tag:brianprunka.com,2005:/blogs/words?p=2Words2023-06-12T13:03:27-04:00Brian Prunkafalsetag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/72251972023-06-12T13:03:27-04:002024-03-09T15:57:29-05:00Update: The Astounding Eyes of Rita (Anouar Brahem)<p>A while back I posted a transcription of “The Astounding Eyes of Rita", a beautiful composition by Anouar Brahem. </p><p>My previous transcription was of how it was played on the recording, which is really useful for study, but is a bit long and confusing if you want to perform it (it was 9 pages!). When I recently wanted to do it on a performance, I made the following “lead sheet” style chart that conveys all the important information in a more condensed format. </p><p>I suggest listening to the recording in order to be familiar with the form the way he plays it - they do a lot of interesting things, playing one section on top of another section (i.e., clarinet plays the “A” melody while oud and bass play the "D" melody). I tried to indicate it all as clearly as I could on the chart, but my goal was to fit everything onto 2 pages so things are very condensed/abbreviated. The previous chart has the whole form laid out for reference here: <a class="no-pjax" href="https://brianprunka.com/words/blog/6862157/anouar-brahem-the-astounding-eyes-of-rita" target="_blank">https://brianprunka.com/words/blog/6862157/anouar-brahem-the-astounding-eyes-of-rita</a></p><p>That transcription has all of Brahem's oud introduction as well if you want to learn that. The lead sheet just has the last line (where he starts singing). </p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/302552/bff4e469f72e3fec4506297fa851da8ff3abb902/original/the-astounding-eyes-of-rita-anouar-brahem-sheet-music.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><p><a class="no-pjax" href="/files/1228492/The%20Astounding%20Eyes%20of%20Rita%20-%20Sheet%20Music" data-link-type="file" data-link-label="The Astounding Eyes of Rita - Sheet Music">Full PDF (2 pages) here</a></p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68601672023-05-04T00:01:19-04:002023-05-04T00:02:07-04:00Wayne Shorter: El Gaucho<p>UPDATE 5/3/23 - found the transcription! Link should work now. </p><p>Just thought I'd share a transcription I did a while ago. I think it's pretty accurate, but there may be some some mistakes or typos (since I do these primarily for my own use, I'm generally not too obsessive about being ultra-precise with the notation as long as I can play them along with the record correctly). <br>It's a great solo by Wayne Shorter on his tune "El Gaucho" from the recording "Adam's Apple". Check out how he uses the melody as a basis for his improvisational ideas. Also note that they add an extra two bars at one point.<br> <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/302552/64a0a712f8a40a08a8162165f6aa8a091c161e7d/original/el-gaucho.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p><hr><p><a class="no-pjax" href="/files/1224580/El%20Gaucho%20-%20Wayne%20Shorter%20Sax%20Solo">El Gaucho - Wayne Shorter Sax Solo</a> - PDF</p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/71561592023-02-17T16:38:43-05:002024-03-09T15:57:29-05:00What Music Notation Software Is Best for Writing Eastern Music?<p style="text-align:justify;">A question that I’m frequently asked is “what is the best music notation software for Arabic music?” Since it seems to be a perennial question, I thought I’d make a post to collect my thoughts on the question. Though not an exhaustive evaluation, this will be kind of a deep dive. If you just want my conclusions here they are: <br><br><strong>Conclusions (TL;DR):</strong><br><strong>If you’re a professional and creating scores for performance purposes: Dorico</strong><br><strong>If you’re only doing Maqam/makam music and relatively basic scores: Mus2</strong><br><strong>If you’re pretty computer savvy and don’t mind a text/code-based system: LilyPond</strong><br><strong>If you are on a tight budget, or are a more casual user: MuseScore</strong><br> </p><p style="text-align:justify;">Okay, now if you want a bit more info on the programs and how I came to those conclusions, read on.</p><hr><p style="text-align:justify;"><br>First, I’ll explain my criteria for evaluation. There are a few things a notation program has to do well in order to handle maqam-based music. These are:<br>• Microtonal accidentals and key signatures<br>• Complex meters and time signatures<br>• Free/Open meter (no time signature or bars, for notating taqasim, mawwal, layali, and similar metrically free passages)<br>• “Nonstandard” key signatures (anything other than the traditional 14 major/minor key signatures)</p><p style="text-align:justify;">There are three “major” notation programs currently being used by most professionals: <strong>Finale</strong> (by MakeMusic), <strong>Sibelius</strong> (by Avid), and <strong>Dorico</strong> (by Steinberg). There is also a relative newcomer that has made big improvements in the past few years, <strong>MuseScore</strong>. The “Big Three” are all relatively expensive: Finale lists for $600 (though right now it appears to be on sale for $299), Sibelius uses a subscription model priced at $199 per year, and Dorico is $580. MuseScore is open-source and can be used for free. I’m only comparing the “full” versions of the programs here—they all offer lower-priced and even free options with fewer features but it’s not really worth considering those, partly because many of the features that aren’t available in those versions are ones you will need for notating maqam-based music.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">So right off the bat, MuseScore has the advantage of being essentially free to use. If you are a casual user that may really be the only thing you need to know: MuseScore is fully-featured, can manage almost anything you can imagine and is free to use. </p><p style="text-align:justify;">Before I get into a more detailed comparison of those four options, I’ll note two other choices to consider: <strong>LilyPond</strong> and <strong>Mus2</strong>.</p><hr><p style="text-align:justify;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/302552/52a636a50c255cd03f90f0a364d489e058f04947/original/double-lily-modified3.png/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_m justify_right border_" /></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><strong>LilyPond</strong> is a full-featured program that allows you to produce sheet music by writing code in a text-based format. If you are comfortable with any kind of computer coding, the language used is pretty simple and easy to grasp; I would put it on par with basic HTML in terms of complexity (it’s Unix-based and is similar to LaTeX). There are some slightly tricky aspects of getting the actual program to run if you are on a Mac, as it requires access to Terminal and another program called MacPorts. The actual notation produced is generally excellent and it can do microtonal music, open meter and complex meters easily. Since it’s text-based, copy and paste functions are really straightforward. The downside is there’s no user interface to speak of, you can’t see the music visually as you are writing it, and there’s no playback option so it’s not really useful for trying things out. If you are copying a composition that is already written out, these aren’t really significant problems, but if you are composing or arranging, it is more challenging—you’d probably want to write everything out on paper first and then copy it into LilyPond.</p><hr><p style="text-align:justify;"> </p><p style="text-align:justify;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/302552/388bfa746e19fb3eac3b2cb9fb747bc43f508c33/original/mus2-logo.png/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_m justify_right border_" /></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><strong>Mus2</strong> is a Turkish program that is expressly made for notating makam music. It’s pretty straightforward and does a really good job with classical Ottoman music and Turkish/Armenian/Greek/Macedonian folk music, and is well-suited to Arabic music as well. It’s priced as a subscription model, but relatively inexpensive (about $25/year). It claims to be able to do other styles of music, but in my opinion the results for non-makam music are supbar when compared to the other options. If all you are doing is straightforward charts for things like Saz Semai or other traditional music (mainly a single melody line) then this could be a great option as it is the only software that is really specifically designed for this music. The interface is fairly straightforward. When I first tried it, almost all the documentation was in Turkish but it seems that they have provided a lot more English resources now so it’s more accessible to non-Turkish speakers. Documentation is still pretty limited though.</p><p style="text-align:justify;"> </p><hr><p style="text-align:justify;">If you want to be able to do larger arrangements or music other than maqam/makam music, and want a program with a graphical interface, then the main programs mentioned above are the ones to really consider. So let’s get into the comparison.</p><p style="text-align:justify;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/302552/30e744dbdc1e36236b0c08529ae8d26f5b9a0c7c/original/finale.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_m justify_right border_" /></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><strong>Finale</strong>, originally introduced in 1988, has been around the longest. This has some pluses (large user base, lots of plug-ins, lots of resources for learning, tons of features) and some minuses (bloated codebase, outdated design, lots of strange quirks). The biggest strength of Finale in my opinion is its flexibility: pretty much anything you can imagine in notation can be accomplished one way or another. It’s also possible to produce very high-quality scores in any style. The biggest drawback is that its ‘default’ output looks pretty terrible and is nearly unusable for professional purposes without tons of manual tweaking. The second biggest weakness is that although nearly anything can be accomplished, many things require convoluted workarounds because the basic functionality of the program doesn’t support it.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">I was a Finale user for over 20 years, so I got pretty used to a lot of the workarounds necessary for Arabic notation (and even invented some of my own) but they remained time-consuming and frustrating (for example, the workarounds for non-standard key signatures do not allow for transposing). Playback of microtonal music is possible to some extent but prohibitively complex and time-consuming to achieve. I like to do initial “proofreading” of scores by ear, so even though I wasn’t using the playback function for any ultimate purpose most of the time, it was still annoying that microtonal scores would always sound wrong in playback. It technically can produce nonstandard key signatures (including microtonal ones) but they cannot transpose and the process is so complicated and unintuitive that it’s usually better to “fake” it using workarounds. Complex time signatures, mixed meters and other complicated metric choices (including dashed barlines) are relatively easy, though they require a weird familiarity with the idiosyncratic MIDI time values of notes (e.g., dotted quarter is 1536 for some reason). Free/open meter is not an option but can be faked. The process is relatively simple, but rather laborious for extended or complex passages like a taqasim or mawwal. </p><p style="text-align:justify;">In the end, it’s a fine program overall and can produce absolutely great notation in the right hands, and is still possibly the best program for producing 20th-century style modernist “graphical” scores, but I’m hesitant to recommend it at this point for new users. The developers are still reasonably invested in continued upgrades and support, so it may be that some of the drawbacks of the program will be addressed, however most of the issues that affect users interested in maqam music are deeply rooted in the fundamental design architecture and are unlikely to ever be a priority to fix. The priorities seem to primarily be around improving playback results and serving the needs of educators and students.</p><hr><p style="text-align:justify;"> </p><p style="text-align:justify;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/302552/1942be9b3be12757dd00a92974940322697a2d87/original/avid-sibelius.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_m justify_right border_" /></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><strong>Sibelius</strong>, I confess, I have much less experience with. It was introduced in 1993, at which point I was already using Finale. Being a fluent Finale user, there was never much real need for me to work with Sibelius: though it has improvements over Finale in many respects, it lacks some of the flexibility of Finale. The improvements, while generally worthwhile for new users, were not significant enough to justify switching. The main improvements are that the workflow is generally more intuitive and the learning curve is lessened and the default output is much improved (recall that Finale’s defaults were nearly unusable). Sibelius does a good job of preventing users from creating “wrong” notation.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">Quarter-tone support is much improved, but key signatures still require a lot of workarounds, as do free/open meters. Complex meters and mixed/changing meters are straightforward and well-supported. If the choice was only between Finale and Sibelius, I would (until recently) generally have recommend Sibelius for most people; it’s flexible enough and is much easier to use. Having been around for a long time, it has many features and robust plug-in support. However, the developers (Avid) seem to have deprioritized improvements in recent years, which is not encouraging for the long-term viability of the program. The shift to a relatively expensive subscription-based pricing model may lead to more upgrades, but is probably a deal-breaker for all but the most prolific users.</p><hr><p style="text-align:justify;"> </p><p style="text-align:justify;"> </p><p style="text-align:justify;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/302552/2daaa1a63ed3d35a448eff9500f022ca0cbca2c6/original/dorico-2-logo.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_m justify_right border_" /></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><strong>Dorico</strong> is the newest of the programs, first released in 2016. Built by many of the people who were behind the design of Sibelius, it reflects a much more coherent, consistent and modern design philosophy than Finale or Sibelius. This comes at the expense of having a pretty steep learning curve: the design is aimed at making the program very fast and easy to use once you know how. To do a lot of tasks, you need to learn key commands and shortcuts. There are tons of settings and options for default behavior; this is ultimately a faster workflow because you set something once and it will be the way you want it everywhere, but in the beginning it can be hard to find the relevant settings and changing things manually is somewhat trickier than in the other programs. Once you learn the principles and details of how to work in Dorico, it’s a breeze and very fast. Many things that take complicated “faking” in the other programs are very very easy to do in Dorico, but getting to that point can be frustrating and requires dedicated learning. </p><p style="text-align:justify;">Quarter-tones or any other microtonal system can be easily created in Dorico, and saved for later use. It also includes a system for creating custom key signatures. The tool for doing so is intuitive and easy to use, and the resulting set of accidentals and key signatures can be saved as a “Tonality System” that can be re-used in any future projects, so you really only have to do this once. Both nonstandard and microtonal key signatures can be created using any accidental that is defined in your tonality system. Complex meters are easy and can be entered simply using key commands and text. Certain things, like a series of changing meters can be a bit more work but are doable within the basic functionality of the tools. Free/open meter is actually the default in Dorico, and notating taqasim etc. are a breeze with no action needed to accommodate the lack of metrical structure. Line breaks are simply determined by how “full” the line gets, but this can be overridden if desired (for instance you really wish to reflect the phrase structure). You can insert barlines anywhere you like. </p><p style="text-align:justify;">Dorico’s default output is easily the best of any of the currently available major programs, though LilyPond arguably is comparable. I think this is definitely the best, most professional option, especially If you also are creating sheet music in different styles or arranging for modern ensembles. The developers are just getting started and each new release has major upgrades and new features, so support is robust and looks to be that way for some time. The learning curve and price may not be tenable for more casual users, though, in which case MuseScore may be something to consider.