Round Midnight

Well I've been working on it for a while,  and here is my version of 'Round Midnight:

 'Round Midnight (Thelonious Monk/Cootie Williams/Bernie Hanaghan) by Malcolm81

or the link: http://soundcloud.com/malcolm81/round-midnight-thelonious-monk

I'm using sparse left hand voicings in this one, I found for the most part the harmony could be adequately suggested using two notes, one staying the same and one moving.  But only the Eb- gets the root note (along with the minor third), in the entire song I believe, everything else is an oddball combination.

But I couldn't help but get a deeper appreciation of Thelonious from this, there is an unmistakable otherworldly quality to it, and you can obtain it by very simple means.

Anyhow, it isn't perfect, might try to improve it,
Malcolm

Short Improv

Well I was feeling a little discouraged with my piano playing, so I rented a trumpet, never have played a note on one in my life.  And now I feel much better about my piano playing!

On a more serious note, I think my practice regiment of repertoire building and progression practice was leading me feel encumbered by having to play the harmony along with the melody.  But that's wrong, the point isn't to try to bifurcate your psyche into your left hand half, controlling working on the harmony and rhythm, while your right hand half works the melody, the point is that the playing of both are parts of a piano piece, and in a piano piece those two things should be intimately related.  And, if anything, that is the goal of improvs with a trumpet playing the melody two, it's just that in that case the presence of two minds requires communication as to what notes are going to be played in the future.

In this vein of thought, I have decided that I have to get away (at least some of the time) from repertoire building and working on progressions, and spend some time just playing the piano, letting the harmony and the rhythmic playing coexists in a mutually beneficial manner with lead playing.  Anyway, that's the goal.  And then I can use this experience in what is the ultimate goal, at least my current long term piano goal, which is to be able to play jazz standards in a creative, and unique, way.

Well, here's a short rendition of nothing in particular:
 Short improv by Malcolm81
or the link: http://soundcloud.com/malcolm81/short-improv

Also, some of my hand coordination difficulties are caused by my "I'll get there when I get there" melodic sense--and yes I was like that when I played guitar too.  Maybe it's from playing music where the rhythm music might drone out the melody if it's played right on the beat, I don't know, but I rarely jump beats, and I'm not so rarely a little behind them, and I'm not entirely unhappy about that, though I guess maybe it is something I can work on to extend my comfort zone.

Anyhow, take it easy,
Malcolm

Nothing New Today

I did some practice today, getting discouraged.  I don't know how I'm ever going to be able to play the piano well, there's just such a huge gap between what I can do and what I want to do.

Oh well, not everyone can play the piano well I suppose.
Malcolm

Rhythm Changes

Hi everbody,

I know I said I was going to get you a version of 'Round Midnight, but I decided I had to work on fundamentals, so I got a metronome and plan to get to the point where I can play stock rhythm changes in my sleep in all twelve keys, and then work on improvising chord substitutions.  Also, I am noticeably worse at playing sharp keys than flat ones (well I notice it anyway.)

Oh, for the uninitiated "rhythm changes" refers to the chord progression of a Gershwin tune called "I Got Rhythm", which has been lifted a million times and is at this point just a progression that everyone knows (similar to 12 bar blues progressions.)  Well everyone but me.  But I will get it down cold.  Yessirree.

Though at some point in that I will get back to working at songs I'm sure, and in the meantime I will probably try to write up some stuff on here.  Also might post some of the practice I'm doing, it's easy enough to record, some might be worth listening to.

Anyhow, here are some rhythm changes in D:
 D Rhythm Changes by Malcolm81

or click: http://soundcloud.com/malcolm81/d-rhythm-changes

Testing...

Alright, bear with me a second here, just trying something....

Ok, That's a jazz minor scale, in C.  Classical folks will recognize that as an ascending or descending melodic minor, the one that isn't a mode of the major scale.  Ascending I guess.  Appreciate your comments if I'm dead wrong.  50/50 chance.  Wow I put a lot of care into this blog.  Anyhow, it forms it's own modes in jazz and doesn't change depending on whether the melody is ascending or descending or anything, and  it's pretty important, it's the basis of  a lot of altered harmonies, and an Eb jazz minor is the main key of 'Round Midnight, which I should be posting shortly.  

