Week 20 16-05-14 Old Delhi (re-visit)

To finish this block we re-visited the Henri Texier piece Old Delhi. 

Rhythm:

The piece is in a fast 4/4 but with a strong '2 feel'. The trombone and baritone solos are over a '4 feel' with a fast walking bass ('time no changes') and the alto solo goes into a '6 over 4 feel' - the '2' pulse (where you would naturally tap your foot) remains the same throughout. We have looked at this topic before (last year 15-03-13 on Louise Elliott's composition Going Home - my notes and info sheet are duplicated below). '6 over 4' is a wonderful rhythm and Steve has agreed to go over the Dave Wickens 'rhythm tree' with the group at some point in the near future.

The section at letter E featured a 2 bar rhythmic 'call' inviting a 4 bar 'response'. There are two challenges here: 1) the soloist should be able to keep a strong sense of the time in what they play; 2) the rest of the ensemble should be able to keep the pulse going in their head regardless of what the soloist plays OR to listen and interpret the implied time from the soloist (experienced players do this often - I still find it slightly scary!*) 

* The classic situation for this is counting through (and at the same time 'interpreting') a drum solo where the drummer is really stretching out - do you just count? do you just listen? I won't mention any names but from time to time I get to play with a brilliant Brighton-based drummer (clue: a good tune for him to play would be The Preacher) and I still find coming in after one of his solos very challenging.

Harmony:

The harmony in this piece is modal, centred around concert D phrygian (sections A and C) and concert G phrygian (section B). Later in the piece the various soloists often refer to mixolydian b9 b13 (aka fifth mode of harmonic minor) - see below for more information on this. 

D phrygian 1  b2  b3   4   5  b6  b7   8

D mixolydian b9b13   1  b2   3   4   5  b6  b7   8   (= G harmonic minor)

G phrygian 1  b2  b3   4   5  b6  b7   8

G mixolydian b9b13   1  b2   3   4   5  b6  b7   8   (= C harmonic minor)

Improvising:

Improvising over 'time no changes' can be great fun. As there are no chords the soloist is free to play anything they wish (arguably this is also the case when playing WITH chords.) Some players love this format while others find the lack of harmonic structure a challenge. Playing 'time no changes' does not preclude the soloist from using a structure of their own devising (made up on the spot or pre-planned). Rhythmically, playing in 4 and 8 bar phrases is often desirable; harmonically, having a pre-agreed tonal centre or pedal point is a common device.

If you look at my transcription of the opening few bars of the baritone solo you will see that the bass starts out from a concert G tonality and the soloist uses the blues scale  1  b3  4  #4  5  b7  8  (in concert: G blues scale = G  Bb  C  C#  D  F  G ). The bass line however, does not stick with the G sound for long but explores a wonderful rising chromatic line, weaving about most ambiguously - this is a big feature of 'time no changes' (over to Terry for more on this … ) I would like to explore more of this type of improvisation in the future.

Ropetackle Archive 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).

Hope you have a good break and for those of you who are up for some more musical madness and mayhem (!) I look forward to seeing you on June 13th when we shall be looking at the Chick Corea composition Armundo's Rhumba (parts will be available in due course).

Cheers Mark

Week 19 09-05-14 Ups And Downs

So this week a new piece (chosen by me) - Ups And Downs by Carla Bley. What did you make of it? Hilary commented shortly after the class: "what a weird tune". Discuss (with her … )

I wanted to do another Carla Bley piece and I thought this one was quite interesting melodically, (compositionally), and harmonically. I would describe the melody as very 'pianistic' - the wide intervals can be played easily on the piano (although Andy Sheppard gets round it pretty well on tenor - see the YouTube clip). The development of the A section is a perfect example of using octave displacements to create a new melodic line. I believe Carla Bley's writing is heavily influenced by Thelonius Monk - angular lines and repeating motifs often using large intervals (cf Misterioso).

The harmony in this piece is not as complex as it first looks. The A section uses a two bar pattern of four chords which repeats down a tone and then another tone before resolving to a minor chord in bar 7 (more on bars 7 & 8 below). In concert key the basic chords are  | Am7  Gb7  | F7  D7  |  Notice how the second chord in bar 1 which is a dominant seventh resolves down a semitone - it is a tritone substitution (for C7). Also notice how the second chord in bar 2 resolves down a fifth (or up a fourth) into the next set of chords (i.e. D7 to Gm7 ). The sequence could be thought of like this:

|  Am7  C7  |  F7  D7  | Gm7 etc

The implication of the above is as follows: Am7  stands alone, then C7 and F7 work together, and D7 and Gm7 work together. So there are actually only three bits to think about and not five - hooray!

