Mimi Fox and Martin Taylor at the Freight

It's one of those special weekend that I went to back-to-back awesome concerts. I'm writing about the 2nd one first. As a student of jazz guitar, this one featuring Mimi Fox and Martin Taylor is a must-see. Both of them are not only great performers but also teachers (Here are links to one of Mimi Fox's book and Martin Taylor's online school) Living in the Bay Area, I'm fortunate enough to go to Mimi Fox's concerts quite a few time (even a free performance at Stanford Shopping Center. I also remember very well the jazz organ fellowship gala that featured her as the guest. Mimi Fox lives in the Bay Area. As an aside: this year's gala will feature the amazing organist Tony Monaco playing at Stanford University!) About the famed European jazz master Martin Taylor, I actually first heard of him from my days as a devoted audiophile 15 years ago (Still am but spent less though) He recorded for Linn, the company known for high-end audio equipment. I got more familiar with his music after I was invited to join his online school. (Long story: one of the early success in online jazz instruction was Jimmy Bruno's Guitar Institute. I was a student there and learned quite a lot from Mr. Bruno. See my prior posts on this topic. Sadly, JB and the company who built the site parted way and the latter found Martin Taylor as sort-of "the replacement teacher") I went through his introductory video on the idea of utilizing the 10th (one octave above the 3rd. This was the first time I heard of such idea. (Here's a link to an interview of him on YouTube in which he explained it. I didn't end up joining though. I've never seen him performed live until today. This is one of the concerts that could sell itself simply because of the names on the bill. When I saw these 2 names, I didn't even bother to check if they are accompanied by a group or just playing with each other or solo, I knew no matter what it's gonna be awesome and I was right!

The set started with Mimi Fox playing solo guitar. I've listened to her latest album so I knew what to expect but still it's much better watching her live. It's cool to watch her right-hand technique: hybrid picking with a pick and also the ring finger. Sometimes she would hide her pick and use the thumb to play bass lines on the 6th string while hitting other strings with the middle finger for harmonics. She played mostly her Heritage archtop (I'm familiar with Heritage because Alex Skolnick of Testament also plays Heritage. HK's Tom Lee TST Showroom has a Heritage archtop) and also a flattop acoustic with a vintage/custom look, which is not a common choice for jazzers) She played "500 Miles High" (a Chick Corea tune and also a hint for the other concert I went to :P) on it. Other memorable pieces included Wes Montgomery's "Four on Six", "Moonlight in Vermont" and Beatle's "She's Leaving Home" from Sgt. Pepper.

Then came Martin Taylor. His style was quite different from Mimi Fox. His playing was more "densed" than Mimi Fox, meaning he played more chords (using the "latin" fingerstyle patterns taught in Berklee Chord 201!) and had a heavier emphasis on the rhythm parts. This video of him (from his younger days) explained it well:

In fact, he did play "I Got Rhythm" last night! I didn't just enjoy the music but also learned a great deal. I think I get a better understanding of his "scaffolding with the 10th" idea watching him demonstrating it in person moving up and down the guitar neck. It seems quite straightforward to apply too: if you could play the chords of a tune in drop-2/drop-3, the thirds (or the 10ths) would be quite obvious on the neck. He made melodies out of these quite a bit. Another idea I saw him using was embellishing the original melody, like what he did with "Georgia on My Mind." Coincidentally, it's the same idea Mimi Fox taught in the book I linked to above! Of course there are a lot more to learn from Mimi Fox's performance too, like her repeat usages of sequences against different chords in the progression (taught in Berklee Jazz 201 Week 3)

Finally, they jammed together on "Blue Bossa" (a must-learn tune for any jazz guitarist. In fact, it's the 2nd tune to improv on at JB's old guitar institute. I wonder if it's still the same for his current school!) and then "Blues for Two" written by Fox (can you believe the topic of this week's class at Berklee's Jazz 201 is blues? Yes, they did substitute quite a few chords of the basic 12-bar blues form!) I actually like Martin Taylor's playing more in this setting where he played more single-note lines while Mimi Fox was comping.

So I skipped my normal practice time to go to this concert and it's totally worthwhile! (And hopefully I would win the drawing I entered for the Peerless Martin Taylor signature model Virtuoso archtop guitar that is being given away! He played the same model last night.)