</p><hr><p style="text-align:justify;"> </p><p style="text-align:justify;"> </p><p style="text-align:justify;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/302552/186912bea45a2bb4e86158a9c08efee7f6a30d18/original/musescore-sticker-6-3x.png/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_m justify_right border_" /></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><strong>MuseScore</strong> has been around a while, as an open-source program it was initially extremely limited and the development has be an ongoing public project. The first widely usable version was released in 2009. Initial versions had a <i>lot</i> of problems, was buggy, lacked important features and provided sheet music that was not remotely professional-quality. However, in 2017 the company was bought by Ultimate Guitar and a renewed effort was made to bring the software up to professional standards. The most recent version, released in 2022, was a major overhaul that brings it impressively close to the other major programs in functionality, stability, and output quality. Many of the improvements seems to be drawn from the work of the Dorico developers, providing an element of healthy competition. </p><p style="text-align:justify;">Because of the open-source nature of the program, some of the trickier possibilities are implemented via plugins that are developed by contributors. The basic implementation of microtonal accidentals is built-in, but playback requires specific plugins. I haven’t tried this specifically, but reports seem to be that how well this works depends on the specific plugin and tuning system you are trying to use. It’s possible though, the program appears to be flexible in this regard and it is something that will likely continue to improve in future versions. Nonstandard and microtonal key signatures are supported, and relatively simple to implement, however they cannot be transposed. Complex meters are mostly relatively easy to create, but some aspects of mixed or changing meters can be difficult to implement and may not display consistently. Free/open meter is not supported, but like Finale and Sibelius, it can be faked with some effort.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">MuseScore is in the middle of major improvements and the developers seem committed to continuing to add new features. The open-source plugin community helps fill gaps in functionality, and I expect the program to continue to get better, though the financial prospects of the developers seems unclear since the program is provided for free. Which is of course the major selling point of MuseScore—it’s free and anyone can use it. Price aside, it’s no competition for Dorico, but for most people a program that does most of what you need reasonably well and is free probably makes a lot more sense. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>I made a comparison chart for evaluation:</p><figure class="table"><table>
<thead><tr>
<th style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;text-align:center;">Program Name</th>
<th style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;text-align:center;">Microtonal Accidentals</th>
<th style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;text-align:center;">Microtonal Key Signatures</th>
<th style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;text-align:center;">NonStandard Key Signatures</th>
<th style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;text-align:center;">Complex/<br>Mixed Meters</th>
<th style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;text-align:center;">Free/Open meter</th>
<th style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;text-align:center;">General Notation Quality</th>
</tr></thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;text-align:center;">Finale</th>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Technically yes, <br>but very difficult. <br>Can be done via <br>workarounds. <br>Playback only <br>with lots of extra work.</td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Technically yes,<br>but very<br>complicated and<br>Don't transpose. Can be faked with workaround instead </td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Technically yes,<br>but very<br>complicated and<br>Don't transpose. Can be faked with workaround instead </td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Yes, reasonably straightforward</td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">No, but cumbersome workarounds <br>can fake it </td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Can be excellent, but defaults are poor</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;text-align:center;">Sibelius</th>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Yes. Playback is possible via a <br>plug-in.</td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Not supported, can be faked <br>with work-arounds</td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Not supported, can be faked with workarounds</td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Not supported, can be faked <br>with work-arounds</td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">No, but cumbersome workarounds <br>can fake it </td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Very good, defaults <br>are good. </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;text-align:center;">Dorico</th>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Yes </td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Yes</td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Yes</td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Yes</td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Yes</td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Excellent</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;text-align:center;">Muse<br>Score</th>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Yes. Playback is possible via plugins to <br>some extent. </td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Yes, but they cannot be transposed</td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Yes, but they cannot be transposed</td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Mostly yes, but some limitations</td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">No, but cumbersome workarounds <br>can fake it</td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Good to <br>very good, defaults <br>are mostly acceptable</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;text-align:center;">Lily<br>Pond</th>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Yes</td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Yes</td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Yes</td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Yes</td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Yes</td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Very Good<br>to Excellent</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;text-align:center;">Mus2</th>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Yes</td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Yes</td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Yes</td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Yes</td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Yes</td>
<td style="border:1px solid hsl(0, 0%, 100%);padding:0px;">Acceptable<br>to Good</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table></figure><p> </p><p> </p><p>Final analysis:</p><p>I can’t think of any reason in 2023 that someone who wasn’t already using Finale or Sibelius would choose to start there. If you want a professional, full-featured program, Dorico is the clear choice. If you want something specialized for makam music, Mus2 makes the most sense and is inexpensive. If you want a free option that is powerful, has good results and is reasonably flexible, MuseScore or LilyPond are the logical options.</p><p> </p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/69063022022-02-24T16:16:53-05:002023-01-17T19:40:28-05:00Live Shows! <p>I'm very excited to finally announce a few shows coming up. It's been almost exactly two years since I had to cancel all my performances due to the pandemic, and more than anything, I've missed live events—playing music with people, for people, all in the same room. The energy in the room when making music and communicating with people in person, fostering a real human interaction through music—that is why I make music, to create those moments of connection. </p>
<p>The first gig to get canceled was at Barbes, March 13, 2020, followed by Sharq Attack, and a planned show at the Owl. So it is exciting to be performing with many of the musicians from those canceled performances at many of the same venues. <br><br>Marandi Hostetter is an amazing violinist and dear friend who has been a key part of many of my musical projects of the past decade, including Sharq Attack and the Bil Afrah Project (as well as being a co-founder of Brooklyn Maqam), we'll be performing together at WCSU and Barbes. Philip Mayer likewise is a stellar musician and has been a great friend and collaborator both with Sharq Attack and Nashaz, as well as my guitar trio and many other projects with Matt Darriau and others. Eric Allen is a brilliant cellist with wide-ranging tastes, we had just started working together a little bit before the pandemic (one of our last gigs was with the talented Syrian singer Nano Raies at Drom in the East Village). He and Marandi were supposed to play with me on the aforementioned 2020 gig at Barbes, so it's exciting that the three of us (plus Philip) will be back at Barbes almost two years to the day after our canceled event. New friend and talented violinist Sarah Mueller will be joining us at the Owl, I look forward to further collaborations with her—and I'm thrilled to be back at the Owl, one of my favorite venues. <br><br>Additionally, I'm looking forward to performing with Samer Ali and Takht al-Nagham at Roulette. This will be an amazing evening of Syrian music with a terrific band!<br><br>Hope to see some old friends and some new ones!<br><br>Sharq Attack at Western Connecticut State University, March 3<br>Near East River Ensemble at Barbes, March 7<br>Takht al-Nagham at Roulette, March 12<br>Brian Prunka & Strings at the Owl Music Parlor, March 31<br><br>More details on all <a contents="events here." data-link-label="Shows" data-link-type="page" href="/shows">events here.</a></p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68834722022-01-29T23:37:47-05:002023-01-17T19:40:28-05:00Hubbi & Raqset al-Atlas Sheet Music<p>Here are two great tunes that are a lot of fun to play, and very conducive to adding improvisations in performance.<br>"Raqset al-Atlas" is a famous tune by the Moroccan musician Abdelkader al-Rashdi (عبد القادر الراشدي). Listening to it recently, I was struck by the similarities to the tune "Hubbi" (حبى) by Mohamed Abdel Wahab (محمد عبد الوهاب). <br><br>I first heard "Hubbi" on the same "Bellydance with Mohamed Abdel Wahab" recording that I mentioned in a previous post, but really became fond of it after hearing a great performance by Simon Shaheen, Ali Jihad Racy, Bassam Saba and Michel Merhej at the Shaheen's Arab Music Retreat. <br><br>Both tunes are in maqam Rast and make extensive use of iqa' <a contents="wahda w-nuss" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.maqamworld.com/en/iqaa/wahda_w_nuss.php" style="" target="_blank"><em>wahda w-nuss</em></a><em>. </em>Really, "Raqset al-Atlas" is entirely in this rhythm, and it is the middle section of both tunes that are most similar. They use a very similar texture: long, lyrical melodies in the strings supported by a similar rhythmic ostinato (vamp) figure. The exact ostinato is not same: Abdel Wahab emphasizes the 4th in a one-bar figure, while al-Rashdi uses a 2-bar figure that alternates emphasizing the tonic and the third. <br><br>There are several notable differences as well: "Raqset al-Atlas" is entirely in Rast, with no modulation, and has no changes in the rhythm. In contrast, "Hubbi" changes rhythm between the rhythms of "fox", and <em>wahda w-nuss</em>, and includes several rhythmic breaks. It also has some brief hints of modulation, though never really fully modulating. <br><br> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/bf95855a6a2d3b0ebe951688ca9bb25420c7c36e/original/hubbi.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Sheet Music: Mohamed Abdel Wahab - Hubbi | محمد عبد الوهاب - حبى" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/7f3706c23ec44bf3dd3f6066b110f4fa66acf44d/original/raqset-al-atlas.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Sheet Music: Raqset Al-Atlas - Abdelkader ar-Rachdi | رقصة الأطلس - عبدالقادر الراشدي" /></p>
<p>While it's difficult to find reliable information about instrumental compositions, as far as I can figure out, "Hubbi" was written in 1937 and "Raqset al-Atlas" in 1948, so it seems likely that the latter was somewhat influenced by the former. If anyone has any further information, please let me know in the comments. Regardless, they are both great compositions! Sheet music below—they're both 2-pagers so I'm linking the PDFs. I'm putting some Youtube links to listen as well. </p>
<p>I've put both sheets in Rast on C for ease of playing and comparison; but note that Abdel Wahab's recording is on D, and the piece is frequently played in F (which mostly just involves moving everything up one string). </p>
<p>There are a few different versions of Raqset al-Atlas available. Since al-Rashdi lived a long time, there are recordings from later in his life where he seems to have made a couple of small changes to the piece. I liked the changes and this is the version I transcribed. Out of respect for the composer I thought it best to go with the 'revised' version. As a composer myself, I have occasionally revised a composition later and I know that's what I would prefer. <br><br><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FSHkPIm4jEA" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></p>
<p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Xm0znro37Ko" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></p>
<p><a contents="Raqset al-Atlas - Abdelkader al-Rachdi Sheet Music (PDF)" data-link-label="raqset-al-atlas.pdf" data-link-type="file" href="/files/1161690/raqset-al-atlas.pdf">Raqset al-Atlas - Abdelkader al-Rachdi Sheet Music (PDF)</a><br><a contents="Hubbi - Abdel Wahab Sheet Music (PDF)" data-link-label="hubbi.pdf" data-link-type="file" href="/files/1161689/hubbi.pdf" style="">Hubbi - Abdel Wahab Sheet Music (PDF)</a></p>
<p>If you found this interesting or useful, or have any questions or thoughts, please let me know in the comments!</p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68772782022-01-23T17:00:00-05:002022-01-24T12:21:06-05:00Talwin (Touyour) - Anouar Brahem Transcription<p>Here's another favorite from Anouar Brahems <em>Thimar</em> on ECM. This recording was a rearrangement of Brahem's earlier song "Touyour." This is a beautiful and rare example of Brahem's vocal music. For <em>Thimar,</em> Brahem took the instrumental interludes from the song and strung them together, as well as adding a solo vamp for improvisations. </p>
<p>The meter changes quite a bit in this tune, and to be honest I am not 100% sure that the way I've laid out the barlines in this sheet music was exactly what Anouar Brahem was thinking. <em>Thimar</em> has no percussion, so there is no reference for the beat, and in "Touyour" the percussion follows the melody so much that it is hard to say what the basic beat would have been. What I have here will definitely allow one to play along with the recording, though — the rhythms are all correct. I wrote the simplest possible version of the beat, so that you can keep a steady quarter-note pulse throughout regardless of the time changes. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/9452be0c0ffcc3fda42f7b14f8e8018eb3ed6623/original/talwin.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Talwin (Touyour) Sheet Music | Anouar Brahem" /><br>For the middle section,Brahem plays a number of variations, with lots of 16th notes. Some of these are very challenging. I wrote the more 'basic' melody with just a couple embellishments that he played pretty consistently. I recommend listening closely to the recording for the highly ornamented variations. <br><br>One other note about the middle section: I wrote in the violin countermelody from "Touyour." Since the version on <em>Thimar</em> is a duo (just oud and bass), it's not played there, but I thought it was a beautiful touch in the original version so I wrote it in. The violin also played fewer repeated notes in its interpretation throughout, creating a more legato, lyrical quality in contrast to the oud's propulsive rhythmic approach. <br><br>I played a version of it on Instagram:<br> </p>
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<p> </p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68772332022-01-23T00:35:44-05:002022-01-23T00:39:38-05:00Qasida La Ta‘dhili<p>This is a piece I heard recently and decided to transcribe. It has a really beautiful and fascinating rhythmic structure, a fact pointed out on Facebook by <a contents="Faisal Zedan" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.faisalzedan.com/" target="_blank">Faisal Zedan</a>. Faisal is a master percussionist from Syria with a deep knowledge of Arabic rhythms, particularly the older more complex cycles used with Muwashshahat. </p>
