New music service owned by artists: Tidal

Tidal is one of the new players in the crowded space of music streaming service. And it made the news recently because of ownership changes. Tidal is now owned by a group of artists led by the financially (and musically?) successful Jay-Z. It claims to pay more royalty to artists than other services. For some reason it is getting quite a few backslashes. For example, one Bob Leftsez complained "We’ve got uber-rich artists complaining they’re just not making enough" which is refuted by this article. Musicians are NOT supposed to be poor, are they? And I just read the criticism mentioned in the Wikipedia about the service being too expensive ($19.99 for hi-resolution streaming. $9.99 for regular. No free option) One Marina and the Diamonds claimed that $240 a year is NOT a positive way for everyone to consume music. Oh well, that's about the price of 16 CDs (or 24 albums in MP3) Is that what artists expect any serious fans of music to spend on new music per year?

I think the biggest challenge for them though is to compete with all these other free or paid services and get enough subscribers to sustain the business. Exclusive content might help but it's just one factor. I have listened to Rhapsody for about 10 years WITHOUT the likes of Led Zeppelin, AC/DC or Beatles available and I still have plenty of good music to listen to. To be honest, if I cannot afford Rhapsody anymore, I would count on free services offered by all these online radio and Pandora. Their another selling point was hi-res streaming. I read someone conducted test and found that a lot of listener cannot distinguish between hi-res and "regular" files because the latter were usually encoded in bit rates > 160 these days, which is not exactly lo-res.

What has Rhapsody added in the past 8 years?

I wrote this review 8 years ago comparing what is available on Rhapsody and what is not by using mostly nonmainstream artists/albums between 2005 and 2007.

Jazz: Now become Available	Jazz: Still Unavailable
	Maria Schneider
Metal: Now become Available	Metal: Still Unavailable
John 5, Exodus, Impaled	Tool, Metal Massacre
Classic rock: Now become Available	Classic rock: Still Unavailable
Led Zeppelin	Beatles

I know Maria Schneider would still be unavailable because she doesn't believe in streaming music as a sales platform. However, the biggest deal is that Led Zeppelin is finally on board! Big improvement. Agreed?

Akai EWI-USB Experience

As I mentioned earlier this year, I am learning how to play EWI. And it has been around 4 months! Just want to share some of my tips here. IMO, the #1 most important thing for playing the Akai EWI-USB doesn't have to do with blowing or fingering techniques but rather configuring the software correctly :P So, the EWI-USB relies on your computer to translate the signal from air and finger sensors to sound. Specifically, you play through the Garritan Aria software (on a PC, in my case) I found that the sound is a bit delayed (in technical terms: the latency is too high) using the default sound driver. The solution is using a ASIO driver. Even though some didn't recommend the free ASIO4ALL, it works for me. Once ASIO4ALL is installed, go back to the Aria software and change the Preference to look like this:

Make sure the check box next to "EWI-USB(in)" under "Input MIDI Devices" is checked! Sometimes my PC screwed this up and left it unchecked and thus no sound come out when I play the EWI (and I panic :P)

Another good feature of Aria that I make use of is transposing what I played to other keys (and stop worrying about the keys with many sharps and flats!) To transpose up or down, go to the "Control" tab and choose the semitone needed to get to the new key. It's especially useful when you get "real saxophone" sheet music that expected your instrument to be in Bb (Tenor) or Eb (Alto)

No-one-likes-the-blues Blues

I came across a blog post about how unpopular the blues is in America. He mentioned one of the "makeover" TV show host suggested a blues club to switch to other type of music in order to be more viable because a study found that only 3% of American claimed blues as their favorite music genre. (Well, JJ Blues didn't need this TV show host's advice and "converted" already) I don't know if that study matters that much. As much as I like blues (or metal or classical for that matter) I won't claim that as my favorite music genre though. Another thing mentioned by that blog post was the harp (a.k.a. blues harmonica) player Paul Oscher from the legendary Muddy Waters band performed for free in a suburb city of Austin Texas. However, some readers pointed out in the comments that it wasn't that bad: Oscher actually performed at other shows that charge for admission. Anyway, blues and blues club hopefully will survive. 

So, how about jazz? Does it have better stats? I found this article from 1999, which quoted numbers from a 1992 study (that's 20+ years ago) Jazz lovers came in as 5% compared to Blues' 3%. I was trying to look for that number from the 2012 study but I couldn't seem to find it. The only jazz related number is that 8.1% of U.S. adults have attended a jazz concert. And that number went up from 7.8% in 2008. I guess this is encouraging.

JJ's Blues has changed hand too

Two of my favorite music genre, jazz and its older sibling blues, are both struggling in the SF bay area. I wrote about Yoshi's changing hand and its departure from jazz last year (here's another article on another failed jazz venue in the Fillmore Jazz preservation district) And I just found out the legendary San Jose blues club, JJ's Blues, has changed hand last Summer too. Even though I've only been there 2 or 3 times (once in 2014 before it changed hand) I was impressed. The atmosphere was awesome. Too bad it won't be blues-centric anymore.

我的結他雜記:Youtube片

早幾年經常上論壇討論結他相關話題，其中一個最常出現的是可用甚麼結他彈甚麼風格，於是搜尋了一堆視像連結：

民謠結他（鋼線木結他） - 民謠

電結他 - 重金

電結他 - Hard rock

電結他- 藍調

民謠結他（鋼線木結他） - 藍調 這條片十分特別：已故藍調結他大師Stevie Ray Vaughan演出時大多彈電結他，這是少有的木結他錄像

古典結他（尼龍弦木結他） - 古典

古典結他（尼龍弦木結他） - 爵士樂

古典結他（尼龍弦木結他） - Flamenco

Jazz Podcasts

These days I learned about new (or old) jazz releases mostly from the local station KCSM as well as the website AllAboutJazz.com. Sometimes I would check out playlist curated by writers at Rhapsody. Yet another sources are podcasts. I found a few good ones here:

• In the Groove, Jazz and Beyond
• Geoffrey Smith's Jazz on Radio 3 UK
• Cool Jazz Countdown (it plays tune from the "combined" chart so it contains some smooth jazz)

(I actually started this post back in 2005, I wanted to write about the critically acclaimed jazz podcast: Detroit JazzStage. Too bad it's now defunct. The old URL http://www.jazzstage.us/ doesn't work anymore)

我的結他雜記: The 4 levels of the Blues

Guitarist and magazine columnist Carl Verheyen did a great job in classifying 4 different ways of blues improvisation, from the most basic (minor pentatonic) to the most sophisticated (jazz blues with altered scales and upper extensions.) You might consider these the secrets of blues guitar. :)

The Yoshi's SF Saga

The formerly premiere jazz club of SF known as Yoshi's SF is done, which was sad news to me and I felt that it was not given a fair chance to fight for its survival. Oh well, as an outsider I could only find out so much from the media, like this article from SFWeekly. The whole Fillmore district redevelopment and jazz preservation project started in 1995 was supposed to be the way the city made amend to the "original" 1950s redevelopment that chased away black residents, businesses and the vibrant jazz scene. Yoshi's SF which opened in 2007 was probably the "crown jewel" of the project. I saw Yoshi's SF as a more up-scaled version of Yoshi's Oakland (i.e., jazz and Japanese food) with higher price tags on admissions and dining (and I predicted the top-tier, bigger name jazz musicians will have their shows in SF in place of or in addition to Oakland and made more money) I was wrong on the money part though. The ownership had spent a lot to make the place looked that good (more than twice of the original estimate) Unfortunately, opening in 2007 was bad timing: people cut spending during the financial crisis. Even though Yoshi's brought in $9-$10 million or more a year, it's still not profitable after paying down all its debts and covering more than $60,000 per month in rent, taxes, and maintenance charge. Like other businesses started with money from the redevelopment agency, it had problem paying back the loan and needed more money to bail them out. Some owners of these businesses complained the agency didn't provide enough help. On the other hand, critics of the redevelopment agency claimed that there was insufficient oversight on how the agency handed out the money. Anyway, some fingers were pointing at the musical genre (i.e., jazz) as a cause of the failure: the city surveyed local residents and claimed that interests in jazz were not high (which I don't think it's that relevant: there were jazz fans all over the SF Bay Area who would come to the Fillmore district when there were great jazz shows) Even branching outside of jazz couldn't save it's original majority owner (co-founder of Yoshi's Oakland) from losing Yoshi's SF to the "new" ownership group (formerly minority owners who were the builders and landlords of the place) Not sure if Yoshi's is paying less rent now. Oh yeah, as part of the deal, 5 million dollar of the debt to the city was forgiven. (Did anyone say sorry to the SF tax payers?) Actually the deal itself is quite complicated and I found some details here.

RIP Yoshi's SF. Long live Yoshi's Oakland (I hope)

New Year's Resolution #1: Learn to play EWI

My goal is to play some pop music on an EWI (electronic woodwind instrument) this year. I just started learning the fingering last month and practicing with H.Klose's 25 Daily Exercises for Saxophone. The first one is supposed to sound like this:
Of course I am no where near this fast. I guess when I am this fast I don't need to worry about the issue with legato transition between B and C, which I actually found someone talked about.(And he is following this book, Creative Saxophone. I think I should check it out)

我的結他雜記: 3-9 arpeggios

I am reading this book "Why Jazz Happened?" which analyzed how historical (nonmusical) events affected the development of new styles of jazz. One chapter is about bebop and it said the usage of the 9th is a characteristic of this style. And I have learned long time ago that playing the minor arp (or dorian mode) on top of a major chord works (like Emin7 over Cmaj7 because the 7th (D) of Emin7 is the 9th of Cmaj7. Or Dmin7 over Cmaj7 because it starts on the 9th) Check out the explanations and examples on Jamie Holroyd's post. 

Fretless bass

For a long time I can't imagine I would ever play a fretless string instrument in my life. I mean, playing in tune seems impossible for me. But then I picked up violin and realized the possibility is there for sure. Still, fretless bass has that mystique, especially in the hands of masters like Jaco. I have no idea who first played fretless until I read this. The author thinks bass players should consider getting a fretless as a 2nd bass. Well, if I were to get my 2nd bass, I'd probably go for a 5-stringer.

Contrasting opinions about the industry

I have always enjoyed reading guitar magazines, even before the days I play much! The "Big Two" here in US are Guitar Player and Guitar World (there are also Acoustic Guitar and Guitar Aficionado. And for a while I enjoyed Guitar One a lot, before it folded) GP is in general higher regarded with a broader spectrum while GW is more trendy with more focus on rock/metal/younger generation. GP vs GW is one recurring topic (they are actually owned by the same company NewBay Media since 2012 :P) Still, they maintained their own distinct identities and it's interesting to see how to differ on the same topic regarding the industry (published on the same day!):
GP's 99 Problems of the Recording Industry
vs
GW's 10 Reasons why today's Music Industry doesn't suck

One could argue they are not actually talking about the same thing: Music industry covers more than recording industry and includes music publisher, instruments, education and so on (the former actually mentioned the high tuitions of Berklee/Julliard) but both of them mentioned the impact of technology (download/streaming, DIY recordings, social media) I guess it's hard for a musician to become your good old rock stars who made a ton of money after releasing a hit record but on the other hand those with creative spirits will be heard these days as there are more channels or space to perform and promote.

Here is the irony: musicians don't get paid much by streaming services like Pandora and Spotify. At the same time, these companies are not making much either and their business models are being questioned (Spotify lost $78 million in 2012. Rhapsody had to cut staff last year.) I guess it takes a company as powerful as Google to be able to make money off music. In fact, it's troubling to see that Google is planning to shut out artists on indie label that didn't sign with Google from streaming their music videos on YouTube.

Finally, here is a local article about artists not being able to afford living in the bay area because of the "well-paid techies." The author doesn't seem to think a mid-level Python programmer is worthy of his 120k annual salary (Well, not me as I don't do much Python at work.) 

