Tuesday, October 28, 2014

What Did You Miss This Week? (Week 378 #422)

Playing Over 16 Bars, Take Two!!!

This week we spent a little more time refining the idea of playing over forms by paying close attention to the first and fifth scale degrees of the given chord. We worked with When the Saints again and also My Babe.

An added topic to consider was rhythm - after all, 50% of a given melody is not note choice but rather rhythm, so being restricted to the root and fifth as an exercise cries out for rhythmic additions. RickEy and Jim did a fine job of demonstrating how you can play the rhythm of a melody with just one scale degree. It's not musical genius, but it is a step toward better understanding the tools you have at your disposal - note choice and rhythm.

With RickEy's help too we spent some time looking at the scale degree mapping of Walter's solo on My Babe now that we have scale degrees on the brain!

Next week we move on to a new Song of the Session, Juke!

Class Notes
  • Remember Joe is on tour in Europe the next two Mondays. Group classes proceed as normal though with the able teaching of Zoe, Grant, Shoji and RickEy, so don't miss 'em!
- Grant Kessler, B1 Blues Crew