<p>This song has alternating sections in 24 and 47 beats! And it turns out it's even more interesting than that sounds. <br>24 has a bunch of interesting properties due to the large number of ways it can be divided (one of the main reasons we ended up with 24 hours in a day). It can be divided by 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, and 12. So you could have several ways of grouping a meter in 24. For example:<br><br>6 groups of 4<br>4 groups of 6<br>3 groups of 8<br>8 groups of 3<br>etc.<br><br>However, the composer of this piece chose none of these. Instead, this is the structure:<br><br>5 + 5 + 4 + 7 + 3</p>
<p>The introduction and refrain (sung by the men) is in this cycle. But it gets even more interesting when the women enter! It starts out with the same grouping of 24 but is followed by a new grouping in 23, for a total cycle of 47 beats. </p>
<p>23 is also interesting, in that it is a prime number and can't be divided evenly. However, it has numerous possible groupings. Such as:<br><br>10 + 3 + 10 (I used this one for my composition 23 Suznak)<br>6 + 6 + 3 + 4 + 4<br>3 + 4 + 3 + 4 + 3<br>And many other possibilities.<br><br>For this piece, it is arranged as:</p>
<p>5 + 4 + 4 + 7 + 3</p>
<p>So it is very similar to the 24 grouping, with the second 5 replaced by a 4. <br><br>In a strange way, this is actually a bit like the shifting meter approach that oud-jazz fusion pioneer Rabih Abou-Khalil uses — which I find as surprising as anyone. The effect is quite different, the regularity of this cycle creates stability (Abou-Khalil tends to use the shifting rhythms to create a feeling of unpredictability). </p>
<p>It's unusual to hear this much rhythmic variation within a cycle in Arabic music from the post-war period — the emphasis there tends to be on a relative handful of popular rhythms in 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8. It's a beautiful example of a different approach within the older tradition. </p>
<p>Let me know if you know of any other songs with similar complex rhythmic structures!<br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/a1bd633d91d999fe140f4c9891c3eb1bc32338f9/original/qasida-la-ta3dhili-b.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Arabic Sheet Music - Qasida Tadhili قصيدة لاتعذليه" />The version above is written out showing the 24 and 23 beat cycles. Below is a version where the subdivisions are written out at every change (as would be typical in Western music). <br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/7cf60110410fd1b96e37728490f0d3e4c252c9ce/original/qasida-la-ta3dhili.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Qasida Tadhili - Arabic Sheet Music قصيدة لاتعذليه" />This post is mainly about the rhythm, but the maqam seems to be Ajam Ashiran, with a modulation to Hijaz on 5 (arguably Saba Zamzam on 3). For now, you can listen to the recording I transcribed this from here:<br><a contents="قصيدة لاتعذليه" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JiI0tDFR-k" style="" target="_blank">قصيدة لاتعذليه</a><br> </p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68722222022-01-18T12:30:00-05:002022-01-24T12:23:28-05:00Arabian Waltz - Rabih Abou-Khalil<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/944e43daae00b4206a866a63b0140d8468490775/original/tarab-abou-khalil.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_right border_medium" alt="Rabih Abou-Khalil - Tarab (Album Cover)" /></p>
<p>Here's one I've been asked for a number of times. For some reason, I never got around to it before. This tune first appeared on Rabih Abou-Khalil's album <em>Tarab</em>, and later on the album <em>Arabian Waltz</em>. It's the first version that I've transcribed here. For the string quartet version on the <em>Arabian Waltz </em>album, he made a few changes, notably the low notes in mm.15-16 and slightly changing mm.17-18 (the melody is changed a bit and the beat changed). He also added some extra sections with new melodic material for the string quartet—in the original he just plays a long, arguably somewhat maniacal oud solo. Perhaps at some point I'll write out the string quartet version (at least the melody). </p>
<p>Brackets indicate the parts played by the nay, the oud plays throughout.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/90624bcc0e9d51c718659c75b63b3b5930426ec7/original/arabian-waltz.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Arabian Waltz Sheet Music Rabih Abou-Khalil" /></p>
<p> </p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68707832022-01-16T13:07:05-05:002022-01-17T05:14:54-05:00Conte de L'Incroyable Amour - Anouar Brahem<p>Continuing my look through Anouar Brahem's music, here's another old one. </p>
<p>An interesting thing about Brahem is that is recordings are often not perfect performances, and this tune is another example of that. The first time through the B section of this tune, he apparently starts on the wrong beat. The percussion stays steady and Brahem improvises his way around it to get to the C section, but the resulting phrasing is quite strange when you listen to it closely. When the B section comes back after the oud solo, it's very clear and in the phrasing flows with the beat in a much more organic way. </p>
<p>This sheet music is edited to have the B section as it is the second time, as this is almost certainly what Brahem had intended to play both times and makes the most sense if someone wanted to perform this piece. </p>
<p>I do have a transcription of what he actually plays the first time—if anyone wants that, let me know and I'll post it. The phrasing is quite awkward to pull off the way he does it, and I doubt he could replicate it. </p>
<p>The willingness to allow "mistakes" in his music is something that I think contributes to the spontaneity and liveliness of his albums — no doubt they could have done more takes or edited the track to be "perfect" but they kept the recording true to what happened in the studio. Could be a lesson to all of us, perhaps, in what is really important in music.</p>
<p>Performance notes: the main melody is written for the A section, Brahem embellishes it throughout with the rhythm (matching the drums) and drone notes (mainly the tonic, A). In the C section, I wrote in some of his embellishments, but these are just a guide and should be interpreted freely. If played by clarinet, violin, flute or other sustaining instrument, it would be characteristic to simplify the rhythms a bit. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/d56e5170ae2a471bb4430752f52343ac995f6f22/original/conte-de-lincroyable-amour1.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Conte de L'Incroyable Amour Sheet Music - Anouar Brahem (page 1)" /></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/3ba7778358298d23da09ef81da0e45ad5c3b84ae/original/conte-de-lincroyable-amour2.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Anouar Brahem Sheet Music - Conte de l'incroyable Amour page 2" />PDF download <a contents="here." data-link-label="conte-de-lincroyable-amour.pdf" data-link-type="file" href="/files/1159897/conte-de-lincroyable-amour.pdf">here.</a></p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68691872022-01-14T13:35:41-05:002022-01-14T13:35:41-05:00Sheet Music: Ana Wa Habibi by Mohamed Abdel Wahab<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/a11fc7f9ea1665961d1c25df185acdf0ddfb137d/original/abdel-wahab-bellydance.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_right border_medium" alt="Mohamed Abdel Wahab - Bellydance album cover" /></p>
<p>In 2001, I attended Simon Shaheen's Arabic Music Retreat and was exposed to a lot of "real" Arabic music for the first time. Up to that point, I had mainly been listening to what I could find at Tower Records. </p>
<p>Najib Shaheen gave me an album entitled "Belly Dance - the Music of Mohamed Abdel Wahab." Despite the cheesy cover, this was a great collection of Abdel Wahab's instrumental music. I learned a lot of the music on this record - "Aziza," "Balad il-Mahboub," "Zeina," "Al Hinna," "Bint al Balad", "Ibn il Balad", "Ghazl il-Banat," all pretty popular tunes that everyone plays. </p>
<p>This one, "Ana Wa Habibi," is one that I've almost never heard anyone play. It's a great little tune. <br>When I've occasionally played it, I haven't done the introduction, but I transcribed it here anyway. Image below is the main tune, the PDF has the full composition with the introduction. The original recording is in D minor but I've written it here in C, I felt it was a little more friendly key for the oud.<br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/cf3578f7b5bfd0382af17158e3d9e56ff473ed4e/original/ana-wa-habibi.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Ana Wa Habibi Sheet Music - Mohamed Abdel Wahab" />You can download the full <a contents="PDF here." data-link-label="ana-wa-habibi.pdf" data-link-type="file" href="/files/1159447/ana-wa-habibi.pdf">PDF here.</a></p>
<p>Here is a rough version of me playing it:<br> </p>
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<p> </p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68656132022-01-13T11:45:41-05:002022-01-13T12:02:27-05:00Qurb - Anouar Brahem<p>This is a lovely piece by Anouar Brahem, one he has rarely performed. The main recording available is <em>Thimar</em>, with Dave Holland and John Surman. <br><br>This album was my first experience with Brahem's music; it came out in 1998, right after I had decided to start learning the oud. I had recently graduated from music school in New Orleans, where I had earned my degree in jazz studies on guitar. Those four years of studying jazz and classical theory and performance were pretty intense, and with my newfound freedom to focus on whatever I wanted, the magnetic pull of the oud drew me in. Recordings of jazz musicians with the oud, like Ahmed Abdul-Malik's <em>Jazz Sahara</em> and Rabih Abou-Khalil's <em>Blue Camel</em> had been staples of my listening for some time, and the sound of the instrument resonated deeply with me. At that time, with no Google, no YouTube, no online music stores, it was like finding a needle in a haystack searching out oud music to listen to. I'd go to Mona's Lebanese Grocery store and buy whatever cassettes had an oud on the cover. I don't recall how I came across <em>Thimar</em>, but it was likely methodically perusing the shelves of CDs at Tower Records on N. Peters Street (now an Urban Outfitters, in case you were wondering). Regardless, when I got home and put it on, I was transfixed, and it became part of my deep listening for years. Incidentally, fellow oud player Kane Mathis had a great blog post about the abundance of listening options these days and the tension between listening deeply and widely, I recommend reading it: <a contents="http://www.kanemathis.com/blog/2021/2/20/endless-options-and-the-listening-mind" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.kanemathis.com/blog/2021/2/20/endless-options-and-the-listening-mind" target="_blank">http://www.kanemathis.com/blog/2021/2/20/endless-options-and-the-listening-mind</a></p>
<p>I learned a several pieces from this album at the time. Qurb was one that was a bit elusive, I could more or less play it along with the recording, but was puzzled about several aspects. With no percussion, they perform it quite loosely, and there are some parts where it seems a beat is dropped or added. While the basic beat is <em>Sama'i Thaqil, </em>the bass doesn't really follow the iqa' (sometimes not even playing on beat one), and the overall rhythmic interpretation is somewhat rubato. I had done a transcription some years ago that I had posted previously, but I recently discovered a live recording that (while still freely interpreted) clarified some of the intent. </p>
<p>The resulting sheet music still an edited version, since neither of the two versions is completely clear or consistent with one another, but I think this is a pretty good version of the 'essence' of the composition. I've added chord symbols to reflect what the bass is doing; though neither version has a harmony instrument, these seem to be the chords that are implied. The bass lines on the recordings are also pretty improvisatory, and the changes don't always line up exactly in the noted rhythmic positions. <br><br>Overall, this is in some ways one of his most "classical" compositions, and the variety in interpretation is nicely consistent with the aural tradition of old Arabic music, in which different performances might have substantially different choices. Formally, it seems partly inspired by the Bashraf, particularly the Tunisian Bashraf Sama'i.<br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/20f6c582a54475638ce85510a5dd196d323faf79/original/qurb-2022-lead-sheet-edit.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Anouar Brahem Sheet Music - Qurb (Thimar)" />Notes:<br>The rhythm changes in the middle to 11/8. On the live recording, the percussion plays much like the usual 10/8 Sama'i rhythm (D - - T - D D T - -) but with the last part being a group of 4 instead of 3 (D - - T - D D T - T -). Sometimes a doum is added on beat 11 (D - - T - D D T - T D). <br><br>The phrase in m.6 ends on beat 9, instead of the usual beat 8. I wondered if this was a mistake, but it was similar in both recordings, so I'm leaving it as is. This is one spot where I'd really like to see what Brahem originally wrote. </p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68659852022-01-12T14:00:00-05:002022-01-12T14:18:48-05:00Taqasim Lesson: Rubato on the Beat & Polyrhythms <p>I thought I'd share a few thoughts about a general concept/technique in Arabic music that I think of as "rubato on the beat" or "out-of-time but in-time." I've never heard anyone use a specific term for this in Arabic, if anyone knows an Arabic musical term for this, please let me know in the comments. <br><br>I hear it a lot from vocalists and violinists and it's really useful and beautiful in taqasim.<br>The idea is that you play in a way that your phrasing is not metrically related to the beat, except for certain key points that will line up with the beat (usually the beginning and ending of the phrase at least, and sometimes key points in the middle). </p>
<p>The best way I can think of to explain this except that it's sort of like you feel a much bigger beat—you feel a whole measure—or even two measures—as just one big beat. Within that "big beat" you can subdivide any way you like, or even play completely freely. <br><br>A couple of my students a little while back were asking about how to achieve this effect but stay connected to the underlying pulse. I've noticed many oud players seem to either play in time (especially if they have a background in other styles of music) or they can play a traditional rubato taqasim that's not connected to the beat, but this in-between way of playing can be an elusive skill. It's worth developing though! It allows one to bridge the gap between free, expressive rhythm and energetic, precise rhythm. While one can certainly just wing it and keep trying to get it, there are a few exercises that I feel help achieve this more methodically and also give one's imagination a bigger repertoire of sounds to choose from while improvising. <br><br>The first thing to try is to just experiment with playing freely (out of time) but making sure the first and last notes you play in a phrase land on the beat. If you are unsure about landing the last note, try playing a tremolo and listening for the beat. <br><br>For a more systematic way of deepening one's ability to feel two meters simultaneously, below are some practice ideas for developing more advanced facility and vocabulary. Fair warning - it involves some math and complex rhythmic relationships. </p>
<p>Personally, I've practiced both ways and each has its benefits, so the approach described above is a perfectly good way to practice — especially to start. Since everyone is a different individual, I find having multiple approaches helpful; what makes something 'click' will be vary from one person to the next.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr><p> </p>
<p>This may be overkill, but for the true nerds, here's a deeper dive on working on a polymetric approach as a basis for this kind of freer-sounding playing. I'm not at all saying that this is the foundation for what one hears in Arabic music, just that it is another path that leads to some similar sounds and can help solidify one's sense of time and ability to play creatively with rhythmic relationships.</p>
<p>A more thorough and methodical approach to this is to work on superimposing a different meter—it gives a similar feeling of being not "in-time" or at least "in a different time" but you retain awareness and control in relation to the underlying pulse. <br><br>If you take a measure of 4, for example, and subdivide the whole measure as 3, 5 or 7 then the downbeats will line up but nothing else will (see ex.1 below, note that I am including the basic 4 beat structure for reference throughout). </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/9a17f90a4b0df53ec35e6799eb48ac68ce3ecacc/original/polyrhythms1.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Polyrhythms" /> </p>
