This afternoon, I had the first rehearsal for All Blues with Dylan, Dennis, Chih-yu, Dorian, and Paula.
We came up with the following form:
*Bass starts with the intro, then drums, and then violins and sax come in with harmony. We're playing in 12/8.
*We played the head twice, during which Chih-yu sings her lyrics.
*Right after, we begin solos. Dorian will have the last solo, and then he'll transition us into 11/8 (which is really just a bar of 6 and a bar of 5).
*We play the head again twice through again, with Chih-yu singing.
*More solos. Dennis will play the last solo.
*We play the head for the third time.
*Ending...?
We tried a couple of ending techniques. First, we tried fading out on a vamp, which was moderately successful - we just need to practice it a few more times. Dennis also had the idea of repeating the intro vamp at the end, but cutting out one beat from the bar each time, so we'd go from 11/8 to 10/8 to 9/8, etc. It was a cool concept but we thought it would be too hard to implement. Very mathematical though - what do you expect from a bunch of MIT kids?
In class we originally listened to this classic recording of All Blues by Miles Davis (1959):
And another, later recording by Miles Davis (1964):
I found another version by Buddy Rich:
I like the first and third versions the best, which are mellower and/or more melodic. I don't like the sound of the trumpet when played in spats as in the second version above. I'll be listening to these recordings for inspiration in my spare time now. Someday I may be able to play strings of running eighth notes on my violin like the Buddy Rich band pianist... I'll learn to walk before I run though.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Don't Leave Me High and Dry, Ravel
Tonight, Dennis, Xiao Xiao, Dorian, Claxton, and I met at Sid-Pac for the first rehearsal of "High and Dry." By the end of the rehearsal, we had another piece as well.
I had originally showed up to play in Autumn Leaves, but after briefly messing around with that, the rest of the group decided to start High and Dry. Dorian hadn't listed violin in his original arrangement for this piece, but after listening to them play a while I was tempted to join. I liked the groove. I asked Dorian, and he was like, sure yeah, hop on in. Today was basically Xiao Xiao figuring out the chords on the piano, and the rest of us listening to the youtube video and improvising along with it. Since we got started late and Dennis had to leave to play a concert, we're going to have to get together again to really hash things out.
High and Dry:
At the end of rehearsal, Xiao Xiao started playing Ravel's Toccata on piano, and Dorian started playing drums along with it. It sounded really cool, pretty jazzy - the drums gave the Toccata a toe-tapping/head-bobbing quality it doesn't usually have. Then Xiao Xiao vamped parts of the Toccata, and the rest of us joined in playing along. It was quite spontaneous, and it sounded good. We're probably going to roll this into a real piece for the concert. This will be a piece that takes after what Donal does with Bach.
Ravel Toccata:
I had originally showed up to play in Autumn Leaves, but after briefly messing around with that, the rest of the group decided to start High and Dry. Dorian hadn't listed violin in his original arrangement for this piece, but after listening to them play a while I was tempted to join. I liked the groove. I asked Dorian, and he was like, sure yeah, hop on in. Today was basically Xiao Xiao figuring out the chords on the piano, and the rest of us listening to the youtube video and improvising along with it. Since we got started late and Dennis had to leave to play a concert, we're going to have to get together again to really hash things out.
High and Dry:
At the end of rehearsal, Xiao Xiao started playing Ravel's Toccata on piano, and Dorian started playing drums along with it. It sounded really cool, pretty jazzy - the drums gave the Toccata a toe-tapping/head-bobbing quality it doesn't usually have. Then Xiao Xiao vamped parts of the Toccata, and the rest of us joined in playing along. It was quite spontaneous, and it sounded good. We're probably going to roll this into a real piece for the concert. This will be a piece that takes after what Donal does with Bach.
Ravel Toccata:
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Lesson in Blues
Last night, the "Lonely Woman" group performed at the Festival Jazz Ensemble Concert. The performance went smoothly.
Perhaps more memorable about the concert was the time spent backstage, though. During the first half of the concert, Dennis gave me a blues lesson. Some of this information we'd gone over in class, but it helped to hear it again one-on-one and to for me to play on my violin the different concepts Dennis talked about as he taught them to me.