我的結他雜記: Acoustic Archtop

I came across this old Guitar Player magazine article from 2010 dedicated to this topic. I do own a Godin 5th Avenue acoustic archtop and was happy to learn more about the history and characteristics of this type of guitar. Also found an article about how to adjust the floating bridge on an archtop. Should be useful when I need to do so some day :)

我的結他雜記: effect pedal

我玩結他主要以Acoustic爵士為主，也玩Flamenco及古典，Rock則是偶一為之，所以對effect認識甚淺，用也是以distortion居多，不像老友玩chorus, flanger, delay玩到出神入化；當然，一個pedal價錢不是便宜，但原來自製也不算太困難，尤其是對讀過EE的朋友而言，Premier Guitar雜誌刊登了一個詳盡的指南，大家不妨參考參考。

另外，Guitar Player雜誌介紹五個multi-effect pedal，當中Vox的StompLab只賣$90樓下，值得慳儉的玩家留意。

NYDM/CADM Annual

What a cryptic title! Well, that's what I found when I was looking for a metal show to attend and celebrate my b-day. It's a 4-day festival and the most famous band is the death metal legend Possessed. I was unable to go that day though so I went the first day on which Short Fuse was the headliner (with Boudica, Bombs Overhead, etc, as openers.) To be honest, I have not heard of any of these bands before. I found some YouTube videos before going and was impressed. And I was even more impressed after hearing them live at Oakland Metro. The show featured a good variety of styles: grindcore, death metal, black metal. Also, there were interesting bass/guitar/keyboard work as well as female vocal. And I picked up a free EP "In Nomine Umbra" by black metal band IV Never More. Again, much better than expected and showed awesome song writing skills. I'm more happy listening to them than the more well-known yet commercialized bands out there.

我的結他雜記: Easy acoustic guitar love songs

I strongly believe any male guitarist should have an acoustic love song in his repertoire. Guitar World compiled a list of Top 10. Just pick one and start playing!

Groups for adult classical musicians

Hate to say this but I have not played classical for a while. One big reason is that it's more fun to play with others (for jazz at least I have iReal Pro to play with, or myself recorded) but I had a hard time finding like-minded people. We are quite familiar with the local orchestras for kids but not so for people like me. Then I came across this article on Strings: Get Out of the Practice Room, which is about many organizations (like ACMP) for adult amateur classical musicians. And it mentioned the Really Terrible String Orchestra in East Bay. I will definitely give it a try in the future.

我的結他雜記: Martin Taylor/Julian Lage on improv and chord voicing

My mailbox has so many unread emails that I barely have time to catch up. I did subscribe to many music related newsletters. For example, I got emails from Artist Works, the online school where Martin Taylor teaches (Jimmy Bruno used to teach there) Mr. Taylor posted a free lesson demonstrating how to practice and use chord tones in improvisation over a common ii-V-I chord progression:
Coincidentally, from the Facebook page of Stanford Jazz Workshop (which I recently attended), there's a link to a video in which Martin Taylor and Julian Lage discussed chord voicing:


Speaking of Lage, his music keeps growing on me: I saw him performed with the Seasons Guitar Quartet and as a duo at Stanford Jazz last year. Lage and pianist Fred Hersch released a very impressive duet album: Free Flying. And things really came full circle when I listened to another link from SJW's FB page: a NPR interview of Fred Hersch!

我的結他雜記: Blues scale licks to learn

This is a sort-of followup to my previous posts about improv and learning blues-based tunes. I am recommending yet another useful post from jazz instructor Jamie Holroyd: Blues Scale Licks Guitar Study

我的結他雜記: Jazz tunes to learn

This is one learning experience I really would like to share with everyone starting to learn jazz improvisation out there. I remember the first tune I tried to learn was "All the things you are." I love this tune and almost every version of it by every jazz great. I knew it's one of the must-know tune for jazz musician so I figured why not learn it as my first tune? Well, with many key changes, it's certainly not the easiest tune to improvise on. The first chord-melody arrangement I learned was "Autumn Leaves." Again, it's a must-know. Still, it has its fair shares of key changes when it comes to improvisation. From Jimmy Bruno and Robert Conti's lessons, it seemed to me that Satin Doll should be the first tune to learn because of its simplicity. Now I changed my mind after my first "Guided jam" session at Stanford Jazz Workshop. The first tune we improv on was a F blues (12 bars) on which one could use just 1 scale (the blue scale or 2 if you're more adventurous) In fact, now I remember the instructor started us with the same concept at a viola workshop I attended years ago.

Other tunes played at the first jam session included:

• Sidewinder (Lee Morgan)
• Mr. PC (John Coltrane)
• Blue Bossa (Kenny Dorham)
• Freddie Freeloader (Miles Davis) 

All could be improvised on using 1 or 2 scales (C blues and Db major in the case of Blue Bossa)

And I have to recommend reading yet another insightful post from jazz instructor Jamie Holroyd. His Top 10 has a few common tunes with Stanford's list.

Video lessons on jazz licks and chords

Came across a few good video teaching jazz last week via FB and email newsletter.

First, my favorite guitarist Alex Skolnick from Testament taught a few jazz licks over various chords (ii-V, I, Valt) I play his Valt (altered dominant 7th) lick in my solo all the time :P

Then I watched this video by online jazz teacher Jamie Holroyd teaching how to jazz up the chord progression of the Oasis big hit "Wonderwall"

Kansas City Lightning

It was around X'mas 2013 and I wanted to know what were the best recommended books from 2013. Found this list but it was all novels. Then I went on Amazon and it recommended this book by Stanley Crouch about Charlie Parker's days in KC. I downloaded the intro and eventually borrowed the book from the library for two months. (It's ~330 pages and not exactly a page turner so it took me a long time to finish :P I did read 130 pages in 5 days right before the due date) To be honest, I am kinda biased against the author's work because he has a tendency to relate everything to race, e.g. what happened to whom because he was African American or not. And it affected how he favored some jazz musicians/music over others. With that in mind, I still find it valuable to know what happened in USA during the 1st half of the 20th century in the social context of African American. It did explain the origins of some elements of jazz, and the social background from which jazz was emerged: a politically corrupted city allowed entertainment venues to thrive, which in turns allowed musicians to prosper (and honed their craft via experimentation with others.) There were tons of dramas in Charlie Parker's life too: drug addiction, how he met his first wife (whose family subleased from the Parker's) and how they separated, his move to Chicago and New York and back. My timing of reading this book couldn't be better since I am also studying Parker's improvisation lines.