Alright, smashing success.  

Malcolm

F'ing Blues

Hi everybody,

I recorded a simple composition of mine called "F'ing Blues", it's a blues number, hence the term Blues, and it's in F, hence "F'ing".

anyhow, here it is:
 F'ing Blues by Malcolm81

or the link to it on SoundCloud : http://soundcloud.com/malcolm81/fing-blues

Anyhow hope you like it.

I'm working on a rendition of Monk's "Round Midnight", and man it seems like everytime I try to learn a new Monk tune I realize I don't know anything about playing the damn piano or music in general.  But I more or less have it down as far as playing it goes, it's a question of how to improvise with it without messing with that oh-so-awesome atmosphere obtained by really simple means.

Also, once I figure out how to use some software to post music on the blog I will, and I will see if I can get some jazz tutorial stuff up for non-jazz musicians to get started with, and also to refer to in other posts where I want to talk music in more particulars than I have been able to as of now.

Ok.  Beat the buzzer, I've been trying to post everyday.  So hurray for me.

Till Next Time,
Malcolm

Play Misty for You

Ok, I am not too happy with this rendition but I don't feel like playing this song anymore right now, so I'm just going to post it and be done with it.  I learned a lot getting this song to this point, and of course I could learn more with it but there are a lot of other songs in the world worth learning.

Without further ado, then--
 Misty (Erroll Garner) by Malcolm81

or feel free to visit it on my SoundCloud page by clicking here.

It is a little tough getting the rhythms to ring the way I want them using the pedal, since of course the pedal causes the melody to ring as well, and so sometimes the melody ends up ringing, and sometimes the harmony is not entirely smooth in its transition.  This was the main challenge I faced in learning this piece to this point.

The solo sounds pleasant enough for the most part, but I must have buggered something up, as in an extra repeat or two or letting the tempo really drop off because it is much longer than it was intended to be, I meant to just go through the form once for the solo (song once as a head, once as a solo, once at the end).

In reality I think it's probably better to not go through the whole form, it just makes it crazy long.  I think I will just run through the A-1, then solo over the A-1, then run the A-2, then the bridge, then the A-2.  Any input on this?  Or anything?  Or am I talking to myself?

Speaking of talking to myself, I have decided not to play this on request, ever.  Because that dialogue would go something like:

Requester: Could you play Misty for me?
Me: No, I can't.  Or rather I could, but then you'd have to kill me, and I don't want to die.

Though actually I've never seen "Play Misty for Me,"  but I have the impression it is a fatal attraction style thriller.

Anyhow, that's a blogpost if I've ever seen one.  Till next time,
Malcolm

Shell Voicings, and I'll Play Misty for You in a bit

Ok, after doing a little googling, and checking out online jazz piano resources, a couple of points:

(a) there is not an overwhelming amount of instructional material out there on the internet for jazz piano, and more apropos to the current discussion,

(b) those fifth-less dominant seventh voicing I mentioned yesterday are apparently known as "Shell Voicings", and actually they are used for major seventh and minor chords as well.  Actually, I don't see why you couldn't throw in a sixth on a major chord instead of a seventh, etc., etc.

Some resources:
Earl MacDonald's Jazz Piano Lesson
Jazz Resource Shell Voicing Page

Having learned that these are useful for all kinds of chords, I am tackling "Misty" from my real book--which has all three main types of chords, having ii-V7-I progressions in a couple different keys (Eb and Ab).  But I'm actually having a tricky time learning this song, even though it doesn't seem all that difficult.  Maybe it's a tempermant thing, but it's probably a matter of technique--I'm going for kind of a "pulsing" ballad rhythm with the left hand -- steady but not robotic -- and then the melody is light and delicate and switches between straight eight and triplet quarter notes, while moving around a bit within two octaves.

