2023 Term 1 Week 2

 Day 1 Lesson

Hi Geoff, 

Lauren here. Below are some notes from Geoff's lesson on 9/02/2023: 

Note to Geoff: 

Hey Geoff,

Here's what we discussed today:

Blue Bossa: 

- sounding great! Speed it up a bit this week (95BPM)

- G7 can have a b9!

3-2 Son Clave: adding the LH as a crotchet pulse helps you hear what the clave sounds like over 2-bars of bar. Try this on the bongos and use the screenshot I attached for a visual representation. Say the "together right left right..etc" out loud as you do 

Corcovado: learn this for next week! in the key of Amin/Cmaj on Ireal

Ear Training:

- match the note exercise: we did this with:

- one note

- 3-note sequence

- Interval recognition next time - pick a scale and go slowly through the interval, making sure you're aware of the names

Scales:

--> relative major/minors

- the minor scale can be referred to as either Natural Minor or Aeolian mode

Minor 2 5 1: attached

--> start to work on these slowly around the cycle - remember ii is half-diminished (minor 7 with b5) and V7 has a b9. I chord can be min7 or minor(maj7).

**- challenge yourself with the major 2 5 1 but moving to different 

- up a semitone - changing your one chord

- up a tone

- up a major third


See you next week,

Lauren

 


  
Thanks, 
Lauren 
Evergreen Music


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Practice Plan of this week.
1. Xxx
2. Yyyy
3. Zzzzz

Day 3. 
I discovered that the notes that make up Am6 are A C E Gb…. Not ACEF, as I first thought. 
Need to think of it in terms of Maj7 (4 semitones above the 5th) descending in half/semitones tones to the 6.  Ma7 to the dom7 to the 6th.

To date, I have cleaned up my work space using vertical files.
Increased speed of Blue Bossa to 110.
Further worked on clave rhythms.Trying to walk the 4 beats and clap the 3-2 and 2-3. 
Started to learn Corcovado.
      Active listening, chords and melody. Next need to play with iRealPro.
Further work installing Focusrite Scarlett 2i2.
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Day 4


Term 1 Week 2 Day 4 

1.  working on a new piece - Corcovado -

Using Allison's tip I listened to the melody in the evening befor bed and, yep there it was ready to play the following morning. Chords don't seem to be familiar, just one minor 251, but starting to get used to them. I'm trying to get it ready to play with iRealPro for next Thursday.

 

the following notes need editing....

2. Started working thru Jordan's course on in improvisation. Four Pillars of Improvisation

    Pillar 1 Music Theory

          Three major concepts

              a. Relative Maj Minor Relationship     
The most important concept in music. Think in key signatures. They can be used to convey happy or sad. Earliest emotional anchor point. Ie the maj/min relationship. When you are looking to convey emotional depth to music.

what does this mean? you have 2 musical worlds, happy major somber minor. 

              b. Diatonic Chords

its not a medical condition, it is every conceivable chord you can make within the confines of a songs keys signature.

take on 3 note claw sharp and move up a key at a time. C.. d... e.  .F..G etc. chords.

you always get a sequence of chords that sound like they belong together. 
diatonic chords are the musical colour palette. Think of music in colours.

              c. Chord Inversions

Learn how to invert chords in all keys. Super useful skill. 1st, 2nd inversions. Practice with every chord you know. Each inversion has subtle sonic qualities. 


The  framework of music theory requires laying down the ground rules for you to improvise within. Goal is to pick a chord progression and complementary keys and scales to use as a launchpad into your improvisation. An example  chord progression might be Cmaj - Fmaj - Amin. This is your backing pallet. Notice, they work diatonicly. Lots of opponitunity to blend the chords together. 

Music theory exercises. 
Take any of the chords and play it and then play any of the notes from any of the scales over it. start by playing each of the chords, CMaj chord and then notes from the CMaj, FMaj or Amin scales. Play up and down to get a sense of how the notes respond to the chords. Change the chord to Amin, FMaj etc. 

 

work within the keys not just up and down the scales. Play with more musical intention

how to practice.. pick 3 chords, start moving up and down in CMaj scale..start thinking about playing only the notes of the chords, then what does it sound like filling in between the notes of the chords.