我的結他雜記: Wrong note?

The worst fear in me regarding improvisation is playing wrong notes. I spent a lot of time learning what scale/lick works with which chord. I worried about playing them wrong. Oh well, are wrong notes that bad? I bet everyone has tried correcting a wrong note by playing the right note next and found that the end result didn't sound that bad. In fact, the great bassist and teacher Victor Wooten said something really simple but may not be obvious: "You are never more than a half-step away from the right note!" Check out this video in which he explained:
And in this video he actually played a solo using all wrong notes and sounded good!

我的結他雜記: Decoding KORG

I have been using my KORG Pandora PX5D for years with the presets only but I've decided to really look into its amp modelling capability. It used a bunch of cryptic names. I guess it's because KORG doesn't want to pay the original manufacturers the right to use their trademarks.

This is what I was able to guess and google:

• TWD1X12 1x12” guitar combo covered in tweed cloth, should be Fender Tweed Deluxe
• TWD4X10 4x10 guitar combo but designed for bass guitar, should be Fender Bassman
• BLK2X12 2x12 guitar combo indispensable for country or blues players, could be Fender Twin Reverb
• UKBLUES UK-manufactured vintage stack guitar amp head, could be Marshall 1962 Bluesbreaker
• US HI-G 100 W guitar amp head covered in snake skin from 1991, could be Mesa Boogie Mark IV.
• US MDN High-gain guitar amp with an eye-catching metal plate, could be Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier

Geek to Guitar Hero

The title doesn't referred to me, of course, but the great guitarist Alex Skolnick, best known for playing lead in the thrash metal pioneer Testament. This is actually the title of his recently published memoir. In general I don't read much biography but I did read a few about musicians, including Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Jimi Hendrix (I still remember I had to kill time while waiting for female classmates at the library so I picked up Miles' biography) This is a little different because Skolnick is still alive and wrote the whole thing by himself. Testament is one of my all-time favourite band. I "discovered" them after listening to Metallica and Slayer and magazines raved about them being a thrash metal band of the same caliber. Their album at the time was "Souls of Black" and I was immediately hooked and bought their prior and subsequent releases. Alex Skolnick's unique style of guitar solo was one of the reasons I'm attracted to their music. And I subscribed to his Facebook page, on which he promoted his book. I wanted to read about the beginnings of his band and his guitar study and the book certainly didn't disappoint.

The book basically covered his childhood (not a very happy one because he didn't fit in with his family and school) to present, primarily focusing on his experiences from his first stint with Testament. I felt somewhat connected to his stories because he grew up in the SF bay area (Berkeley) He mentioned a lot of local places (e.g. Yoshi's!) and bands that I'm familiar with.

There are quite a few episodes that I found most interesting from this book:
When Alex asked for advices from his guitar teacher Joe Satriani whether he should join Legacy (renamed to Testament later because the name was taken already), Satch encouraged him to just play like himself. So he decided to bring the standards of the best hard rock guitarist that inspired his playing to thrash metal, which he initially didn't think his style would fit in. And he did it!

Even though I think "Souls of Black" is an ass-kicking album (may not be as good as "Practice What You Preached" but close), Alex didn't like it that much. He revealed that they did the album just to get enough money from the record company to support their touring. And he thought it's a step back from "Practice" that they should not have made. Rushing to do "Souls" might have cost them the opportunity to become as successful as the "Big 4" (of thrash metal: Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax) In fact, according to Alex, the band wasn't as successful as I imagined. They played in a lot of small clubs after their heydays of playing in big arenas, mostly opening for the biggest names in metal. Now I remember going to one of Testament's concert at a small SF venue called Trocadero Transfer in mid-90s. They certainly made less money than I thought. Alex mentioned few guys from the scene were able to afford buying houses in the bay area. You see sports car in rock music videos a lot but he was no where close to buying his dream Ferrari. After his Pontiac Firebird was stolen, he drove a Corolla instead and sang high praises for it! My experiences with cars is a parallel to his: going from a sports car to a compact car that is also based on Corolla :P

His book mentioned a few lesser-known but great jazz guitarist: like Lenny Breau and Tuck Andress (p.286) I first learned about Lenny Breau while driving in Toronto and listened to its local jazz radio station several years ago. His style was so fascinating that I had to look him up on internet once I got to my sis' place.

