11 October, 2010

John Coltrane's solo on Lazy Bird

While I've always liked the tune Lazy Bird (from Blue Train, 1957), I've never been able to play it very well.  I spent a lot of yesterday afternoon practicing it rather academically as well as attempting to play something decent over it to no avail; could've just been having a bad day.  Anyway, before I went to bed last night, I decided that an effective way to learn this tune would be to transcribe Coltrane's solo.  Yes, it's probably been done hundreds of times before and easily found through google/in a sax transcription book, but I wanted to do it myself.

After hearing it a few times and then transcribing it, I've got to say that this is one of my favourite solos of that era.  It's classic late-50s, pre-Giant Steps Coltrane - you can hear his signatures all over it.  I have included a PDF of the solos in landscape orientation with 8 bar phrases stacked on top of each other - this makes it easier to compare his approaches to each section.  Certain phrases/devices pop up more than once, and there's lots of bebop scale usage.


Notes:
  • I am a pianist, not a horn player.  Hence a lot of my "runs" up/down notes, fall offs, scoops etc. might be written differently to how a saxophonist writes them.  My instrument can't scoop/slide, hence I have to compensate by writing these things a certain way.
  • No articulations.  This is just a note/basic rhythmic guide - you'll have more fun listening to it, learning & adding them yourself! :D
  • I learnt most of this by ear, one section at a time & on my instrument, then wrote it straight into Sibelius.  That said, I haven't proof read it very thoroughly but I'd say it's reasonably accurate.  I was just excited to get it done and wanted to publish it.  Make your own corrections. Some enharmonic choices may be disagreed upon.
  • Sorry if the formatting for the Bb parts isn't as neat/good as the concert. It's still usable though!

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