Just had an ear-opening experience doing a recording in a studio with the Berkeley Jazz Workshop. One more thing to do for homework: work on intonation!

1. Long tones with a tuner.

2. New song every 2 weeks. Memorize the head & changes. Sing a line then play it. Find common tones through changes.

3. Effortless Mastery meditation once a week. Schedule it.

4. New key a week. Work on various things, like the 1-3-5-7 arpeggios through the various 7th chords, but also pentatonics, chordscales, and diatonic chords.

5. Figure out what makes Ex. 1 sound so good, then make up your own, play in 12 keys.

6. Listen closely to one song a week. Analyze it. Feel it. Blog about it. Schedule it in.

7. Transcribe those bits of Sonny’s solo on Blues 7 that you like.

Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Master Musician Within

From Sonny Rollins’ solo on Tenor Madness.

Tenor Madness

Notes:

- If you could assign a tonal center to this line, it’s I Maj7 with a bluesy flat 3rd in the 3rd bar.

- When you listen to Sonny play this, it sounds like it was prepared. It’s not spontaneous sounding. The bars leading up to this lick sound like he’s waiting to launch into it.

What I like about this line and what I think makes it sound so good are:

- It has a sense of playfulness and fun about it. I guess Sonny’s whole solo on this tune could be called that.

- The shape…it has a short run of ascending notes and then a long run of descending notes (overall). I guess all solos consist of ascending and descending runs. This one reminds me of a slide: first you climb up the ladder, then you go down the slide.

- It’s quite simple in the sense that it’s mostly chord tones with some tension notes here and there. I think it’s the placement of the chord tones, as far as on which beats, that makes it sound good. I think the challenge for me in making my own line based on what I’ve learned from this one is where to place the chord tones.

Well so much has happened since my last assessment and I didn’t finish all the “homework” I had assigned myself, but I’m not going to be hard on myself. I’m going to do a better job, that’s all. So to keep inventory of where I’m supposed to be and where I am in reality:

1. Work on one song a week. Nail it down. Memorize the head and the changes. Use Clark’s suggestions of singing a line before playing it and finding common tones through complex changes.

Tried this for a few weeks, but discovered memorizing the head is not too difficult and the changes can be memorized pretty easily, too. The problem is the amount of time I have to practice per week is not enough to really get into a song. So what I did was I spent way too many weeks working on one song, Solar! I see now that a balance somewhere in the middle is better, maybe one song for two weeks. Also I got kind of carried away with doing exercises to learn the changes. I totally forgot to do Clark’s suggestion and must try it from this point on!!

2. Do the meditations from the Effortless Mastery cd once a week. Schedule it in.

Nope didn’t do this, didn’t even schedule it in. Okay. I’ll do it!

3. Continue with the major scale, 4-note patterns, with the goal of bpm=184.

Okay this I did do. And I noticed an overall fluidity in my playing, although I am not able to incorporate this into my soloing as the bpm of a song is usually too fast (for me) to play 4 notes per beat. I’m now working on chordtone arpeggios (1-3-5-7, for example) of all the 7th chords: major, minor, dominant, half diminished, diminished, augmented.

4. Continue with Tool #2 on the major cycle. Do this when you’re away from the horn too.

Dropped this, not enough time with all the other things I’m doing.

5. Continue Ex. 1 throughout the various keys, bpm=184.

Finished! Took a while. Now I want to analyze what makes this pattern so good and make my own. Ummm…at least that’s what I’d like to try to do.

6. Pick an album from your record collection and listen to it. Listen to it closely and carefully. Analyze it. Feel it. Blog about it. Do this at least twice a week. Schedule it in.

Did a few songs, but I’m not doing this twice a week.

That’s a lot to do with the limited time I have. It all comes down to scheduling and sticking to the schedule.

Lots of musical stuff happening recently. Did a horn reading for Steve McQuarry that was really fun. Went with Curtis to see a great saxophonist Dayna Stephens up close and personal at a concert held in someone’s home. Mr. Stephens likes to play in the corners of harmonies, which gives standards a newness, like you’ve heard it for the first time.

Homework:

1. New song every 2 weeks. Memorize the head & changes. Sing a line then play it. Find common tones through changes.

2. Effortless Mastery meditation once a week. Schedule it.

3. New key a week. Work on various things, like the 1-3-5-7 arpeggios through the various 7th chords, but also pentatonics, chordscales, and diatonic chords.

