Restarting the Music Blog

 Just finished my last music lesson for 2022 with Lauren and she reminded me about keeping up with the blog. Great idea, so here we are back again.

Todays lesson we covered: 

1.Consolidating playing with iReal backing track, All of Me, A Train, Circle of 5’s.

2. Developing Rhythmic Freedom. I had found a video https://youtu.be/6joyfjupMGk which offers a heal toe method to developer a sound sense of rhythm. We discussed. Laurens preference is heal only. But do what what ever works… heal, toe, sway, count.

3. Discussed Jimins video, which Lauren had sent to me, on LH Styles.  https://youtu.be/6XWqDg4l7u0   She covers 10 styles. Stride, Boogie, Choro, (latin Jazz) Latin, Walking Base Appregios, 4 Beats, Bud Powell Style, (pedal point) Red Garland Style, McCoy Tyler Style. Review this video regularly, it has examples of  several songs I am working on.

4. We further reviewed Rhythmic Variations. See this web site and work thru to options.   https://jazz-library.com/articles/comping/       A good one to start with is Reverse Charleston. Also, use the pattern in All  of Me turnaround, that Lauren provided last week, it is a good one for heaps of songs.

5. We discussed moving out of the comfort zone of describing things using the C Major Scale. I showed Lauren my hack to identify the NATURAL Minor using 3 half steps back from the root after first identifying the notes in the Major Key using W W H W W W H. I did this for Gb, identifying, the notes of the scale, then the notes in the Natural minor Scale, ie Eb and leveraged that for the Major ii V I in that Key.  Nice… Lauren described minor 251 as, 1/2 dim, dom minor. More on this later.

I heard Lauren describe the Am scale I identified as also Aeolian Mode, (ie, the A Aeolian mode of the C Maj Scale) but only just now, on reviewing the lesson I realise the importance of the comment and concept… ya, lightbulb moment. !!!!!!!This Pianote video gives a great explanation. https://www.musora.com/pianote/method/pianote-method/276693/level-8-exploring-musical-styles/295875/jazz/295967/understanding-modes/295988 If you are reading this Lauren, the link won’t work for you, it’s a subscription site. Sam, the presenter uses the following approach…

Ask two questions each time you want to determine a Mode. 1. What Key am I in? 2. What Is the Scale Degree within that Key.

So, if the Key is C Maj (C D E F G A B) and the Scale Degree is the 6th, ie A, then the Mode is A Aeolian in the Key of C Maj. The notes of the scale in this mode are a b c d e f g.

If the Key is F Maj (F G A Bb C D E) and the Scale Degree is the 6th, then the Mode is D Aeolian in the Key of F. The notes of the scale in this mode D E F G A Bb C D E.

5. More unpacking of  Walking Base Lines. Discussed, especially, the ‘avoid’ note, F. Will do more on this in the break.


Here is my Modes Hack




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