Here's what we covered:
*The Blues Scale: the notes in a natural minor scale; 1, 3, 4, flat 5, 5, 7, 1
#Exercise: I played the scale a couple times in different keys.
*Twelve-Bar Blues: Dennis explained that the dominant 7 chord is a "stable" chord in the blues, unlike in classical music. Twelve-bar blues is:
- 4 bars of tonic (I) d7 chords
- 2 bars of subdominant (IV) d7; then 2 bars of tonic (I) d7
- 1 bar dominant (V) d7, 1 bar subdominant (IV) d7, 2 bars tonic (I) d7
Then it all repeats again.
I-IV-V(-IV-I).
#Exercise: At first, I thought we were supposed to change keys whenever the chords changed, but then Dennis outlined D7,D7,D7,D7/G7,G7,D7,D7/A7,G7,D7,D7 on guitar while I soloed in D over it, and I listened to the way the different harmonies changed the way my D major sounded and heard how it works. Simple stuff, but actually I couldn't help smiling when I heard it as I was playing - it sounds neat.
*Rhythm: Dennis went over straight eighths versus swung eighths. Straight eighths are as normal even eighth notes, whereas swung eighths are like playing on beats 1 and 3 in a triplet. There's also the "in between" eighth which is somewhere between a straight eighth and a swung eighth.
#Exercise: We repeated the twelve-bar blues exercise, this time with me playing a D blues scale in either straight eighths, swung eighths, or in-between eighths. Then Dennis had me do this again, but put an accent on the off-beat, not the downbeat.
*Notes outside the blues scale/modes: I asked Dennis what notes we can use outside of the blues scale. Well, any notes really, but he talked about using two different modes in particular - Dorian and Mixolydian.
-Dorian: like a major scale, with flat 3 and 7
-Mixolydian: like a major scale, with flat 3
Dennis pointed out that the flat 3 contrasts the non-flat 3 in the d7 chords, and that musicians often use a mix of both flat and non-flat 3, sometimes sliding from one to the other. Also, the difference between major and minor blues is in whether the dominant 7 chord has a major or minor third in it.
#Exercise: I played the Dorian and Mixolydian scales a few times, then repeated the twelve-bar-blues exercise, this time trying to incorporte the flat and non-flat 3 in my improvisation.
Big thanks to Dennis. He is impossibly nice.
Perhaps more memorable about the concert was the time spent backstage, though. During the first half of the concert, Dennis gave me a blues lesson. Some of this information we'd gone over in class, but it helped to hear it again one-on-one and to for me to play on my violin the different concepts Dennis talked about as he taught them to me.
Here's what we covered:
*The Blues Scale: the notes in a natural minor scale; 1, 3, 4, flat 5, 5, 7, 1
#Exercise: I played the scale a couple times in different keys.
*Twelve-Bar Blues: Dennis explained that the dominant 7 chord is a "stable" chord in the blues, unlike in classical music. Twelve-bar blues is:
- 4 bars of tonic (I) d7 chords
- 2 bars of subdominant (IV) d7; then 2 bars of tonic (I) d7
- 1 bar dominant (V) d7, 1 bar subdominant (IV) d7, 2 bars tonic (I) d7
Then it all repeats again.
I-IV-V(-IV-I).
#Exercise: At first, I thought we were supposed to change keys whenever the chords changed, but then Dennis outlined D7,D7,D7,D7/G7,G7,D7,D7/A7,G7,D7,D7 on guitar while I soloed in D over it, and I listened to the way the different harmonies changed the way my D major sounded and heard how it works. Simple stuff, but actually I couldn't help smiling when I heard it as I was playing - it sounds neat.
*Rhythm: Dennis went over straight eighths versus swung eighths. Straight eighths are as normal even eighth notes, whereas swung eighths are like playing on beats 1 and 3 in a triplet. There's also the "in between" eighth which is somewhere between a straight eighth and a swung eighth.
#Exercise: We repeated the twelve-bar blues exercise, this time with me playing a D blues scale in either straight eighths, swung eighths, or in-between eighths. Then Dennis had me do this again, but put an accent on the off-beat, not the downbeat.