4. Figure out what makes Ex. 1 sound so good, then make up your own, play in 12 keys.

5. Listen closely to one song a week. Analyze it. Feel it. Blog about it. Schedule it in.

Last night I sat in with Curtis’s group at K C BarB-Q. It was the most fun I’ve ever had playing out. The musicians were cool and there was a good energy coming from them. I was relaxed and could play okay. And I got a free rib dinner after the gig. I’m not a big ribs eater but to me they were really good. Nice place with atmosphere. I’m coming back for the ribs.

Kyoko got there right after the last set ended because she was visiting Miyoko and Jason and their newborn at Alta Bates. We got to hang out a little, eating those tasty ribs and talking to Curtis and Bruce the drummer. Bruce told us a story about when he was starting out and a black cat asked him to play at some remote place in Vallejo, a.k.a. V-Town. Turned out he was the only white dude in the place and he was playing drums on top of that! They laughed when they heard him do a shuffle rhythm and had to show him how it was done.

I’m really glad last night happened when it did because lately I’ve been very frustrated with my progress, practice, etc. I feel overwhelmed with the number of songs I have to learn for the jazz workshop and Harry’s group. I’ve decided to focus on one song per week. I don’t think I’m getting anywhere spending just 15 minutes on a song. My practice time of an hour–an hour and a half if I’m lucky–has to be used wisely. Can’t spread myself too thin.

Probably the songs from Harry’s group will have precedence as they are mostly out of the Real Book and will be more practical to learn. Last night we played All Blues and I knew that song because we were playing it in Harry’s group. Thing is, the songs in the jazz workshop are tasty little things and have a lot of meat. It’s a tough choice.

Another thing is I have to keep my health. Sitting all day at a desk like I do, my blood circulation is getting really bad. My hands and feet get cold easily. I need to go running and stay in shape. I can’t play if I’m not healthy. The recent news of sax player Jason’s failing health has really hammered that home. Who knows what will happen to you tomorrow? You have to live today, each moment to the fullest. Like Curtis said, playing music is a luxury. Music is not everything and my life should not be about music, as much as I sometimes desire it to be.

I haven’t done any work on relaxation techniques. There are some meditations on the Effortless Mastery cd that I have, but I haven’t been listening to them. Maybe I should try a meditation at least once a week.

I’m currently doing the major scale, 4-note patterns, with the goal of getting to bpm=88 (or 176). This has slowed down recently because of a practice technique I read about called the “5-time rule.” This means you have to play it 5 times perfectly before increasing the speed on the metronome. If you fuck up once, you have to start all over again until you can play it 5 times straight without mistakes. It does produce results, but the time it takes depends on the difficulty of what you’re working on. It can drag sometimes. I don’t know if I should stop doing this because on the one hand, I am benefitting from developing technique, but on the other hand I have a lot of other things I need to get to. Plus I don’t know how musical this pattern is. I’ve been trying to incorporate it in the songs that I’m practicing, but they tend to be played too fast for me to be able to play 4 notes per beat.

As for Tool #2, I’ve finished the I-VI-II-V progression and am doing the major cycle: IV-VII-III-VI-II-V-I. If I’m going to finish this within a reasonable amount of time, I’m going to need to do a lot of mental practice away from the horn.

So far I’ve been doing Ex. 1 in the following keys: C, D, F#, G. I’ve just realized that this blues lick by Sonny Rollins also has the added benefit of being over a II-V-I progression. Nice! I’m going to finish learning this in all the keys at bpm=184. After G, I should do A.

My intonation is a little better. I’ve moved up the mouthpiece more and am just about where I should be. Need to keep my throat open and stay relaxed. Tone-wise I’d like to have a harder sound with more metal in it. I want it to sound less pure and have more things in it. I’m thinking about trying different mouthpieces, maybe having some refacing done.

So the homework is:

1. Work on one song a week. Nail it down. Memorize the head and the changes. Use Clark’s suggestions of singing a line before playing it and find common tones through complex changes.

2. Do the meditations from the Effortless Mastery cd once a week. Schedule it in.

3. Continue with the major scale, 4-note patterns, with the goal of bpm=184.

4. Continue with Tool #2 on the major cycle. Do this when you’re away from the horn too.

5. Continue Ex. 1 throughout the various keys, bpm=184.

6. Pick an album from your record collection and listen to it. Listen to it closely and carefully. Analyze it. Feel it. Blog about it. Do this at least twice a week. Schedule it in.

Musical symbols

Musical notation

Dynamics