Oliver Jones Trio Performs Tribute to Oscar Peterson in Calgary

Things are slowly starting to "click" with the jazz pieces I'm working on this term. Playing around with the Spanish scale has been fun but my improvising goes much more smoothly when I just use my ear and my gut. Comping is starting to get better (it helps to play along with a recording or to sing along).I'll be getting lots of inspiration Thursday night when the Oliver Jones Trio performs at the Jack Singer Concert Hall in Calgary. Oliver is a contemporary of the late Oscar Peterson, and they grew up just doors from each other. Oliver's Trio is performing a tribute to Oscar.

I just listened to this video clip of them playing. Insane technique!

Tickets are available through Ticketmaster.

(c) 2009 by Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

St Francis de la Sissies Unique Version of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus

Somedays, you just need to have a good laugh in between practices. The St. Francis de la Sissies achieve just that with their rendition of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus:

Enjoy!

Keeping Ensembles in Sync

This year, my students are working on duets and trios. For most, it's their first experience in the collaborative arts. Some groups are finding it relatively easy to find the ensemble's pulse. These players have a fairly good internal pulse and have caught on to giving and receiving cues. Or in the case of those who aren't usually steady, they become steady because they are listening to their partners and to how everything fits together. And - they get along (always a bonus).

Then, there's the other extreme. One trio is comprised of a boy whose tempi vary widely (although he vehemently denies this), one girl who stops every time she plays a note that's not on the page and one girl who just doesn't care about getting the notes right, much less the tempo. I can only hope that the next trio class will go more smoothly. In another group, my "Giggle Trio" - two players were distracting each other, which drove the third partner crazy because she just wanted to get through the entire song.

Here are a few articles on ensemble playing:

The Ensemble that Plays Together - another great post from Chris Foley

Why Being a Great Ensemble Player May Require More than Just Our Ears

September 3, 2020: Updated some of the dead links.

Aebersold's Scale Syllabus a Lifesaver for Classical Geeks learning Jazz

Practicing has been frustrating as of late. On a theoretical level, I know what I'd like my jazz pieces to sound like. However, I've been stuck in a rut as the old practicing techniques applied in learning a Beethoven sonata does not fully apply. Studying the form helps as does studying the harmonic structure, but that's where the similarities end. How on earth am I supposed to figure out what fills, comping patterns and modes I should use in All the Things You Are? More specifically, how am I supposed to practice? I've dutifully listened to recordings for ideas but after listening to recordings of Vince Guaraldi and Keith Jarrett, my mind becomes stuck in "Yikes! I'll NEVER get this!" mode. I'm starting to sort out what inversions I want for the chords, gradually getting used to playing rootless chords. And that's where I've been stuck. My solos haven't been sounding much better and figuring out my comping patterns is haphazard.

With a colleague/friend's wedding coming up next month, I need to buckle down and finalize my plan for the jazz pieces. Derek's got it easy - he knows all the songs we're playing and has played them on piano and bass, while our other friend/colleague Melodie has sung them all. But our little trio will be in sad shape unless I get out of my rut quickly.

Derek has mentioned using a "scale syllabus" at my last two lessons. He's also dropped hints here and there that I should really start using my How to Play Jazz and Improvise book by Jamey Aebersold (so many books, so little time). Tonight, I finally added 2 + 2 together and got it! There in black in white on page 53 IS the scale syllabus!

look inside

Volume 1 - How To Play Jazz & Improvise Composed by Jamey Aebersold. Play-Along series with accompaniment CD. Jamey Aebersold Play-A-Long series. Book & CD. Published by Jamey Aebersold Jazz (JA.V01DS).

Now I don't need to think so hard about which modes/scales will work on a G#7b5 chord or a C7b6 chord. What a beautiful chart it is to behold. I just need to add scale degrees so I can get the patterns more quickly. The Whole & Half Step Construction is nice, but my classically-trained mind understands 1 b3 4 5 b7 8 for the Minor Pentatonic scale more quickly than -3 W W -3 W.Practicing tonight went much more smoothly. I'm fast becoming a fan of the Minor Pentatonic ad Bebop minor scales.

Jamey has come up with a whole series of books on how to play jazz. You can find them on his website, along with a free download of the scale syllabus. Now you too can have what I'm now calling my Lifesaver Cheat Sheet.

(c) 2009 by Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB. All rights reserved.

The Musical Brain

This past weekend, CTV presented an interesting documentary called "The Musical Brain". Famous musicians Sting, Michael Bublé, Feist, Wyclef Jean and David Kane participated in the documentary. Studies were conducted on babies, the elderly, the non-musician and the professional musician to better understand music's effects on the brain. It was validating to see on a scientific level why we musicians are so brain-dead after an intense day of teaching/performing/practicing/listening to music. After all, many areas the the brain are firing signals at breakneck speed, analyzing and processing information, thinking ahead, drawing upon past and current emotions and memories to emote in the moment and using delicate sensory, auditory and motor skills in a fraction of a second. And let's not forget the great internal war that sometimes happens throughout all this when nerves and doubt creep into the picture.

Sound engineer turned neuroscientist/author Dr. Daniel J. Levitinhas published two books on music and the brain and did the brain scan on Sting and Michael Bublé. In the end, Sting was a little uncomfortable with the results.

Psychologist Petr Janata and his team determined that some portions of the brain are 5% larger in expert musicians than non-musicians, that the auditory cortex in professional musicians is 130% denser than in non-musicians and that the corpus callosum can be up to 15% larger than non-musicians. The other parts of the brain that are further developed in musicians are the planumtemporale, cerebellum, gray and white matter.

Dr. Charles Limb did a fascinating study with jazz musician David Kane, which showed what creativity looks like as a brain scan as Kane improvised.

Here's an interview that Dr. Levitin gave on TVO:

For me, it was almost the right amount of scientific detail. I found the percentages from a different study. Any more and it would take away the mystery and passion of our merry music making. Sting admitted afterward that he's quite content with being "happily lost" with this science stuff.

Here is The Musical Brain:

(c) 2009 by Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.