*Notes outside the blues scale/modes: I asked Dennis what notes we can use outside of the blues scale. Well, any notes really, but he talked about using two different modes in particular - Dorian and Mixolydian.
-Dorian: like a major scale, with flat 3 and 7
-Mixolydian: like a major scale, with flat 3
Dennis pointed out that the flat 3 contrasts the non-flat 3 in the d7 chords, and that musicians often use a mix of both flat and non-flat 3, sometimes sliding from one to the other. Also, the difference between major and minor blues is in whether the dominant 7 chord has a major or minor third in it.
#Exercise: I played the Dorian and Mixolydian scales a few times, then repeated the twelve-bar-blues exercise, this time trying to incorporte the flat and non-flat 3 in my improvisation.
Big thanks to Dennis. He is impossibly nice.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Lonely Woman
Lately I've been feeling the blues. I've been a bit lonely... oh wait, that's not what this is about.
Late Monday night, Donal emailed a few of us from the improv class that we were going to be playing with him in the Festival Jazz Ensemble concert set for tomorrow night. So Wednesday and yesterday, Chih-yu, Paula, Dennis, Donal, and I had rehearsal putting together our piece. It's surprising to me that we've been able to do it on such short notice. I've never prepared an improv piece before, much less planned to perform in one in front of a large audience in Kresge.
The piece we're performing is an arrangement of "Lonely Woman" by Ornette Coleman.
I'll recount how rehearsal went, since it's a model of how jazz/improv pieces can be put together.
Wednesday, Donal brought a lead sheet and we read through it first, just playing the notes straight. Then we experimented with different sets of instruments playing the "A" section. Donal liked the sound of two violins playing the melodies, except purposely not together, to create a "phasing" effect. We thought about how to incorporate the guitar and piano after that, and decided to have them back up a phrase within the "A" section to reinforce it in the second time through ("A" is repeated). We decided to have Chih-yu alone on voice to start off each section. For the "B" section, we had the same general format, and then we had to worry about transitions between the sections, but we didn't work out our final plan until Thursday.
The piece was in flux until the end of the Thursday rehearsal, which is when we really hammered out the transitions. For example, Donal had planned to do a kind of dark, moody solo after the "A" section, but we decided to change the style of it to be less depressing and faster, to contrast the rest of the piece - and to move it to after the "B" section to create a transition back to the recapitulation of the "A" section. After experimenting a bit, Donal made the solo transition into a free jazz section for piano and guitar, with the violins kind of in the background playing parts from "B" until Donal gave us a head nod to cue us to start playing material from "A" again. The piano and guitar would then fade out, leaving the violins to continue the "A" section again. Transition complete. Chih-yu also brought lyrics, which added a layer of meaning to the piece:
Lonely in the night she wonders,
Who can she tell of her heartache?
They that listen do not care.
They don't share heartache.
She is a lonely woman,
No one to cry to at all.
We considered whether the lyrics would give away the intent of the song, but we decided it would be fine, as the audience might not even listen that closely to the words, focusing instead on the emotion in Chih-yu's voice. I personally don't think the lyrics interfere, because it actually can help the audience to imagine the violins, which repeat the melodies sung by the voice, as anguished females, which is what I hear them as.
To sum up the rehearsal experience, I learned that putting together a jazz piece involves the input of everyone in the group - we could (actually, needed to) throw out ideas we jus thought about and wanted to try. Sometimes we liked the ideas, sometimes we scrapped them. But everyone was heard and sometimes the ideas we didn't like prompted new ideas we did. As the rehearsals went on, I could see the piece taking its final form slowly, and it was cool to know how each element in our arrangement came about.
The concert's tomorrow night.
Late Monday night, Donal emailed a few of us from the improv class that we were going to be playing with him in the Festival Jazz Ensemble concert set for tomorrow night. So Wednesday and yesterday, Chih-yu, Paula, Dennis, Donal, and I had rehearsal putting together our piece. It's surprising to me that we've been able to do it on such short notice. I've never prepared an improv piece before, much less planned to perform in one in front of a large audience in Kresge.