Alex wrote some of Testament's early songs using the less-common scale (actually, mode) Mixolydian b2 b6, taught by Satriani earlier. I learned this from Berklee and they call it Mixolydian b9 b13 (b9 is the same as b2 and b13=b6) and wrote a post about its fingering here.

He mentioned there was a song for which he came up with a rhythm guitar part that both he and the other guitarist in the band (Eric) couldn't play well and the producer almost hired a session player for the recording!

A few more things we have in common: we both enjoy the writing of Haruki Murakami. Alex quoted Murakami in his book. We both disliked the disappearance of guitar solo from metal during the grunge era. It's one thing to have your own style that doesn't rely on guitar solo. It's another to imitate bands that don't have guitar solo because you can't pull it off anyway. We both moved to New York, even though in my case, it was just a year but there's no better place for a jazz guy than NYC.

His book actually didn't say much about what happened after he left Testament. I found out he recorded quite a bit of music, for example, with violinist Joe Deninzon on an album titled "The Adventures Of Stratospheerius", and formed the fusion band Attention Deficit that released 2 albums.

I wish he wrote a bit more about his days at Newschool studying jazz but he was living a low-profile life then and may not have much interesting stories for most readers. Nevertheless, it's a fun read. Highly recommended!

Live music = Excitement!

Took a break from live music because of holidays and my trip back home (other than jamming with friends) but resumed last month as soon as I was back. The SFJAZZ center, the first one dedicated to jazz in US, opened last month. Too bad I have yet to visit it or attended any concert from the opening week and after :( On that 1/25 and 1/26 weekend, there were actually several appealing concerts, including the ones at SFJAZZ, the International guitar night (featuring the great guitarist and educator Martin Taylor) but I had to pick the one by Joe Lovano US Five. Saxophonist Joe Lovano is THE most prominent jazz musician today IMO. His new releases of recent years have all been exciting: with new compositions and young players, including the charming bassist (who also sings vocal with her own group but not US Five) Esperanza Spalding and an unusual duo of drummers. Check out these video:

Why two drummers? I brought it up with my drummer buddy and he wasn't impressed but a NPR blog post has a deep discussion on this very topic.

I consider Testament my favorite band (ranked about the same as Pink Floyd and the Beatles) and I've been to many of their concerts since 1991, about every other year except during the time that their vocalist Chuck Billy had health issue and the band was inactive. I felt guilty when I was on the fence knowing they would play in SF, the opening night of their tour promoting 2012's hugely successful album "Dark Roots of the Earth." (Man, I'm becoming an old man, or my "old man :P" not wanting to pay extra fee, to LiveNation and long/late/costly drive/parking......) I checked LiveNation the night before and tickets were still available so I took a gamble and decided to buy ticket at the door and fortunately I was able to (also found free street parking) Kinda felt bad 'coz Testament should have sold out the show in their home town. I was able to get in early enough to hear the first opener, a local band called the Butlers. Their style is more hard rock/glam than thrash. They played some covers but was quite enjoyable overall. And they've got some friends from local metal bands played as guest on stage with them. The metal brotherhood rocks man! The 2nd opener was Australian band 4ARM. While the vocal is metalcore-ish, I definitely hear thrash metal roots in their guitar playing. Their lead guitarist Johnny Glovasa could shred! And his Ibanez XPT sounded and looked totally awesome. Next was long time thrash metaller Overkill. I don't know why but this band deserved to be much bigger than what they already are after thrashing hard for 20+ years. Their lead vocalist Bobby Blitz has one of the most devilish voice in my opinion. And D.D. Verni was THE bassist I wanted to sound like if I play thrash. Listen to his bass on "Nothing to Die For" on the album "The Years of Decay" and you'll know why. This album ranked high on my list of great metal albums. I screamed the loudest when they played "Elimination" from that album (yeah, that's where I learn the word from in late 80s) Finally, Testament came on stage. I kinda worried about their guitarist Alex Skolnick 'coz he posted pictures of the cold med he had to take before the show. Well, when the spotlight is on, he played (and sang backing vocal) like his usual great self. Since it's for promoting the new album, they played a lot from it, which were all great songs on par with their classic albums. What a show! I was glad that I didn't miss it.

