Opportunities from Mark

a course I'm teaching at the City Lit weekend after next (12th-13th April)

http://www.citylit.ac.uk/courses/music/Musicianship/Mark_Bassey's_original_tunes

charity fund raising event 100 Saxophones Rides Again  Sunday 25th May, Unitarian Church, Brighton

http://www.saxshop.org/100-saxophones.html

Ropetackle Workshops 2013-14 - So Nice

Week 15  14-03-14

It was time for a ballad: So Nice by Tomasz Stanko.

When I began transcribing this piece I was tempted to notate it without any bar lines at all but the rhythmic entries from the bass persuaded me to write it in 5 (at least for the first section). 

Most of the improvising in this piece is very diatonic (generally in F aeolian). The piano introduction sounds quite 'classical' (rather a vague description -  obviously from someone who knows very little about 'classical' music!)

I took this session as an opportunity to explore playing in one mode (F aeolian, or Ab major if you prefer). We did a few exercises playing this scale in broken thirds, fourths and fifths (sixths, sevenths, octaves, ninths etc could also be useful). Familiarity with all these intervals, within a scale, can give the improviser more melodic possibilities (it is also useful for creating voicings for comping or horn arranging). Later on, we played through the diatonic seventh chords which come out of the F aeolian scale ( Fm7 Gm7b5 Ab∆ Bbm Cm7 Db∆ Eb7  notice these all occur in Ab major). Again, knowledge of these chord shapes can be useful both in soloing and in comping.

I also suggested looking to make the most of the semitones which occur in the scale (there are two semitones in F aeolian: between G and Ab and between C and Db). Any two notes a semitone apart can be rearranged to create an interval of a major seventh, or a flat ninth. All these intervals are dissonant. The flat ninth is generally regarded as the most dissonant (try using it in a voicing), it can also sound very beautiful used in a melody (such as the first two notes of Stanko's So Nice.)

If you are interested to explore the idea of dissonance a little further you might like the following project:

1) how many semitones occur in the major scale ?  (answer is 2 semitones - see above)

2) how many semitones occur in the melodic minor scale?

3) how many semitones occur in the harmonic minor scale?

4) how many semitones occur in the diminished scale (half-whole or whole-half)?

5) how many semitones occur in the whole tone scale?

Pick one of these scales and try creating some really dissonant voicings using the semitone intervals you have found (ideally, work at a piano or keyboard). Hours of fun …

Next session is this coming Friday 28th March when we will be looking at a lively number called Don't Mess With Miss T. by the Norwegian group Jazzmob.

Cheers Mark

mark@markbassey.com

Jazzmob

Jazzmob was founded in 1998 by saxophonist Jon Klette and they released their first cd called "The truth" on their own label "beboporbedead rec" back in 1999. The album which was a double live cd recieved very good reviewes in the Norwegian musicpress but had no proper distribution and only sold about 350 copies in local music stores and by Jon Klette at concerts. Jazzmob performed two concerts at Molde International Jazzfestival in 2000, and has since then been active on the music scene in Oslo, Norway.

Don't Mess With Miss T is from their 4th highly reviewed album, Flashback. 

Week 14 07-03-14 The Saloon (Life Is Just A Game)

This week's 'European block' piece was The Saloon by French saxophonist Julien Lourau.

Once again (like Million Faces) the composition is basically an 8 bar melody (unless you write it out double length, like Ash did, to avoid the semiquavers) with just a few chords. Chord I is treated as dorian on the recording (Bbm6 or Bbm7) and chord IV (Ebm6) would also be dorian. The passing chords at the end of bars 4 and 8 are really inversions of each other. In other words IVm7b5 (Ebm7b5) has the same notes as bVIm6 (Gbm6 or F#m6 if you prefer). A good scale for IVm7b5 in this context would be locrian natural 2 ( 1   2  b3   4  b5  b6  b7  8 ) or for bVIm6 it would be melodic minor ( 1   2  b3   4   5   6   7   8 ). These scales are modes of each other (they will contain the same notes). They are also the same notes as the altered scale built on chord V (ie F7alt). This means that both of these passing chords are really just substitutions for chord V (so it is not surprising that they lead back to chord I so smoothly).

In our improvising session I suggested focussing on chord tones rather than trying to play scale by scale (both approaches can yield musical results). We also undertook some further explorations into solo building. I think we should continue to pursue this topic. Also, Terry mentioned to me that we might look at some ideas on how the rhythm section can raise the level of intensity in their comping to help spur on the soloist. More on this in due course.

This composition The Saloon also has a sporadic bridge (or maybe we should call it an interlude?) which is very short, has an irregular metre and is arrived at via a very subtle change of tempo (namely, one and a half times as fast). No sooner have you entered this section then you are suddenly thrown back into the first section again. The two tempos are related. Moving from one tempo to another related tempo is known as metric modulation. Doubling or halving the tempo are simpler examples of this. The modulation required for this piece is described in the following worksheet (pdf). See what you make of it!

Next week we shall look at a piece by Tomasz Stanko called So Nice. The copies I gave out sadly have some mistakes in them (bars 2 & 3 need removing, they don't make sense any way!) and the Eb and bass clef copies appear to have transposed themselves a tone higher than required! These are of course highly strategic teaching devices intended to encourage you to question all new information!!

Anyway, you would probably be better off discarding the first set of parts and use these new amended versions I am attaching below (if you trust them) :-)

Cheers Mark

mark@markbassey.com

Million Faces Feedback

Million Faces is a modal composition based around three chords, all drawn from the aeolian mode (1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 8 - see week 9). The melody is only 8 bars but with many variations all overlaid (each variation following the same rhythm but exploring different melodic contours). It is impossible to tell where the composed material finishes and the improvisation starts - the transition is seamless.

I used this session to explore some ideas on 'how to build a solo' (Hilary, amongst others, has been asking about this subject). To do it justice I felt we needed to focus on just a few soloists. I hope the exercise was useful and of interest to everyone.

There is no one way to build a solo but a typical shape is to start at a low level of intensity and gradually increase it to a peak (somewhere past the halfway mark) and then allow it to come down again in readiness for the next solo. (There are of course many other ways of shaping a solo - perhaps more on this another time).

So how do we control the intensity level in a solo? The main elements are (in no particular order): 

>  volume start quiet, get louder (be aware of your own dynamic capabilities and use them carefully)

>  range start low, go higher (work within your comfortable range, have a playable top note in mind)

>  density start with just a few notes (lots of space), use more notes (less space), play as busily as you can (little or no space)

>  harmonic relevance start with notes that fit the harmony, then add notes that don't fit the harmony 

Other ideas to consider might be tonal variation (not necessarily directly connected with levels of intensity) and motivic playing, intensity can be increased by repeating a motif a number of times.

All of the above techniques can be combined in different ways. In a performance situation this is usually desirable. However, when practising it may be useful to focus on just one (or two) at a time. Try playing over a sequence you know well and feel comfortable with. Plan the length of your solo (eg 3 choruses) and see if you can engineer a peak towards the end but allow time to bring the intensity down again at the end. Record yourself doing this.

Next week we shall look at The Saloon. This is another 8 bar form but it is not entirely modal (check out the chords in bars 4 and 8 - are they related?) There is also a sneaky little bridge (which involves a metric modulation!)

Cheers Mark

mark@markbassey.com