<p>For an additional challenge, you can also displace this by a beat or a half measure so that the points where it lines up are in the middle of measures and not on the downbeat. This gives it even less of a feeling of being on the grid (ex. 2).</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/cccbb916d06cb5886d1c09a4ff090ac765cdc89d/original/polyrhythms2.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Displaced Polyrhythm" /></p>
<p>Superimposing 5 or 7 is often a bit too challenging at first, so as a first step towards feeling this kind of freedom to play in a different time than the prevailing meter (while still staying connected to the underlying beat) I suggest simply practicing improvising with quarter note triplets (3:2), giving you 6 beats in a bar of 4/4. Once you feel comfortable with playing 6 notes per bar, try feeling each pair of notes as a larger beat, so that you are feeling 3 beats over 4. In this scenario, the 'real' beat 3 feels like the middle of your 'new' beat 2 (ex. 3):</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/4f63bf01ac07bead97311a24b06ac9195f2c19bc/original/polyrhythms3.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Paired Quarter Note Triplets" /> <br><br><br><br><br>In the other direction, you can "fill in" the quarter note triplets with 8th notes to create rhythmic variety and solidify the feeling of the "new" time (ex. 4). The next step would be to do the same thing, but start the triplets on beat 2 (ex. 5). </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/f97549d8e221ce01e155318089e6f07c566e15c1/original/polyrhythms4.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Complex Triplets, displaced triplets" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>From there, you could repeat the whole process but trying to feel a measure of 5 in one bar of 4 (5:4 quintuplet). <br><br>Another great alternative is playing a 4:3 rhythm. Playing as if one is in 3/4 or 6/8 while the underlying beat/phrase is in 4/4 is a very common technique in both Arabic composition and improvisation. In a regular free-meter taqasim, because there is no stated 4/4 pulse to contrast against, the end result is closer to just alternating between phrasing in 3 and 4. However, the principle is the same (as is much of the vocabulary used). Ex. 6 shows a common phrase of this type (shown in C 'ajam, but could be in any maqam). Brackets show the 3/4 phrasing (could be felt as 6/8 as well, this is just a matter of phrasing and emphasis).</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/90b76b32698f030549a5a92c5ab782ea716431bc/original/polyrhythms6.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Stereotypical Arabic Cross-Rhythm Phrasing" />(note: A phrase like this would usually not be played with the 4 full iterations of the rhythm shown here - it might end early, or start on a different beat so that it ends after 3 cycles, for example.)</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Playing a 4:3 rhythm is just extending this concept to the next level. Since 4 bars of 3 has the same number of beats (12) as 3 bars of 4, the downbeats of the resulting rhythmic phrases will only line up every three bars. If you don't start the cross-rhythm on 1, it will happen sooner, as you can see from example 7 below:<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/df7f267b881946a742874d0f6ef4bcced99f832b/original/polyrhythms7.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="4:3 Polyrhythm based on Arabic Phrasing" /><br>This rhythm can be felt as a polyrhythm, but it can also be understood as a simple dotted rhythm, as in example 8:<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/6695fa32c8d2c2149ff4051166bab009c5d38ce9/original/polyrhythms8.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="4:3 Polyrhythm Notation in Dotted Rhythms" />Examples 7 and 8 show the same rhythm, but two ways of conceptualizing the sound. <br><br>You might notice that this phrasing is nearly identical to the common iqa' <em>Bamb Masri</em> (also simply called <em>Bambi</em>), shown in ex. 9.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/2c43eb84fe3e32e350e9622b5e807d42e7bcc5af/original/polyrhythms9.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Arabic Iqa3 Bamb Masri (Bambi)" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>These kind of exercises can continue on in various combinations. For example, you can alternate between 3:2 and 4:3 to get something that very close to 7:5, 11:8, or 17:12 (example 10).<br><br>While it is possible to play these in rhythmically precise ways that clearly differentiate between the rhythms written below and the complex polyrhythms like 11:8, the main goal here is developing the ability to maintain awareness of the underlying pulse while playing and feeling a contrasting pulse.<br><br>After a while, these rhythmic superimpositions just become a natural extension of your vocabulary.<br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/6e01f0f16848314649c6ee3e0a68aeeaded4406e/original/polyrhythms10.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Complex Polyrhythm - Alternating 4:3 and 3:2" /></p>
<p>Note that I've notated both the triplets and the quadruplets in two ways to help understand the subdivided relationship to the underlying beat. <br> </p>
<hr><p> </p>
<p>To me, this feeling of simultaneously being in time and out of time is closely related to the feeling while playing tremolo of being at once connected to the beat but also detached from it. Tremolo can also be used in conjunction with this technique to help smooth the transition of playing rubato to playing in time.<br><br>I hope this is of some interest and use to somebody! Please comment below if you found it useful or if you have thoughts or questions. </p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68637912022-01-11T08:00:00-05:002022-01-12T14:22:00-05:00Book Review: Inside Arabic Music by Johnny Farraj & Sami Abu Shumays<p><strong>Inside Arabic Music </strong>is is an absolute treasure for anyone looking to learn more about Arabic music and maqam, specifically as it relates to the "Golden Age" of Arabic music from the 1930s-1970s where Arabic music moved away from the Ottoman influence and developed its own highly distinct tradition. It is hands-down the book the I recommend for anyone who wants to learn more about Arabic music, particular in understanding more about maqam. I'm frequently asked what I suggest for someone who wants to learn more about Arabic music theory and while there are a few books that have worthwhile content, this is the book for anyone who is serious about studying this music.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/8b4cea9abe8d5f356514a2feda481394c0a7b349/original/inside-arabic-music-cover.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_right border_medium" alt="Inside Arabic Music - Book Cover" />This book is such a monumental achievement that it would be nearly impossible to overstate what Farraj and Shumays have done. Not only is this an eminently readable primer on Arabic music, it rebuilds the analytical foundations from the ground up. One of the primary goals of the book is to decolonize Arabic music theory—to develop an analytic framework that originates in the aural tradition and aesthetic paradigms of Arabic music, without attempting to shoehorn it into Western theoretical constructs and ideals. This is a tall order—Western theory is so pervasive that it underpins a great deal of the existing literature on the subject, by Westerners and Arabs alike. The insight and imagination required to even attempt this is impressive; that they succeeded with such scientific rigor is remarkable. </p>
<p>In several respects, the authors have developed new analytical tools for serious listeners to approach the repertoire. Rather than attempt to derive "rules" and other top-down theoretical structures, they strictly work from the documented primary sources (recordings by undisputed masters of the Arabic "golden age") to produce open-ended observations of various phenomena. The beauty of this approach is that it is flexible and can be constantly refined by adding to the repertoire of examples with which one is familiar; an analytical approach that mirrors the aural tradition of learning from which this music originated. Further, it is capable of addressing a great deal of nuance (regional variation, stylistic changes over time, etc.) in relation to the fundamental context.</p>
<p>For musicians, the detailed exploration of maqam (much more comprehensive and coherent than any other Arabic music theory resource available) is an extremely valuable resource for understanding all genres of Arabic music, including taqasim. Their sections of analysis of ajnas and maqam, modulation and sayr are far more useful and thorough than any other resource in English. While the book does discuss the traditional instruments and include some instrument-specific information, there is not much focus on the details of the oud in particular, as the emphasis is on the general principles that apply on all instruments as well as the voice.</p>
<p>The book walks a fine line between academic research and general readership; the authors don't sacrifice precise and detailed information but manage to present it in a very readable style. Part of their philosophy is to emphasize listening, so convoluted explanations are considered secondary to directed listening examples (some include transcriptions for analysis, but there are too many examples provided to have full transcriptions of everything). What is particularly unusual and impressive is that Farraj and Shumays manage to give something to everyone — the novice will find the information and guided listening accessible, while the advanced practitioner will find new nuances and perspective to add to their understanding. </p>
<p>I highly recommend it without reservation to anyone interested in maqam and Arabic music.<br><br>Available here from the publisher: <a contents="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/inside-arabic-music-9780190658366" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/inside-arabic-music-9780190658366" target="_blank">https://global.oup.com/academic/product/inside-arabic-music-9780190658366</a><br><br><em>(Full disclosure: Johnny and Sami have been my friends and colleagues for many years. I have no personal involvement in the book other than making a few minor suggestions in the section on the oud.)</em></p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68629882022-01-10T15:00:00-05:002023-01-08T13:05:59-05:00Parfum de Gitane (aka Itr al-Ghajar) عطر الغجر<p>Here's my transcription of one Anouar Brahem's most popular pieces, Parfum de Gitane. This sheet music is based on the version he plays on "Astrakan Cafe," which has some minor differences from the version he plays on "Barzakh."<br><br>This is written lead-sheet style, so the music is for all instruments. The oud generally plays a more rhythmic version wherever there are long notes, emphasizing the iqa3 (beat/rhythm). There are also some implied chords, as well as a rhythmic figure in m.6 and m.10 that I didn't notate here, but it is obvious if you listen to the recording (always a good idea). It's also common to play a harmony part at B (a 3rd higher). </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/f5177c748b9a96042c19ea07d3b682992c3a089a/original/parfumgitane.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Parfum de Gitane - Sheet Music عطر الغجر" /></p>
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<p>Play through slowly, perfecting each line before going on to the next (my recommendation would be just do one or two lines in a day, adding lines gradually until you can do the whole thing). Try to memorize the line and play with your eyes closed, this focuses the attention and improves both sensitivity to intonation and makes muscle memory more consistent. <br><br>Practicing this etude consistently for 1-2 months will generally result in greatly improved intonation and ability to shift up the neck confidently.<br><br>It makes a good warm-up exercise as well. <br><br>Let me know how it works for you in the comments below!<br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/a2a8b00045133ae395efb62d9c370e6d810adce8/original/1st-string-etude.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Etude for Oud - Musical Exercise for Position Shifting" /><br> </p>
<p style="text-align: right;"><a contents="RSS Feed" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://brianprunka.com/blogs/words.rss" target="_blank">RSS Feed</a></p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68629862022-01-08T15:55:52-05:002022-01-09T17:38:53-05:00Lecon du Oud (Oud Lesson) - Anouar Brahem<p>I thought I'd repost some old transcriptions. Yesterday's post of Anouar Brahem's "The Astounding Eyes of Rita" reminded me of some older transcriptions of his music that I did ages ago. <br><br>I'd posted some of these ages ago on my old <a contents="Arabic Jazz Blog" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://arabicjazz.blogspot.com" target="_blank">Arabic Jazz Blog</a> but at some point the links broke, so I'm re-sharing them here.<br><br>This one is a pretty tune from his score to the film "Les Silences Du Palais" ("The Silences of the Palace"), entitled "Lecon Du Oud." I transcribed another tune or two from that soundtrack, I can post the sheet music if there's any interest.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/528f708a2d227efd34ff91a209e778276c163089/original/lecon.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Oud Lesson - Anouar Brahem " /></p>
<p>As usual, these are my own work and posted for educational purposes only. </p>
<p style="text-align: right;"><a contents="RSS Feed" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://brianprunka.com/blogs/words.rss" style="">RSS Feed</a></p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68623692022-01-07T19:39:17-05:002022-01-09T17:49:42-05:00The Whole-Tone Pentatonic Scale<p>This is a sound that (if memory serves) I first noticed when transcribing John Coltrane's solo on "I Hear A Rhapsody" from his 1957 album "Lush Life." I don't think I've ever come across anyone discussing this particular scale, so I refer to it as "Whole-Tone Pentatonic," because that's how I think of it: a pentatonic scale with a whole-tone sound. I was recently reminded of this while learning Coltrane's solo on "Mr. P.C." (from Giant Steps).</p>
<p>I've always been simultaneously intrigued by the whole-tone scale and somewhat mystified by its apparent musical "sameness." This is possibly partly because one of the first jazz musicians who really fascinated me was Thelonious Monk, well-known for his use of the whole-tone scale. And it's probably no coincidence that John Coltrane played with Monk at a formative stage in his development. And yet, the whole-tone scale is not usually explored or developed as much as other sounds (at least in my experience), and treated more as a special effect or one-off sound to be used occasionally. I touched on ways to expand its use a little previously in <a contents="this old post" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://brianprunka.com/words/blog/the-whole-whole-tone">this old post</a>, but this pentatonic really opens up some different possibilities.<br><br>From a theory standpoint, the Whole-Tone Pentatonic scale is obviously just a whole-tone scale (normally hexatonic, i.e. six notes) with one note missing.</p>
<p>I find the results of omitting notes from scales, particularly symmetrical scales, to often be interesting. In this regard, the Whole-Tone Pentatonic does not disappoint—it has some interesting properties. Obviously, the pentatonic is no longer symmetrical, which in my opinion generally makes scales more interesting and less patterned-sounding. But more intriguingly, the gap results in a scale that is not only a subset of the whole-tone scale, but also a subset of the melodic minor (aka jazz minor) scale. </p>
<p>I made a Venn diagram to illustrate the overlap:</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/b6ab9d6a06cbbea5dfa66408f08d9905c2c36aae/original/wholetone-venn.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_none" alt="Whole Tone Pentatonic Scale Diagram" />The center shows the whole-tone pentatonic, with the notes on the right it becomes C melodic minor, while with the note on the left, it becomes a standard whole-tone scale. </p>
<p>Below in standard notation:<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/93dd446a409f2db91975bb100a1af57af0601981/original/whole-tone-pentatonic1.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Whole Tone - Pentatonic vs Melodic Minor" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>This means that this can be used anywhere you would use a C melodic minor scale. Coltrane mostly uses it over tonic minor (e.g., Cm6) or over V7 (e.g., G9#5). But it has some other possibilities, notably Lydian Dominant sounds (e.g., F9#11) or altered dominant sounds (e.g., B7alt).</p>
