Transkript Uncle Willie Improvisation I mprovisation Course O Free Lesson 32:51 min 00:42 Yo – You gotta be here for a free lesson. Great – if you are just getting started or improve your playing you'd come to the right place. I'm sure you agree with that, music is one of the most exiting ways that persons can communicate. I wanna take this opportunity to thank Jamey Aebersold for creating the materials that help us all to learn and to listen and to play jazz music. Without the efforts of my friend f riend much of that has been accomplished in jazz education might not have happened – thank you Jamey for letting me use all of these wonderful materials for my online lessons. 01:25 Since the beginning of time people have been developing instruments to make it possible of others to express their deepest emotions through the sounds and rhythm of this incredible music. For the past hundred years, a special language of jazz music has been evolving in America. Most jazz musicians have learned this special language by listenening and playing with other musicians. Learning to play what you hear is a essential element in the process of leaning to improvise. Much of the work in your free f ree lesson will help develop your ears and your sense of tonality. Simple jazz theory concepts will also be presented to help you understand how basic jazz language patterns are formed. During my time in the 3rd Army Band in Atlanta, Georgia, I was privileged to serve with jazz piano legend Wynton Kelly. He would continually talk about the language of jazz and we played together emphazising emphazising the jazz vocabulary with just a lot of simple melodies used in a thousand different ways that you move through the keys in the songs that you were playing. He would always said however is how you play them is that counts. 03:00 As I discovered later in the research and development of my jazz language system, the melodies were referred to basic blues scales and pentatonic melodies that were connected, embellished with chromatics organised around the tonal centers and move through the song. The free lesson you're about to take starts at the beginning of this process with the discussion of how any one of the twelve notes in western music can become a tonal center. 03:16 Ok, we gonna start our free lesson with a little discussion about about how one of these twelve notes can become a tonal center. center . And we gonna start by equally dividing all twelve notes with chromatic half steps. I've done this serie, you can see c to c – if you go all the way up you divide all the notes. If you go all the way down you divide all the notes. Now you can also do the same thing with these twelve notes divided by fourths or fifths. If you go up you go C F Bb Eb Ab Db F# B E A D G C. All fo these notes are fourths or fifths going up, they are a fifth f ifth apart going down. Now, the important thing is getting an idea how they actually relate to each other and when you put them in motion, how one of these notes can become a tonal center. As you see I placed them on the outside of a circle, I've I 've numbered them like a clock. Now, in your study folders you have copies of this circle just like you see here. And I would suggest that you take it out and maybe study it now and go along with me with
the numbers and the explanations. And for sure you gonna start learn how to use this as a reference with a lot of the things which are going to be studied. Alright, here we are… 04:59 Ok, let's talk about what rhythm has to do with forming these tonal centers. If I start clapping my hands like this (two & four) I actually mak a percussive sound in time and space. I can clap fast, I can clap very slowly and I can also clap with a nice, steady foot or rhythm. And this becomes a beat. And these beats can be organised in patterns, measures and larger forms of music. Alright, now there a two kinds of beats, actually and 05:49 these are the most important beats, which are the up beats and the down beats. As you can see the beats measure four four times and the up beats are on four and on two, which are the natural up beats. The natural down beats are one and three. Now, if I take that and I file that to these notes on the circle. Let's say I take the G at eleven o'clock and followed by C at twelve o'clock, this make this (G) an up beat and this (C) a down beat – then you gonna here this. I gonna give you a little example 06:35 Example played Guess what – your ear will tell you that your last note or C at twelve o'clock is the most important note. And right around the circle… and so forth. And that is how the whole system works (most important note on down beat). And right now you learn one of the most important things about improvisation which is learning how to keep your place in the music. That's by getting an association with these tonal centers and this instrument. That's important - my fingers nearly automatically work when I hear these tonal centers. Alright, now we gonna do a little playing an we gonna go around this circle again. I would like for you: try to do this without looking. Because that’s what really is important for you to get this thing in your fingers, under your ears. But if you have a real problem, then in your study folders you'll find this entire cycle or circle in manuscript form. Ok, let's give it a try, play with me now… •
08:17
Plays 'round the circle
09:56 Alright, hope you got around the circle ok. Remember, you need to do this a lot of time. The more you play around the circle with just these roots and thirds, the stronger your association between the horn and your ear will become. And this is how you will eventually learn to play what you hear. Ok, we gonna do a little work with some jazz theory now.
Free Lesson Folder page 5 10:23 Jazz Theory pretty much follows the same rules as classical music. We have scales, we have numbers, we have letters and a lot of things that I identify help us talk about music. I point the F Major scale, the step is one way to measure how high or low a note is. I numbered it with arabic big numerals 1, 2, 3…I used the alphabet f, g, a…, roman numerals I, II, III… on the bottom here. This identifies each one of the notes on the scale.
