The first main focus of my practicing this year was to develop my understanding of scales in advance of my January assessments I did this in multiple ways the first thing I did to create this was practicing through my different basic scale shapes for Dorian, mixolydian and major scales, I focused on these scales as they were a large bulk of the January assessment and these scales are important for the common 2-5-1 chord progression. I then went on to further develop my scales by playing all major scales in all twelve keys between the 5th and 9th fret, I initially found this very challenging as it was something I had never done before. I found it hard to remember all the different shapes and positions the way I overcame this was by repeating the task to create muscle memory, whilst additionally focusing on the shapes so that if I was ever called upon a specific scale I could play it from memory. I then went on to do this with Dorian scales; these were easier as I could repeat the same process as I used for the major scales. I additionally continued to go back to the major scales to keep the muscle memory for them and increase the speed to develop my understanding of the scales. I also started to focus my picking hand to develop my alternate picking and rhythm. I then also went on to develop my mixolydian scales through the same methodology as the Dorian and major scales. I found mixolydians harder due to its similarities to the major scale, I was consistently struggling to develop a strong muscle memory around it due to already being very accustomed to the major scales I did this by playing the dominant chord relative to the scale and focusing and listening to the scale to try and hear the dominant sound. Then once I was comfortable with the scales I would get a spinner wheel on my phone which had every note and whichever note it landed on I would play the major, Dorian and Mixolydian scales for the note that came up. Then the entire time I practised these scales I consistently played along to a metronome to help develop my rhythm and time feel, I also used a metronome to help me play through all the scales faster as I became more and more comfortable with them. I also did this to help develop my general speed for when I play on faster tunes.
Here is an example of me playing a few major scales in this exercise.
https://leedsconservatoire.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=a63ff18c-77a0-4709-a6f0-b3e600b51337 Copy and paste the embed code from Panopto hereI then did a similar exercise with arpeggios to help develop for the January assessment period I went through same process of learning all the arpeggios between the 5th and 9th fret for the major 7 arpeggios due to me learning this after the major scales as I could use all the scale shapes I had learned as a framework for the arpeggios. It is important to learn arpeggios to know the chord tones for a given chord, which helps to outline harmonic language in my solos. I then went on to learn the minor 7 in the same way, using the scales as a guideline with all the arpeggios; however, I soon found that my knowledge of the three higher strings was much less than that of the three lower strings. I found consistency. I would know the first octave arpeggio but the higher arpeggio I would get lost so I began only practising the higher arpeggio. I then moved onto the dominant arpeggios using the same method again, I additionally, similarly to the scale, found it hard to differentiate between the major and dominant arpeggios as they were very similar. I also used a metronome for this exercise, increasing the speed as I became more comfortable. I then again used a spinner wheel with every note to help me develop my knowledge of the arpeggios. I would spin the wheel 3 times. Whichever note it landed on the first time I would play the major arpeggio and scale. Whichever spinner wheel landed on the 2nd time I would play the minor arpeggio and Dorian scales. Whichever the spinner wheel landed on the third time I would play the mixolydian scale and dominant arpeggios.
heres an example of me playing some major arpeggios.
https://leedsconservatoire.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=16f50508-6dd6-4e44-8193-b3e600b504c6After my work on scales, I began working on my transcription of chet bakers just friends solo. I started doing this transcription in preparation for my January assessments and to help develop my repertoire and vocabulary to use in my solos, this is something that I personally believe that I need to work on a lot and develop as I believe I don’t have a vast enough repertoire of licks and learning solos can help my expand my vocabulary of licks and help me better my relationship of hearing what I want to play and actually playing it. When it came to learning the solo I transcribed it by listening lick by lick and practising each lick repeatedly. On faster like to ensure I was getting each note played I would slow down the recording and repeat it at a slower speed to help get a muscle memory for the lick, after learning each lick I would add it into the context of the solo focusing on playing the licks in the correct position to ensure I was being efficient. I would then play sections of the solo along with the recording to help me ensure my phrasing and tempo were correct for all the licks. I would then repeat this the further I got into the solo I would additionally focus on what chords and progressions each like was being over to try and adapt some of the lick to my own playing. I primarily focused on the vocabulary I had heard before in other solos, as I thought those types of licks were the licks I needed to apply the most to my repertoire. I felt like this helped me vastly to create more melodic lines and more musical licks.