For a fan of jazz and Chinese music like me, Ultra World-Xtet's music combined the best of both worlds! I decided I had to go to their concert after watching Gary Schwantes' solo on YouTube. He is the band leader (saxophonist and dizi player) I've never seen a Westerner playing dizi, the Chinese flute, which was also the first instrument I seriously trying to learn. The rest of the group played drums, bass, guzheng and yangqin, respectively. Some might imagine the awkwardness of fitting the sound of Chinese instrument to jazz music but there was none. It sounded very natural, like they are supposed to be played together. I found both guzheng and yangqin players to be masters in playing Chinese music on their instrument but at the same time adopted quite a bit of improvisation skills from jazz. The encore was the Chinese-new-year-of-Snake-appropriate "Golden Snake Dance." (Yeah, everyone who played Chinese music have learned it)

我的結他雜記:Improvisation with arpeggios

In addition to practicing licks, arpeggios are also part of my daily routine. I understand their importance. The million dollar question in my mind has been: how am I supposed to apply them during improvisation? I've recently come across two helpful resources:

- Making Music from Arpeggios: a free lesson written by Will Kriski

- 25 Major ii-V-I licks for Jazz Guitar: an e-book written by Joseph Alexander. Even though all are 3-4 bar licks, the author made it quite clear how the notes came from arpeggios.

我的結他雜記: Chordal Pattern System

I just watched this video about a system for learning jazz guitar:

The reason I mentioned this is I think it is related to my current studies: (1) the "old-school" way of Robert Conti who taught licks, complete solo as well as the underlying rationale/tricks. For example, it mentioned the "move up 3 frets" trick taught by Conti. And (2) the theory-centric way of Berklee from which I'm taking a class on chords (not just 4-note 7th chord but a lot of triads too)

I am reading his blog.

A Day full of Jazz

I listen to a fair amount of music everyday but this day was special. First of all, I read about the bad news of jazz great, pianist Dave Brubeck passing away, one day before his 92nd birthday, via none other than the Facebook feed of classical radio station KDFC! The Dave Brubeck Quartet's original, "Take Five", was considered as the most well-known jazz tune ever. Jazz station KCSM played an interview of him after work. I learned quite a few things from the 10 minutes I listened to it: 1) at one time he had a bad relationship with Paul Desmond, the then-future saxophonist of his quartet who would compose "Take Five."  2) they started the trend of jazz musicians playing concerts at colleges which were more accessible to students because of less expensive tickets and the need to drive or take a bus. I was a beneficiary of this myself: one of the very first jazz shows I attended was at the student union at UT: a Stanley Jordan solo performance. Later that night I listened to the radio show Piano jazz hosted by Marian McPartland on KCSM with guitarist Russell Malone. He talked about the first time he played on stage with Jimmy Smith. He tried to show off his skills but got a lesson from Smith, which was very interesting. Malone offered some advices during the show as well: he suggested instrumentalists to learn tunes by listening to vocalist and paying attention to lyrics for phrasing and interpretation. That was during my drive to Yoshi's to see veteran guitarist Lee Ritenour and his special guest Mike Stern. I am kinda familiar with Stern's fusion style and "signature" sound (on a Fender Telecaster) through previous live performances and his albums. I have listened to Ritenour's playing on the "smooth jazz supergroup" Fourplay (which has its fair shares of criticism for playing it safe) as well as his "6 String Theory" album that featured an "all-star" lineup of guest guitarists. He played 3 different guitars during the show: a Yamaha "Silent" nylon string guitar (for acoustic tunes), a Gibson L5 Archtop (for traditional jazz) and a Les Paul (for rock/fusion). Obviously there were lots of variety during the show. They played quite a few songs from Ritenour's new album called "Rhythm Sessions", which featured several different rhythm sessions (bass/drums). I can't believe the full listing of songs and personnel is so hard to find though! I listened to the whole album on Rhapsody and it is quite enjoyable.

Is Smooth Jazz Dead?

