What Are You Practising / Composing Now?

[Joseph K]

Not necessarily - think of Debussy's almost psychedelic whole-tone clusters in many of his Impressionistic piano pieces and Jeux; of Dutilleux's too, and the Spectralists' in their wake, taking matter further with even subtler-coloured blendings and microtonal displacements

... on which note, since the new year I have started honing my technique and fretboard knowledge of the whole-tone and octatonic scales; as regards the former, playing it up and down in one position (and there is just one 'shape' of this scale to learn, given its symmetry) is easy enough, but it is awkward fingering playing the extracted triads from this scale, one's fingers have to make quick little leaps, there's no other way around it. Regarding the diminished scales AKA the octatonic scales, there are two main shapes to learn for this, though one of these exists in more than one form. Still, I love the sound of these scales.

[Richard Barrett]

I've had so much academic business to concentrate on in the last few weeks that it's been going very slowly, until today which has been a "no reading of emails" day (I'm on a coffee break now) which had the desired effect of allowing the work to develop very nicely, well I think so anyway.

... and yesterday evening it was finished. It may need a little more tweaking but there's time for that while I'm working on the other four tracks for the album.

[Joseph K]

... and yesterday evening it was finished. It may need a little more tweaking but there's time for that while I'm working on the other four tracks for the album.

Currently I'm preoccupied with and therefore practising a fair amount my picking technique and speed. I've been getting results in this area slowly but surely, but this morning on youtube I saw a recently uploaded video by Troy Grady, who makes videos on the mechanics of plectrum-picking; in a nutshell, after so long practising slowly and accurately (which I have done) at some point one has to take a dive into higher speeds - get used to playing higher speeds even though they might not be 100% clean and keep doing it until you get more comfortable with it and are able to play it cleanly. Well, this is his practical insight - he goes into the detail of the mechanics much more, but really one just has to practice and experiment with different hand positions etc.

[Richard Barrett]

... and yesterday evening it was finished. It may need a little more tweaking but there's time for that while I'm working on the other four tracks for the album.

Gosh, was that only a week ago? The second track is now finished too, composed on bass clarinet improvisations by Lori Freedman. Lori's discography includes solo compositions by such people as Brian Ferneyhough and myself as well as her own work, and she provided me with three pieces each between 17 and 18 minutes long, each with an almost Dolphy-like volatility. This time I decided on a different approach, first editing together a new "solo" part out of the aforementioned three, and then weaving a sequence of electronic sound-scenes around this central thread, not using any electronic transformations of the bass clarinet recordings but only synthetic sounds. I was influenced in this strategy by having recently made a study of Berio's Chemins pieces where a preexistent solo piece is encased in newly-composed ensemble music, although the result doesn't sound anything like Berio of course.

[Joseph K]

Gosh, was that only a week ago? The second track is now finished too, composed on bass clarinet improvisations by Lori Freedman. Lori's discography includes solo compositions by such people as Brian Ferneyhough and myself as well as her own work, and she provided me with three pieces each between 17 and 18 minutes long, each with an almost Dolphy-like volatility. This time I decided on a different approach, first editing together a new "solo" part out of the aforementioned three, and then weaving a sequence of electronic sound-scenes around this central thread, not using any electronic transformations of the bass clarinet recordings but only synthetic sounds. I was influenced in this strategy by having recently made a study of Berio's Chemins pieces where a preexistent solo piece is encased in newly-composed ensemble music, although the result doesn't sound anything like Berio of course.

I look forward to this release, Richard.

I'm not practising much right now. I feel like my limitations regarding guitar technique have been revealed to me - cumulatively, leading up to these past few weeks. Quite a pity how one's hobby can be such a source of frustration.

[cloughie]

I look forward to this release, Richard.

I'm not practising much right now. I feel like my limitations regarding guitar technique have been revealed to me - cumulatively, leading up to these past few weeks. Quite a pity how one's hobby can be such a source of frustration.

Probably temporary JK - bit like the musical equivalent of writer’s block - do you need to take a step back and look at different pieces to play?

[Dave2002]

I look forward to this release, Richard.

I'm not practising much right now. I feel like my limitations regarding guitar technique have been revealed to me - cumulatively, leading up to these past few weeks. Quite a pity how one's hobby can be such a source of frustration.

Perhaps there's a balance between technique and interpretation/understanding of what you're trying to play.

Sun Tzu: Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.

Modify this :

Playing without interpretation is ........ Interpretation without technique is .......


Don't give up - though maybe take a rest for a while.

[Joseph K]

I'm not sure the separation of technique and interpretation exists in jazz.

I won't give up, but I do consider myself defeated by the damn plectrum. My research has led me to the conclusion that the kind of picking motion I've been making was inefficient and to put it bluntly, wrong; this is corroborated by the soreness I'd often feel in my wrist and forearm and the fact that I couldn't pick very fast for very long etc. Anyway, I sense that to unlearn this motion would be impossible and the proposed solution of this problem, that I should pick from the elbow rather than the wrist, I find unsatisfactory.

