Guitar from home: Polkadots & moonbeams

Polkadots and moonbeams, one of my favorite jazz standards.

Van Baalen vanderValk Bergman

I personally think it is good to promote your good friends and fellow musicians and Coen and I go way back to my high school days (pff that is actually quite a long time ago).

It was with great pleasure that I heard the trio on West Radio.

http://www.westonline.nl/swf/player.swf

The trio’s newly released album Port 010 is now available at i-Tunes. The album moves very eloquently from blues to almost ECM like atmospheric music offering the listener a new experience every time.

I suggest you go check it out and if you like what you hear buy some of the tunes or the whole album.

Autumn Leaves chord melody

Autumn Leaves or by the original French title Les Feuilles Mortes is by now a jazz standard that has been played by countless artists. The chord melody arrangement below is suitable for beginners. The song itself is a great one to practice playing major and minor II V I progressions.

Download Autumn Leaves here >>>

Have fun !

Polkadots and Moonbeams new chord-melody arrangement

Last year I uploaded an arrangement of Polkadots and moonbeams, a well known jazz standard. You are hereby invited to try out the new arrangement which replaces the old one that can still be found here >>>

The new improved arrangement can be downloaded by following this link to the song Polkadots and Moonbeams.

Let me know what you think and have fun

Summer School Two Week Intensive Courses

This summer two intensive courses are planned for guitar players who want to take their playing further and set themselves up for breakthrough technical and musical development.

Lead Guitar Intensive Course

Get the presentation here >>>>

Jazz Guitar Fundamentals

Get the presentation here >>>>

I look forward to hearing from you.

A Salute to my Master: Klaus Flenter

By accident I stumbled upon some information about my teacher from back than: Klaus Flenter, one of the greats when it comes to chord melody jazz guitar playing in the Netherlands and beyond.The first video is a trio version of the song Green Dolphin Street.

If anything I will always remember Klaus as the one that solidified my love for chord melody guitar playing and what a joy to see my old teacher going on like this and like on the next video where the trio plays Misty.

Klaus, my old master, thanks for all the great stuff you taught me over the years at the Conservatory in Rotterdam and even now when looking at these videos.

Books: Pat Metheny the Interviews

The Pat Metheny Interviews: The Inner Workings of His Creativity Revealed

This book is now available in New Zealand and a definite recommended read for musicians and non musicians alike.

In 2007, composer, arranger and performer Richard Niles wrote, produced and hosted a three-part radio series for the BBC titled “Pat Metheny – Bright Size Life.” The discussions Niles had with Metheny for the series covered all aspects of the this well known musician who has played an important role for both guitar and jazz music. It covers everything from Metheny’s first awareness of his love for music to knowledge and wisdom gained from years of dedicated musicianship.

This book is a transcription of those and other interviews Niles conducted with Pat Metheny over time.
It’s a surprisingly easy to read, without the loss of detail for the sake of brevity.

The subtitle of “The Pat Metheny Interviews” states it’s “The inner workings of his creativity revealed.”
While this may seem like a considerable claim to make, the book delivers on promise.
Niles and Metheny discuss topics such as why he was driven towards music with such enormous drive and dedication, how he developed his style and approach; how he set and achieved his demanding goals; Metheny’s methodology as a guitarist, improviser and composer.

Transcriptions of what he played during the interviews appear in the book. Additionally the book has contributions from some of Metheny’s colleagues like Lyle Mays, Gary Burton, Jack DeJohnette, John Patitucci, Metheny’s brother, Mike Metheny, and the late Michael Brecker, as well as a number of rare photographs from Metheny’s private collection.

Whether or not your a fan, it is pretty hard to deny his exemplary musicianship. His first solo album, “Bright Size Life” (1976), has been highly influential  for a new generation of players. He’s won a great number of  “Best Jazz Guitarist” polls and awards which include three Gold records for “(Still Life) Talking,” “Letter From Home” and “Secret Story,” 12 Grammy Awards, including an unprecedented seven consecutive wins.

He performed with Ornette Coleman, Chick Corea, Gary Burton, Herbie Hancock, Joni Mitchell and David Bowie. His writing partnership with Lyle Mays has been compared to Lennon/McCartney and Ellington/Strayhorn. His body of work includes compositions for large orchestras, film and ballet. He has been a pioneer in the realm of electronic music with the Synclavier and the electric sitar and is known to have developed new types of acoustic instruments such as the fretless guitar, the soprano acoustic guitar and the 42-string Pikasso guitar.