I didn't come up with the title. I simply took it from an article in the JazzTimes magazine (discussed here on the Saxophone music forum.) I am really surprised that a type of music that is trying to please everyone and offend no one could go downhill like this [link1, link2] (I was equally surprised when the radio station KKSF dropped the smooth jazz format) I guess the moral of the story is that musicians just need to be themselves and play without worrying about offending or pleasing some audiences. Good players will always find way to be heard, with the smooth jazz moniker or not. (Look at David Sanborn) On the other hand, less talented folks who rode on coattails of others won't last long.

Electric blues compilation

I have been a big fan of electric blues since the first time I listened to SRV years ago. Just read about a new 12-CD compilation from the Guitar Player magazine. I was in the mood for some blues and listened to some Lightnin' Hopkins 2 weeks ago. What a coincidence!

我的結他雜記: The Pentatonic Jazz improvisation system

Check out this video for a good demo of the system:
I came across it from this forum post. Following this system, you won't play any note that doesn't "go along" with the harmony. His fingering is always 2 notes per string, which is "classic" pentatonic fingering. His system has many many fingerings though. Some also said jazz was about playing the "wrong notes" On the other hand, it has a lot of appeal to players like me who are unable to improvise at all with so many note and scale choices. He used only 1 fingering (moved for different keys) in the above demo and it sounds pretty good already.

Current landscape of cloud music service

Yes, I intentionally made the title sounded like some sort of research/report from the likes of Gartner. Well, it was 5 years ago last time I wrote a related post. The buzzword "cloud" wasn't as big back then and the industry still refered to streaming services like Rhapsody and Napster as "subscription" Lots have changed though between these 5 years besides of the name. I'm still a user of such service (back to Rhapsody after Yahoo Music Unlimited was shutdown in 2008) but haven't paid much attention to the health of this business until today. I've found:
1) Rhapsody was spun off by Real Network (and partner MTV Network) as an independent company (Real still owns some stakes) in 2010
2) Rhapsody celebrated its 10th anniversary, reached one million subscribers and on track to become profitable last year according to this. The growth was credited to popularities of competitors like Spotify and support on portable devices like iOS and Android tablet/phones.
3) Among the providers I mentioned in my 2007 post, only 2 remained: Rhapsody bought Napster from BestBuy last year. MTV's Urge merged with Rhapsody in 2007. Microsoft's Zune Pass will become Xbox Music soon. And I already mentioned Yahoo shutdown its service in 2008.

Lots of techie disliked Real Network because of its practices (Real Player installations related) in the early dot-com days so I guess not longer associating with it is a good thing for Rhapsody to some potential customers. It seemed quite amazing to me that a business could survive for 10 years while struggling with profitability. It is also surprising that the appearance of a heavily hyped upstart like Spotify actually revitalize the whole sector ("grown the cake" if you will) and benefited "old timers" in the sector like Rhapsody. Hey, anything that's associated with "the cloud" is cool, especially after Apple created iCloud, isn't it? I guess it showed that Rhapsody was way ahead (9+ years) of its time. I certainly would not blame its lack of success on its technology. Not sure how many people knew and remembered the whole saga of Harmony DRM back in 2004 (BTW, finally a class action lawsuit was filed against Apple recently). Rhapsody created Harmony so that their tracks (purchased by user only, not the subscription ones) could play on iPod. Of course, Apple being Apple wouldn't allow this to happen and patched this "loophole" during the next release of firmware. At that point I thought Rhapsody could make a great move by releasing its own iPod firmware that works with both purchased and subscription tracks! (They don't even have to do it officially. Just leak it and claimed it's a hack by the user community!) Well, things come full circle when Apple finally approved Rhapsody's iOS app years later, which works for both types of tracks. IIn fact, the app was another boost to Rhapsody's growth. Looks like this industry is in good shape and we could all go back to enjoying great music.

