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
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