<p>To get used to this, I like to practice alternating between the whole-tone pentatonic, arpeggios of the relevant chord, and the relative melodic minor scale. I've made a few simplified examples below. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/dd0d3844d721a6eea773d9d322104b35969f56ab/original/whole-tone-pentatonic2.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Whole Tone Pentatonic exercises - arpeggios and melodic minor scales" /></p>
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<hr><p>In the previous post, I put up a transcription of a signature line from Kurt Rosenwinkel's solo on "Zhivago" from <i>The Next Step</i>. The line is basically planing a particular arpeggio diatonically, but modifying it to match the underlying chord progression.<br><br>To get a better grasp on the device, I took it out of the context of the chord progression and planed the arpeggio diatonically through the major scale. This would also work on any mode of the major scale (dorian, phrygian, lydian, mixolydian, aeolian, locrian), since they all have the same chords.<br>This could work well in a modal tune like "Milestones", which is a long dorian vamp followed by an aeolian bridge.<br><br>The arpeggio is 1-5-7-10-13-14 (10-13-14 being 3-6-7, but up an octave). Rosenwinkel plays them alternating between the ascending and descending version. This works out two ways, depending on whether you start ascending or descending.<br> </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/1faa1a76f306f8a7c92d72e4f6850e8142689351/original/zhivago-a.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Guitar Arpeggio Exercise based on Rosenwinkel Zhivago Solo" /></div>
<p><br>Since this is an arpeggio, there are many ways to modify it and come up with different results. Here are two obvious ones: omitting the root of each arpeggio (which gives you a five-note pattern, creating rhythmically interesting results), and omitting both the root and fifth of each arpeggio (which creates a quartal sound with an interesting ambiguity).</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/74025ec49eae50284cbdc4d51dac671c80224b7b/original/zhivago-b.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Modified Kurt Rosenwinkel Arpeggio from Zhivago" /></div>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">All of these can be played with different rhythmic permutations.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The 5-note pattern is creates interesting cross-rhythms when played as 8th notes or triplets.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The 4-note pattern is more interesting as triplets.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Any triplet pattern can be played with accents on the 8th-note triplet or on the quarter note triplet. Especially on the original 6-note pattern, I like to mix up the two kinds of triplet accents.</div>
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<p> </p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68621572022-01-07T15:54:48-05:002024-01-08T06:56:41-05:00Anouar Brahem - The Astounding Eyes of Rita<p>UPDATE: I made a condensed “lead sheet” version of this tune for performance purposes here:<br><a class="no-pjax" href="https://brianprunka.com/words/blog/7225197/update-the-astounding-eyes-of-rita-anouar-brahem">https://brianprunka.com/words/blog/7225197/update-the-astounding-eyes-of-rita-anouar-brahem</a></p><p>I've always been a fan of Anouar Brahem. He's one of the first oud players I heard and is partly responsible for inspiring me to learn the oud in the first place (along with Rabih Abou-Khalil). After met Simon Shaheen in 2001, I began exploring more deeply the more traditional style of oud music exemplified by Farid el-Atrash, Riad al-Sounbati, Mohamed el-Qasabgi, as well modern masters like Shaheen and Marcel Khalife. I still enjoy the fusion approach of Brahem, although I haven't followed his music as closely in recent years. </p><p>Over at Mike's Oud Forum, a member asked if anyone had the sheet music to this tune, which inspired me to listen to it again and I ended up transcribing it. It's a really beautiful composition with some interesting counterpoint between the bass clarinet and the oud (particularly the ending). To capture the composition, I transcribed both the oud and clarinet parts, as well as the bass line. While I wouldn't write it exactly this way if it was intended for a performance, this seemed the best way to understand what was happening. Where there are repeated sections, I transcribed the first pass - both the oud and the bass ad lib quite a bit throughout. This is the version from the album, but there are a number of live versions available on YouTube as well. It's interesting to hear the variations used in different versions to get a fuller picture of the essence of the composition. </p><p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/c40623d075894d808c25eb425754fa140762f4da/original/the-astounding-eyes-of-rita.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />Full score sheet music here: <a class="no-pjax" href="/files/1158462/the-astounding-eyes-of-rita.pdf" data-link-type="file" data-link-label="the-astounding-eyes-of-rita.pdf" contents="The Astounding Eyes of Rita">The Astounding Eyes of Rita</a></p><p>Note: this transcription is my own work and provided for educational purposes only. <br>If Mr. Brahem objects to my making this work available, please contact me and it will be removed.</p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68621182022-01-07T14:46:05-05:002022-01-07T16:26:46-05:00New Year - Old Posts<p>Once upon a time, I tried to blog about things I was practicing related to jazz. Over the past several years, I've been much more focused on Arabic music and the oud, but I thought I'd repost my old musings here. They are posted in original chronological order, perhaps they will be of interest to somebody. </p>
<p>In the coming year, I plan to post various things more regularly, including some updates and reflections on some of these old ideas as well as new transcriptions, practice ideas and thoughts related to practice and improvisation.</p>
<p>Happy New Year!</p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/57998922019-06-21T18:48:22-04:002022-01-07T16:33:53-05:00Freedom and Limitations<p>I find myself thinking about this topic with some regularity. It seems to me that “freedom” is often presented as a linear scale, with “limitations” in opposition to freedom, as if limitations are like chains that prevent us from being free. I don’t think that this is really accurate, and frequently can leads to mistaken conclusions. Although seemingly paradoxical, my belief is that freedom and limitation are actually complementary concepts. Though I came to these conclusions on my own, it turns out this isn't a new idea at all—Aristotle said "through discipline comes freedom" over 2000 years ago, and if one searches "discipline freedom" in google, one finds any number of explorations of this idea (apparently including a popular recent book by a Navy SEAL). So I'm not being particularly original here.</p>
<p>Apparent tension between freedom and discipline arises an a wide variety of disparate areas. To start with a musical one, I always found the name “free jazz” to be misleading. Sure, it’s free of set forms and chord changes, and often free of metric restrictions as well. But the absence of those things creates its own limitations: there are no circumstances under which someone playing free jazz will produce something that sounds like Johnny Hodges does on his solo to “Isfahan.” Now, Johnny Hodges on “Isfahan” wasn’t ever going to produce something like Ornette on “Lonely Woman,” either. This isn’t to say that either big band jazz or free jazz has a better set of constraints—just to point out that they are simply different constraints, and free jazz isn’t necessarily freer when one looks at the bigger picture. Now, it may feel freer to a particular performer, but that is just their subjective perception, based on their experience of music. Different limitations simply lead to different results. </p>
<p>To use a language analogy, in writing this paragraph in English, I am bound by a rather large number of limitations: I can’t make up my own words (under most circumstances), I must construct sentences that obey the large number of rules of English syntax and grammar, I have to spell words in generally agreed-upon ways, etc. Additionally, to communicate effectively, I must organize my thoughts in such a way that they can be conveyed using English. But all these limitations have the precise result of improving communication. Even for myself, the organizational structure of the language allow me to put my thoughts into a more meaningful form. This isn’t a perfect analogy (I don’t mean to suggest that free jazz is analogous to the grunts, yelps and gibberish of a madman, regardless of what my Dad says), but just an illustration of how constraints can actually assist in creating order and meaning. Additionally, learning to navigate various constraints creates discipline and leads to mastery. Once one has mastered something, the constraints no longer feel significant—it’s very freeing, because the ability to work coherently within a form becomes second nature, and one can just trust and follow one’s intuitions. </p>
<p>“Discipline” is an interesting term; it’s probably most used today in the sense of “to punish,” but its more essential sense is “to bring under control, to impose order upon.” Fields of study, including artistic forms, are sometimes referred to as “disciplines.” The most fundamental kind of discipline is self-control. Meditation is a kind of discipline that aims to give one control over one’s mind, and not be governed by one’s desires , fears and other emotions. That goal, to me, epitomizes freedom in the deepest sense. </p>
<p>Music is full of limitations—every genre is a set of restrictions as much as it is what is encouraged: the proscribed is as important as the prescribed. This has interesting results when attempting cross-genre music, as the genre schemas can be in conflict; handled poorly, one can easily violate the norms of both genres. Writing a work for a particular ensemble—string quartet, piano trio (either kind), symphonic orchestra, jazz combo, etc.—is both a set of limitations and opportunities. One of the reasons often given by composers for writing a particular work is the particular challenge presented, which is another way of saying that the limitations were interesting. One limitation I’ve always found intriguing is that when John Zorn wrote is book of tunes for his group Masada, he limited himself to 6 staves, or one-halfof one sheet of standard manuscript paper (there were other limitations: he had to include “Jewish” scales with an augmented second interval, and the composition had to be playable by any group of instruments). Limiting oneself to just a handful of lines means one has to write either very short pieces or be very creative in how the written materials relate to the actual performance (particular in regard to leaving a great deal of interpretive room to the performers). The fact that he was able to write around 600 compositions adhering to these limitations is inspiring, and I wonder if the limitations weren’t partly responsible for his productivity. </p>
<p>As both a teacher and a student, I’ve found that limitations help us focus our efforts on specific areas we want to improve. Music has a near-limitless number of elements, and we have to narrow our focus to deal with just one problem in order to improve. For example, if one is working on shifting positions, one shouldn’t be distracted by other things (complex picking/bowings, unusual fingerings, difficult rhythms, etc). The ability to identify, isolate and target very specific musical demands is one of the most important skills to develop as a musician, in my opinion. I consider a large part of the practicing I did from the ages of 20 to 30 to really be about developing this skill—learning how to learn, essentially—after which I was able to make my practicing (and teaching) exponentially more effective since I could precisely identify and target specific issues. Despite our culture’s current infatuation with multitasking, the reality is you really can’t focus on more than one thing at a time. In order to do more than one thing at a time, at least one of them (preferably both) need to be so ingrained as to be essentially automatic. So what we’re really trying to do when practicing is to make the ideal action the automatic one; this allows us to focus on higher-order concerns (dynamics, feelings, the attractive person in the second row, what the other musicians are playing, etc). Which—guess what—sounds a lot like freedom.<br><br>Anyway, this is a topic that I find interesting and relevant to being a musician and human, so I'd enjoy hearing your thoughts on the topic in the comments if you are so inclined. One could extend the topic to innumerable areas—politics & society, obviously, sports and athleticism, etc. </p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/57799662019-06-04T17:04:53-04:002022-01-13T01:10:28-05:00Here's where it starts<p>I'm going to be using this space to share what projects I'm working on, what I've been thinking about, and anything else I find interesting or cool.</p>
<p>I just finished composing some original music for a short documentary film, <em>Beirut on the Bayou</em>, by Brent Joseph and based on the <a contents="book of the same title by Raif Shwayri" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.amazon.com/Beirut-Bayou-Alfred-Louisiana-Lebanon/dp/1438460953" target="_blank">book of the same title by Raif Shwayri</a>. It was great working with Brent and a fun challenge to write music that connected my experience with Arabic music and my time in Louisiana, and I look forward to being able to share the results when the film is available. </p>
<p>Other things cooking:</p>
<p>I've been writing some etudes for the oud, and hope to make them available to students in the near future. Anyone who's studied with me knows my love of inventing practical musical exercises for developing specific skills. As a composer and a teacher, I find it a particularly satisfying challenge to write compositions that explore specific technical and musical challenges while still maintaining a musicality that makes them enjoyable to play rather than mere exercises.</p>
<p>Over the past several years, I've spent a lot of time transcribing music, particularly Arabic taqasim (improvisations). It's been a great learning experience, and I highly encourage fellow musicians and students to devote some time to it. While it's certainly challenging at first, it gets easier the more you do it. It's great for developing your ear and other aspects of musicianship. As my ear and transcription skills improved, it has actually become a lot of fun. As a practical matter, it's been helpful to learn music by just listening. I have a number of thoughts about the process that I'll share in another blog post, and eventually I'm going to make some of my transcriptions available as well as analysis. </p>
<p> </p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68601552015-02-08T15:40:00-05:002022-01-07T15:20:47-05:00Key-oriented perspective<p>It's very common in jazz education to encourage a chord-oriented perspective on improvisation. In many ways, this makes a lot of sense and can be a valuable way of analyzing the music. However, it runs the risk of one failing to see the forest for the trees when applied to many tonal jazz standards, where a key-oriented approach provides a better perspective of how everything really fits together. It can also lead to more lyrical, melodic lines that can provide a contrast to lines that outline the chord changes more. Ultimately, I think both perspectives have their place. Obviously, in tunes that are less tonal, the key-center perspective becomes much less useful.<br><br> I was thinking about this today and thought it would be interesting to look at the diatonic chords in a key, and compare what notes in the key worked where, to get a global view of the relationships. The results are interesting, I think:</p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr> <td style="text-align: center;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/4a64a5b338e8be57136dcccf3edd028460fb968a/original/scaledegrees2.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Green: works<br> Orange: mildly dissonant<br> Red: strong dissonance</td> </tr>
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<p>What is interesting here is how nearly every note in the key "works" against nearly every chord. In particular, that scale degrees 2, 3, 5, and 6 can be used anywhere. Note that this is 4/5 of the major pentatonic scale. The 7th degree works nearly everywhere (and even the dissonance against the ii chord is fairly mild). If you take 5, 6, 7, 2, 3, then you have the major pentatonic on the 5th degree as being a pretty much failsafe option against any diatonic chord. </p>
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<div>Also interesting: </div>
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<div>• Nothing conflicts with the IV chord (this is just the scale-oriented version of the observation from the standard chord-oriented perspective that the Lydian mode has no "avoid" note). </div>