我的結他雜記: 即興道

這不是甚麼新興武術，而是一個爵士即興教材的名字，我是從討論區這個帖得知。練習方法就是聽一個jazz lick（旋律），彈出來，然後按cycle of 4th把該lick轉足十二個key彈出來，教材包括伴奏的CD。可以想像得到，要練成跟到伴奏，必有一定功力；值得考慮試試。

It runs in the family

Listened to a bunch of "new" jazz music last weekend (some of them are released recently while others are just discovered by me) The common and interesting theme is that all of them comes from musical families. The first CD is "Spirit Fiction" by saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, whose father is one of the most important musician in the history of jazz, as most people already know, the late great John Coltrane. John Coltrane died when Ravi was 2 and obviously didn't gave him any input in terms of music directly (On the other hand, every jazz player must have been influenced by John Coltrane one way or the other) Ravi has his unique sound and this CD is one of the his best. The 2nd CD is "Colombe" by guitarist David Reinhardt. Again, he has an instantly recognizable last name from his grandfather, the legendary Gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. David also doesn't sound like his grandpa. He plays in a organ trio setting on this CD. The next musician, saxophonist Von Freeman, is different in the sense that I've actually listened to his son, Chico Freeman, before I listened to him. Finally, I discovered a CD by jazz ukulele player Lyle Ritz, "A Night of Ukulele jazz/Live at McCabe's," on which his daughter Emily has also performed.

Find Yourself

It's a track from the album "Disney Jazz Volume 1: Everybody Wants to be a cat" from 2011 that I just "discovered" today. My favorite jazz violinist Regina Carter performed this track:


You could hear a harp-like instrument on the track. It's kora from Africa performed by master Yacouba Sissoko, who also collaborated with Carter on her earlier release, Reverse Thread.

The whole album featured an all-star lineup with players like Dave Brubeck, Roy Hargrove etc. Highly recommended. Here is an insightful review.

BTW, the original song is from the final credits of the movie "Cars" I watched it many times with my son when he was younger but I've never noticed the song. Nice song (of course I like Carter's version better):

我的結他雜記: Introduction to Jazz Guitar Soloing

Just came across a forum thread/study group on the MI book "Introduction to Jazz Guitar Soloing" The scale and arpeggio fingering patterns look familiar (CAGED based, also similar to the ones taught by Jimmy Bruno) I plan to look into the application of these patterns later in the book. The book has chapters/exercises of "connecting games", which I think has to do with connecting arpeggios during chord changes and should be very useful.

我的結他雜記: Robert Conti interview

Just came across a very interesting article reprinted from the Just Jazz Guitar magazine from 2002. It's an interview of jazz guitarist/educator Robert Conti, from whose DVDs and books I've learned a ton. He talked about his days hanging out with the great Pat Martino, and even more interesting was the business side of being a professional performer at hotels and similar venues.

Pat Metheny

我最喜愛的爵士結他手及學習對象包括Pat Martino及Jimmy Bruno，Pat Metheny不在其中；但作為這個年代影響力極深、唱片銷路甚佳的結他手，他的concert對我還是很具吸引力，但對上一次看他竟然是十年前在Oakland Paramount Theater。Pat Metheny成名四十年，記得廿幾年前聽香港電台的爵士節目（不知現在還有沒有？），常常介紹Pat Metheny Group，Chick Corea及Miles Davis等等，他們到港演出均是盛事。雖然不是所有他玩的風格我都喜歡，但我欣賞他夠多元化：Pat Metheny Group玩的我認為New Age感强烈，和他的Trio/Quartet的現代爵士感覺相當不同。今次他的Unity Band風格是後者，對我來說比較啱聽；事實上色士風手Chris Potter有獨當一面之能，我一向十分欣賞，所以今次非去不可，US$55在SF算是十分貴，但連星期三晚八點場門票也早已售罄，我預先買了十點的票，早廿分鐘開始排隊，排了半小時才能進場，前面那位阿叔和我一樣頗為不滿，不過一開場這些立即拋諸腦後。打頭陣的是Pat Metheny用他那支「奇門兵器」4頸42弦Pikasso acoustic guitar獨奏，在他手中效果尤如一隊樂隊，當世不知有幾人能彈得到？接著樂隊四人full team登場，是唱片原班人馬，在西岸也是罕見，即使是名氣不下Pat Metheny的頂級樂手，很多都找加州本地樂手伴奏。演出的有來自新碟的新作，也有Metheny膾炙人口的作品，現場即興氣氛特別熾烈。最後十五分鐘拉下了兩塊神秘布幕，原來大有乾坤：蓋著的是幾組Orchestrion：靠吹打發聲的機器，由Metheny透過結他來控制，再加上looper（可錄下一段聲音重覆播放），效果相當豐富，只是長了一點難免有些許冷場。總的來說是十分精彩多變的演出，自然encore連連，Pat Metheny最後彈的是意外驚喜：去年acoustic guitar獨奏唱片中玩過的Beatles cover "And I Love Her." 這次演出可算是總括他近年三張唱片的東西，絕對值回票價有餘。

