Solo playing.
so myself, ed saindon and john piper have been sort of practicing together via the internet. we pick a tune and each do a solo version of it. and we talk about it via a podcast. the idea as i've mentioned before is to get others involved and maybe get some sort of collective thing going.
we did dolphin dance and now we're working on it 'might as well be spring'. i'm kind of obsessive so i do about 40 or 50 versions of the tunes. weed out about 20 and then listen and pick the best one.
this process drives my wife nuts. hearing the same tune for days. different keys different ways, but to her it's the same tune over and over.
listening back and trying to understand vibes as a solo instrument is a little strange. i've talked about the word we use sometimes 'pianistic'. the piano stands totally on it's own as a solo instrument. the vibes in my opinion are a little harder to deal with. i think as a solo instrument it's below the guitar. the order being piano, guitar then vibes. by this i mean it's difficulty in making a stand alone piece (jazz). anybody disagree?
talking to piper and saindon about things that i thought i thought all vibe players thought seemed not to be the case with them. for instance i always had this idea that ballads are the easiest to pull off and then something in 3/4 time is second. the hardest thing would be 4/4 medium swing. those guys never thought about that. any of you guys think about that?
the next thing for me is to forget about bass notes. no such thing (really) as left hand bass on the vibes. all the movement will come by moving guide tones and upper partials. i always thought the vibes were about the top parts of the harmony. anybody agree??
the other thing i thought was to make the line 'self suficcient' then whatever harmony you add is icing on the cake. which is why i always thought our answers were in studying bebop and bach.
i actually thought the bach thing was a little original on my part. but duh, no way, ed saindon said he drills his students through bach, violin partitas and sonatas.
so by us practicing together we're all sort of looking for similar answers to similar problems. hopefully some of you guys will get involved. could be fun.
what's your take on solo playing?
we did dolphin dance and now we're working on it 'might as well be spring'. i'm kind of obsessive so i do about 40 or 50 versions of the tunes. weed out about 20 and then listen and pick the best one.
this process drives my wife nuts. hearing the same tune for days. different keys different ways, but to her it's the same tune over and over.
listening back and trying to understand vibes as a solo instrument is a little strange. i've talked about the word we use sometimes 'pianistic'. the piano stands totally on it's own as a solo instrument. the vibes in my opinion are a little harder to deal with. i think as a solo instrument it's below the guitar. the order being piano, guitar then vibes. by this i mean it's difficulty in making a stand alone piece (jazz). anybody disagree?
talking to piper and saindon about things that i thought i thought all vibe players thought seemed not to be the case with them. for instance i always had this idea that ballads are the easiest to pull off and then something in 3/4 time is second. the hardest thing would be 4/4 medium swing. those guys never thought about that. any of you guys think about that?
the next thing for me is to forget about bass notes. no such thing (really) as left hand bass on the vibes. all the movement will come by moving guide tones and upper partials. i always thought the vibes were about the top parts of the harmony. anybody agree??
the other thing i thought was to make the line 'self suficcient' then whatever harmony you add is icing on the cake. which is why i always thought our answers were in studying bebop and bach.
i actually thought the bach thing was a little original on my part. but duh, no way, ed saindon said he drills his students through bach, violin partitas and sonatas.
so by us practicing together we're all sort of looking for similar answers to similar problems. hopefully some of you guys will get involved. could be fun.
what's your take on solo playing?
posted by Tony at
10:09 AM
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