BTW, I read some reviews recommended that audiobook was ideal for it. In fact, I think Hollywood could make a good movie out of it (starring Bruno Mars as Charlie Parker? I don't think Crouch would approve :P)

Superstar Quartet, the Strat Pack

After a busy week of recording our jazz trio, my life is back to normal, i.e., more listening to others than ourselves. I was free on Friday night so the first choice was a good jazz concert and I heard on the radio that legendary vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson and saxophonist David Sanborn were performing together (along with organist Joey DeFrancesco and drummer Billy Hart) at SFJAZZ. Small problem though: I have not been able to purchase tickets on SFJAZZ's official website (had the same problem when Paquito D'Rivera played there last time) The error message was ambiguous: something like tickets were for members only or soldout. Unlike last time though, the box office opens on Friday so I called and bought (according to the ticket office guy) the last ticket available. It was expensive but I went with my impulse and it turned out to be good seat: first row of the 2nd closest section in the middle! And of course the sound was unique: I am familiar with each musician from different sub-genre: Bobby Hutcherson from modern jazz, David Sanborn from smooth jazz/R&B, and Joey D from soul jazz. Most importantly, they sounded great together! I'd say the sound was more fusion-oriented but that's certainly my cup of tea. A couple of funny things from the concerts: 1) they were billed as the 'Superstar quartet' What an unimaginative name for such a creative group! 2) when Joey D introduced the tune they just performed, called "You" and said he wrote it for Hutcherson. The latter acted surprised and delighted. What was funnier was next: one guy from the audience asked about the previous tune, this time Sanborn responded 'coz it's written by him. Hutcherson asked whether it was also dedicated to him. Sanborn said no though :)

I was flipping channel on cable on Sunday night and the Palladium channel was showing a program called Strat Pack. I was curious and switched to it and saw the late Gary Moore covering Jimi Hendrix's tunes. As always, he's got the blues! I found out it's a concert with various musicians for celebrating the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Fender Stratocaster guitar. Oh well, I'm not sure what singer/pianist Jamie Cullum has to do with the Strat. His band didn't even feature guitar! Next was the late Amy Winehouse. I had no idea she played too but she did play a red Strat (just like my buddy!) and accompanied herself on one tune. Not exactly great playing but as usual, she's got style! The other part of the concert that I liked was when David Gilmour played a few old Pink Floyd songs, including "Sorrow", which was my favorite Pink Floyd tunes during the 80s. It was one of the hardest rocking Pink Floyd tunes IMO. I didn't know a lot of fans like it too. To be honest, I was not impressed by the rest of the performers. They've got the guy from Bad Company and the Eagles. Even Brian May (but he's not known for playing the Strat!) This year is the 60th anniversary and hopefully they've got a stronger lineup to celebrate this. Maybe some of the guys mentioned on Fender's page!

我的結他雜記: Recording jazz guitar trio

Like any musician/bands, we recorded ourselves during rehearsals all the time, usually with a cellphone or better yet, a camera/camcorder with a decent mic. As we are preparing a demo of pieces we would like to perform, we decided to go slightly higher-end this time: recording with an amp sim/interface (KORG Pandora), a condenser mic (Samson Go mic) and a notebook PC (ASUS X200CA) I also brought a few USB cables, long extension cords for USB and headphone and a HK electrical outlet adapter for my US computer power supply.

The recording session took place at 310 Studio in the "legendary" Mong Kok 先施大厦. We were given the first room which was the best option for us since only one side is adjacent to another room so we kinda limited the amount of unwanted sound picked up by our mic. There was a mixer in the room connected to studio monitors. We ended up recorded our tunes like this:

1) Load the Audacity file on which a click track was generated and I pre-recorded the guitar part at home already.

For the bass, lower the volume of the click track. We plugged the bass into the Pandora and chose the 'B JAZZ' preset. Then connected the output of Pandora to the in-room mixer. Our bassist listened to the studio monitor and played his part. Set Audacity to use the Pandora as the input. 

For the drums, lower the volume of the guitar track. We used the USB extension cable and clipped the Samson Go mic up on one of the mic stand extended all the way up. Set Audacity to use it as the input and the computer as the output. Finally, plug the headphone with extension cable to the computer. Our drummer listened to the headphone and played. He could not take advantage of the studio monitor because the mic would have picked that audio up.

Using this approach, i.e., each instrument on its own track, we were able to easily balance the volume of each instrument (basically cutting the drums and pumping up the guitar) and made them all sound clearly. We even cheated a little bit by lining up the notes perfectly :P

2) Open a blank Audacity file. Place the Samson Go mic roughly equal distance to the drums, the guitar amp and the bass amp. I relied on the 'Midtown Jazz' preset of the Pandora so I connected the output of Pandora to the Line 6 amp. Chose the Clean channel. Adjusted bass, mid, treble to "neutral" and recorded all 3 of us playing together on one track. 

Using this approach, we lost the ability to balance the instruments. I wish the guitar sounded louder >:) On the other hand, the playing sounded much more cohesive since we were playing and listening to each other at the same time.

[Update] Found this article comparing the pros and cons written by a pro. The observations are similar. 

我的結他雜記: 6th chord

I have been looking into the art of jazz comping on guitar these days and saw that the 6th chord is commonly used for substitution (C6 for Cmaj7 for example) And this is a good article on Jamie Holroyd's site that explains what 6th chords are and how to play them.

