In
this final session we once again put our two tunes through their paces.
The results have been recorded and can be found in the Dropbox.
RECORDING Gato - Mark & Charlie
Quick demo of me practising the Gato solo sequence, stressing the root of each new scale.
RECORDING Gato - EVERYONE
solo order: Steve, Jim, Mike, Yvonne, Peter, Charlie, Stuart, Ash, Patrick, Steph, Annie
This 21 minute marathon was our first attempt at the entire solo sequence on Gato.
Everyone takes two choruses and I think there is some really skilled
improvising going on here - good knowledge and use of the relevant
scales and generally secure sense of geography (ie how long each scale
sound lasts). I was delighted to hear people getting to grips with the
different scale sounds and especially the elusive diminished
(whole-half). As a number of you commented, the more you listen to this
sequence the more ‘natural’ (or ‘logical’ ) it sounds. Presumably Finn
and his band played this piece quite a few times before they recorded
it. On their recording there is a freedom to everyone’s playing - it
doesn’t sound as if they are just ‘reeling off’ modes and scales, they
are really making music, expressing themselves, improvising in fact.
RECORDING Peshwali improv exercise (2 keys)
solo order: Ash, Annie, Mike, Charlie, Patrick, Steve, Yvonne, Stuart, Steph, Jim, Peter
In this improv practice exercise on Peshwali we
used just the first two key centres of the solo section. I suggested a
simple rising line from the first key centre leading into the second.
This was to encourage the idea of playing phrases which start in one key
and continue into the next (rather than leaving a gap at the point of
modulation and then restarting in the new key).
The
line I used comprised a bar of crotchets followed by a bar of
crotchet-triplets finishing on a long note. I thought it might be fun to
incorporate some crotchet-triplet rhythms into our soloing - to add
variety. I was inspired by the Finn Peters solo on Gato where he
plays a long phrase all in crotchet-triplets (bars 23-26 of first
chorus). He adds further interest to this line by repeating pairs of
notes and emphasising the first of each pair - this creates a
minim-triplet rhythm. We didn’t quite get to this but I did try it a few
times myself on the long note at the end of our line (you can hear me
doing it towards the end of the recording, a kind of ‘pulsing’ on one
note).
There
is some good melodic soloing here from everyone - exemplary use of
crotchet-triplet rhythms (including nice interaction with drums) and
more confident connecting lines between the two key centres.
So we come to the end of the final block for this academic year. I hope you have enjoyed exploring these last two tunes. Peshwali
is deceptively simple looking and I think Andy Sheppard’s arrangement
is really imaginative, working with just a few elements but mixing them
up in unexpected ways (NB the sequence of key centres in the solo
section and also the ingenious build up in the intro). Gato is
clearly no piece of cake (I’m sure that was Steve’s gag!) and needs time
to get inside it. The construction of the solo sequence is however
relatively straightforward - four bars on each chord scale (like Maiden Voyage or even Canteloupe Island
). I suggested, as a summer project, you might like to have a go at
creating a modal chord sequence of your own (same approach with each
scale lasting four bars). Don’t worry about writing a melody as such,
just try improvising on the sequence - this may suggest a melody for you
without you having to ‘compose’ one.
And
on the subject of composition I would like to mention that at the end
of last Friday’s session Charlie told me he had done a Schenkerian
analysis (see below*) of the Gato solo sequence. Amazingly he had managed to reduce the entire sequence down to three chords - namely II V I (key of C)
*Schenkerian
analysis is a method of musical analysis of tonal music based on the
theories of Heinrich Schenker (1868–1935). The goal of a Schenkerian
analysis is to interpret the underlying structure of a tonal work and to
help reading the score according to that structure.
chord II (Dm7-ish) E phrygian, D dorian, Ab mixolydian (Ab is a tritone for D)
chord V (G7-ish) G lydian, G mixolydian, G diminished
chord I (C-ish - lydian) B phrygian, C lydian
Thanks for this Charlie and also for your support throughout the last year.
Thanks also to all of you for your hard work and commitment to the class.
And extra special thanks to Steve and Ash for organising everything (and choosing much of the material we’ve been playing).
Have a great summer and look forward to seeing you in the autumn.
Cheers Mark
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