Maybe it's my technique.  Maybe it's because I don't like playing meaningless music. And of course, when it comes to music, it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.  But I feel like it's a powerful instrumental piece, I want to be able to play it straight without having to jazz it up.  But maybe I couldn't play it with swing rhythms either and I'm just making excuses.

Hmm.  Rambling, definitely rambling.  I will be recording a version of Misty today or tomorrow though, as I feel somewhat comfortable with it (and actually I am almost there.)

Anyhow, hope I helped you waste a couple minutes of your nonexistence,
Malcolm

Well You Needn't

Dear reader,

If demographics and stat tracking from this blog are any indication, then you do not exist.  So I urge you to enjoy your nonexistence with my solo piano rendition of "Well You Needn't", a jazz standard by Thelonious Monk (the great one) and Mike Perro (the never heard of him but he's listed as having cowritten it in my real book one).  

Here goes:

 Well You Needn't (Thelonious Monk/ Mike Perro) by Malcolm81 

And if that doesn't work, click this.

I just learned this tune recently, it's kind of how I stumbled onto the chord voicing that is basically my bread and butter at this point, I play the root, the third, and the seventh in the left hand as a root note chord.  The idea was to maintain the rhythmic potential and the movement of the chromatic chord progression, without suffering from having the fifth in there making the whole thing sound like a polyphonic melody all going at the same intervals.  The upside of this voicing is huge however--not having the fifth, you can use the same voicing for a slew of chromatically altered seventh chords, since the root, third, and dominant seventh remain the same in all dominant seventh chords.  I know that sounds like semantics, since the definition of a dominant seventh is  the root, major third, and flat seventh, but actually in practice it seems more likely to shift other chords into dominants than  dominants into other chords, and the point is that the left hand voicing is really useful .

Anyhow, enjoy your nonexistence, 

Malcolm  

So What

Hi everybody,

I have been working on a version of Miles Davis's "So What", which I have recorded this afternoon and put on SoundCloud:

 So What (Miles Davis) by Malcolm81

or if that doesn't work, try clicking this.

I realize that this is not very good, in fact the coordination between the hands during the solos is remarkably bad, but I still think there is a good idea here.  The two chords listed in the real book for the solo are taken not as modes (which I believe was the point of the song as originally recorded), nor chords, but as an underlying pentatonic which can either be incorporated into a full mode by the melody, or more commonly in this solo what is done is that the melody plays a pentatonic other than the one in the bass and harmony, but the new pentatonic is for the most part compatible with the other one in that adding up all the notes gets you something that's either a mode or something that ought to be a mode (close enough for jazz man!).  The idea then is that there is an incomplete mode droning in the left hand bass and accompaniment, with the melody shifting the function of the notes in the underlying pentatonic as it fleshes it out.

I guess that's a long way of saying I play one pentatonic in the left hand, and then a different in the right, while occasionally going in for full modes (major, jazz minor derived, or bebop) with the right hand.  I also more or less ignore the bar counts on the solo and letting the lines determine when is a good time to switch, a luxury of the lonely.

As for the artistic success of this, nothing jaw dropping yet, but definitely some sweet sounds and I think some relatively dramatic changes in textures can be attained with this after I get a better feel for it.

Well have fun with all that jazz,
Malcolm

Return to Blogging, SoundCloud, and Blue Monk

Hi everyone,

Here is my first blog post in a while.  I have been playing a bit recently.  I just recorded "Blue Monk" using the old trick of just hitting record on my keyboard's one track internal sequencer, and then later hitting play on that when it is plugged into the computer in order to record it.

Anyhow, this is Blue Monk, it's a blues tune by jazz great Thelonious Monk, and appears in my real book and is, as far as I know, a jazz standard.

Ok, embedded soundcloud version:
 Blue Monk 9-19-11 by Malcolm81

Did that work?

If not, umm maybe follow this link:  http://soundcloud.com/malcolm81/blue-monk-9-19-11

Ok.  phew.  Good to be back blogging and all, hope you enjoy the tune.  Appreciate your comments, and remember I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.