midnight tango bass solo

So I was thinking this morning that I've never done a bass transcription here. I remembered that there was a short, cool one in DiMeola's "Midnight Tango" (from the most excellent cd Elegant Gypsy) played by Anthony Jackson, so here it is. The solo starts at 3:52. Though short it's very interesting -- click on the gif to get a bigger image.

There are a number of things worth mentioning here:

1. The first motive (rhythmically 2 eighth notes to a long note, melodically a double stop of a perfect fourth that jumps up a 3rd and comes back a 2nd) is unifying but falls on different beats in the first 2 measures. It comes back on the 2nd beat in the 3rd measure but is varied.

2. The descending leap of a P4 in measure 5 is echoed but varied slightly in measure 7 (on the same chord).

3. Nice pedal point on C in measure 5.

4. The rhythmic motive of 16th triplets with 2 (non-triplet) 16ths in measure 4 is used again in measure 6.

5. Tonally measure 6 is a little surprising because rather than playing a form of A major over the E major chord he plays the parallel major, i.e. he opts for E mixolydian.

6. Overall the solo moves from longer note values to more florid ones (a well-used technique of composers going back at least to the Renaissance if not earlier).

Of course all of the above points are good food for thought, but in no way are they meant to be taken as the only interesting points. Actually the one main point (if you will) is the emotive content of the solo. The details we've pointed out are good for us a improvisers -- they may make us think and become more creative -- but their real use is in attempting to find correspondences between them and the emotive effect that they produce.

Also if you're interested I transcribed Al's solo (sequentially right after the bass solo in this tune) years ago. I was a sweep picking fanatic back then, so be warned: I did re-finger it slightly to bring it into my world view. I wouldn't actually play it the same way these days.

diamond dust

My all time favorite Jeff Beck tune (and there are a LOT of good ones from which to choose) from the classic album Blow By Blow. I think George Martin did the orchestration. This is the first chorus of the solo. Click on the image to get a bigger gif:



Some things to note about the tune: a couple of minMaj7ths and it's in 5. Also Beck does a great job of changing up whether he's starting phrases right on the 1 of the measure or not. And I noted on the chart where he goes for the Lydian mode.

Some issues: I did this transcription years ago, and even if I did it today I'd say don't get too hung up on the rhythmic values. Also I don't think that I'd play the notes the same way/places (but the notes themselves are accurate). And the chords get kind of approximate here and there...having said that it'll get you in the game. Lastly I did this in PowerTab (which is awesome) but the accidentals aren't really the ones I'd like to see. The only way around this would be to have the key signature change every measure or so at sections which is not really a great way to go. A good exercise in thinking enharmonically.

If you're interested in learning the head I have that up on my site:
diamond dust head.

This tune should be a standard.

you know, you know

A staple of the fusion repertoire Mahavishnu Orchestra's Inner Mounting Flame is a must-own. It contains all of the ingredients that mark fusion as distinctive: electric instruments, odd meters, rich harmonies, high energy and meditative states. And McLaughlin's playing was much more raw back in the day.

The tune You Know, You Know is a fave of mine. It's basically this (at about an eighth note = 120):


With Jan doing most of the improvising (in his trademark guitaristic manner).

I bring up this tune because it's notable for being so simplistic -- you could imagine a tune with less elements (structually) but it's tough to do that and be this 'catchy'. Plus the 12 beats in the second measure allow for a lot of room improvisationally. Let it be inspirational to you when you compose...

Side note: it would be possible to see this tune as a measure of 9/8 and a measure of 15/8 (instead of 2 measures of 12/8) -- and it might make more sense that way -- but for me it's easier to count it (any tune) when the meter isn't changing.

scott henderson lesson

I don't really like putting up youtube clips cuz you never know when they might vanish. But I can't resist pointing you to this one: a fabulous short lesson from Scott Henderson, one of my all time faves. Even if you don't dig on fusion I'd recommend playing through these (on any instrument).



very cool, very colorful, and very useful ideas!

is it one tune or many?

On a longer-than-average subway ride today I fired up Soft Machine's "Slightly All The Time" from their awesome album Third -- the tune is 18 minutes and some change and I knew I'd have time to hear it all. It's a great piece and has some unquestionably abrupt changes (partly due to the way the album was put together by splicing performances from different times + places), from the opening which seems to take its cue from modal jazz to a more Indian, psychedelic vibe and winding up in a place that must've inspired Pink Floyd (especially the Dark Side Of The Moon).

So the question arises: when do we regard a tune or piece of music as a whole and when do we regard it as a medley. Yes this might fundamentally be able to be placed under the Doesn't Matter At All rubric, but it is something to consider when composing/writing.

If for instance we took at random 3 completely different sections of unrelated pieces of music (maybe one or 2 coming from a questionable zone of "is it music?") and slapped them together as:

A B C

and left it at that do we have one piece or are there 3 pieces which occur without any pause in between? Keep in mind: we've stipulated that these are completely different and unrelated.

That's a difficult question, but I don't think the following one is. Let's take the above "piece" and structure it as:

A B C B A

Is it now one piece? I imagine that it's much easier to conceive of this as a unity, due to the structure which imposes order by some repetition.