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<div>• The 1st and 4th degrees are the only ones that are seriously problematic. The first degree clashes with the dominant functioning chords (V and vii°) and the 4th degree clashes with the tonic-functioning chords (I and iii, and to a lesser extent, vi).</div>
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<div>While I do not advocate mindlessly improvising according to general rules, I do think it is interesting and perhaps helpful to be aware of the relationships in the big picture. And of course "works" and "doesn't work" is a extremely simplistic framework for understanding relationships, one could conceivably do a much more nuanced chart of how every scale degree and chord relate to one another (and I think that every accomplished improviser does have a personal sense of this, whether or not it is conscious or articulated).</div>
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<div>For instance, a very slightly more nuanced chart might be:</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr> <td style="text-align: center;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/e8aca009d6a6ee85129eddf04453b3f989b35870/original/scaledegrees.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Same as above, but add:<br> Yellow: subtle tension</td> </tr>
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<div>The fourth degree on a minor chord has a slight tension to it in normal tonal progressions, so one could further refine the chart with this information. This is moving us a bit in the direction of a chord-oriented approach. However personally useful this is, it does make the big picture less clear, which is what I meant earlier about missing the forest for the trees.</div>
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<div>Then I thought, what about common chromatic chords? So I made the following chart:</div>
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<div>Obviously quite a bit more red here, as one might expect in restricting melody choices to diatonic scale degrees while adding in chromatic chords: at least one note in each chord is outside the key. </div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Here are my observations:</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">• The tonic works against all of these common chromatic chords. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">• II7, III7 and VI7 only have one conflict, the 4th of each chord (2, 5, and 6, respectively). This results in an interesting tetrachord that will work over all three: 1 3 4 7 (the two diatonic half-step pairs). Although a chord-oriented approach also advises against the 4th degree on a dominant chord, it is interesting to analyze these three dominants according to a chord-oriented approach to observe the differences: II7 (7, 1, 9, +9, 4, 5, 13), III7 (b13/+5, 7, 1, b9, +9, 4, 5), VI7 (+9, 4, 5, b13/+5, 7, 1, 9)—using notes from the key actually encourages the use of altered 9ths and 13ths with respect to the chordal harmony.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">• bVII7, a common chord in bebop, works great with the first 5 degrees of the scale (and results in 3, 5, 9, #11, 13 against the chord).</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">• #iv diminished 7, a troubling chord for a lot of students, works great with the simple 1 2 4 6 7 (rearranged as 6 1 4 7 2 it becomes 3, b5, 7, 11, b13 relative to the chord) </div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">One of the things that comes from adopting the perspective is that you start to see the key as stable, and the chords as merely temporary events that are happening in the context of the key. While it's important to be able to zero in on the notes that <b>change </b>(i.e., playing the "changes") it's also effective to emphasize the stable notes that aren't changing. The simple fact that the 5th degree works over every diatonic chord, for example, could be used as a unifying central element in an improvisation using many other elements. </div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I frequently make the observation that any note in a piece of music is simultaneously functioning with respect to the <i>key</i> and with respect to the current <i>chord</i>. That means that a chord can be stable/tense on two different levels at any given time, and they can agree or conflict (there are 4 different possibilities, obviously with many subtle gradations: key stable/chord stable, key stable/chord tense, key tense/chord stable, key tense/chord tense). It can be valuable to consider both ways that any note is working. Here is a chart with a few examples of how things can line up. In this case, I think it is helpful to consider more subtle shadings of tension, so here I only included unambiguous cases:</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Note that any note that is chromatic to the key would be fairly tense—this is an issue often that confuses students when they are told things like "natural 9 is consonant on a diminished chord", which is true (chord-stable), but in many key contexts, the natural 9 of the dim. chord is extremely key-tense. For example, the common #iv°7 would have #5 of the key, a very tense note, as the 9. It's not unusable, but it requires extra care to use it musically. Each particular combination of notes/chords is different, but you can see that there would be at least 3 basic categories of tension: stable (key-stable/chord-stable), mixed tension (key-stable/chord-tense, key-tense/chord-stable) and very tense (key-tense, chord-tense). </div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">For a practical exercise that has some relationship to all this analysis, see the following post:</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><p><a contents="https://brianprunka.com/words/blog/ear-conditioning" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://brianprunka.com/words/blog/ear-conditioning">https://brianprunka.com/words/blog/ear-conditioning</a></p></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This isn't really a methodical theory approach as much as it is just some thoughts and observations that I thought might be helpful. I'll be curious to hear any thoughts you might have in response to these ideas. </div>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68601562012-03-27T22:47:00-04:002022-01-07T15:35:23-05:00"Bill Evans"-derived Rootless voicings for guitar, part 2<p>Here are more rootless voicings for guitar, based on the "Bill Evans" left-hand style voicings.<br><br>These are mostly drop-2 chords, so unlike Evans's close voicings, these are open voicings. This does change the character of the sonority considerably; if the aspect of Evans's voicings that you want to imitate is the crunch of the 2nd, then the close voicings in the previous post or 3-note voicings would be more appropriate. That consideration aside, these are very useful and hip-sounding voicings.<br><br>Perhaps I'll deal with a 3-note voicing approach in some future post.<br><br>Again, I've arranged these in the context of a II V I progression to clarify the voice leading and usage.<br>See my notes from the <a data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://brianprunka.com/words/blog/bill-evans-style-rootless-close-voicings-for-guitar-ii-v-i" style="">previous post</a> for more details.<br><br>These are all on the 1234 string set, but most of these can be translated to the 2345 string set. You can do this yourself (it's a great way to learn), or wait a few days and I'll post the 2345 voicings.<br> </p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr> <td style="text-align: center;"> <p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/dbab2f339512e2eeafe21d3704f6cbd26a6087fe/original/1-3-7-3-1.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Jazz Guitar Chords - Rootless Voicings ii7-V7-I" /></p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bill Evans Rootless Guitar voicings, 1234 string set, page1</td> </tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr> <td style="text-align: center;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/7e82b5bae68bdeb43c91328bf47e0ea0db1e6d53/original/1-3-7-3-2.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Jazz Guitar Rootless Chord Voicings - II V I" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bill Evans Rootless Guitar voicings, 1234 string set, page 2</td> </tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr> <td style="text-align: center;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/83a191145509a5acccecbe33df9dc193f1614672/original/1-3-7-3-3.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Rootless Chord Voicings for Jazz Guitar - Dominant V7" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bill Evans Rootless Guitar voicings, 1234 string set, page 3</td> <td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> </td> </tr>
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<p><br> At this point, you may be wondering about the directive that the voicings must have either the 3rd or 7th (or 6th) on the bottom.<br><br> The main reason for this is that without the root motion, the 3rds and 7ths provide the clearest definition of the chord sound; having them on the bottom just makes it sound stronger. However, the reality is that you may sometimes prefer to voice another note on the bottom; the alternatives obviously are 1 (or 9) and 5 (or 6).<br><br>Interestingly, if you alternate all 3rds and 7ths, <b>or</b> all roots and 5ths, you end up with smooth descending voice leading through circle of 5ths progressions.<br>If instead, you mix them, you can create interesting contours, some ascending and others descending.<br>For instance, 3579 to 1367 to 5793 to 3579 creates a general upward movement instead of downward.<br><br>Also, when comping, the general downward trend of tonal voice-leading means you eventually either run out of fretboard (or keyboard), or you have to break the voice-leading by leaping upward occasionally. There are a few ways to smooth this out.<br><br>One is to make the leaps after cadences, where they are less disruptive (e.g., ii7 V7 I VI7, you leap to the VI7, not to the V7 or I, so that the cadence has smooth voice-leading).<br><br>The other is to make judicious use of inversions that lead upward once in a while—for this, the voicings with the 1, 9 or 5 on the bottom are most useful.<br><br>I suggest mastering a substantial portion of the voicings with the 3rd and 7th on the bottom before messing with the others.</p>
<p> </p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68601572012-03-25T13:23:00-04:002022-01-07T15:36:48-05:00Added-Note Triad Applications<p>The uses of triads for an improviser are nearly limitless. As I hinted at in my previous post on <a href="https://brianprunka.com/words/blog/digital-patterns" style="">digital patterns</a>, adding a note to a triad to create a four-note group can create a lot of possibilities. The standard digital patterns 1235, 1345, and 1356 are all examples of a triad with an added note (1356 and 1357 can also be considered arpeggios). <br><br>I'm working on putting a whole book together of various ways of incorporating triads into your playing. Here's an excerpt from the section on added-note triads. I indicate the scales in which the pattern can be found, as well as the main harmonies over which it can be used. Of course, these can be used with substitutions as well, and with more 'outside' playing to break out of the strict harmony.<br><br>I indicate the pattern with either a capital or small "m" for major or minor triad, "A" for augmented, "d" for diminished, with the interval from the root of the triad (using +/- to indicate a sharpened or flattened degree. For example, M-2 = Major, with added b2.<br> </p>
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<p><br>There are a lot of ways to practice incorporating these ideas. The first thing I would suggest is getting familiar with all the inversions and permutations. Then pick a simple chord progression like "Autumn Leaves" and figure out all the places where various transpositions can be used.<br><br>For example: M4<br>Cm7: BbM4, FM4, EbM4<br>F7: FM4, DbM4, GM4, AbM4, BM4(Tritone sub)<br>Bbmaj7: FM4, BbM4, CM4, AM4, DM4<br>Ebmaj7: BbM4, FM4, EbM4, DM4, GM4<br>Aø7: FM4, GM4, EbM4(Tritone sub)<br>D7: DM4, BbM4, FM4, AbM4 (Tritone sub), EM4, BM4<br>Gm6: DM4, CM4, FM4<br><br>Have fun! </p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68601582012-03-25T01:52:00-04:002022-01-07T15:37:24-05:00"Bill Evans"-Style Rootless close voicings for guitar — II V I<p>Here is a set of rootless voicings for guitar that I adapted from the stock "Bill Evans" style left-hand voicings. I show them in a II V I context to illustrate the voice leading, but they can of course be adapted to fit any chord progression.<br><br>Close voicings tend to be difficult on the guitar, as they contain smaller intervals. Many of these involve challenging, but not impractical stretches: they should be usable by most guitarists, unless you have rather small hands. When practicing these, make sure you are warmed up first, well-hydrated, and take frequent breaks, as it is easy to overdo it when practicing these kinds of stretches and you want to avoid injury.<br><br>For those unfamiliar with the principles of the "Bill Evans" style voicings, here are the main principles:<br> </p>
<table cellpadding="8" cellspacing="8"><tbody> <tr> <td> • They are generally voiced with either the 3rd or 7th on the bottom</td> </tr> <tr> <td> • The basic structures are 3715 or 7135—note that the chord can contain the root, they are just "rootless" in the sense that the root is not in the bass</td> </tr> <tr> <td> • On m7 chords, the root may be replaced with the 9th, and the 5th may be replaced with the 11th</td> </tr> <tr> <td> • On 7 chords, the root may be replaced with the 9th, and the 5th may be replaced with the 13th or #11 if appropriate</td> </tr> <tr> <td> • On Maj7 chords, the root may be replaced with the 9th, the 5th or 7th may be replaced with the 6th</td> </tr> <tr> <td> • One m(maj7) chords, the root may be replaced by the 9th, the 5th or 7th may be replaced with the 6th</td> </tr> <tr> <td> • In circle of 5ths motion, alternating voicings with 3 and 7 on the bottom will create smooth voice leading.</td> </tr>
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<p><br>Here are the resulting possible combinations (not voicings, just note choices):<br><br>m7 (1 3 5 7), m9 (9 3 5 7), m11 (1 3 4 7), m11 (9 3 4 7)<br>7 (1 3 5 7), 9 (9 3 5 7), 13 (1 3 6 7), 13 (9 3 6 7), #11 (1 3 #4 7), #11 (9 3 #4 7)<br>Maj7 (1 3 5 7), Maj9 (9 3 5 7), Maj13 (1 3 6 7), Maj 13 (9 3 6 7)<br>6 (1 3 5 6), 6/9 (9 3 5 6)<br>m6 (1 3 5 6), m6/9 (9 3 5 6)<br>m(maj7) (1 3 5 7), m9(maj7) (9 3 5 7), m13(maj7) (1 3 6 7), m13(maj7) (9 3 6 7)<br><br>Of course, the 9ths on the 7 chords can be altered as well, and #11s can replace 5ths in the maj7 chords also when appropriate. I also bent the "rules" in a couple of cases because of guitar limitations.<br><br><br>On the following pages, the chords are presented in columns. Any chord in the II column can lead to any chord in the V column, which can in turn lead to any chord in the I column.<br><br>This isn't to say that all combinations work equally well or in all cases. <br>For example, using a m13(maj7) chord when the chord in the tune is Maj7 will probably not work so great (but don't let me stop you!).<br><br>Here are the voicings where the II chord has the 3rd on the bottom. Because of the 2nd between 7-1 and 9-3 that occurs on the II and I chord when you start with the 7th on the bottom, there are not many practical voicings on guitar that way. There are some, however, and I'll post them soon along with the drop-2 versions of the chords and some tips on how to get creative with them while comping.</p>
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<p> </p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68601592012-03-21T09:46:00-04:002022-01-07T15:38:29-05:00Digital Patterns<p>Okay, I haven't posted in a year. Here's a little worksheet of common patterns that are often used by modern improvisers. John Coltrane was probably the first to make notable use of these kinds of patterns, which he did on the record "Giant Steps".<br><br>I took the basic patterns and explored the possibilities for reordering the notes and for octave displacement.<br><br>There are 24 different ways to order four notes, these are all listed for each type.<br>If you add in octave displacement of various notes, you end up a lot more variations. I just did the first example from each chord type . . . you can work out the rest.<br> </p>
