Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner - Non Classical Working on Bebop, Part II

My recent recording of Tune Up is now public. This basically marks the halfway point of my 8-month attempt to learn bebop. I'm starting this new thread to journal the the 2nd half of my learning journey. You've all given me great advice for learning bebop, enough to keep me busy for a year at least. So I don't really need more advice, but you're welcome to give it! I will happily take all criticisms, harsh and kind.

The story so far:

* June: started working on Tune Up.
* July: Posted my attempt for the Jazz & Blues recital.
* July-October: Continued drilling on bebop stuff, based on advice from you.
* November: Posted my new attempt at Tune Up. Done with Tune Up for now!

My plan for the future is learn Anthropology and perform it for the February recital here. My "to do" list:

* Practice the basics of the tune: head, scales, arpeggios (I'm basically done with this step)
* Practice Barry Harris material for the new scales I need (which is just mixolydian D and C I think, though I need to delve into how to deal with iii chords)
* Continue work on corner notes and bebop "rhythm words", as described in the previous thread
* Use this Bud Powell recording for more vocabulary ideas

Because I want to work on building up speed, I'm more interested in mastering what I've already been drilling, and less interested in learning new material. But if you have any suggestions for things I missed that I should tackle, let me know!

Excellent job and you've done so much in such a short time.

You've got good facility when improvising. I'd like to hear more chromaticism in your lines.

Have a look at this. It may help you bring in more tension into your soloing:

https://www.jazzpianoonline.com/courses/improv-the-concept

May I suggest you take a phrase or two and really work on it, trying to get it to swing. Accents, ghost notes etc. Dig in! Cheers.

Thanks so much for your compliment. Chromaticism is definitely the biggest thing my brain has developed (and continues to develop) over the past few months. My fingers are slowly overcoming the fingering problems, and I'm finally starting to hear the chromatic approaches, enclosures, etc in my head before I actually play them. Hopefully that part of my brain keeps developing.

Thanks for linking your free class. I like the way you color-code the function of notes--it seems like a good idea for analysis. Maybe I'll analyze my own solo and see what colors are overpowering and which need more representation (though I guess I already know the answer).

I haven't heard of Hank Mobley before, but he seems like a great pianist to study. He has a nice solo in "A Peck a Sec", which I might analyze since it's a rhythm changes tune like Anthropology.

rsl12 - Now that you have somewhat mastered chromaticisms, you can move on to using the proportions between chromatic and diatonic notes to control the effect of tension and relaxation. If you listen to the phrases of a specific artist, then you should pay attention to the following:
For a phrase of two bars -
the number of chromatic notes in each bar, compared to diatonic ones;
the ratio of chromatic and diatonic notes in the second bar, compared to the first;
on which beats chromatics are used, and on which diatonics;
Which notes from these two categories are longer .
For a phrase of four bars, it is worth comparing the second bar with the first, the third bar with the first and second, the fourth bar with the first, second and third; and also in the aggregate the first and second bar in relation to the third and fourth bar in the aggregate.

Hi

Just a quick correction. Hank Mobley was primarily a Saxophone player not a Pianist.
The Pianist on "A Peck a Sec" (assuming it's the 1960 version) was McCoy Tyner.

And he's a fine Pianist to study!

Cheers

That makes sense. I'll consider all of this when I analyze. Thank you as always!



How long would I have gone thinking Hank Mobley was a pianist without your comment?? Thank you! Now I have some relistening to do!

Sorry, I forgot to mention Hank Mobley, who I've been listening to since the 60s. The abundance of ideas presented simply pushed out that from my memory. Signs of age...

It's catching up with me as well

Cheers

After a long Thanksgiving break (and a Thanksgiving cold), I'm trying to get back into this. Here's a short recording I did at the end of my last practice. Nothing special. For this recording, I tried to increase the tempo a little past my comfort zone, and really think about my simplified approach to the changes:

1st phrase (I-vi-ii-V7) simplifies to I6-I6-V7-V7
2nd phrase (iii-vi-ii-V7) simplifies to I6-I6-V7-V7
3rd phrase (v-I7-IV7-bVII7) simplifies to I7-I7-bVII7-bVII7
etc.

I originally tried to push the tempo more than what's on the recording. It was a mess.

Great, you can feel the detailed work here! Now the absence of triplet eighth notes has come to the fore.
Great, you can feel the detailed work here! Now the absence of triplet eighth notes has come to the fore.

I thought it was a nice solid solo as well. Much different from the earlier ones. The shape of the line was good and I could hear the changes as well.

Thanks Nahum and Emenelton for your encouragement. I hear the difference you are talking about. I think the simplification in my thinking of the chord changes, as well as the fact that rhythm changes are a little easier than Tune Up, is letting me focus more on the rhythm. It's nice to know others hear progress as well!

I didn't get much time to practice over Christmas and New Years, but I'm going to try and get Anthropology ready for the Adult Beginner's Forum Quarterly Recital, which is just a few weeks away (final deadline is Feb 15).

Here's a practice recording from this morning. Like my other practice recordings, it's pretty bad, but at least it helps illustrate the things I'm planning on working on most until the recital, namely:

1) working on left hand styles (half-note and quarter-note bass, shell voicings, 4-to-the-bar) and the transitions between them
2) metronome work to solidify my rhythm and to increase tempo

For now, I'm done with focusing on the right hand. I would enjoy having some freedom in my left hand, and I don't have it yet. Because I'm planning on some left-hand variety, I can't push the tempo too much, but I'll do what I can.

Hi ,rsl12 I think your left hand is somehow interfering with your right hand's rhythm. Try playing with just right hand along with a metronome without your left; after a while, adding the left strictly in halves, without syncopations - leave the syncopations for the right. Otherwise, at the end of almost every phrase you get an acceleration on the bebop formula. Follow the steady rhythm in your left hand.You've already progressed quite well in improvisation, and the time has come when you need to move to another category: not performing repeated rhythmic rhymes at the end of phrases. This means the phrases end in different places in the bars, in different rhythms and in different bars. This is how prose speech differs from the recitation of a poem.

Repeating rhythmic rhyme in solo and possible version - from bar 9 :

.

I agree it sounds much better. As for the left hand I suggest you check out this article, specifically the Red Garland left hand comping pattern. It's quite hard to pull it off actually, but by accenting all the upbeats it really creates this forward motion and swing. Cheers!

Thanks Nahum for the comments and the analysis!! The more I complicate the left hand, the greater the chance of falling into a rhythmic rut in the right. I'm aware of the problem--my solution has been to drill using rhythmic words--two to four measure rhythm phrases that force me to get out of my ruts. And in order to get flexibility with how the phrases begin and end, I sometimes displace the rhythmic word by a beat or two. I don't have that much time to work on this problem, but I'll do what I can. If it still sounds terrible by the end of January, I'll probably go back to half-note bass in the left hand.

I tried the Red Garland comping rhythm last night. I definitely feel a benefit from it--it's just the right amount of challenge. Thanks for the idea!

This is excellent advice ! I remember , when I started studying the left hand of RG , I sat for three hours in the morning and for three hours in the evening only with left hand and metronome . When I got up in the end , I could play with both hands, independently of each other . The problem was at night in bed ,when my left hand continued to twitch to RG rhythm .