A new case of the blues

With my piano instructor busy on Wednesdays this month, I had my piano lesson for an hour last night. I told him all about my jazz ensemble experience and that I couldn't even play a blues with altered chords, much to the consternation of the jazz ensemble instructor. So, that was what we worked on last night for the entire time, in the key of F: a standard twelve bar blues progression, where my piano instructor's concept was slightly different from the concept we played at the jazz ensemble class. It wasn't hard except just the first few times through as I had to think about the chords and try and remember them after playing something different. Once I had the hand muscle memory, it was just a question of timing, which wasn't all that good. It's not often that one has an hour long piano lesson, plays almost the entire time, but never once plays a single song.

Productive. Really.

Anyway, now I have a formula, both for the chords and a blues progression to practice on a regular basis. I haven't much time between now and tomorrow's class, so I'll just try two or three likely changes of key and then see how I fare tomorrow. During the next week, I'm going to get out my drum machine, work on all keys in proper rhythm, and then start throwing some of the chords into actual songs. It's just a question of work, and I'm not giving myself any choice or leeway. It makes me a little blue now, but it should payoff with green later (someday, maybe).

Damn you, Charlie Parker!

Damn you, Charlie Parker!

I'm not sure what I ever did to you that would make you want to make my hobby of jazz music so difficult. You've been dead longer than I've been alive, but I feel like everything you ever did in the pantheon of jazz was simply to confound and frustrate me. Can I help it if I became a fan of jazz late in life? Can I help it if kids half my age know more about your contributions to jazz than I'm ever going to know? (Not to mention the "whys" and the "hows", too.) Should I be held responsible for my lack of knowledge about jazz, completely handicapping my understanding of how you advanced our art form? And since none of it is really my fault, why make me despondent with your infernal "Parker heads", your huge number of standards, and a recorded legacy so large, it defies imagination and explanation? Did you sleep and eat in the studio, too, just to cut a few extra tracks, in case somebody would doubt your genius after the immense legacy you built?

Damn you, Charlie Parker!

What do you mean, I shouldn't hate you, Charlie? Of course I should. Case in point: Last week at jazz ensemble practice, our group had gotten done fooling around with a blues in F, and the instructor says, "Turn to Blues for Alice". Great, I think. A Parker head, but at least it's a tune I actually know. I even played a lick or two as we flipped through out notations, and some of the group go, "Yeah, yeah man." Unfortunately, playing it in a half-assed way so that it sounds good to my own ears when playing in my dining room because I only know one inversion of each chord, however, is not the same as playing it with multiple inversions in a band setting. I got tore up in five seconds flat. I couldn't keep up with the melody (which nobody was bothering to play), couldn't follow the chord changes (because nobody was playing the fundamental root-third-fifth chords), and couldn't make the chords I knew fit in even when I could figure out where we were in the song. I've been more musically frustrated, I'm sure, but no, I can't remember when, and even if I could, it wouldn't make me feel any better about you, Bird. Which is why I repeat:

Damn you, Charlie Parker!

You say I should listen to more of your music? You say if I only listen, I will understand? You say I need to embody the spirit of your chord changes, imitate your use of the modes over a given key, discover the vibrancy of an off color chromatic that leads back to the basic ii-V-I progression? Okay, what should I listen to? I haven't got a single one of your recordings, so tell me where to start. The complete Dial recordings? The complete Savoy recordings? The Dial and Savoy? The complete Verve? The complete live recordings? Charlie, those suckers are sixty, seventy, a hundred bucks a pop! My CD habit is already more expensive than your drug habit, you ...

OK, that was out of line. Still, damn you, Charlie Parker!

All right. You win. I'm not giving up jazz, but I don't want you and your music haunting me the rest of my amateur jazz musician days. I've ordered a set of eight CD's of your music, 225 tracks (or something like that) of about 60 songs (or something like that). I'll sit and listen to them, really listen. I'll even follow along with the score for the songs that are in The Real Book. I've already been practicing Blues for Alice with no roots and a 6th and a 9th in every major seventh chord. I'm even trying to play Ornithology and Donna Lee again. So, if my ensemble instructor yells out another one of your tunes on Wednesday night, I won't get mad. But, if after I've played these tunes the way you did, and if after I've listened to the ten hours of music I just bought, if after all that effort I'm still struggling, still bashing my head against a wall of out-of-key, out-of-synch, bone crunching, nerve twisting dissonance, well then, I'll go back to cursing you.

I'm going to give you a chance, Charlie Parker. I'm going to sincerely give you a chance. If it works out, I'll be eternally grateful. If it doesn't, well,

Damn you, Charlie Parker! Damn you to hell.

So much for that

Monday night was my first class in jazz improvisation. As it turned out, it was also my last (at least for this semester), as the course has since been canceled because only two students registered for it. There were a bunch of other students who said they might consider taking it, but apparently, nobody signed up, and I had notice from the teacher today that it is officially canceled.

