George Garzone's triadic+chromatic approach
Paul Sanwald
discussed his approach to improvisation, entitled (at the new school)
"the triadic chromatic approach to improvisation". I think at nec he
calls it "jazz ear training". Anyways, the class was based on a couple
of exercises he gave us to play, and we exapanded upon these exercises
all semester, as well as looking at (and learning) a solo of his (have
you met miss jones, off his record 4s and 2s). George's ideas about
improv have really changed the way I think about everything, so I
thought I'd share the exercise (and a few of the things he talked
about) here.
The mantra to follow throughout these exercises is "don't ever repeat
yourself". These exercises are meant to get you to play in a totally
random fashion. That seems to be the main thrust of these exercises,
and also what makes them challenging. Every time anyone played these
exercises in front of the class (and we all had to), he would stop us
(or yell) as soon as we started to repeat ourselves. In the context of
the first exercise, "repeating yourself" means repeating an inversion.
In the context of the second exercise, it means repeating an interval
(i.e two half steps in a row, two whole steps in a row).
also, when you play these exercises, play them in steady time (i.e.
all eights, all quarter notes) and play them slow. It's also important
not to think while you're doing these exercises. any time george
perceived one of us to be thinking about what we were playing, he
would yell.
Exercise #1:
1) play some inversion of a major triad. splitting octaves is ok,
and it doesn't have to be high to low or vice versa. for a root
position c triad, playing e c g is fine.
2) when you get to the last note, move up or down a half step
3) play a different inversion of a different triad.
4) go to step #2 and repeat until you can't take it any more :)
Exercise #2 (chromatic approach):
for our purposes, we're going to consider intervals that are less
than a perfect 4th to be chromatic. perfect 4ths (and all higher
intervals) are considered to be intervallic. The idea with this
exercise is to play (in a random fashion), intervals less than a
perfect 4th, and not repeat yourself. so, a "chromatic approach" type
line would look like:
C D B Bb Gb E F A.
If anybody's interested, I can post how he applies this stuff, but
it's pretty straightforward, and would be hard to understand if you
aren't familiar with george's playing. In brief, though, george's
comments to us ran along the lines of: I'm telling you guys verbatim
how I play. Not many people will do that, but that's what I'm doing.
The idea is this: If the rhythm section is playing the changes, the
the soloist outlining the changes as well is redundant. playing lines
from the "chromatic approach" provides sort of a harmonic "carpet"
that brings out what the rhythm section is doing, rather than
repeating it.
Anyways, just a few of the concepts that we learned in this class.
it's a great class. as a side note, the last day we watched a video of
dave holland, jack dejohnette, christian mcbride, mike brecker, dave
liebman, george garzone, joshua redman and geoff keezer all playing
impressions at some jazz festival. it was mind blowing!
--paul
Andy Bullington
> it's pretty straightforward, and would be hard to understand if you
> aren't familiar with george's playing. In brief, though, george's
> comments to us ran along the lines of: I'm telling you guys verbatim
> how I play. Not many people will do that, but that's what I'm doing.
Thanks for this, Paul....great stuff....if you have more I'm sure a lot of us
are VERY interested. I know I am.
Andy
Tom Walls
abull...@mediaone.net says...
Likewise, thanks Paul. I really dig what I've heard of George's playing and
this looks like an interesting concept.
--
Tom Walls
the guy at the Temple of Zeus
http://www.arts.cornell.edu/zeus/
____________________________________________________________________
the rmb troll faq is at http://liquid2k.net/rmbtroll. spread the word!
Tom Lippincott
>Likewise, thanks Paul. I really dig what I've heard of George's playing and
>this looks like an interesting concept.
>--
>Tom Walls
I'll third the motion: thanks a lot, I'm going to have to save that and try
some of that stuff.
Tom Lippincott
Guitarist, Composer, Teacher
audio samples, articles, CD's at:
http://www.tomlippincott.com
Bob Russell
pcsa...@pobox.com wrote on 5/25/01 11:12 AM:
(detailed description of Garzone's teaching snipped)
> If anybody's interested, I can post how he applies this stuff, but
> it's pretty straightforward, and would be hard to understand if you
> aren't familiar with george's playing. In brief, though, george's
> comments to us ran along the lines of: I'm telling you guys verbatim
> how I play. Not many people will do that, but that's what I'm doing.
Very thought-provoking stuff; thanks for sharing this! (And if I may briefly
relate this to another thread I'm currently involved in, this is the kind of
stuff I thought might be found in rec.music.makers.saxophone.)
-- Bob Russell
http://www.uncwil.edu/people/russellr
Pat Smith
Jim Kangas
Interesting - I've heard of George and "his triad approach", but never
knew much more than that. I'd love to hear more.
-Jim
Jack A. Zucker
--
====================================
email: j...@jackzucker.com
jazz guitar site: www.jackzucker.com
"Paul Sanwald" <pcsa...@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:1503c94e.01052...@posting.google.com...
Paul Sanwald
The two exercises I posted are really the foundations, with one
addition: The first exercise is done with all 4 species of triads
(major, minor, diminished, and augmented). Obviously, it's really hard
to get a lot of variety out of the augmented triads, and that's where
splitting octaves and changing direction really come into prominence.
It's important to play these exercises precisely in time, and at a
constant rate. it is not big deal if you can't do them fast, it's more
important to try and hear where you're going and absorb the overall
sound than to do it with any kind of speed. If you really focus on not
repeating yourself, and not trying to think, these exercises can
really take some time to develop.
