Here is a great analysis of the Steely Dan "Mu Major" chord.
http://jmdl.com/howard/steelydan/mu-major.html
I just tried it on the vibes and it sounds cool.
Barry
I just received a gift in the mail - a CD of Ed Saindon in concert @ the University of
New Hampshire, w/ Dave Liebman, Matt Wilson and David Clark. Beautiful concert, replete with
gorgeous originals("The Last Goodbye", "Hope", "The Healing") and re-imagings of standards
("Moon River", "Green Dolphin Street"). There's a solo/duet version of "Black Orpheus" which really shows how the grown-ups do it ... intense listening going on between Ed and
When I did my arrangement of White Christmas, I used an open voicing on the Cmaj7. Turns out that it was a Drop 2 of a Major 7th (Closed G B C E -> Drop 2: C G B E). Now I can put a cool name to that voicing.
Since St. Patty's Day is coming up, I started working on Drop 2 voicings for "Danny Boy". I am starting out with a closed voice arrangement. I will use that for the first repeat. On the second repeat, I will play the tune again with the open Drop 2 voicing. It is starting to sound really nice.
Barry
Lennie Tristano, George Shearing... 2 masters of drop 2 voicings. (Was Shearing?) I'm going to listen to more Lennie, but I played on the piano today and I thought of him immediately.
I've been really shedding all this. A couple points I'm thinking.
Don't take those scales and voicings literal. Any sideways movement of chords can have drop 2s.
Make up a simple line in a key or mode. Harmonize the melody in closed position (move the chords sideways), then do drop 2.
I was playing the C6, Fdim chords (with the various inversions) in Dana's drop 2 lesson. As I was playing, I heard the song, "Once in a While", and thought it might be a good tune to apply the Drop 2 voicing for chord melody.
I would like a little guidance on the application of the lesson. I understand the example of playing the C Maj Bebop scale with the C6 or the diminished chord underneath, but I am not sure about applying chords to an arbitrary melody.
Hi everyone!
A.I.R Percussion Quartet (percussion geeks group) just got a MySpace page. Please stop by and check us out! This is the link:
Hey Guys,
I've been feeling bad that I'm not around much, especially since there is soo much stuff going up, my recent activity page has a few pages of all new stuff I wanna check out, so I'll try to do that now and then.
Man, Dana, you're really putting stuff up, I love that you're contributing so much. Great stuff. And I love the way this site is evolving. More and more students putting stuff up and putting themselves in the open.
Man, I started messing with Dana's Videos, the Mark Levine book and bam, 3 hours later I'm flipping out cause I wanted to hit the sack early tonight.
I think I'm getting it. It's about the 2 outside lines and then how you harmonize THRU a chord.
First the outside line. If you play closed you usually have thirds in the top. Now you move that second voice and you have 10ths. Instead of seconds you have ninths. It's a beautiful sound. More open and spacious.
I couldn't wait for Tony's etude so I started working with the Sword of Whispers lead sheet on Joe's site. This is a demo recording to put down some ideas. I was mainly trying to get the notes and some harmonies. I need major work on my rhythm. I tried playing along with http://www.metronomeonline.com/ but it only can help so much.
Anyway, you know where the Stop button is.
Barry
I am curious how many players put bass in the right channel vs. the left channel. How many don't care either way. Having played keyboard forever, I feel bass should go on the left, but I hear many (most) other vibes panned the other way.
I've heard that a reason to pan bass to the right would be for an audience perspective but, especially for lessons, it would make sense to me to pan for the player's perspective, i.e., bass on left.
Barry