Licks I’ve taken from just friends solo.
I additionally focused on my improvising skills over different standards, my main focus was to not overplay. Trying to completely limit myself and focus on playing more melodic clear lines. I have consistently seen the issue within my own playing that I can overplay and I won’t serve the tune or the changes well enough, I have a tendency to play licks that are not called upon by the music and play unnecessarily fast likes, I was also trying to focus on play motifs and expanding on my previous like and playing out my solos more. I was also consistently listening to solos by Wes Montgomery and other jazz guitar legends to try and hear how they constructed a solo, specifically, I looked at days of Wine and Roses “ solo. This is a slower song and has a lot of simpler melodic licks. I played over multiple different tunes this time. The first one was just friends, I am very familiar with this tune due to my transcription of it. It is also a relatively easy tune to solo over and I personally find it easy to hear different line over the tune. The next standard I consistently soloed over was days of wine of roses as I have listened to the Wes Montgomery version consistently and the Oscar Peterson version, so for this standard I found it easy to hear a lot of ideas over this song . I then practiced over jazz blues to try and develop my phrasing on a blue, however I am already quite comfortable with playing over blues and don’t tend to over play. And finally I was trying to go through a playlist of backing tracks on YouTube to help me develop my playing over familiar and unfamiliar chord changes and to ensure I wasn’t just applying what I was learning to very few tunes.
I also decided to learn 3 jazz standards, the standard I have decided to learn on my maiden voyage, I fall in love easily and there will never be another you. I set this as I saw it as a realistic goal I could complete in a small amount of time. I set this as a goal as I think it is important I continue to expand my repertoire of standards, this will help me play in jams and with other jazz musicians easier. For maiden voyage to learn the standard I first listened to the Herbie Hancock version of the standard consistent to get a grip of the structure of the song, and to understand the soloing ideas used by other musicians on the standard, I then went on the find a lead sheet for the song and learnt the chords first I found the chords easy to learn due to it being the same shape for all the chords. However I found it hard to solo over these chords as I wasn’t very familiar with playing over suspended chords, I work through this by looking up different ways to solo over these chords and I found minor scales, mixolydian scales and pentatonic scales all gave of a good sound around these chords. For I fall in love to easily I primarily listened to the chet baker version but I also listened to the bill Evans version this help me get multiple ways of interpreting the standard. Then I looked at the lead sheet and learned the single note melody and arranged a chord medley around the chord progression. I found it easy to solo around this tune as I found it had a simple chord structure to follow and I could express the licks I was hearing easily over it. Then for there will never be another you. I also listened to the Chet baker and Oscar Peterson version, I then looked at a lead sheet and learned the chords and single line separately. I did not arrange a chord medley for this standard as I could not personally figure out a strong arrangement for it. When it came to soloing over the standard it stays in the same key for nearly all the standard but I still found it hard to play what I was personally hearing over the tune so I practiced by sitting and trying to transcribe the sound I was trying to convey across the tune by singing it and then playing it, this helped me develop the type of lines I want to play on the tune.
here are me playing through the heads of the standards with chords for maiden voyage and a small solo, Chord medley for I fall in love to easily and there will never be another you melody then chords for the head.
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Most recently I have been trying to develop my comping I have done this through learning different comping rhythms such as the Charleston and variations and additionally trying to play less and embellish what people I am playing with play when soloing. I have choose to focus on this as to improve my ability to play in and band the musicality on what I play with others. I have also been learning different types of voicings such as drop 3 voicings. This is to create more interesting textures in my accompaniment and harmonic playing. I also learned more voicing through learning a transcription of Wes Montgomery’s days of wine and roses chord medley; this helped me develop my knowledge of voicings and also helped me gain more repertoire. I learned this from a video transcription of the chord medley. But I found it quite easy to learn the piece.
here are two videos of my coming and playing the transcription of the chord medley
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