我的結他雜記: Jimmy Bruno and Herb Ellis method

I have been a fan of Jimmy Bruno's teaching (as well as playing) for a long time. I have watched his old instructional video "No Nonsense Jazz Guitar" years ago. At first I couldn't understand most of what he said (and still don't) but I did pick up a couple major scale fingering from it (those are commonly taught and proved to be useful) I re-watched the video and joined his "old" online school towards the end of it a few years ago for a few months. This time I picked up all of his 5 major scale fingerings and the ii-V-I arpeggios extracted from them (m7b5 arp could be extracted indirectly) It took a long time to got them under my fingers for all 12 keys though. I also got a better understanding in making single-note solo only based on all "inside" note of a key center (or pitch collection in Jimmy's terminology) by mixing up scale and arpeggio runs. The "understanding" didn't translate into the ability to come up with those lines on the fly though. I submitted a ii-V-I improv video trying to apply the principle and the result didn't really sound like jazz. Jimmy suggested me to listen carefully to the ii-V-I video submitted by other students and his responses. Too bad that's when the "old" school closed the door. I think part of what he wanted me to do was to transcribe the lines that sounded good and analyze them. Jimmy wasn't actually secretive about his method. A lot of the value of his online school lies in his feedback to my playing as well as the other students'.

I also had some experiences with Herb Ellis' method via his "All the Shapes You Are" book, part of his series of 3 method books. This volume presented 7 shapes. They are major triads, minor triads, dominant 7th and dominant 9th chords. For the shapes with major triads, there are 2 corresponding scale fingerings: major scale and dominant scale (i.e., the mixolydian mode) Some shapes have 1 dominant scale or 1 minor scale (actually dorian mode rather than natural/harmonic/melodic minor) If I understand it correctly (described in my old post), to use this method, pick an applicable "scale" over the chord you encounter during improv (obviously, major chord uses major scale, minor chord uses minor scale and dominant chord uses dominant scale) The shapes help identifying chord tones which should be emphasized in the line (e.g. start or end a phrase, or finish the line, especially for resolution to I chord) The bulk of the book consists of many example lines that demonstrate how Herb's method is to be applied, which the author merely suggested to try playing a few times and move on. I made a mistake of not analyzing and memorizing those lines at that point of my study. I was too lazy and thought I should come up with my own lines anyway but I couldn't (partly because I wasn't familiar with the fingerings enough) so I gave up on the method. Another reason why I didn't study those example lines was they are based on a single chord covering multiple bars. Real tunes usually modulate quickly, with ii-V-I in 2 bars often. I just couldn't imagine myself switching from one scale to another every 2 beats. (Later on I found out a phrase that "works" on a ii chord could also be played over the V in the ii-V and vice versa. So I could have "switched" less frequently)

I definitely see similarities between both methods: in fact, the fingerings are very similar. You could even say all of Herb's major/minor/dominant fingering could be "merged" into Jimmy's 5 major fingerings (one or two needs very minor modifications like moving the 4th fingers to the 1st finger of next string. Jimmy doesn't like stretching over 4 frets on a single string in one position, for speed I guess) and all the chord tone shapes are subset of arpeggios extracted from Jimmy's fingerings (except the 9th in dominant 9th) 

I'd say Jimmy's fingering are easier to apply in a ii-V-I context because you don't need to recall 3 of Herb's fingering in the same position of the neck. Instead, just recall one of the 5 Jimmy's major scale fingering and the 3 arpeggios within it.

Both of them taught the use of approach notes (half step from above and below chord tones) for chromaticism.

I gotta admit I suffer from low JIQ (Jazz improvisation quotient) As my instructors would say, I didn't "speak" in the jazz language in my solo. To overcome this, I tried memorizing licks from various books by Joseph Alexander, Sid Jacob and Robert Conti. You could hear common phrases among all these licks and from actual solo played during performances or recordings. I am practicing playing these licks using Bruno's fingering (5 shapes)

Fingerstyle guitar master Stefan Grossman

禮拜日無節目，也是當天才知道，幸好家在bay area，不愁沒有音樂會，基本上我的策略是先看KCSM Jazz datebook，以及一些著名演出場地的網址，包括Yoshi's, Freight and Salvage, Davies Symphony Hall等等。首先看到Freight and Salvage有acoustic fingerstyle guitar表演，然後看到SFJAZZ有一場拉美爵士樂，有我欣賞的古巴單簧管色士風大師Paquito D'Rivera，可惜SFJAZZ售票網及電話皆不通。兩全其美的方法：是去前者，在路上聽後者的CD！相當慶幸沒有錯過一場非一般的音樂會。

Freight and Salvage這個場地本身已是非一般牟利娛樂場所，而是一個歷史悠久，靠捐款由義工協助運作，以傳統美國音樂為主的表演中心。傳統美國音樂除了我常聽的Blues及Jazz，也包括我興趣不大的Country及Bluegrass。不過演出宣傳網頁介紹Stefan Grossman彈fingerstyle guitar，從結他手角度也絕對值得支持。提起fingerstyle，我聽得較多的有Tommy Emmanuel, Martin Taylor, Adam Miller（去年他首次從澳洲來美國巡迴演出，可惜Bay area一站是在偏遠的Lafayette，包括我在內的捧場客寥寥無幾）網頁上的Stefan Grossman sample track風格頗有不同，卻是我非常欣賞但不常聽到的Acoustic blues。音樂會打頭炮就是一首令人聽出耳油的acoustic blues instrumental。接著他開始他獨有的「棟篤笑」式表演：邊說邊唱邊彈地介紹自己學及玩結他的軼事，歌曲的出處等等。雖然個人偏好instrumental music，也覺得他的方式很是過癮。他是一個成長於Brooklyn的猶太人，小時候想學結他，父母叫他去買點唱片，他在唱片店買來一張folk(Woody Guthrie)，一張acoustic blues唱片，決定走後者的路線，師從Reverend Gary Davis，學了一大堆廿世紀初至中的美國傳統歌曲，包括Mississippi John Hurt, Big Bill Broonzy等大師的作品。當晚表演也有原創，例如拿另一位acoustic blues 結他手開玩笑的Assassination of John Fahey，大概有三分二是instrumental，除了blues，也有一點pop/jazz；作為一個白人，唱blues的唱腔亦別具一格。還不忘宣傳他當晚有售的CD Blues for the Mann，該碟包括大部份作品的TAB(PDF)，大家可以跟著彈，中場break time大家都趕著買一張（包括我）！

我的結他雜記: KORG Pandora PX5D on a new PC

Deja vu: this is the 4th time I'm trying to get Pandora working as an audio interface (playback and recording) and for some reason I always have problem making it available as a recording device under Windows. There is a solution (thanks to this post) and I always forget. So I decided to copy it here so that I could look it up in the future (or help a fellow guitarist!)