It's a shame because I like the kind of tone, attack and range of dynamic one gets from a plectrum, and because I've put in quite a lot of work on this technique.

So I guess I'm just going to have to use different techniques to express myself - meaning start playing fingerstyle again. And using more legato techniques.

[Richard Barrett]

I won't give up, but I do consider myself defeated by the damn plectrum. My research has led me to the conclusion that the kind of picking motion I've been making was inefficient and to put it bluntly, wrong

Have you tried using plectra of different sizes and different degrees of flexibility? I don't claim to be an expert, but I never really learned how to play properly without a plectrum, and I had definite preferences about size, shape and material.

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm not practising much right now. I feel like my limitations regarding guitar technique have been revealed to me - cumulatively, leading up to these past few weeks. Quite a pity how one's hobby can be such a source of frustration.

Well they're not apparent to this listener - though the artist can often be his or her won best critic. At least you don't resort to clichés - so there's always that "where will he go next?" thing that holds the attention - unlike me!

[Joseph K]

Have you tried using plectra of different sizes and different degrees of flexibility? I don't claim to be an expert, but I never really learned how to play properly without a plectrum, and I had definite preferences about size, shape and material.

I have. But it was my technique that was the issue. I was what's been termed 'string hopping' - https://youtu.be/1xho69iDSnQ The person who made this video is perhaps one of the foremost experts that I know of in using a plectrum - I subscribed to his site, it features a dizzying array of information on the motion mechanics of plectrum-picking.

Viewing the site and reading quite a bit on the forum I encountered people in a similar position to me, where they ineluctably string hop - often I won't see that they solved it, or in one or two cases I read that they turned to other techniques instead.

The proposed solution to string hopping is to go really fast on one note and see what motion you do. I achieved it with elbow motion. But elbow motion is no good for picking some things e.g. the main arpeggio riff of the Mahavishnu Orchestra's Meeting of the Spirits, owing to its large interval leaps. I know I should be able to pick from the wrist - the site contains some tests which you can take to corroborate it, but when I try on an actual guitar, invariably I string hop.

Plectrum-style guitar - or indeed other plucked string instruments like mandolin - is a funny thing in that there is no standardised way of playing it. There is the gypsy style, and that's useful for many things and is standardised in that particular branch; you'll see people swear by using the plectrum one way and other people another e.g. the formidable Pasquale Grasso uses a weird finger-flexing technique for his plectrum use, and you can't argue with the results he gets, despite how other people will claim that that is a wrong way to use a plectrum.

Anyway, with the foregoing information (and a concomitant groan) in mind, I've decided to go back to fingerstyle. My models now are Martin Taylor, Francesco Buzzurro and Matteo Mancuso. My practice schedule won't change too much - technique in the morning, practising jazz pieces for the rest of the day - though I intend to put more emphasis on solo playing arranging and embellishing jazz standards, rather than playing over backing tracks.

[Joseph K]

Well they're not apparent to this listener - though the artist can often be his or her won best critic. At least you don't resort to clichés - so there's always that "where will he go next?" thing that holds the attention - unlike me!

That's very kind of you to say so.

[Dave2002]

Just experimenting today and found this - seemingly very useful website tool - https://www.scales-chords.com/chord-...;Ab&key=&bass=

Obviously the chord I was loooking for was C D F Aflat - which seemed to work fine in a sequence I was writing. In chord/Jazz notation this might be written as Fm6/C
though in the original context it would be considered a suspension - notation Csus2/4(#5).
I then wondered what this would be in Roman Numeral notation, and it seems that there is either little information or no agreement about how to use suspended chords in RNI.

Anyway, the chord namer tool looks potentially very useful/powerful. I've explored it with with up to 7 different notes., and in some cases I've cross checked back that the names work in chord generating software.

I thought this might be useful to anyone else who is tinkering - like me.

Serious composers will of course either not need this, or know it already, or just not care!

[Joseph K]

Dave at first glance I'd consider it a last-inversion D minor seventh flat fifth chord, though it could be considered to be other chords - Wagner famously exploited this ambiguity in Tristan.

Funny you should mention chords. This morning I've been practising all the types of chords I have hitherto neglected - drop 2 on the lower string set, drop 3 on the upper string set and drop 2+4 on the lower string set. I have quite a few books with harmonic and other techniques for solo arranging and improvising which I'll be digging into today and for the foreseeable future (perhaps should have added Joe Pass first to my list of models above).

[Mario]

Just experimenting today and found this - seemingly very useful website tool - https://www.scales-chords.com/chord-...;Ab&key=&bass=

I thought this might be useful to anyone else who is tinkering - like me.

Yes Dave, I'm a tinkerer, and studying Grade 5 Music Theory, this tool certainly helps to identify chord progressions.

Strange that studying even the very earliest and simplest piano sonatas of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, they very rarely follow the rules I am being taught, you know, that e.g., Chord X is best followed by Chord Y.

But maybe it's like the old saying, you have to know the rules well, before you are allowed to break them!

Thanks again for the link,

Mario