Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Tim Price Bloggin' For D'Addario Woodwinds-The common bond of jazz, communication and application.

Check out this blues lesson I have on Sax On The Web about Thin man Watts; http://www.saxontheweb.net/Price/Blues1.html#Watts It's a lick from his CD-" Return Of The Thin man".I took three sections of Charlie Parker's solo on "Buzzy" and open it up through the keys.I chose...The first four bars of his last chorus on "Buzzy" via four bar phrases through twelve keys. The second four bars of his last chorus on "Buzzy" via four bar phrases through twelve keys. The last four bars of his first chorus on "Buzzy" via four bar phrases through twelve keys. Listen... to the phrase shape through the four bars. Bird was a perfect phraser. Beautiful! Listen to the note choice, rhythmic twists, tension and release. This is the ultimate in blues playing! It doesn't get better than this. It's nasty and dirty low-down and hip all at once. Listen how these three phrases work.HERE IT IS- http://www.saxontheweb.net/Price/Blues2.html I hope this brings some light to your shed time and also let me add, my feeling is that if you've absorbed a lot of the known vocabulary of the greats , then you'll naturally gravitate to looking for other things , or even begin to hear things of a different nature. Bird-ology phrase study on "Ko Ko".....http://www.saxontheweb.net/Price/Bird-ologyStudy.html Study "Ko Ko" and then try some phrases like this on your own. It's a life long process-. When you're twenty yrs. old, you just run off desire and youthful animal energy to practice. In the long run, the creative person needs to find a way to maintain a level of interest and aliveness in his art. This takes work and intelligence,it is not separate from living, just another aspect of it. The concept of daily practice is an important one and is the best way to make any kind of musical progress. Daily effort keeps you finely attuned to continuous movement and the accumulation of effect. Practicing sporadically causes you to lose the thread of your practice and is thus much less effective. Through diligent , consistent daily work, a tangible musical substance is incrementally developed. First of all, you develop physical stamina through the repeated effort. Also , from day to day, you accumulate ideas and expand on the themes of your practice. If you are working Major chords; the first day you might just work on arpeggios, the next day you might see some connection with other musical sources, such as songs, or through or whatever is interesting to you. By continuing to work with focus on the same things from day to day, you will find that your level of proficiency has risen and expanded to include all these other sources. Your practicing every day results in the acquisition of technique, musical intelligence, improved tone, and stamina. Just the quest to continuously find something to practice will increase you creativity. There are so many variations of scales melodies, and melodic patterns. So many sounds to make, articulations, songs to learn, music to listen to and analyze, technical problems to sort out. The only limitation is your focus and creativity. For example: let's say that you have adequately practiced your horn and now want something else to work on. You could sit down at the piano and transcribe a song, learn a song by ear that you may have previously learned by wrote. This , is one of the most beneficial practices you can do. Ear training, learning songs, listening to other players, hearing bass lines, melodies or whatever. Ok. Now you've spent a few hours and learned a tune the way its supposed to be played. You know the tune inside and out, in essence a great organizational mind skills study too. However your mind works. Don't overload-otherwise nothing sticks. Your capacity will increase after you have spent more and more time. It's amazing how connections are made,they seem to occur in a fashion which is beyond the conscious ability to plan and organize.Daily practice also allows me to imprint the material in my mind until it becomes instinct. One long practice session will not do this. For most players, useful techniques can only be acquired through repetition. I always try to work new materials into songs, lines and grooves that I like. For me it's sort of like upgrading my musical mind so that my playing becomes reoriented in the directions I choose. Increasing familiarity with they materials is a good thing. It's like learning a language--music is a language. ....WORK HARD....Have a great week- Tim Price

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