1. Go to the control panel and open the sound settings 
2. In my setup I could see the PX5D as an option in the playback tab, but NOT on the recording tab. 
3. To solve this go to the recording tab, right click in the box and check "Show Disabled Devices". Now you should see the PX5D, but it is disabled 
4. Right click on the icon of the PX5D and select enabled 
5. Click OK and that is it. 

Fargo Rock City and the Imperfect Art

In addition to 'Geek to Guitar Hero' (written by Testament guitarist Alex Skolnick) I mentioned earlier in the year, I have read a few more music related books. I actually read 'Fargo Rock City' because its author, Chuck Klosterman, was recommended by Skolnick. The main subject was "hair metal" (made popular in the 80s by bands like Motley Crue, Poison, Guns 'N Roses, and the genre is my "guilty pleasure") However, it's not purely about analyzing the genre. Instead, it's interwined with his personal experience growing up in rural USA. It's more about why a rural kid like him enjoyed the music and how hair metal became part of his life. I actually like to write in this style, i.e., how I like some pieces of music or musicians from a non-technical standpoint. I won't give a 10 to this book because he's kinda contradicting himself: on one hand this book is supposed to point out the value of hair metal. On the other, he kept saying how silly this genre was, e.g. how boring the guitar solo were. Nevertheless, it was a good read for my recent trip. And I learned a few good albums: 
- Vinnie Vincent Invasion. Vincent was the guitarist of KISS and this was the first album of his own band. Even though KISS was a big name (Skolnick idolized the band!) I've never really listened to them. Their most popular song, "I wanna rock 'n roll all night", was bubblegum pop to me. Well, maybe KISS was better than I thought or Vincent got much better after he left, this album rocks! His guitar was OVER the top but he could play! Looks like I wasn't the only one influenced by Mr. Klosterman. Check out this review (and from the comment section you could also see a lot of detractors. Maybe I'm a sucker for shredding even if it's mindless)
- Smashing Pumpkins, Siamese Dreams. One of my former bandmates wanna cover Smashing Pumpkins and at that point the only song I've heard of was 1979, which sounded too pop to me. If I've heard of this album, I would have agreed with him. They could play heavy too.
- Korn, the Paradigm Shift. It's released just now in 2013 so of course it's not mentioned in the book which was written much earlier. The book did have a chapter about heavy music after hair metal and grunge died off and mentioned Korn. The most interesting fact was that members of Korn denied influences by rock/metal pioneers, which could be true. Anyway, I think Korn was over the hill after they released the "Best of" album. Subsequent ones have never been able to match that level of quality. However, each of their albums after that certainly have their moments. I mean, I usually listen to the whole album once: enjoying it instead of stopping in the middle! This one I will listen to a few more times for sure.

I picked up this book, The Imperfect Art:  Reflections on Jazz and Modern Culture by Ted Gioia, from a 2nd hand book store in the summer. Just like the title, his book was also imperfect. He was fixated on a few ideas that he repeated over and over. Don't get me wrong: I enjoyed reading the book and those were good points. They might not "deserve" a whole book though. Obviously, the main idea is that jazz is imperfect because of its nature: most of the performances have improvisation. Melodies and harmonies were made up on the spot and thus the musicians didn't get a chance to "perfect" those parts. Another thing I recall from the book was to dismiss the notion that being primitive made good music. It's a myth that early jazz musicians wasn't formally trained and couldn't read music and that made them good. That I learned long time ago. Hey, I wasn't formally trained and couldn't read music (a while back) and that didn't make me good musician!

Looking forward to reading more music related books in the coming year.

A Jim Hall story

The great jazz guitarist Jim Hall passed away last week. It was a sad day for all jazz guitarists, musicians and listeners in general. And I have a small story to share: years ago I lived in Manhattan and went to jazz performances whenever I can, which means 3-4 times a week. I made a friend during a show at Smoke (in uptown) on a week night, probably a Monday as I remember not much people were in the audience. If you know me, it should be very surprising that I would become friend with a complete stranger at a public place. Well, that's one of those rare occasion. Turned out we have the same name. I worked at a bank while he was a lawyer. Both of us loved jazz guitar. Both of us played too. He had way more experiences than I did but he stopped at that time because of carpal tunnel while I just started from scratch, knowing nothing about guitar playing, let alone jazz. We went to shows together from time to time before I moved. He told me his biggest influence was Jim Hall. What's so great about Jim Hall's playing? It's best explained by another guitarist Rez Abbasi on this NPR show. His playing is not dazzling like Pat Metheny or Stanley Jordan. Instead, his brilliance is quite subtle: you gotta listen to how he interplayed with others, like Bill Evans, Ron Carter, Sonny Rollins. In fact, Hall's playing got so highly praised that I bought Sonny Rollin's "The Bridge" LP, which was literally in heavy rotation on my turntable.

RIP.

Fretboard radius and Jaguar pickup switches

I have owned basses and guitars for more than 10 years but not until I bought my MIJ Fender Special Thinline Jaguar I learned that not all guitars have flat fretboard. In fact, the Steinberger Spirit and Squier Jaguar I owned before didn't have completely flat fretboard like my Yamaha flamenco guitar. Here is a video explaining why classical guitar has flat fretboard:

The flat(or "curvy")-ness is measured as fretboard radius. My new Jaguar has a smaller fretboard radius, i.e, less flat (or more curved) which makes it easier to play chords. I guess it matches the natural tendency of finger placements better.

