A few notes on this little practice video I did yesterday on Twitch— hit that link and follow me, please, it helps— working through some things with a medium tempo McCoy Tyner loop. You can run the video while reading:
First let’s track down some pretty significant clashing between what I’m playing, and the track. The biggest thing is, I’m working out some triplet things, and McCoy Tyner is mostly playing 16th notes, so… naturally. I have to play through some spots where the phrase I’m practicing is really floating against the recording. There are also a number of places where my time drifts slightly, that would have been fine if I were playing with real musicians; but the recording is unforgiving. There are certainly a couple of places where I’m off enough that it could be called a mistake.
You have to take a certain approach with this— you can’t strictly lock with the track, you can’t just listen harder, you have to play off your own sense of the pulse, that is airy but precise, if that’s possible. You’re listening between the lines. You’re not strictly accompanying the recorded soloist, you’re not ignoring it either. We’re following our musical ear, to an extent, but ignoring our taste, making moves we would not do if we were playing for real— hopefully that way learning to play a little more than we’re normally comfortable with, and being able to make it work out musically. There’s a lot of playing on impulse happening, too— you want to be familiar with your own impulse moves, know how to expect them to go, and how to make them work out. And a lot of salvaging phrases where the thing I was trying to do didn’t work out.
re: the exact things I was working on: I’ve got the tresillo inversions combinations page up, and I’m running some basic jazz applications with it. There’s one new little thing I’m doing with alternating triplets, that I’ll explain soon.
For reference, here is the loop, which has the drums removed— there’s already significant air between McCoy’s time and Ron Carter’s, the bassist:
Which is the way it’s supposed to be, we’re not supposed to be locking attacks.
Here’s the original recording— the sampled portion comes right after the head. Elvin’s time here has a distinct triplet feel, and he’s obviously playing a lot more sparsely than I am as I’m practicing my junk. It’s refreshing, my video strains your ears. You can distinctly here him pulling back to stay out of McCoy’s way at times— places where you and I would have an instinct to build with the drums. Maybe Elvin did too, but playing is a negotiation, for all we know he wasn’t happy with those spots, and wanted to do more with them. But the negotiated performance is correct, that’s the real music. It’s not all about just being awesome at playing things for effect.
I am happy to help you with any of the materials on the site, and with anything else drumming related— contact me for private lessons, online world wide, or in person in Portland, Oregon. All levels of players, and all people, are welcome.
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