Tag: observations

Reversed stride bass in the context of satisfaction

Okay, first post after a two-week vacation! The best advice I could give to my two-week-younger self? Don’t ever take a goddam break from posting! I should’ve known this trap already, and yet I fell into it just like that. Anyway, on the plus side, I have tons of new sheet music and practice routine ideas waiting in the pipeline now, so expect high activity in the nearest future 👌🏻

Alright, today I wanted to talk about another left hand pattern that is worth exploring after you’ve mastered the broken 10ths and the excitement of mixing them with other diatonic intervallic patterns has started to wane. Reversed stride bass! I found it in the wonderful book Jazz Piano: The Left Hand by Roberto Scivales (which I highly recommend to everyone), got blown away by it and then amended it in order to use it in my own routine.

Reversed stride bass is — well, stride bass played backwards 🤓 Instead of hitting the root in the low register and then following up with a block triad or shell octave or two above, you do the exact opposite. Here’s the exercise that I used to practice this movement:

Screenshot 2019-04-28 at 5.35.25 PM

The right hand here plays rootless voicings with minimal movement voice-leading pattern (7-3-5 → 3-7-9) around the cycle of 4ths. The left hand plays chord shells one octave lower and roots two octaves lower. You may also add root — 5th — root octave up movement to complement the rhythmic figure, but it’s more of an ornament.

You can absolutely play block chords in place of shells with the left hand, but, to my taste, doubling roots just sound too muddy. As always, after cycling that thing, take it to your favourite modal progressions & songs.

Reverse stride may sound a bit weird on its own, so, in order to add some FAT and intensity, you can actually combine it with broken 10ths (1-5-10) and block triads! It might be a bit tricky to get used to, but super fun to practice. Check this out:

Screenshot 2019-04-28 at 5.45.22 PM

Same routine (cycling → modal DNAs → songs).

Just for the hell of it, here’s the (slightly oddly voiced) ii—V—I—IV improv that makes extensive use of the above pattern:

Screenshot 2019-04-28 at 5.48.18 PM.png

I’m definitely not done practicing it yet, so it most likely is going to be one of my priorities in the next sessions. There aren’t too many things as satisfying as hitting the low A after a rather watery sounding 7th chord shell played over another shell, both of which are trying their best to avoid the root 😄 Till later—

Back from vacation!

Alright fellas, it’s been a long vacation — not exactly as productive as I planned it, quite procrastination-filled, I would say rather (although I did practice as normal) — so, now it’s time to go back to theory! Got some exciting stuff prepared, more details soon! I’ll be updating the practice log as well, so make sure to use your time machines and read posts from the past 😄 Till later!

Practice session: search for the melodic minor DNA

Scale studies

  • All Melodic minor scales
  • Imrpov in Mm / finding DNA
  • D Dorian b2 (Mm mode #2): dissection in groups of 3 over harmonised scale — sheet music soon 🤖
  • A Dorian b2 (A normal Dorian in descending motion) over harmonised scale

Left hand

Observations

Yes, ascending melodic minor is an extremely dissonant scale. I mean, it’s in the nature of it: it’s literally major and minor sewn together, how can it not be dissonant! But, as always, somewhere in the middle of all this harshness, there’s an undulating beauty, its DNA, so magnificent and fragile that it compensates all the clashing around it. I just have to find it 🤓

Session timing: 2h

Practice session: lost in dissonances, rescued by Lydian sweetness

Scale studies

  • All Hm1 scales
  • All Hm1 scales, focus on descending motion

  • Accidentals jam (Dorian scales in all keys) — must confess that this exercise does not really apply well to anything other than harmonic minor 😕

  • Scale dissection: C, F, Bb Lydian over moving major 7th arpeggio in groups of 3
  • Scale dissection: C, F, Bb & Eb Lydian over arpeggiated scale degrees in groups of 3

Here’s what I mean:

Screenshot 2019-04-07 at 10.09.03 AM.png

Surprisingly, it’s slightly easier to play than over the moving root arpeggio (because you don’t have to think about inversions all the time and simply go up the scale degrees) — and it sounds much better. Especially in sweet Lydian mode 🍭 Might get tricky in keys with a lot of accidentals though.

Jazz voicings + left hand

  • iim9 — V13 — I∆9 — IV∆ | iiø — V7b9 — m9 in C thru A, descending broken 10ths with the left hand

Session timing: 2h

Practice session: scale dissection and revisited ii — V — I’s

Scale studies

Jazz voicings + left hand

Observations

Scale dissection is getting much better, but still sucks in Bb- and other keys with a lot of accidentals, where the “white are 1 & 2, black are 3 & 7” pattern is not there anymore. This is why visual pattern are shit! To take a slightly better thought-through analogy, they are like sugar — addictive and unhealthy! 😄

Session timing: 1h 40m