Another thing that my new Jaguar puzzled me was the set of switches and knobs for the 2 pickups, which is rather unique. Fortunately I found this good page that explains Jaguar's pickup switching system very well.

Application of Conti/Jacobs licks

Heard "Wives and Lovers" on KCSM earlier today. I've recently transcribed Grant Green's version so I knew it's a different version and confirmed later when the saxophone joined. Still, I heard quite a bit of Grant Green influences. More importantly, a lot of licks from Conti and Jacobs' books were present in the solo! It's a great example of how to "speak" in the bebop language. I've just looked it up. The track is from Bob DeVos' new album, Shadow Box. I also enjoyed another of his Burt Bacharach cover, the Look of Love from his other album, DeVos' Groove Guitar!

Uproar Festival

This is a really awesome name for a rock concert. I'm not familiar with most of the bands on the bill though. And it's a weekday on which I have guitar lesson so I only got there after 8:30pm to see the last two of the 3 "main stage" bands. I gotta admit that I went because the venue basically gaveaway the tix (I paid $0.75 as a reward for buying full-priced tix for the Black Sabbath concert last month) I am actually quite interested in hearing the other main stage band who played before I arrived, Coheed and Cambria. I knew about this band via an unusual mean: one of the preset guitar effect on my Pandora is named after them and it sounded powerful (what I call "machine-like") The first band I saw was Jane's Addiction, even though I won't call myself a fan, I have a lot of respect for the band as they are original. And they always sounded "big", excessive if you will but that rocks! All 4 members of the band did. And of course I paid the most attention to the guitarist Dave Navarro, then the sexy dancers on some of the songs >:) The primitive sounding song with only drums accompanying vocal, and the acoustic "Jane Says" added variety to the set.

Alice in Chains is another band from roughly the same era. I still remember the days when MTV featured both band heavily. That's the heyday of Grunge. Personally I have a love-hate relationship with Grunge: I played quite a bit of songs by Grunge bands with Several of my bands 'coz (1) they are usually not too hard, (2) most bandmates know some Grunge songs and few would opposed to playing them. Nirvana's Lithium is kinda like the rock-equivalent of jazz standard "Satin Doll." On the other hand, Grunge was the beginning of the end of heavy music. Thrash metal reached a new height when the biggest names in Thrash, Anthrax, Slayer, Megadeth joined force for the Clash of the Titans tour. The tour was supported by a up-and-coming Grunge band, it was a symbolic moment: Grunge would take over Thrash from then on. And after the Grunge fever was over, the whole genre seemed to go down with it. A lot of serious metal bands went on hiatus for 10+ years. Guess which was that up-and-coming band who played on Clash on the Titans? Alice in Chains, of course! That said. I'm not a hater of Alice in Chains as a huge Thrash fan. On the contrary, I enjoy listening and playing Alice in Chains' songs, by choice! I like Soundgarden too but Alice in Chains is my favorite Grunge band. The worst thing about Grunge was that guitar solo took a backseat (or completely disappeared!) Not for Alice in Chains though. Jerry Cantrell is one awesome and unique guitarist. Too bad I have never seen them live with the original lineup. As most rock fans know, their front man Layne Staley passed away. The band reformed with a new vocalist William DuVall. The band started the set with the powerful "Them Bones." Then alternated between classic material (incl. "Would," "Man in the box," "Got Me Wrong," "Rooster" but no "Heaven besides You") and the songs from the albums after DuVall joining the band. It's actually easy to differentiate: DuVall is also a guitarist and plays on the songs when he's part of the band. He'd put down the guitar for the old songs. The drummer decorated his bass drum with big letter LSMS as a tribute to the Layne Staley and former bassist Mike Starr, who has also passed away. Good gesture. I enjoy both the old and new songs and I think DuVall is a good musician in his own right. Keep on rocking!

Check out these reviews (1, 2) of Uproar.

Black Sabbath Tour 2013

I've been to concerts of most legendary hard rock/heavy metal bands, including Metallica and Van Halen. However, I have never been to a Black Sabbath concert, arguably the first ever heavy metal band. I first listened to them ~1989 via a "Best of" cassette. Ozzy had left the band long time ago and had huge success as a solo artist at that point. I missed their reunion ~1998. I decided I mustn't miss this latest reunion again 'coz you'll never know if there'll be another. Ozzy is 64 already and Tony Iommi has just gone through cancer treatment. I bought the $40 lawn ticket at Shoreline Amphitheater. To be honest, I have never been a big fan of that place. The only concert I remember watching there was the one by Depeche Mode. You basically either sit on the lawn or stand up. Not to mention the horrible traffic in and out of the pricey parking lot. Fortunately I was close enough to bike there. Still, the lawn area was way too far to see Ozzy, Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler. Shoreline clearly understood this shortcoming and tried to remedy by aiming camera at them and project the live feed behind the band on stage (and also on big screens at the lawn) which is better than nothing. Back to  the music: the set list included every Black Sabbath classic I wanted to hear: War Pig, Iron Man, Paranoid, N.I.B.... etc. Plus a few songs from their latest album, 13 (their 13th studio album), which was a present surprise. Ozzy's vocal was a bit shaky. For example, he didn't seem to be able to find the key on 'Children of the Grave.' It's quite possible that dumping water (on his heads and the audiences) like he always does messed up his monitor though. Check out this discussion by previous concert goers (which was a response to a poor newspaper review of the first concert of the tour)

Still, I was so glad that I went. They are the one and only Black Sabbath.