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<p><br>You can use these starting on different chord degrees, the first page lists some possibilities:<br> • Use the major pattern from the root or 5th of a maj7 chord, or from the 3rd or 7th of a min7 chord<br> • Use the minor pattern from the 3rd or 6th of a maj7 chord, or from the root or 5th of a min7 chord<br><br>There are other possibilities for half-diminished, diminished, or dominant chords:<br>Dominant: Major from root or 6th, dim. from 3rd, minor from 5th<br>Diminished: Dim. from root, b3, b5, or 6 (bb7)<br>Half-diminished (min7b5): Dim. from root, minor from b3 or 4, aug. from b5, major from 7.<br><br>By altering these, you can get a bunch of patterns that are useful over dominant and diminished.<br>You can also substitute and extend these, for example:<br> • Playing the patterns for Db7 will give you altered sounds when applied to G7<br> • Playing the patterns for Em7 will give you Lydian sounds when applied to Cmaj7<br> • The patterns for min7b5 work for a min6 chord a m3rd up (use Amin7b5 for Cmin6)<br><br>Which brings up another idea, these patterns are all a triad with one added note, a useful concept. Could be another post to come . . .<br><br>PDF <a href="http://www.jazzoud.com/digital_patterns.pdf"><b>here</b></a></p>
<p> </p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68601602010-12-17T17:10:00-05:002022-01-07T16:58:56-05:00Ear Conditioning<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/39f3af58ddeb4a62f43f08d86716ffb7a097544a/original/ear-note.png/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.png" class="size_m justify_right border_none" alt="Musical Ear Icon" />Here's an (IMHO) excellent exercise that trains your ears and works on connecting your hearing and improvising. I forget where I got the initial idea, but this the the procedure I've developed and found helpful:<br><br><br>Take a chord progression (maybe a blues to start, or just I-vi-ii-V, or an easy standard like Autumn Leaves). Play through the whole chord progression on a chordal instrument, very slowly, while singing the tonic of the key over every chord (even the ones where it doesn't 'fit', even if the apparent key changes).<br><br>Repeat, singing the 3rd of the key.<br>Repeat, singing just 1 and 3.<br>Repeat, singing the 5th of the key. Then combine 1, 3 and 5. Depending on your range, you may add in octaves of these notes as well.<br><br>You may be surprised at this point how much music can be made with just those three notes, and that most chord changes can be negotiated by simply switching to one of the other two notes.<br><br>Keep repeating the tune (over several practice sessions), adding in the remaining diatonic tones. I recommend the following order: 6th, 2nd, 7th, and 4th, but feel free to experiment.<br><br>When you add a new interval follow the following pattern:<br>1st chorus: only the new interval {x}<br>2nd chorus: only 1 + {x}<br>3rd chorus: only 1, 3, 5 + {x}<br>4th chorus: all intervals<br><br>Once you can do this, again it may seem surprising how much you can play and negotiate changes just using the diatonic notes, by hearing which notes work where and how.<br><br>Then you can start adding in chromatic tones. I like to start with the "blues notes": b3, #4, b7. Then eventually add #5 and finally b2 (crunchy!).<br><br>In all of the above, I'm talking about the interval in the key, not intervals in relation to each chord.<br><br>Once you've done all 12 notes, then you can try going through the progression singing the root of each chord, then the 3rd, 5th, etc.<br><br>Note that different keys will put different intervals in different parts of your range. Practicing in different keys is helpful so that sometimes the tonic is in the middle of your range, sometimes at the low end, etc.</p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68601612010-08-25T01:22:00-04:002022-01-07T17:36:29-05:00Maj7#5<p><b>Update:</b> I linked some parts to my previous posts on Augmented Scale ideas.<br><br>Over at the <a href="http://forums.allaboutjazz.com">All About Jazz forum</a>, someone asked for suggestions about how to approach Maj7#5 chords. As this is a sound I'm fond of and have spent considerable time exploring, I posted a rather lengthy response.<br>I'm reprinting part of my response here, since I think it may be of general interest. It's somewhat off the cuff, so the information is probably not optimally organized, so apologies in advance.<br><br>--<br><br>Maj7#5 can take some different sounds, depending on context. Lydian Augmented (third mode of melodic minor) is one of the scales most commonly recommended as being compatible with a Maj7#5 chord. It's not the only one, though, and others might work much better, depending on the context.<br><br>Here are some other possibilities:<br><br>Harmonic Minor, 3rd mode (A harm.minor = CMaj7#5)<br><br>Harmonic Major (C harm. major = CMaj7#5)<br><br>Harmonic Major, 6th mode (E harm. major = Cmaj7#5)<br><br>Lydian #5 #2 (C D# E F# G# A B --this is Melodic Minor #4, 3rd mode, i.e., A Melodic Minor #4 for Cmaj7#5)<br><br>Symmetrical Augmented scale (C D# E G Ab B)<br><br>Harmonic Major (6th mode) is the same as Melodic Minor #4 (3rd mode) AKA Lydian #2 #5. Just two ways of thinking about it.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/317070d3a0b36af4cb8a87c6fdd673d0fd0bf096/original/maj7-5-alternatives-001.png/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Maj7 Augmented Scales for Jazz Improvisation " /></p>
<p><br>What notes will work best over the chord will depend greatly on the harmonic context, e.g. the preceding and following chords, etc.<br><br>Try finding some tunes that have the sound in it, substituting it in standards, or writing your own, to experiment with different contexts.<br><br>The symmetrical augmented scale is a great sound and can be considered as two augmented triads a 1/2 step apart (contrast with the whole tone scale: two augmented triads a whole step apart). Since augmented chords are symmetrical, any note can be considered the root.<br><br>Cmaj7#5: C+/B+ or E+/D#+, or Ab+/G+<br><br>You can also extend each triad into a maj7 arpeggio:<br>Cmaj7, Emaj7, Abmaj7<br><br>see: <a href="https://brianprunka.com/words/blog/more-augmented-scale" style="">More Augmented Scale</a><br><br>or maj7#9:<br>Cmaj7#9, Emaj7#9, Abmaj7#9<br><br>Or you could construct arpeggios by combining the triad pairs into polychords:<br><br>B+|C+<br>=<br>C E G# B D# G<br><br>Eb+|E+<br>=<br>E G# C Eb G B<br><br>G+|Ab+<br>=<br>Ab C E G B D#<br><br><br>You can also reconsider the scale as a major and minor triad a m6 apart:<br><br>C/Abm or E/Cm or Ab/Em<br><br>There are a million ways to practice these.<br><br><a href="https://brianprunka.com/words/blog/triads-in-the-augmented-scale" style="">Triads in the Augmented Scale</a><br><br>One observation:<br><br>Of all the different scale choices over Maj7#5, two particular areas tend to stand out for me:<br><br>The choice of whether to incorporate a P4 vs. an A4<br>The choice of whether or the M6 is included (the alternative is generally the P5)<br><br>Since these involve half-steps above the determining color tones of the chord, care must be taken with the melodic resolution tendencies.<br><br>The choice of A2 vs. M2 (i.e., #9 vs. 9) is a useful color, but rarely obscures the harmony.<br><br>1. Lydian Augmented: has #4 and M6. The #4 implies a Lydian sound and can be a sustained tension, but the dissonance of the M6 obscures the harmony and must be used carefully<br><br>2. Harmonic Minor, 3rd mode (Ionian #5): Has P4 and M6, both of which can obscure the harmony and require careful use.<br><br>3. Harmonic Major (Ionian b6): Has P4, but no M6.<br><br>4. Harmonic Major, 6th mode (Lydian Augmented #2): Has #4 and M6, like Lydian Augmented.<br><br>5. Symmetrical Augmented: has neither P4, A4, or M6.<br><br>Since #5 omits the problematic tones, it may be an easier scale to start with: it is less likely to lead to obvious clams.<br><br>One could create another 6-note scale that leaves out both P4, A4 and M6:<br>C D E G Ab B. Such a scale might be useful. It could be viewed as a C+/G triad pair or (perhaps less usefully) as a C/Abdim triad pair.<br><br>There are a couple of hexatonic subsets that leave out P4 and M6, but include the A4:<br>C D E F# G# B: this is C+/Bm, a subset of Lydian Augmented<br>C D# E F# G# B: This is C+/B, a subset of Lydian Augmented #2<br><br>The following pentatonics can work as well:<br>E F# G# B D (these notes form an E9 chord)<br>Ab B C E F# (these notes form an Ab7+5+9 chord)<br>C D E F# G# (this is a subset of the whole tone scale, omitting the b7, or the Lydian Augmented, omitting the 6 and 7)<br>E F# G# B C# (E6 chord or E Maj pentatonic)<br><br>The last one includes a b9 on the chord, but this can be a great sound on a modern tune, especially if the chord lasts for a measure or more. It usually works better in the upper register, where it sounds like an extension.<br>__________________<br><br><br>So there end up being four primary 7-note scale and one 6-note scale possibilities, and a number of pentatonic and hexatonic choices. Here again are the five primary types:<br><br>1. Lydian Augmented (AKA Melodic Minor, 3rd mode):<br>R M2 M3 A4 A5 M6 M7<br><br>2. Harmonic Minor, 3rd mode (AKA Major #5):<br>R M2 M3 P4 A5 M6 M7<br><br>3. Harmonic Major:<br>R M2 M3 P4 P5 m6 M7<br><br>4. Harmonic Major, 6th mode (AKA Melodic Minor #4, 3rd mode AKA Lydian Augmented #2):<br>R A2 M3 A4 A5 M6 M7<br><br>5. Symmetrical Augmented:<br>R A2 M3 P5 m6 M7<br><br>Not all choices work equally well in all situations.<br>No warranty is expressed or implied; indiscriminate scale usage may result in clams, tomatoes, or acts of violence. I do not take responsibility for the careless use of the above information.<br><br>happy improvising!</p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68601622010-03-11T22:51:00-05:002022-01-07T17:37:36-05:00Guitar Players: Learn all the notes--update<p>As a follow up to the previous post about how to learn the notes on the guitar neck, I made a graphic to visually represent the "white notes" on the guitar. This is what you should 'see' when you look at or think of the guitar fretboard.<br> </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/9199418104db24098992bfe941fc9388ebce28be/original/neck-map.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Guitar Neck - Visualize as Piano White and Black Notes" /></div>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68601632010-02-26T13:52:00-05:002022-01-07T17:37:09-05:00Ear Training<p>Ear training is obviously an extremely important pursuit for improvising musicians. I spend a significant portion of my practice time on ear training activities, and try to find ways to incorporate an ear training aspect into all of my practicing.<br><br>One of the things that makes harmony so complex is that as you add notes, the complexity increasing in a combinatorial way, not an additive way. For example:<br><br>If you hear an E against a C, it's one piece of information: major 3rd.<br><br>If you hear an E and a G against a C it's 3 pieces of information: major 3rd between C and E, perfect 5th between C and G, and minor 3rd between E and G.<br><br>If you hear an E, G, and B, against a C, it's 6 pieces of information: major 3rd between C and E, perfect 5th between C and G, and minor 3rd between E and G, major 7th between C and B, perfect 5th between E and B, major 3rd between G and B.<br><br>If you hear EGBD against C, it's 10 pieces of information: major 3rd between C and E, perfect 5th between C and G, and minor 3rd between E and G, major 7th between C and B, perfect 5th between E and B, major 3rd between G and B, major 9th between C and D, minor 7th between E and D, perfect 5th between G and D, minor 3rd between B and D.<br><br>Et Cetera.<br><br>So in order to learn all the sounds, we need to give names to specific combinations, like triads, and ultimately triads with added notes (including 7ths).<br><br>I've made a set of audio files (mp3 format) based on an exercise suggested by Rufus Reid. Each file presents one of the four triads (Major, Minor, Augmented, or Diminished), and alternates with adding one of the twelve available tones to it. The idea is to learn to hear the sound of all the available notes over each type of chord.<br><br>Download file <a href="http://www.jazzoud.com/EarTraining.zip">here</a>.<br><br>I used triads because once you can identify the sound of the 6ths and 7ths over a triad, then hearing more complex chords is merely a matter of identifying the chord as (Maj, Min, Aug, or Dim) triad+(6, b7, or 7) + additional note(s).<br><br>There are more than 12 files for each chord, because I included some notes in more than one octave (specifically, the 2nds/9th, 3rds/10ths, 4ths/11ths, and 7ths). I did this because these notes can have some additional different characteristics when voiced close to the chord, and these differences can distract you from hearing the essential characteristics. For these notes, I suggest spending some time going back and forth between the lower and higher version in order to focus on part of the sound that doesn't depend on what octave you're in.<br><br>There's a lot here (76 33-second clips), but it's pretty manageable. There are a lot of ways to work with these files. Here are some suggested playlists:<br><br>All Major Triads<br>All Minor Triads<br>All Dim. Triads<br>All Aug. Triads<br>comparing 3rds/10ths<br>comparing 4ths/11ths<br>comparing 2nds/9ths<br>comparing 7ths close-voiced or spread<br>All 7ths (or any other interval) over Maj, Min, Aug, Dim triads<br>Compare min chord with added M3 with major chord with added b3: very interesting!<br>Compare maj chord with added b6 with augmented chord with added P5<br>Compare min chord with added #4 with dim chord with added P5<br>etc.<br><br>I hope this is helpful!<br><br>PS. There's tons of stuff out there written about ear training, but here are a few of my observations:<br><br>-Singing is extremely important.<br>-Singing over a drone is extremely helpful.<br>-Deliberately 'hearing' notes in your head before you sing them is very important. You can also use this to work on mentally 'hearing' more than one note at a time.<br>-Visualizing notes on your instrument as you mentally 'hear' them and/or sing them is very helpful. Visualizing a piano (if your main instrument is not piano) and written music are also helpful.<br>-Singing the root motion of chord progressions is great exercise. So is singing guide tone lines (3rds and 7ths)<br>-Intervals can be heard two ways: as harmonic events or as distances. Of the two, it's more important to hear the harmonic event (even when presented melodically). But it's helpful to learn to recognize the sound of a particular distance as well (some people argue that distance-hearing will actually impede your development, but I'm not convinced).<br>-Testing your ear is not necessarily the same as training it, though it can be helpful.<br>-One of the main ways we learn to distinguish similar things is through comparison.</p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68601642010-02-24T22:09:00-05:002022-01-07T17:38:16-05:00Guitar Players only: Learn all the notes on the neck in 5 weeks.<p>This post is directed at guitar players, all other instruments can safely ignore it. It's a quick 5 minute lesson that will result in your knowing the whole neck if you practice about 5 minutes a day for 5 weeks.<br><br>In teaching, I've found that one of the biggest obstacles for guitar players is learning the notes that they're playing. It impedes reading skills, chord knowledge and construction, analysis and comprehension, etc.<br>You can learn a lot by studying shapes on guitar, but at some point you just have to know all the notes on the fretboard.<br><br>This can seem like a daunting task: after all, there are six strings with 12 notes each (assuming that you can at least identify the 12th fret and higher as repeats of what happens in the first 12 frets), making for a total of 72 notes to learn (compared with 12 on a piano or most other instruments).<br><br>Fortunately, it's not as big a task as it seems at first. You just have to break it down in a manageable way. <br>Here's how I learned all the notes on the guitar:<br><br>1) First of all, you only have to learn 5 strings, because two of them are E strings and have the same notes. So already we've cut the total information to be learned down to 60 notes.<br><br>2) You don't actually have to learn all of the notes on the fretboard to know all of the notes. You only have to learn the "white" notes, i.e., notes that are white keys on a standard keyboard and thus don't require accidentals in written sheet music: CDEFGAB.<br>From there, the "black" notes are obvious. Since you only have to learn 7 notes per string, we've now reduced the total amount of information to 35 notes, which is less than half of what it seemed like at the start.<br><br>3) The "white" notes have a pattern. Learning the pattern makes learning the notes much easier. How do you identify a C on a keyboard? It has a white key to the left and two black keys to the right. If you can learn to 'see' that pattern on the guitar fingerboard, then you are halfway to knowing the notes.<br>From C: W W H W W W H (W=whole-step, H=half-step). So there are two "natural" half-steps among the "white" notes. Learn where those are on each string. Since you know that the notes in between are all whole steps, you can start internalizing the pattern.<br>So you can make a good start with learning the location of the 2 half steps on each of the 5 strings, which is only 10 pieces of information. Much easier than 72!<br><br>So here's the practice routine:<br>work on one string a week for 5 minutes a day.<br><br>on each string, first locate the BC half-step and the EF half-step. Play only on that string and play only those notes, saying the notes to yourself as you play them.