The piece we're performing is an arrangement of "Lonely Woman" by Ornette Coleman.
I'll recount how rehearsal went, since it's a model of how jazz/improv pieces can be put together.
Wednesday, Donal brought a lead sheet and we read through it first, just playing the notes straight. Then we experimented with different sets of instruments playing the "A" section. Donal liked the sound of two violins playing the melodies, except purposely not together, to create a "phasing" effect. We thought about how to incorporate the guitar and piano after that, and decided to have them back up a phrase within the "A" section to reinforce it in the second time through ("A" is repeated). We decided to have Chih-yu alone on voice to start off each section. For the "B" section, we had the same general format, and then we had to worry about transitions between the sections, but we didn't work out our final plan until Thursday.
The piece was in flux until the end of the Thursday rehearsal, which is when we really hammered out the transitions. For example, Donal had planned to do a kind of dark, moody solo after the "A" section, but we decided to change the style of it to be less depressing and faster, to contrast the rest of the piece - and to move it to after the "B" section to create a transition back to the recapitulation of the "A" section. After experimenting a bit, Donal made the solo transition into a free jazz section for piano and guitar, with the violins kind of in the background playing parts from "B" until Donal gave us a head nod to cue us to start playing material from "A" again. The piano and guitar would then fade out, leaving the violins to continue the "A" section again. Transition complete. Chih-yu also brought lyrics, which added a layer of meaning to the piece:
Lonely in the night she wonders,
Who can she tell of her heartache?
They that listen do not care.
They don't share heartache.
She is a lonely woman,
No one to cry to at all.
We considered whether the lyrics would give away the intent of the song, but we decided it would be fine, as the audience might not even listen that closely to the words, focusing instead on the emotion in Chih-yu's voice. I personally don't think the lyrics interfere, because it actually can help the audience to imagine the violins, which repeat the melodies sung by the voice, as anguished females, which is what I hear them as.
To sum up the rehearsal experience, I learned that putting together a jazz piece involves the input of everyone in the group - we could (actually, needed to) throw out ideas we jus thought about and wanted to try. Sometimes we liked the ideas, sometimes we scrapped them. But everyone was heard and sometimes the ideas we didn't like prompted new ideas we did. As the rehearsals went on, I could see the piece taking its final form slowly, and it was cool to know how each element in our arrangement came about.
The concert's tomorrow night.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Arts Council Visit
We had a rather large group of MIT Arts Council members sit in on class.
To demonstrate to them some improvisation, we started with a class rendition of the "emotion" peacefulness.[1] As usual, this piece was characterised by a soft volume, long held notes, and many major and perfect intervals.
Donal then talked about how to give music direction and form. We came up with a list of ideas of how to create development:
*Giving the music form: e.g. ABA
*Varying rhythm
*"" dynamics
*"" texture
*Harmoney modulation
*Layering a melody/motif
*Changing instrumentation - thus changing color, timbre
*Individual solos
[1] The whole "emotion" improvisation originated when Donal asked us, "What emotions can music express?" and Xiao Xiao countered, "Are there any emotions music can't express?" We made a huge list of emotions ranging from angst to joy and concluded music can express pretty much anything. We tried improvising on anger, which was less successful, but was characterized by discordant intervals, faster-moving notes played at a forte or fortissimo.
To demonstrate to them some improvisation, we started with a class rendition of the "emotion" peacefulness.[1] As usual, this piece was characterised by a soft volume, long held notes, and many major and perfect intervals.
Donal then talked about how to give music direction and form. We came up with a list of ideas of how to create development:
*Giving the music form: e.g. ABA
*Varying rhythm
*"" dynamics
*"" texture
*Harmoney modulation
*Layering a melody/motif
*Changing instrumentation - thus changing color, timbre
*Individual solos
[1] The whole "emotion" improvisation originated when Donal asked us, "What emotions can music express?" and Xiao Xiao countered, "Are there any emotions music can't express?" We made a huge list of emotions ranging from angst to joy and concluded music can express pretty much anything. We tried improvising on anger, which was less successful, but was characterized by discordant intervals, faster-moving notes played at a forte or fortissimo.
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