The chords in bars 7 and 8  (in concert: Ebm7  Ab7 ) also work together and may be thought of as a 'non-resolving II V '. This sound is used in many groove tunes (eg Oye Como Va). In this piece 

the harmony in bars 7 and 8 is relatively static providing a brief respite from the busy harmonic movement in bars 1 to 6. This change of pace is emphasised (and nicely balanced) by the use of a '2 feel' in bars 1-6 and then a '4 feel' in 7-8. Also note that the final chord in bar 8 (in concert: Ab7 ) is actually another tritone substitution, resolving down a semitone to the first chord at A again (in concert: Am7 ). Structurally, this piece is very well put together (in my opinion … ) 

In the session I gave out a sheet showing some possible chord voicings. This is the method I used to build these 5 note structures (there are of course other ways of creating voicings).

> start with the root at the bottom (later on we can leave this out which will give us a 'rootless' voicing)

> above the root insert: either the third and then the seventh, or the seventh and then the third (the chord symbol will tell you whether to use major or minor thirds / sevenths)

> the voicing so far has three notes (from the bottom up, either  root  third  seventh  or  root  seventh  third ) this gives the basic sound of the chord

> now you can add two more notes, one from each of the following selections: selection 1 [ root, flat 9, natural 9, sharp 9 ] ; selection 2 [ sharp 4, natural 5, sharp 5, 6 = 13 ]

> if your basic voicing is  root  third  seventh  then chose a note from selection 1 followed by a note from selection 2, or ...

> if your basic voicing is  root  seventh  third  then use selection 2 followed by selection 1 (this is to avoid the voicing being too spread out) 

> all the voicings in my example sheet were created using this technique

This technique is widely used by pianists, guitarists and arrangers. It always yields good sounding results (but as with all such techniques, the 'rules' may be broken at any time!)

I would encourage all our non-pianists to try building at least some 3 note chords at the keyboard (from the bottom up, either  root  third  seventh  or  root  seventh  third ). Test next week :-)

Next week (apart from the test!) we will re-visit the Henri Texier piece Old Delhi. I will endeavour to send a little more information about this piece before Friday :-)

Cheers Mark

mark@markbassey.com

Week 18 02-05-14 Search For Peace (re-visit)

The plan for the next few sessions is to re-visit various 'old favourites' mixed in with some new choices. We first looked at McCoy Tyner's Search For Peace back in 2012. At that time Annie wrote some beautiful lyrics and I thought this would be a good opportunity to hear them again in a traditional large ensemble (aka big band) setting. I scored out a vocal arrangement for our session using some of the elements from the instrumental version I wrote two years ago. At Annie's suggestion I raised the key (by a major third) and I also decided to include a counter-melody (played by the brass). The new score is attached below.

The first half of our session was spent working on this arrangement. The harmony in this composition is rich and the chord progression is not always obvious - it takes a while for the ears to really tune in. I wouldn't normally devote so much time to rehearsing a piece in this way but on this occasion I thought it was worth it - I hope you enjoyed the exercise. Thanks for your patience. I am attaching an mp3 of our final run through. I think there is some lovely ensemble playing here and Annie, you sound great, soaring above the orchestra singing your lyrics.

In the second half of our session we focussed on soloing, specifically over the first 4 bars - a minor II V resolving to a dominant 7 sus chord (we reverted to the original key, so in concert:  Am7b5 D7alt G7sus). I primed everyone with two scales (both melodic minor modes), namely locrian natural 9  for chord IIm7b5  ( 1  2  b3  4  b5 b6  b7  8 ) and altered  for chord V7alt  ( 1  b2  b3  3  #4  #5  b7  8 ). There are of course other possible scales but I chose these for this particular exercise. I then asked you to create a quaver line using four notes chosen from the first scale followed by four notes from the second, and finally resolving on to a suitable long note for the dominant seventh sus chord (any note from mixolydian  1  2  3  4  5  6  b7  8 ). The idea of this was to create a good phrase to play over the first two bars (and again over the next two bars). I was delighted with the lines everyone came up with and pleased that you were able to play them in a convincing melodic ballad fashion.

Other aspects of the chord sequence are covered in my feedback notes from Nov 2012 which are still in the Dropbox (and you will also find below).