The next step is mixing the triadic approach with the chromatic
approach. this isn't particularly scientific, it's just playing some
triads then playing some chromatic approach then some more triads and
you get the idea.
The biggest thing they did for me was get me away from thinking about
specific notes, and towards thinking about contour and overall sound.
For instance, the major triad exercise got to have a very distinct
sound to me, and one entirely different from the minor triads (even
though at first all of it sounded like random notes to me). I think
the best thing to do with these exercises is just to dive right in and
do them.
--paul
kan...@tiac.net (Jim Kangas) wrote in message news:<9emusg$bba$1...@news-central.tiac.net>...
thomas
players who superimpose random triads and chromatic stuff over
standard changes. Alice Coltrane does this a lot. Even George
Benson does it sometimes. But usually I hear it used as a
temporary effect, a way of going out and then coming back
to the changes. I can't think of anyone who plays a lot
of standard-type changes and uses this as his entire
esthetic.
Mark Kleinhaut
I havn't followed this thread, and I really don't know much about his use
of triadic....theory etc. But I have heard George live and on record and
he plays some beautiful lyrical stuff. Nothing about what I've heard would
strike me as atonal, mechanical, formulaic or random. Just really nice lines
played with warmth of spirit and keen intelligence.
-----------------------------------------
Mark Kleinhaut markkl...@hotmail.com
Follow URL's for info and soundclips about:
my debut album "Amphora"
www.invisiblemusicrecords.com/Resources/Amphora.html
my newest album "Secrets of Three"
www.invisiblemusicrecords.com/Resources/SO3.html
Paul Sanwald
> tomb...@jhu.edu (thomas) wrote:
> I havn't followed this thread, and I really don't know much about his use
> of triadic....theory etc. But I have heard George live and on record and
> he plays some beautiful lyrical stuff. Nothing about what I've heard would
> strike me as atonal, mechanical, formulaic or random. Just really nice lines
> played with warmth of spirit and keen intelligence.
>
just out of curiosity mark, which records? did you see him live with
the fringe, or with another band?
The reason I'm asking, is that while I've heard him play the way
you're talking about, I've never heard him do it for very long, and
definitely never seen a concert or heard a record where he played that
way for more than a tune. It almost makes me wonder if we're talking
about the same guy :).
I've only seen him live a handful of times though, and only checked
out some fringe records and 4s and 2s. But every time I've seen the
band it's been very free, and his lines seem pretty atonal to me. He
sort of reminds me of mid to late period coltrane. Most of his stuff
with the fringe is pretty out there, and although I haven't heard it
yet, on "The Fringe In New York", george was complaining about his
playing too many 64th notes.
anyways, I'd be interested to hear more from your perspective mark,
because for all I know maybe he plays a totally different way
sometimes, depending on who he's playing with. In this class, however,
he stated probably at least once a class that the chromatic stuff was
all he played, and everything I've ever heard or seen seemed to
support that.
--paul
Paul Sanwald
I honestly think the best thing to do is check out some of his
records, you won't be dissapointed. 4s and 2s is a solo record of his
(with Joe Lovano) and is excellent, but the band he's had together for
over 30 years is called "The Fringe". Last year they released "The
Fringe In New York", which I haven't heard, but it features Mike
Manieri on vibes, along with regulars Bob Gulotti and John Lockwood. I
think it's on NYC records. They also have a new live cd coming out on
Soul Note, the same label that their first album "It's Time for the
Fringe", is on.
--paul
Paul Sanwald
actually, I just found some sound clips, from an album I forgot to
mention no less. moodiology, featuring kenny werner on piano:
http://www.nycrecords.com/catalog/6031.html
--paul
Mark Kleinhaut
Paul, check out his work with Steve Grover at
http://www.invisiblemusicrecords.com/Resources/Steve%20Grover.html
I heard his free playing live with the Fringe and thought it was very lyrical
(by free jazz standards). Hmmm, maybe it's all a matter of perspective?
Paul Sanwald
> pcsa...@pobox.com (Paul Sanwald) wrote:
> >"Mark Kleinhaut" <markkl...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<3b13...@spamkiller.newsfeeds.com>...
>
>
> http://www.invisiblemusicrecords.com/Resources/Steve%20Grover.html
>
wow, those clips are nice playing by everyone involved. To my ears,
he's being more subtle about the chromatic approach, but he's still
mixing it in all over the place. He played us a cd of his teacher,
Frank Tiberi, that sounded sort of like this. According to george,
frank's thing was playing the chromatic approach but landing on a
chord tone.
> I heard his free playing live with the Fringe and thought it was very lyrical
> (by free jazz standards). Hmmm, maybe it's all a matter of perspective?
>
I guess it depends on the gig :). I've seen ken vandermark's band
(kv5) when he was playing quietly and slowly the whole night, and I've
heard him tear the roof off the place, screaming the whole night.
George is probably capable of anything he wants to do on the sax.
I hope you didn't take my initial post the wrong way before. I didn't
mean to imply that his whole approach was random, or based on some
type of theory or something. however, according to him a good part of
it is based on randomly borrowing from the twelve tone row, as well as
not repeating himself, and that's really all those two exercises do. I
was just trying to pass some of the things he said to us along.
--paul
Robby
the term 'random' though- it seems once absorbed the stuff you're describing
would give the player more 'control' than ever about where the melody was
going- like you alluded to in saying the minor exercise has a different feel
than the major. i do wonder if the exercises creat too homogenous a sound
when transferred to playing situations. e.g., like why always go up or down
a half step in the triad exercises? Also i don't exactly get how you try not
to think when doing such specific exercises.