Which really sucks because I enjoyed the heck out of my jazz ensemble class on Wednesday. There was a guitar player, a bass player, a drummer, a singer and myself. I think I am probably the least skilled in the group (but as the oldest I won't say "least experienced"). I had thought that it would not be worthwhile to me to take just the ensemble class without the improv, as it is only half a credit and we don't study music so much as just get together and work on tunes. But, since I am enrolled and the class more or less fits with my schedule, and because it was so much fun, I'm going to go ahead and stick with it anyway. I think it will make me a much better player and performer, given time to learn the basics of playing in a group.

So now I've got to go and learn how to play every song I've ever learned with chords that eliminate the root and add the 6th and 9th. (Which, if you've ever played that way, you know those chords don't sound all that good all by themselves, making practicing them in such a manner a tough go. The sacrifices made for art... alas...must continue.)

Possibly worth the price of admission

With my car's lease about to expire and recent term leasing agreements about as appealing as a pimple on the tip of your nose, Mrs. S and I decided to go ahead and buy a car. Fortunately, the company my dad retired from (Generous Motors) is basically giving cars away right now (seriously: we didn't pay one dollar for the car, although we'll have to start forking over a couple hundred a month to GMAC next month), so we went ahead and became a two Vibe family, purchasing a very sleek, very sharp, midnight blue 2009 Pontiac Vibe.

("Dammit! I thought 'late to jazz' would be about music!" It is. Just hold on and keep reading.)

As anyone who's purchased a GM vehicle lately knows, they come with free Onstar and free XM satellite radio for a couple of months, to possibly get you hooked and make you want to subscribe. Well, I'm here to tell you after two days of driving with the XM jazz channel tuned in (not to mention my eight day business trip over Christmas when I had an XM-equipped rental), I'm thinking a subscription to XM might just be the way to go. I mean, hell, I just put on the main jazz channel, and that's what I get: jazz! And not that lame-ass Kenny G, Dave Koz, "would've been Ferrante and Teischer if born thirty years earlier" jazz. We're talking Italian saxophonists covering Miles Davis, Bud Powell, Count Basie, some Czech guy live at the Bohemian Caverns... Real "real" jazz.

Now, on a good day, I only spend forty minutes in the car, but with school, if I end up actually going twice a week, that would add another two hours a week to my in-car time. I'm thinking, for the exposure to different music, musicians and songs in the jazz genre that XM will provide over the four and a half hours I'll spend in the car each week, listening to real jazz but not the same old CD's from my collection, $12.99 a month just might - might - be worth it.

I don't have to make a decision until my introductory subscription runs out, so I've got a couple of months anyway. If you're a jazz fan and/or XM fan, let me know what you think: to XM, or not to XM?

A small accomplishment

This weekend marked a first for me: I finished playing through one of my drill books. That's right, I've conquered the mountain of Hanon's Virtuoso Pianist in 60 Exercises. Now, let me provide this disclaimer: that means I played through all the exercises in the entire book at least once. It doesn't mean I can do everything the exercises are designed to teach you to do, and it doesn't mean my playing has gotten better, necessarily (although I think it has). What it means is that I promised myself I wouldn't buy any more drill books until I had at least gotten through one that I owned. Truthfully, when the end came in sight about two weeks ago, I went ahead and bought some more books, but fact of the matter is, I reached my goal. Now, when I practice, I go back and work on various parts of the book, in order except for the scales, which I do one of every session.

I said "small accomplishment", but actually, that's a pretty big deal for me.

I start back to school tonight. Jazz improvisation on Mondays, and jazz ensemble on Wednesday or Thursday (or maybe not at all). The thing most likely to improve this semester, especially if I take Wednesday night jazz ensemble: my figure. I'll have to go with only hard boiled eggs, granola bars, and water for dinner on Monday and Wednesdays. Since I'll have to practice what I learned when I get home, and I won't get home until 8:00 or so, I won't be able to drink alcohol or eat a full dinner. I think I'm good for somewhere between five and ten pounds of weight loss, just to make music.

If I stick to that plan, that will be a much bigger accomplishment.

The Audition

Before reading this entry, it would be good if you read the first part. (This entry won’t not make sense, but it will lose some of its impact if the two episodes are read out of order.)

Come Thursday, and my company begins the process of laying people off. Since I work in HR, that fills up my half day so that it just whizzed by and I didn’t have fifteen seconds to think about my audition. But, I did take care of everything I needed to take care of and I did leave on time, stopping to buy some stuff for lunch. After eating lunch, I went straight to the piano and began practicing.

