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).