I just finished reading a great post by Ronan Guilfoyle about the (over)use of complicated rhythms in jazz today. Ronan is an excellent bassist, amazing jazz educator and real authority on rhythm (he literally wrote the book on it). It is interesting to me that Ronan isn’t criticizing the use of polyrhythms and metric modulation, but the idea that modern jazz musicians use those techniques as an end in itself.
Via Ronan’s Blog
Instead, it seems to me that often a new explicit statement of the form seems to have appeared. Rather than having the form be something that is invisible — a guiding structure that only the musicians are aware of — the new orthodoxy seems to be to create music that is not only rhythmically complex but is explicitly so — wearing its mathematical heart on its sleeve so to speak. Pieces are played with mathematical precision, and having achieved the technical wherewithal to deal with these new complex rhythms a lot of musicians seem to be happy to leave it at that. They seem to be proud to be able to play five over three, for example, as if the act of achieving an accurate representation of this is an end in itself. The fives and the threes are rigidly marked off and flagged, as if the musicians want to display the nuts and bolts of their achievement to an admiring crowd. It’s a reversal of the other tradition i mentioned — rather than have the form act as a kind of internalised guiding principle, the form of the piece in this more recent approach is used as a kind of exoskeleton that is worn proudly by the musicians as they negotiate the treacherous twists and turns of their rhythmic high wire act.
Many times in college we worked on exercises and techniques that opened our eyes and ears to different rhythmic concepts. Sometimes they worked, others not so much. I also feel that in order to make these concepts sound natural and organic, you must go through a period of living, breathing and playing them. Many times when I listen to groups, I feel like when everything they play is in a different time signature it does begin to sound stale to me. However, I need to side with Ronan on this one. Lately it seems like in order to be a jazz musician, you need to use some form of rhythmic trickery on every tune. Not so.
I am preparing a blog post on some of my favorite exercises using more complicated rhythmic ideas, but until then what are your favorite ways of “hiding the one”?
I created a few worksheets for my students to help them learn some different voicings for major, dominant and minor seventh chords. These were the most downloaded worksheets from my last blog and I thought it would be useful to post them here again.
Major 7th Chord Voicings
Dominant 7th Chord Voicings
Minor 7th Chord Voicings
I will also post these on my Guitar Resources page.
This is also probably a good time to announce that I have opened up my schedule to allow for more private lessons. These will take place on Monday evenings and Saturdays. I will be teaching at the Warner Center for Arts Education in Torrington, CT. If you are interested in signing up for lessons, please call 860-489-7180.
As I develop more worksheets for my students, I will post them here.
During our Jam Summit, we were lucky enough to have two of the most in demand musicians on the scene as special guests, Jimmy Herring and Oteil Burbridge. Jimmy and Oteil have a long history together. They first came to prominence as members of Col. Bruce Hampton’s Aquarium Rescue Unit.
Oteil has been the bassist in the Allman Brothers Band for the last twelve years and Jimmy has been holding down the guitar chair in Widespread Panic. This fall both bands are heading out on a tour together. The combination of Oteil, Jimmy, Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks will be one you surely don’t want to miss.
The clinic was a great mix of some performances with our NGW faculty Drum Instructor Simon Lott and questions from the audience. Many topics were covered from live as a professional musician to the creative process.
One of the most interesting topics that Jimmy covered was the use of chord scales within the context of Melodic Minor, Harmonic Minor and Natural Minor scales. Soon I will have a handout available showing these ideas.
This was one of the better clinics I have been to in recent memory and we look forward to having them back again!
It always takes me a bit of time to get back into the swing of things when the annual (now my 6th summer) NGW tour begins. As it has the last few summers we started in McLean, VA at one of my favorite campuses, The Madeira School.
A few of our teachers have already wrote about their experience at McLean. You can check them out here and here.
The week began with a trip to Blues Alley in DC to see Pat Martino with an amazing group that included Tony Monaco on B3 Organ, Eric Alexander on Tenor Sax and Jeff “Tain” Watts on Drums. Of course the music was amazing and the whole run of shows at Blues Alley was recorded for Pat’s upcoming live CD. The whole band was very nice and it was really exciting to see them work out some new material.
Once the faculty and students arrived and the workshop began it really flowed pretty smoothly. The Madeira School always does a great job as our hosts and the view from behind the auditorium is really incredible.
After the shows at Blues Alley ended, Pat came to campus to give an afternoon workshop and then he was going to spend the next day giving private lessons to some of our students. I have seen Pat give 5 clinics in the past, but this one was by far the best. He presented the material in such a clear and easy to understand manner (relatively speaking) that pretty much everyone got something out of it.
The handout for the clinic was an article by Jude Gold from Guitar Player, a leadsheet to his composition “Welcome To A Prayer” and an outline of the chord substitutions he would use on that tune. The clinic was packed full of not only jazz students, but students from nearly every other class as well. After the clinic, Tom Dempsey and I took Pat and his wife Aya out for dinner and we had a great time. Both Pat and Aya are incredible to talk to and spend time with and this was likely the highlight of the week for me.
The other guest we had on campus was Alex Skolnick. You might know Alex from his work in Testament, Trans-Siberian Orchestra or even his jazz trio. Alex has been a longtime friend of NGW and it was great to bring him back this year. I picked him up at the airport and we grabbed some lunch and then headed to the campus. His clinic was a great mix of both his approach to playing metal and his newer jazz offerings. After his clinic I introduced Alex to Pat and we all shared a ride over to Pat’s hotel. Alex was in DC less than 12 hours as he was flying out to Amsterdam to begin a five week tour with Testament.
Overall the week was a great success. I reconnected with some old friends on faculty and was introduced to some of the best guitarists and instructors in DC. After the week ended, I headed back to CT for a few days and then yesterday I flew to Chicago to begin another workshop.
It seems like I was just here.
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