The book can be obtained through Fishpond by clicking on the cover of the book on the left.

And for those of you that may be interested in his music, try out the following albums which I can highly recommend.Of course the first album to appear here is Bright Size Life, his debut album that changed the face of jazz guitar playing. Just click on the album covers below to listen to samples and buy the CD.

Another favorite of mine is Travels.

Or perhaps just browse around yourself using the keyword “metheny” in the search box below.

All Products Books Music Movies

www.fishpond.co.nz

Free Lesson: Spice it up with your minor pentatonic scale

If there is one thing that is clear it seems to me that almost all guitar players interested in lead guitar use the minor pentatonic scale. There are others that will point out that they also use the major pentatonic scale but for now I will go from the premise that any major pentatonic scale will have its minor replacement, similar to what happens in modes.

As an example: some people will use the C major pentatonic scale for playing on either a C chord, C maj7  chord or a C7 chord.

When we look at the C major pentatonic scale we see it has the following notes: C D E G A.
When you start on the A note however, it will make A C D E G.

There is a reason however why I choose to approach this from the minor pentatonic perspective throughout, and that is because a.) Many guitar players start with this scale when experimenting with their blues solos and because it is so closely related to the other well used scale: the blues scale.

As beginning guitar players we will all have gone through licks like this:

Now in the following examples I have used different pentatonic scales to play over the chord sequence D min7 – G7 -Cmaj7 which is for those with a but of a theoretical background a II – V – I chord progression. In its most basic form we would be using the following minor pentatonic scales:

D minor 7 —>  D minor pentatonic scale

G7 —> E minor pentatonic scale / G blues scale or G minor pentatonic scale

C maj7 —> A minor pentatonic scale

You will find that when you play these scales over thew chord progression it sounds a bit dull.

Personally what I find attractive about the minor pentatonic scales is that they are useful to create patterns or certain repeatable fragments. If we combine that given with the idea that we may be able to use different minor pentatonic scales on different chords all of a sudden a wide array of possibilities opens up to spice up your solos. By the way I could go into all kinds of theory here but I will just say I usually use the minor pentatonic and blues scales as interchangeable. (the notes in between brackets are the additional note to the pentatonic scale to make it into a blues scale.  I am aware that more options exist but these give you a nice start.

D minor 7 (D F A C)

• D minor pentatonic: D F G (G#/Ab) A C
• E minor pentatonic E G A (A#/Bb) B D
  The B in this scale  makes for a nice emphasis of the dorian character of the chord (IIm7 chord) while the blue note  (Bb) provides for a nice natural minor sound.
• A minor pentatonic A C D (D#/Eb) E G.

G7 (G B D F)

• E minor pentatonic: E G A (Bb) B D
• F minor pentatonic: F Ab Bb C (C#/Db) Eb
• G minor pentatonic: G Bb C (C#/Db) D F
• Bb minor pentatonic: Bb Db Eb (E) F Ab

C maj7 (C E G B)

• A minor pentatonic: A C D (D#/Eb) E G
• B minor pentatonic: B D E (F) F# A this scale produces a lydian airy kind of sound
• E minor pentatonic: E G A (A#/Bb) B

Some Examples

Example 1

In this example only the A minor pentatonic and Bb minor pentatonic scale were used to create chromatic tension and and at the same time resolution. The A minor pentatonic over the C maj7 chord creates a 6 or 13 sound.

Example 2

I this second example we move up position by position and end up in the lydian sounding b minor pentatonic over the C maj7 chord.
The F# note suggests a Cmaj7 #11 chord.

Example 3

In this third example we have an gone from D minor pentatonic to E and F minor pentatonic so we would at least have the B note in the G7 chord. Try to avoid over emphasis of the C note in the F minor pentatonic as against G that suggest a sus chord, while at the same time chromoatically it sounds nice and we resolve this back to E minor pentatonic goes to B minor pentatonic goes to A minor pentatonic.

Cycling around for practice

I you would like to come up with other ideas and practice it us actually nice if you have a cycle that you can let go on continuously. That can be one by playing ||       Dmin7     |      G7     |      Cmaj7     |       A7 ||

Below I will list the different pentatonic scales you could use in a format that makes it easier to see how you can create nice patterns with them.

I guess you can see for yourself now that there are some good options to connect different minor pentatonic scales and keep on going round and round. Have fun!