Showing posts with label solo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label solo. Show all posts

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!

03 September, 2010

Brad Mehldau - Not You Again (There Will Never Be Another You) solo

Alright, so looks like I lied yesterday about it being my last post for a while.  Once you get into a rhythm working with Sibelius, you get pretty quick at inputting things and might as well keep going!  This is definitely it for at least a week or so... I gotta practice this stuff!!!

Not You Again is a John Scofield contra-fact over the changes of There Will Never Be Another You.  It can be heard on the 2000 album, Works For Me.  My ensemble director back in my first year of undergrad (2003), Jamie Clark, had us playing this tune and urged us to check out the album and its "dream band": John Scofield, Kenny Garrett, Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride & the late Billy Higgins.  Jamie, you were onto something!

Listen to Brad's solo

Click here to view WITH chord symbols (my interpretation) over his LH superimposed chords

Click here to view WITHOUT chord symbols over his LH superimposed chords

As you can see from the date stamp, I first transcribed this YEARS ago (stayed up all night doing it, much to the annoyance of my parents).  Tinkered around with it to make my ego feel good that I had worked out something "hip", although I never really studied it properly - I was 18 at the time and terrified of what I was hearing.  I decided to take another look at it today so I could clean it up (my LH chords in the 2nd chorus were way off), put it through Sibelius and post it on this blog.  6.5 years on, and it still scares me... although thankfully not as much!  I still don't really know what's going on in the 2nd chorus, but at least I'm now in a better position to try and work it out! :-)

I tried to transcribe McBride's bass line too, but didn't get very far (hard to hear the pitches clearly, especially when he sometimes gets lost in the mix with the drums).  From what I can hear overall, he mostly sticks to the changes as written.

Anyway, enjoy this one.  If anyone can shed some light on what sort of "concept" Brad is using to reharmonise the 2nd chorus, leave me a comment.  Cheers!

01 September, 2010

Mulgrew Miller - If I Should Lose You solo

Here is Mulgrew Miller's intro (where the band comes in) & solo on If I Should Lose You, from Live at the Kennedy Center Vol. 1 (2006).


In the event of an error, fix them for yourself.  If you feel it's a major error, let me know!

Cheers
Damo