Spring Term – block 2, week 1 (15.03.13*)

Going Home  – is it 6 of one or 4 of the other? This African / Township inspired piece by Louise Elliott offers another chance to explore 3 over 2 (aka 6 over 4). I think the ‘two’ pulse (or ‘four’) is usually the underlying feel and the ‘three’ pulse (or ‘six’) is secondary. However, both pulses are important – they need each other to create this wonderful cross rhythm.

The question of writing down these rhythms is a tricky one. Should you favour the ‘two’ pulse (aka ‘four’) as I have done, or the ‘three’ pulse (aka ‘six’)? The crucial factor is the ‘feel’ (or underlying groove) – in other words: which pulse would you dance (or tap your foot) to?

Even having chosen the ‘two’ or the ‘three’ pulse there are still a number of notation possibilities. If you have a look at the handout entitled 6 Against 4  you will see three options for notating Going Home (all based on the ‘two’ pulse).

Harmonically this tune is entirely diatonic to G mixolydian (parent scale would be C major). The bebop scale on G sounds good here (G A B C D E F F# G ). Another possibility would be to play   G7  F7  F7  G7  although the bass line would need to have one note changed.

I hope you enjoyed this piece.

Next week a tune by Don Grolnick called Pools. This piece has some quite complex and rich sounding harmonies. Why not check out the half-whole diminished scale (starting with a semitone, sometimes called 8-note dominant). We’ll need it for the  13,b9,#11 chords in SOLO SECTION 2

C INSTRUMENTS

D13,b9,#11 D  Eb  F  F#  G#  A  B  C  D

C13,b9,#11 C  Db  Eb  E  F#  G  A  Bb  C

Bb INSTRUMENTS

E13,b9,#11 E  F  G  G#  A#  B  C#  D  E

D13,b9,#11 D  Eb  F  F#  G#  A  B  C  D

Eb INSTRUMENTS

B13,b9,#11 B  C  D  D#  E#  F#  G#  A  B

C#13,b9,#11 C#  D  E  E#  G  G#  A#  B  C#

     = Db13,b9,#11 Db  D  E  F  G  Ab  Bb  Cb  Db

Today's session recordings will be available in the DropBox shortly :-)

Hope to see you all next week.

 

Cheers Mark

www.markbassey.com