Classical and Spanish Guitar music

Recently I'm in the mood of playing classical guitar music again because of my last "big purchase" at Amazon before it charges sales tax. One of the items I bought was "The Huge Book of Classical Guitar Solos in Tab" It has over 150 pieces. Even if I learn 10% of them, it would be a huge addition to my almost non-existent repertoire. I especially enjoy the section for Spanish guitar music, including pieces like Malaguena.

Apparently Pandora could read my mind and played:
1)
Album: 24 Preludes and Fugues, for guitar solo
Artist: Igor Rekhin (Composer), Dimitri Illarionov (Performer)

Rekhin was a student of Aram Khachaturian. Can't go wrong!

2)
Track: El Camino Real
Album: Spanish Soul
Artist: Stefan Schyga

Schyga actually teaches online. Interesting! And the name of the track should be familiar to anyone living in SF Bay Area :)

我的結他雜記: 非學院派教爵士

Berklee爵士科導師教scale及arppegio，我問有甚麼「公式」或「捷徑」可以應用它們，他說沒有捷徑，唯有練熟及多聽名家從中學習。 從該課程學到的樂理及範例，我認為是相當有幫助的基礎。另一方面，我也覺得應從其他渠道在此基礎上發展，所以我才買了Wolf Marshall的Best of Jazz Guitar(附CD，可練聽力又可學學名家lines)，及Sid Jacobs的Complete Book of Jazz Guitar Lines & Phrases；雖然Berklee導師不覺得需要這些，聽名家CD已是一大資源。

Jacobs的書有很多配合ii-V, V-I及I chord/progression的短phrases，包括很多爵士語言的典範，我正在很努力的背及練習在不同的key上應用，務求見chord可即彈。背熟彈熟之路固然還有一大段；始終覺得兩個bar轉三個chord要「背」出對應的phrases且要連貫又是另一條長路。究竟有沒有一些方法或教材針對幾個bar的chord progression彈奏長句？ 之前跟大師Jimmy Bruno學的即興方法，看的不只是一個chord而是整個key，每一個大調都有五種指法可彈該調的pitch collection。當然，這也不是甚麼公式或捷徑。

經驗中教得更加具體的，是有出教學DVD的Robert Conti老師。他的入門DVD Ticket to Improv把一首曲子的單音solo由頭到尾逐粒音記下，學生只需做copycat 照彈。他的理念是學爵士即興第一步就是要多彈，彈的是充滿爵士語言的完整樂句，踏出這一步之後，才去理解為甚麼要這樣彈，總之是實戰重於理論。我覺得也是值得一試，尤其是像我嚴重缺乏爵士語言遑論創造。Robert Conti進階的教材是The Jazz Lines, 基本上亦是教授一些完整樂句，多了的是如何在不同的chord之上應用，例如適用於ii chord同一條line可用在unaltered的V chord之上，這個道理以前我也學過，不過他也教了transpose後的line可用於altered的V chord之上，亦略為解釋了他的line為何配合這些chord。他教學生練的lines比較長(一般多於四個bars），應付兩個或四個bars的ii-V-I chord progression「綽綽有餘」。此外，第一課我就學了一個以前不識的彈法：以subdominant (IV chord）為基礎，即C major key彈Fmaj7 arpeggio。不能不讚的是Robert Conti教學編排頗為循步漸進，The Jazz Lines教的lines和Ticket to Improv的甚為相似，彈過後者的再練及背前者就事半功倍。（當然，可能純屬巧合，他教的當然都是他彈得最熟的lines）

十分巧合地，收到結他雜誌Guitar Player介紹網上版，其中一文The Fast track to Bebop chops打正旗號介紹爵士「公式」「捷徑」！亦提到major scale中subdominant的用法，各位不妨讀讀。