDF)

J'ai extrait la phrase suivante du solo de Larry Williams (mesures 17-22 du relevé ci-dessus) car elle présente deux points intéressants :

1) L'utilisation d'une superstructure (une triade majeure en l'occurence, située une sixte majeure au-dessus de la fondamentale) pour improviser sur l'accord de septième de dominante 13(b9).

2) L'utilisation d'une gamme pentatonique majeure (située un triton au-dessus de la fondamentale) pour improviser sur l'accord altéré.

La voici transposée dans tous les tons :

→ voir la phrase de Larry Williams transposée en suivant la gamme par ton descendante 1 (en B - A - G - F - Eb - C#) (PDF)

→ voir la phrase de Larry Williams transposée en suivant la gamme par ton descendante 2 (en C - Bb - G# - F# - E - D) (PDF)

Bon travail !

Larry Williams synthesizer solo on Spain (I Can Recall)

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→ view transcription (PDF)

I've extracted the following phrase from Larry William's solo (bar 17-22 of transcription above) because it features two interesting points:

1) The use of an upper structure major triad (a major sixth above the root) to improvise over the 13(b9) seventh chord.

2) The use of a major pentatonic (a tritone above the root) to improvise over the altered chord.

Here it is transposed in all keys:

→ view Larry Williams phrase through descending whole tone scale 1 (in B - A - G - F - Eb - C#) (PDF)

→ view Larry Williams phrase through descending whole tone scale 2 (in C - Bb - G# - F# - E - D) (PDF)

Happy sh(r)edding!

Sunny : exercice sur les gammes

Aujourd'hui, avec l'un de mes élèves, j'ai élaboré cet exercice simple, préliminaire à l'improvisation. Ce-dernier est basé sur la grille du morceau "Sunny" de Bobby Hebb. Sont utilisées les première et quatrième positions de la gamme Majeure (en l'occurence FA et DO respectivement) ainsi que la première position de la gamme mineure mélodique ascendante (ici, FA).

→ voir l'exercice (PDF)

Notez que dans les quatrième et huitième mesures de la grille, l'accord original est un Bmi7 (agrémenté d'une 11ème). Dans un but de simplification de la grille (réduction du nombre de gammes à utiliser dans l'improvisation au trois gammes mentionnées ci-dessus), je l'ai délibérément remplacé par Bmi7(b5).

Il est conseillé de s'entraîner à jouer cet exercice en chantant les fondamentales.

Amusez-vous bien !

Composing what I can't improvise...

As I was working on an arrangement of Tom Bahler's hit song "She's Out Of My Life" (which was made famous by Michael Jackson) I realized that I particularly enjoy writing music, which I wouldn't yet be able to improvise. That way, composing is a process of pushing the boundaries of the inner sense, trying to reach for musical ideas I most likely wouldn't attain in a playing situation, where the music would have to blossom in the moment. Composing thus becomes a mental workout, preparing the mind to fetch more distant material faster, and teaching the soul how to feel it and appreciate it...

Kurt Rosenwinkel on practicing changes

With a bunch of friends, we once got the chance to speak to the guitarist for quite a while at the end of a concert he gave at the Regattabar in Cambridge, MA. He told us he used to lock himself up in a practice room at Berklee and shed improvising over one single chord for hours!! That way, he would really get into the sound of the chord scale from which the chord derived.

I'm bringing up this anecdote because I've found it efficient to work like that myself, and to share this tip with my jazz students. It's really easy (and worthwhile!) to program a single-chord loop in GarageBand or Band-in-a-Box to play over... Experiment with all sorts of phrases and motifs, covering the whole range of your instrument, using wide and narrow intervals, etc... As long as all the notes you play belong to the chord scale you decide to work on.

A student once told me he would have thought such practice wouldn't result in getting anywhere... The exact opposite is true: before you start connecting one chord to the next, you need to have deeply assimilated what notes to play on each chord.