Litany Against Fear and Nothing Personal

Ropetackle Workshops 2014-15

Week 6  05-12-14

Litany Against Fear  and  Nothing Personal

This session we focussed on Nothing Personal. I invited our lovely string section (guitarists Nick, Vic and Stuart) to show us some simple voicings for Gm7 (and later Gm∆). We then recreated these voicings with our lovely horn section. The purpose of the exercise was to get away from thinking of chord voicings just as ‘hand shapes’ and to be more aware of the actual notes contained within each voicing. See attached sheet Voicings for Gm  (voicings in 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and even 7 parts!)

For improvising purposes I suggested the following scale choices (note how the scales for chords I and IV are derived from each other, ie they contain the same notes):

chord I melodic minor  1 2 b3 4 5 6 7 8  (in concert  Gm  G A Bb C D E F# G  )

chord IV lydian dominant  1 2 3 #4 5 6 b7 8  (in concert  C7  D E F# G A Bb C D  )

chord bVI lydian dominant  1 2 3 #4 5 6 b7 8  (in concert  Eb7  Eb F G A Bb C Db Eb  )

chord V fifth mode harmonic minor  1 b2 3 4 5 b6 b7 8  (in concert  D7  D Eb F# G A Bb C D  )

or altered scale  1 b2 b3 3 #4 #5 b7 8  (in concert  D7  D Eb F F# G# Bb C D  )

We played the sequence at a modest tempo - I would like to try it faster!

OPTIONAL HOME ASSIGNMENT 1 : with a view to developing a more fluid approach to faster tempos I suggested working out a quaver line over 2 bars (ie 16 quavers in a row) followed by a long note (semibreve) plus a bar rest - this makes a 4 bar phrase!

We also spent some time on the melody of Litany Against Fear and some improvising on the first sequence - still work in progress :-)

OPTIONAL HOME ASSIGNMENT 2 : check out the chords of the second sequence (ie the guitar solo) - how many chords are there?

Next session I want to look at the second chord sequence of Litany Against Fear and also consider how to use elements of transcribed solos to develop our playing (check out Steve’s transcription of Michael Brecker soloing on Nothing Personal (in the Dropbox).

Litany Against Fear and Nothing Personal

Ropetackle Workshops 2014-15

Week 5  28-11-14

For our second block of workshops we have another two very different compositions: Litany Against Fear and Nothing Personal. Once again these pieces are from the ‘Ropetackle Archives’ (we looked at them last year - music and mp3s in Dropbox). Don’t worry if you are new to these tunes (or have forgotten them!) your fresh perspective will be great :-)

On Litany Against Fear and I tried a step-by-step strategic approach to improvising on the solo sequence (actually solo sequence 1).

1) I changed the key from concert Eb minor (Gb major) to concert D minor (F major). Next week we’ll go back to Eb minor.

2) We improvised freely (out of time) on the first 6 notes of concert F major  F G A Bb C D  (NB check out first 8 bars of Christian Scott’s solo*).

3) We improvised (in time) over the first three chords (still in concert Dm) in ‘friendly’ 4/4 :-)    |  Dm7  |  Bb∆  |  F∆  |  F∆  |   (all in the concert scale  D E F G A Bb C D )

4) We added the ‘cadence’ chord in bar 4  (still in 4/4)  |  Dm7  |  Bb∆  |  F∆  |  A7/C#  |   (NB notice how Christian Scott mostly chooses not to play in this bar!)

5) We put the sequence back into the original time frame - alternating bars of 4/4 and 3/4  (arguably in 7/4)  Look at the rhythms used in Christian Scott’s 16 bar solo*.

In the Dropbox Litany Against Fear folder, along with the lead sheets and original mp3, I have added the following items:

- backing track for solo sequence1 (concert Eb minor)

- backing track for solo sequence1 (concert D minor)

- a transcription* of Christian Scott on solo sequence1 (concert Eb minor)

- as above but in concert D minor

In all future sessions I would like to stick to the original key (concert Eb minor) but some of you may find it helpful to do some preliminary practice (!) in concert D minor …

To finish this first session I asked our rhythm section to play All Blues  - first in the normal 6/4 and then in 4/4. 

|  G7  |  G7  |  G7  |  G7  |  C7  |  C7  |  G7  |  G7  |  D7  |  Eb7 D7  |  G7  |  G7  |

Then we changed all the G7s to Gm7s and put the Eb7 in bar 9.

|  Gm7  |  Gm7  |  Gm7  |  Gm7  |  C7  |  C7  |  Gm7  |  Gm7  |  Eb7  |  D7  |  Gm7  |  Gm7  |

Finally I asked Charlie to play double time (so in effect each chord lasts twice as long)

|  Gm7  |  Gm7  |  Gm7  |  Gm7  |  Gm7  |  Gm7  |  Gm7  |  Gm7  |  C7  |  C7  |  C7  |  C7  |  Gm7  |  Gm7  |  Gm7  |  Gm7  |  Eb7  |  Eb7  |  D7  |  D7  |  Gm7  |  Gm7  |  Gm7  |  Gm7  |

This is the chord sequence for Nothing Personal.  In my lead sheet I used Gm rather than Gm7 which keeps the chord more open and of course allows for the possibility of exploring the melodic minor (in concert:  G melodic minor   G A Bb C D E F# G )