<br>When you can do this comfortably (for most students it seems to take about 1-2 minutes the first time), then try to play up and down from the open string to the 12th fret and back, using only the 'white' notes, and saying them as you play them.<br>When you can do that comfortably, you can try to improvise, again using only the 'white' notes. It's very important that you don't use any 'black' notes! You are internalizing the pattern at this point, and anything outside the pattern will interfere with that all-important process.<br><br>Repeat this, on the same string, every day for the rest of the week.<br><br>Next week, start with another string and do the same thing. On the 7th day of the week, make sure to spend some time reviewing the string from the previous week.<br><br>Do the same for the remaining strings.<br><br>In five weeks, you will be amazed to find that you simply 'see' all the notes on the fingerboard, without even thinking about it.<br><br>You're welcome!<br><br>PS. By the way, this lesson was heavily influenced by ideas presented by Mick Goodrick in "the Advancing Guitarist', which is an amazing book.<br><br><b>UPDATE!</b><br>I've made a graphic to help visualize the <a data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://brianprunka.com/words/blog/guitar-players-learn-all-the-notes-update" style="">white note patterns</a> on the neck.</p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68601652010-02-22T20:21:00-05:002022-01-07T18:14:46-05:00Starting and Ending Phrases, Cont'd.<p>One specific idea for using wider intervals in the beginnings and endings of phrases is to land on a chord tone and leap two chord tones up or down. This is effective at both the beginnings and endings of phrases or as a standalone melodic motive. All the great improvisers use this idea. <br><br>The example below shows what I mean. Over a C major chord, you could play a C and jump down to E (skipping the closest chord tone, G). There are three notes in the triad, so there are only six possibilities (R down to 3rd, 3rd down to 5th, 5th down to root, root up to 5th, 3rd up to root, 5th up to 3rd). <br><br>There are also many ways to embellish this idea, with approach tones to the first note or to the second note. Any of the typical embellishments can work on either note (diatonic or chromatic approach, enclosure/encirclement, neighbor tone, etc.). I show a couple of basic examples below.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/e0d08350ee0058c1d9c6747de584009b6923fc23/original/ending-intervals2.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Jazz Improvisation - Intervallic Chord Tone Concept" /></div>
<p><br>A good exercise is to pick a particular leap and practice it with a particular approach or ornament through all the changes of a tune. Trying to land directly on "1" each time also helps practice forward momentum by hearing and directing your lines toward a conclusion. Here's example showing one variation, using a common chord progression:</p>
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<br>Of course, you would want to create further variations, using the other possible leaps and varying both the approach and resolution.</div>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68601662009-12-21T22:52:00-05:002022-01-07T18:12:04-05:00Starting and Ending Phrases<p>Large intervallic leaps and interesting rhythms can make phrases more compelling. The most effective place to use both devices is at the beginnings and endings of phrases. Intensifying one's focus on how one starts and concludes improvised musical phrases has added benefits as well.<br><br>Some ways I like to practice this vary from very general to quite specific. Here are some examples:<br><br>Start every phrase with a large leap (P5 or larger).<br>Start every phrase with a large leap, continue with a line in the opposite direction.<br>Start every phrase with a large leap from one chord tone to another.<br>Start every phrase with a large leap from a chord tone to a tension, resolving to another chord tone.<br>Start every phrase with a leap of a [3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, Octave]<br>Start every phrase with a leap of [m3, M3, P4, A4, P5, m6, M6, m7 M7]<br>Start every phrase with an ascending leap.<br>Start every phrase with a descending leap.<br>Alternate starting phrases with ascending and descending leaps.<br><br><br>All of the above can be applied to ending phrases as well. I find it helpful to focus on one or the other at first, then investigate ways of combining them:<br><br><br>Start every phrase with an ascending leap, end with a descending leap.<br>Start and end every phrase with a leap of a P5 (or any specific interval).<br>Start every phrase with a P5 (or any specific interval), end with a M7 (or any different specific interval).<br><br>Etc., etc. . . . there are practically infinite variations you could some up with.<br><br>You can do something similar by picking a specific rhythm (usually involving a syncopation) or a few rhythms to work on starting and ending phrases in rhythmically interesting ways. You can make this more challenging by displacing the rhythm in various ways (e.g., 8th-quarter-quarter, start on 1, 2, 3, or 4, or start on any of the offbeats). <br><br>Working on these ideas overlaps somewhat with the notion of soloing using rhythmic and melodic motives, and will make your improvisations more cohesive.<br><br>An additional idea: try to start each phrase with the same note that you ended the last phrase with. This is a subtle trait in a lot of music, once you start analyzing music with it in mind, it's all over the place. I think it comes from the fact that when singing a new phrase, it's much easier if it starts on or near the last note you sang.<br>This idea can be used as a standalone exercise, or a way of building on another exercise (you could use it as an additional parameter in any of the above suggestions).</p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68601692009-11-15T12:17:00-05:002022-01-07T17:41:31-05:00Kurt Rosenwinkel: Zhivago<p>Here transcription of "the lick" from Zhivago. I've deconstructed it and will post some of what I came up with in the next post.<br><br>Note that he's using his weird tuning so there are some unreachable low notes for a standard guitar.<br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/b50cf862cd51b2d1d6e76caea3cd418415dfe4ec/original/rosenwinkel-zhivago.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68601702009-11-13T20:58:00-05:002022-01-07T17:52:11-05:00More Augmented Scale<p>Here's a continuation of the previous Augmented scale study, using three maj7 chords.<br><br>Since the augmented scale can be related to three augmented tonics, it makes sense to me to relate it to the harmonic major (major b6) scale on each of those tonics.<br><br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/af3aa2b68b73d9307311e01f8d30545cdaebf29c/original/aug-scale-patt2.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Arpeggios for Jazz Improvisation - Augmented Maj7 Chords" /></p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68601712009-11-12T14:07:00-05:002022-01-07T17:50:22-05:00Triads in the Augmented Scale<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/4be7502097bf57c13ad7f06d698329b2a3eb26ff/original/aug-scale-patt1.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Triads for Jazz Improvisation - Symmetrical Augmented" /><br>Here's an an older one from my workbooks. I've spent a lot of time exploring the possibilities for using various triads in improvisation. They create such strong lines and have a compelling internal logic an musicality.<br><br>These examples are pretty bare-bones, but there's a lot to work with.<br>The Augmented (aka symmetrical augmented) scale is made up of two augmented triads a half-step apart.<br>It works well over Maj7#5 chords built off the higher of the two triads (it implies a Maj7#5#9 chord). It also works over a dominant 7th chord built off the lower of the two triads (implies 13#5b9).</p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68601722009-11-11T23:37:00-05:002022-01-07T17:53:55-05:00Triads in the Diminished scale<p>I haven't posted anything to the blog in a while (obviously), but not because I haven't had anything to post! I'm just a bit of a perfectionist and it's been hard to find the time to put stuff into a form that will make sense to other people. I've decided to post stuff a little more haphazardly for now, just so it's more regular.<br><br>Here's something from my pile of things I'm working on. The diminished scale has a wide variety of sounds within it, including three different kinds of triads (diminished, minor, and major). This is just a basic presentation of the possible diatonic triads. Interestingly, if you start with a diminished triad and proceed diatonically you get all diminished triads, <span style="font-weight:bold;">but</span> if you start with a major or minor triad and proceed diatonically, you get alternating major and minor triads.<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/426c9aa5d0f706cec598b28b08725803e2bf5c44/original/dim-triad-exercises.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Triads for Jazz - Diminished Scale Improvisation" /></p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68601732008-12-12T23:25:00-05:002022-01-07T18:02:29-05:00The whole Whole Tone<p>I like the whole-tone sound, but it can get kind of boring and predictable (true of all the symmetrical scales, but especially the whole tone, since it has the most repetitive pattern . . . whole step, whole step, whole step, whole step, whole step, whole step). I've been exploring ways to spice it up.<br><br>One way is to add chromatic passing tones between whole tone degrees. Here are two ways to do it that keep the root, 3rd, and #5 on the beats.<br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/6e7956c9801c91ffc4493def49bd1e5806be608a/original/chromatic-wt.gif/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Jazz Whole Tone Scale with Passing Tones" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><br><br>Two augmented triads a step apart have all the notes of the whole-tone scale.<br>Like in the previous post, whole steps can be filled in chromatically.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">Here are a couple of very basic versions of Db+ and Eb+ connected by chromatic passing tones (the first line just shows the basic triads).</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/689f3f050997b75c301c921116022e7a8ee3ae88/original/2-aug-triads.gif/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Triads with Passing Tones - Jazz Whole Tone Improvisation" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><br><br>Here are some other ideas for embellishing the whole tone scale:</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/2b281249dc056a9d5a29e11a3818cc980007f0fe/original/aug-wholetone.gif/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Whole Tone Improvisation Techniques" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><br><br>The first two use the Db+ Eb+ triad pair. The next two just enclose every scale tone (chromatically below, diatonically above).</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">The next line just encloses one of the two triads.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">The last line alternates chromatic approach from below and neighbor tone above on different chord tones, always skipping past one chord tone and resolving in the opposite direction.</p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68601742008-12-12T22:12:00-05:002022-01-30T22:30:26-05:00Two Triads Connected by Chromatic Passing Tone<p>Okay, here's the first post . . . ready?<br><br>This is something I've been working on. It was inspired (somewhat secondhand) by George Garzone. Garzone has a whole triadic concept for improvising that I don't know a whole lot about, but some people who have studied with him have mentioned aspects of it to me in passing (his book is kind of a lot of money, but I hope to check it out at some point). An important part of it is connecting triads chromatically by half step and chromatic whole steps. From what I understand, his thing is pretty involved and deals with how you use different inversions, etc. It results in a interesting kind of inside/outside playing. This is sort of some tangential stuff related to a more general approach to improvising with triads, but focusing on the idea of connecting them chromatically. For this exercise I focus on one of the most common pairs of triads: two major triads a whole step apart (Garzone's idea seems to be about freely moving between more or less random triads and resolving them well into the changes, this is just inspired by one aspect of that, and not really related to trying to do that).<br><br>Triad pairs are pretty useful in improvising. The can create a lot of interesting sounds. If the triads have no notes in common, then they represent a hexatonic (6-note scale), which gives you a pretty complete harmonic palette to work with.<br><br>One of the most useful/common triad pairs is two major triads a whole step apart. This is a popular sound, Kurt Rosenwinkel uses it a lot (which is how I first got turned on to it).<br><br>From the standpoint of conventional chord-scale theory, these can represent the IV and V chord from either the major or melodic minor scale. This means they work well on almost any chord from the major scale and on any chord from the melodic minor.<br><br>Here I present C and D triads, which would be IV and V in G.<br><br>The diatonic chords in G major:<br>Gmaj7 Ami7 Bmi7 Cmaj7 D7 Emi7 F#mi7b5<br>Of these, the two triads work most easily over:<br>IV: Cmaj7 (C=1 3 5, D=9 #11 13) and<br>V: D7 (C=7 9 11, D= 1 3 5)<br>Not surprising, since they're IV and V . . .<br><br>They work over ii (Ami7) as well, especially if it's going to D7.<br>They also work well over the viiø (F#mi7b5), but you have to be sensitive to resolving the G to F#.<br><br>They can work on the I (Gmaj7), but you have to be pretty careful to make sure you resolve the C to a B (the 3rd) at some point.<br><br>They work fine on the vi (Emi7), but tend to obscure the function of the chord (to my ear, anyway). Maybe that's what you want. Or maybe it's not a functional chord (like the bridge on Milestones). In that case, they can sound pretty great.<br><br>They work over the iii, but mainly if it's a phrygian chord in a modal context, e.g., B7sus4(b9) or C/B or similar sound. Again, that's to my ear. It can work in a functional context if you're really strong with resolving all the tension that's in the C triad.<br><br>In G minor:<br>Gmi(Ma7), Ami7, Bbmaj5(#5#11), C7(#11), D7(#5), Emi7b5, F#7alt<br>They work great over all these chords. They do obscure the function of the Gmi chord somewhat, but I wouldn't worry about it too much.<br><br>That's the basic usage of these two triads. There are other options, but that's the gist of it.<br>So, while there are lots of ways to make nice lines with just the two triads, connecting them chromatically increases the options for interesting things to happen. Here are a few lines/shapes that give you the basic idea:<br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/ebb1e4979b1523b607eeb110fc88be7472e72f09/original/2-triads-chromatic.gif/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Triads for Jazz Improvisation - Chromatic Connections" /><br><br>Note that the root always moves to the root of the next chord, the third to the third, the fifth to the fifth.<br>You could connect the third of the C chord to the root of the D chord as well. That creates some less symmetrical patters.<br><br>You can connect them by half-step too, but it can only be between the 5th of the C triad (G) and the third of the D triad (F#). There's not a lot of options. Here are some:<br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/302552/c53339bd5648334ca43c0bc683e20c8d57d95fa7/original/2-triads-halfstep.gif/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_orig justify_center border_none" alt="Jazz Improvising with Triadic Concept" /><br><br>I hope you found this interesting, maybe it'll give you some ideas for some other things.</p>Brian Prunkatag:brianprunka.com,2005:Post/68601752008-12-12T21:22:00-05:002022-01-15T11:21:06-05:00Greetings!<p>Welcome to my blog!<br><br>The purpose of this blog is to share ideas for practicing jazz. I'm going to be posting things that I am practicing or practiced in the past and found useful. I teach as well, and some of these things have come out of stuff that I found to help my students.<br>I've often wondered what other people are practicing; I think it would be great if a lot of musicians started blogs like this and shared what they're working on.<br><br>This is going to be somewhat haphazard, just posting various things from my workbooks. It's not meant to constitute a structured method or be complete or representative. Just some stuff that I find interesting and useful and that others might too.<br><br>If you're interested in knowing more about me, you can go to my website:<br><br><a href="http://www.brianprunka.com" target="_blank">www.brianprunka.com</a><br><br>Please leave a comment if you like anything here, I'd like to know if anyone's reading . . .</p>Brian Prunka