As we move down here we see the F Major scale again, and we see a F Major chord formed here: f, a, c, e. It is calle the seventh chord because we call it the root, the third, the fifth and the seventh. Then we have here a chord on the fifth scale step and form another chord c, e, g, bb that's a dominant seven chord… I've renumbered this dominant scale here, C7 (points below the others, third row): c, d, e, f g, a, bb, c It's a strong scale and this dominant chord is probalby one of the most important chords you're going to use in any kind of music. This is the action chord, you'll it dominates the key centers. So that's a good place for us to stop. 12:15 Ok, before we start playing, I want to remember what my friend Wynton Kelly said about vocabulary and how important it is. And I want to think about the fact that the roots and steps that we're going to use here right now – that's vocabulary. So we're going to jam with this now I'm going to put some rhythms in there and I want you to listen to me while you're playing, then try to imitate what you hear, then be creative with this. But remember to keep listening. Ok, here we go. •
12:47
Plays 'round the circle
14:27 Ok, let's take a look at our blues form – and (I) want to remember that everything we've learned we're going to building on the dominant seventh chord is – probably again – this is one of the most important chords – and you can see that I have placed that in each one of the twelve measures of this blues form. It's a tree part song form ( A – B – C, each 4 measures long) and you can see how important the dominant seventh chords are and how they move around each other: here is the one chord, the four chord and the five chord. If you look here you see that the one and the four and the five chord start each one of those phrases. The seconds are the same and the thirds and the fourths are all the same (in each column): Bb7 – Eb7 – Bb7 – Bb7 Eb7 – Eb7 – Bb7 – Bb7 F7 – Eb7 – Bb7 – Bb7/F7 15:16 So, these are things you need to think about as they would you help to start learning to hear and understand how these different chords move. Alright, we gonna do a little playing now, and we gonna use just the roots. And actually, these are the I-V, the roots and the fifths, and wo gonna play these (sings). That's the way with rhythm. I want you to do this with me and I want you to get your form out if you need it. Free Lesson Folder page 7 You may not need it but it's in your study folder so get it out and I want you to play through a couple times with me. Just the roots and the fifths, ok? •
15:58
Blues with roots & fifths
16:52 Alright, before we play our special blues tune I've written for your lesson, we gonna expand our vocabulary just a little more.
And again, this is what's important: ...hear how the harmonies move and now wo gonna do expand our vocabulary and learn some more patterns to play that fits theses harmonies. That's the name of the game. 17:27 Alright, here's the Db major scale Db, Eb, ...and so forth. I've taken it down to the sixth scale step (Bb), which is the Bb minor scale from Bb to Bb its form. And I've taken und put the Bb minor pentatonic down here. And that's creating very much the same way any pentatonic scale by getting rid of the forth and seventh scale step. I have the Bb, Db, Eb, F, Ab, Bb again and this is the five notes pentatonic blues scale. I didn't handle at all this scale step yet. But we gonna use that and we are going to play a little bit of that now with you and I want you to take out your folder if you need it - for you instrument in the right key and you play it up and down with me. Remember: listen how I play it, imitate the things I play and if you are creating of your own - always keep listening, ok? Here we go •
18:40
Blues licks
19:33 Ok. Befor we play our special tune for your free lesson, I want you to take a look to the vocabulary here on the border line. I organised this blues scale 'round the tonal centers. That's a very strong way to use the blues scale and i use this in a piece which I'm going to show you now: Yo Dude Blues. You see, how i use this pentatonic blues scla 'round the tonal centers. I'm gonna play the head - we call the tune uh the song we gonna play it a couple of times through and then we gonna use all vocabulary that we learned so far. The blues scale and the roots and fifths and a little jam – same thing, play tih uncle Willie, listen to him, imitate him and create some samples of your own but keep listening. And, here we go. •
21:00
Yo Dude Blues
22:39 The Blues I love him. Alright, here's some new vocabulary. And, this is our wonderful dominant seventh chord, you see the dominant seventh scale, the chord 1-3-5-7. I eliminated the fourth and seventh scale step to form this major pentatonic scale. Then I start on the second scale step of the major pentatonic scale and this is what you end up with, 2,3,5,6,1,2 (sings). Which is a wonderful little melody chain and you see, how it fits around this dominant circle. And that gives you a wonderful access, that gives you rat access to so much vocabulary. And again, this is a major concept. so, you have this in the book but I also provided a circle like this with the pairs on it. So you can use it as a reference. Ok, here's how I'm going to play these. I'm going to start to play this the way it's written here and then i'm going around the cycle with new rhythms and steps, jazzin' it up a little bit and I want you to do the same. •
24:28
Pentatonic Pairs in the Dominant Cycle
26:12 Alright, here's another strategy I've developed for helping the way you improve your vocabulary. That's the Rhythm Drill You can see I have eight sets of rhythm. And this is very simple. You take each one of this rhythm and start processing to improve your vocabulary. Go right from one to another. I'll give you a little example. This is just a lot of homework you need to do. •
26:58
Rhythm Drill
28:33 On every lesson you are going to take, hopefully, you have a section of ear training. This is very important, play what you hear. I'm gonna ply through the circle, I'm gonna use pretty much the vocabulary we used today and I'm going to play a pattern and I want you to play exactly the way you hear. This s not written in you study folder. so, here we go •
29:05 Ear Training
30:45 Great. I hope you enjoyed your free lesson and got some good information that works for you. Remember, this vocabulary is simple. As my friend Wynton Kelly said, it's a lot of simple melodies that have been embellished and hooked together and move around the tonal centers. So, what I've done, I've put a couple of pairs up here, three of them. And I can show what I can do with those when I play them in a fairly sophisticated song. Pentatonic Pairs: 1. F# G# B C# 2. D E GA 3. Bb D Eb F