 

    Pillar 2 Ear Training 

Ear training is An intuitive way to play .

pits about learning to recognise intervals. Intervals are the  uilding blocks, or Lego blocks of music. your ear never listens in a vacume, it hears remembers the last note and compares it with the next. 
the Perfect  notes are 5 notes apart in the key of C. Think of it as the corner of a jigsaw puzzle, it starts to frame out the picture for you.

Perfect 4th, another corner to frame out the puzzle.

now what's the picture going to be? Play the perfect 5th. Add a major 3rd 

now, another powerful relationship is playing down one semitone. Most interesting is that one tiny little movement invokes big response. Play the flat 3rd E to Eb. 

Ear Training Exercises,

will be how to improvise with these intervals in mind. 
pick out a couple of intervals for the sound pallet in the left hand. In the right use 5 fingers scale. Play outside time. Because we want to hear how these nots sound together. Listen for the massive shif in vibe when moving from maj to minor. 
Play up and down Perfect 4ths, it feels like you are going somewhere, you can go to a happy place landing on a maj, or sad place, the minor. 
Ear training tip.. how to distinguish between Perfect 5th and Perfect 4th. The perfect 5th interval is a Perfect 4th if you invert it. (03:22) just like different inversions of chords, similar but different vibes. Jordan's fav vibe.

 

perfect 5th is an awasome interval to play with, 2 ways to improvise with it.

   1. Pulse with it. Then play scale notes in left had. Makes very contemplative musing.

   2. Rock. Play two left and notes separately. Subtlety builds intensity as you play. Moves away from plodding. It's a simple base line.

goal is to open your ears up to impression each of theses intervals leaves upon you. It's good to limit what you are listening out for. Sick within the first 5 notes of your scale. 

Listen with intention and build your instincts.

 

    Pillar 3 Technique

This is about physical exercises. looks  mechanics, posture, etc. Focus on 2 techniques, arpeggio and broken chord progressions.

for demo uses Am arpeggio, A C E A.

think about it as one whole motion of the hand. 
to build your ear training, think about what each of these notes is doing in terms of setting the tone for your music. So, A starts the race, C (minor 3rd) colours the chord, it gives lots of information, E is the perfect 5th, it frames the emotion from the bottom 2 notes. They A on top, caps thins off to remind us we are in the key of A. 

time to add in the right hand, say add in broken chords and their inversions. for improvising, use broken inversions of the chord played in the right left.


Ground the technique, it sounds cool. 
the different inversions will change your response, so try them out. Keep it simple, walk up in time with your left hand. Together, first 3 tones, last left on its own.

 

all this builds musical intuition.

 

Technique Exercises. 

Think rhythmically and musically. 
Recall, Pulse and Rock, play with loose awareness of the time. Next is the Push

think not as 4 seperate notes,  A C E A. think as one fluid hand motion happening between four beats. Mental trick... if you want to speed it up, just same hand motion, but faster. 
Now with Push, play Am broken in all its inversions, it gives us the feeling we are in Am. Because playing Am in both hands, now let's play CMaj in its inversion, still playin Am in left hand. This introduces the G note, similar but change in quality and vibe it gives off. 
more flashy, now. Play G in the right, keep Am going in the left. (7:27) 

Now, the Dm in the right, we are now playing two sets of minor chords,, Smokey . 
Nice thing about Dm it gives context for the f note. 
f is abrasive and dissonant. We now have a way to get out of this dissonant jam.

 

    Pillar 4 Optimistic Perspective

final and most awsome perspective.

Come back to this.. Jordan's 2 narratives. 


Perspective Exercises.

how to play to a snowflake, how to play to a flame. 

Return to this.

 



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Term 1 Week 2 Day 5.

1. I spent the evening researching Clave rhythms.This link is the best info I found.

Berklee Edu The Clave one takeaway for me already is this quote from the notes. "Often times, the clave rhythm is the basis for the rhythmic parts of a song, but is not actually played by itself. In other words, the rhythm is implied, but still drives the “feel” or groove of the song." 

2. Jordan's 4 Pillars of Improv Lesson - 60 min

3. Learning Corcovado. L/H , R/H seperate. Analysis, whilst there  are few 251's, I've identifies a number of 25's. 60 min.

Tomorrow practice, work on putting it together with iRealPro.

 



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