Spending time with and learning how to play this beautiful instrument today with the classic "The Nearness of You" by the great composer Hoagy Carmichael. The first chorus is a slow, rubato ballad and then I thought I would try something different for a few choruses in 3/4.
Sharing a little bit of some very early morning practice time today. Here's what's up with this:
One of the things that has always mystified me a little bit, is the blues. I've sat on the drums in small group settings for years - admiring a horn player or singer's ability to express themselves in this unique art form.
Over the last couple of weeks, I've started listening more....and also getting into some of the lessons on this site. Going through Behn's comping lessons...and John's lesson which he shared, and some of the others.
Here is week 1 for the Practice Club. I really enjoyed working on this etude. It allowed me to work on my reading and learn some new voicing’s that I can now start implementing into my playing. Then taking those voicing’s and putting them through the keys.
Comping has never been my strong suit but I’m hoping that working through these rootless voicing lessons for the next few weeks is going to help. Let me know what you think!
remember this for the most part it is:
scale tone above, half step below.
C7 would be D B C F Eb E A Gb G C A Bb
For some reason this etude is especially challenging for me. If I went a little faster, then you can hear the dampening mallet almost ring. I tried using harder and softer mallets and these worked the best. I tried to keep the dampening mallet quiet and still feel and express the song.
To get it to this point, believe it or not, I practiced it a LOT. It is elegant and there's nowhere to hide! You can hear everything.
I downloaded a lead sheet last night and started learning this.
This morning I've been trying to learn/practice it in different tempos; I'll upload two of those tempos here. While it was fairly quick to learn, the challenge for me is the swing, the feel. And really locking in the time. So I'll keep working on it!
This first video is of the slightly faster tempo. I'll load the slower one next...
Obviously, work to do. Onward!