I got out a recording of Thelonious Monk playing Duke Ellington and worked on It Don’t Mean a Thing. I improved it a lot in the thirty minutes I spent on it. I went over and over the back end to get my timing down, and I played the chromatic bass line chords to eradicate some less useful chords that were still in muscle memory that I no longer wanted to use. It tightened up a bit, but I left it a little ragged. I figured I didn’t want to sound above my actual level of skill at the audition, as if that might be an issue. I decided I would not play A Child is Born, because that requires some pedal and light keyboard work, and I wasn’t sure what quality of piano I was going to have to play on. I decided a rough version of Bewitched would do for the ballad, and I just played it through a few times to freshen it up. Then, I worked on Blue Monk. Over and over. Again, I smoothed it a little, but not enough to impress anyone. And again, that would give a better indication of my actual playing level.

So I drive over to the audition, and the jazz ensemble director is there waiting for me. He recognizes me right away (we’d met before), and we chat briefly as we make our way to the practice room. If the following is read at normal speed, it will very closely approximate the beginning of the actual audition:

Him: So, I couldn’t find any jazz music books, other than this mini-book of chord changes, so I’m not sure if you...
Me: Well, I brought my Real Book.
Him: Okay, Real Book. Great. That’s even better. Turn to Blue Bossa. (!) Do you know it?
Me: Actually, my instructor and I looked at it last night, but that was the first time I’d ever tried to play it and I didn’t even glance at it after the ...
Him: That’s good. Here we go, 1, 2, ah 1, 2, 3, 4...

And he started playing it, strumming away on his guitar, just like that. Ten seconds we’d been in the room, and I’m bashing out a semblance of a tune on the piano. I sounded terrible, but for the most part, I kept up. What I played in the right hand was more or less what it needed to be. What I played in the left hand were chords that vaguely followed the printed page. I was still able, however, to assemble everything together at the ending C-minor. He said he liked my chording, but he then proceeded to tell me a bunch of ways to “jazz them up”. He also then had me improvise to the chord without playing them, which I actually did pretty well with. Ten minutes, and the audition was over.

The long and short of it is, because I’m not enrolled as a regular music student, I get last choice of classes. The ensemble director told me that I was not good enough for the advanced ensemble on Thursday, but he might be able to fit me into the Wednesday ensemble, depending on whether there was already a piano player in that group or not.

First jazz piano audition: Part 1

Well, I had my first ever audition as a jazz pianist two days ago. As I mentioned before, I’ve decided to take some music courses at my alma mater, the University of Alabama in Huntsville. I enrolled in jazz improvisation and jazz ensemble. In order to play in the ensemble, a student must audition with the director of the ensembles, to allow him to place the students in groups of a similar level and knowledge. It took me a little while to get in touch with the guy and schedule the audition, but I finally succeeded. As it would happen, my piano instructor, who also graduated from UAH, knows the jazz ensemble director very well, so I asked him to prep me for the audition during my lesson on Wednesday.

He told me that the director would probably have me play a ballad, so we worked on A Child is Born for just a little bit. Then he said, he’ll probably have you play a blues in B-flat, so we worked on Blue Monk for a little while too. Then, he’ll probably have you sight read something. Since we’d never played Tune Up before, we sight read that. Mind you, my instructor was giving pointers all along the way, so many in fact, I was having a little trouble processing them all. Then he says, for another sight reading practice, let’s look at Blue Bossa. Well, there was another I’d never bothered to look at, and even though I like Kenny Dorham, a lot, I’d never even heard the song. So, we tried to play it. I couldn’t do much with it, other than bring everything together at the final C-minor chord. (That made my instructor laugh a little.) It wasn’t long before my thirty minutes was up, and he summed up that I should just remember the key signature and play with confidence.

Due to things being pretty slow at work, we are trying to encourage everyone to use up their vacation and take unpaid leave, including salaried folks like me. So, even though I had planned to go to work early and leave early for the audition, I decided to just take a half day off and practice. I worked hard on Blue Monk and It Don’t Mean a Thing, which was going to be what I played if I had to audition without looking at the music. Both of those turned out to be wasted efforts.

Tomorrow: The Audition

School days

Well, this week in north Alabama, the kiddies go back to school. Add five minutes to my daily drive time, as I go through two school zones and have to stop for at least one school bus a day, but add two hours a week to my sleep time, thanks to no more late night shenanigans by the neighborhood hooligans.

Speaking of going back to school, that's what I decided to do, too. I'm going to take a jazz improvisation course on Monday nights and a jazz ensemble course on Thursday nights. I decided to take them for credit in case I lose my job and end up pursuing a second degree in music, but for right now, I'm just a general student. I'm looking forward to the exposure it will give me to a lot of music and musicians, as well as the more structured environment to learn about music as compared to my weekly piano lesson, where I call most of the shots. It will be interesting and I'm sure it will give me lots to write about. We'll just have to see how much time it takes up though, as I have a feeling I'm going to really have to practice a lot.

Expect short entries in this blog in the future, unless I really don't have to work that hard.