simonblack
8/18/2013 10:05:00 PM
On Saturday, August 17, 2013 6:09:48 PM UTC-7, rpjazzguitar wrote:
> Zepa, glad you got it!
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> I found an error in the transcription. Solo 1, bar 5, beat 4, that's a C# not a C natural. It's a lot easier to play that way. I think he starts bar 5 with his first finger on the G string, fret 9. Then catches the C with his second finger, the B with his first finger and then slides to the A with the first finger (I can hear the slide on the recording). He flattens the first finger to catch the D. At that point he can finish the bar at the 6th fret (notice that it really helps that the next to last note is a C# (against an Am11!) not a C). He plays the last note of the bar with his pinkie and slides it up a fret to begin bar 6.
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> There may be another C# in bar 7 beat one, but frankly, it's hard to hear..
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> Please, let me know if you can figure out what he was practicing to be able to improvise this -- and at such a high tempo.
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> One thing that's interesting about the Ehw. In bar 4, beat 4, he plays C#, A# F and C#. That's a descending Bbm triad. It is within Ehw. But, it is also a half step up from the chord that he's moving to in the next beat -- in essence sliding from Bbm to Am.
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> This is something I've noticed about him before. You analyze one of his lines and it makes logical sense in more than one way.
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> For example, in his Tempestade solo he plays two notes a fourth apart low to high. Then he plays the two notes a minor third down this time, high to low. He keeps on like that, dropping minor thirds and changing which one he plays first.
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> When you look at the transcription you see that it's a diminished scale, it's also a two note pattern descending in thirds and, along the way, he hits a bunch of different triads within the diminished scale. I end up wondering, does he just hear this? Is he thinking consciously of all of that at once? Or maybe just one of the ideas and the others are sort of happy accidents? And then, you have to consider the tempos he does this stuff at.
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> The more I study him, the more I am in awe.
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> Rick
Good point. I believe that he hears it and falls into a groove with it: no thinking. Uses his ear, no question about it. The underlying skills and knowledge are the base of course, as always. But the academia is pointless to study after the improv, except in the academic framework of learning. Pros hear all of it. It is just like Charlie Parker said: "Learn music. Learn your instrument well. Then just blow." The thought process is purely academic and secondary to augmented audio-cognition mental activity (the ear). The latter being art. The ear is primary. It is trancelike and meditative in nature and not math. It is beyond the notes. It can be expanded too, far beyond normal cognition and appearance making. The eye for example sees nothing. The science says that the eye is a device that sends electrical pulses to the brain that are crude and meaningless in and of themselves. It is the brain that creates the appearances. Same thing with the ear.
One fact about the ear: you've got to have it, some kind of ear, before ever learning the math. Otherwise music is not your gig. Studying music at CUNY I saw that everyday. Go to the board and write the notes on the board, first note is F. Teacher plays F dominant scale and only 2 out of 20 people in the entire class put a flat next to the E. Then after 2 years of pounding ear training (like 3 classes a day: one self study on keys, another on instrument, and the third on dictation and transcription) only a handful of people make it to the third year. Of course they all got straight A in theory because it is thinking, nothing more easy. But no ear means no degree. It became very clear that some have it and some do not: the ear. Ear Master 6 is a great app. for expanding the ear. It even teaches sight reading. I pound on that every night now instead of my wife. LOL.
Sorry for the rant.
SB