Julian Lage and Larry Koonse

This concert is yet another followup to one I wrote about in the uncommon instrumentation post. These two guitarists are half of the Seasons Guitar Quartet and this performance was part of the Stanford Jazz festival. The concert was divided into two halves: the first half featured just the two guitarists with one carrying the melody while the other playing accompaniment. From my seat I could only see Larry Koonse's hands and it's fun to watch him switching between playing lines with counterpoint and chords in the accompaniment but I gotta admit two-guitar-jazz is not for everyone. I mean, there were moments I wish there were a complete rhythm section (bass + drums) and that's exactly the format of the 2nd half :-) Lage and Koonse took turn playing with the all-star rhythm section of Larry Grenadier and Eric Harland. And one could clearly hear the difference in their styles: Koonse is more in the tradition of bop/hard-bop while Lage's playing showed more modernism. Both are equally enjoying to me. Last but not least, legendary drummer Louis Hayes (who played with heavyweights like John Coltrane and Cecil Taylor) came on stage and jammed with both guitarists on the tune "Blue Monk." What an inspirational performance! It will be the tune I learn next.

我的結他雜記: 5 Must Know Major ii-V-I Outlines for Guitar

不得不承認以前一直忽視了教jazz licks的文章，以為要學怎樣作就無須記人家的；當然，近年已完全改觀：好lick要多學，好文要多讀，例如這篇教5個短(指二個小節長)major ii-V-I licks的就寫得十分好，Matt Warnock解釋了結構及組成的音的功能。仔細聽，這些都是爵士樂手常用的樂句，Robert Conti的教材也有提到一些。

Oon

I wrote about a few concerts that featured uncommon instrumentations 2 months ago. Well, the story didn't end there: I was free last Sat and it's one of those rare weekends in the bay area where you don't see the biggest name playing in town except for John Pizzarelli and his wife at the Yoshi's. However, a pair of names caught my attention immediately: Ariane Cap and Paul Hansen, a.k.a. Oon, the bass and bassoon duo that performed at Solo Bass Night 5. They played at a music studio (the type that offer music lessons on various instruments) in Benecia, which is way north of where I usually hang out but the one hour drive was totally worthwhile. Both instruments were not known for their ability to carry the melody on their own for extended period of time so it's quite an unusual experience to hear only the two of them accompanying each other the whole 1.5 hr. The low to mid-high range of bassoon actually sounded very melodic. And the use of two hand tapping on the bass provided more than just interesting bass line but also full and rich sounding accompaniment. Another thing I enjoyed was original compositions. Of course they picked interesting songs to cover, e.g. Dear Prudence (Beatles), Stella by Starlight (Jazz standards), Ginger Bread Boy (Miles Davis) to name a few. One interesting story heard from the show: the organizer has a kid who studied at the music studio (I guess they are all Benecia local) The teacher strongly recommended her kid to listen to CDs by Bela Fleck and the Fleckstones, a group led by banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck that played some innovative jazz. It turns out Paul Hansen was a member of the Fleckstones on two of their albums. So, the kid finally saw a Fleckstone playing live at his teacher's studio! 

The new Yellowjackets bassist

I listen to jazz radio a lot. Usually the DJ plays a bunch of tunes and then introduces all players/groups of them. I wasn't listening carefully the other day but I did enjoy one of the tunes and I heard it was a new one from Yellowjackets. The DJ also mentioned a few players' name including one with the last name Pastorius. I didn't realize they are "connected" at that time until I went to the Solo Bass Night 5 concert, which was promoted by Bass Player. The promoter mentioned the next one they are going to would be Yellowjackets at Yoshi's, featuring Felix Pastorius on bass. All bass players know that Jaco Pastorius is the all-time greatest jazz/fusion bassist. However, I didn't know he has a son, Felix, who also plays jazz bass. I listened to the new Yellowjackets CD and also went to the show because I'm very impressed. (BTW, Felix joined the Yellowjackets as a replacement of long-time member Jimmy Haslip, who was interviewed by JazzTime for their article on the demise of smooth jazz that I mentioned before) I actually don't hear too much "smoothness" in the new CDs and at the concert. Another thing it got me thinking is: what is it like to have such a famous parent, the greatest ever on his/her instrument, and also playing the same instrument? Another one come to my mind immediately was Ravi Coltrane. It's easy to see that on one hand having a famous last name help one gets connected but on the other hand it must have brought an immense amount of pressure as well. I am very curious how they deal with it. I always wonder whether having a member in the family that is a great musician helps one's own playing or not. (In the case of Felix Pastorius, his father died when he was 5 so I supposed he has to figure out his father's stuff via records and video like everybody else) This interview with him was a really good read.

我的結他雜記: Pentatonic licks

Every guitarist knows how to play the A minor (same as C major) pentatonic scales. So every guitarist could play some sort of solo lines using that famous "box" fingering. Here is a good article from Guitar Player that explains how to apply the pentatonic scales against different chords, other fingering and example licks. It's a must-read!

我的結他雜記: Berklee Jazz Guitar Professional Certificate

 花了差不多兩年時間及六千多美元（已加價至七千），終於完成了總共五堂的Berklee Jazz Guitar Professional Certificate。相信網友最有興趣知道的是：到底值不值？實在不容易答，尤其是在花了六千多元以後。就個人而言，原先期望學完之後可以在band stand上看著lead sheet就能即興，現在發現是不切實際的期望。事實上，近期我的練習焦點和Berklee Jazz 101/201所教的有點背道而馳：除了major scale(Jimmy Bruno的5 shapes)，我並沒有花太多時間練其他scale，諸如bebop, pentatonic, harmonic/melodic minor及其modes；Berklee導師建議從唱片學licks，我目前則主力「死背」Robert Conti/Sid Jacobs/Joseph Alexander教材的licks and phrases。 頗為肯定的是，Berklee所授的基礎長遠來說是用得著的。有理論解釋，licks也易記一點；我在練熟licks之後，下一步（幾年後吧）也打算多練一些Berklee教的scales。

今天的我遇到兩年前的我，我可能會說：這五堂所學到的音樂及結他知識終身受用，可謂無價。為交功課而狂練的練習曲（chord伴奏，chord melody，爵士作品head及transcribed solo）及「預作扮即興」solo，都令我技術增進不少。不過，如果負擔不來，也有很多其他更便宜的渠道學到這些知識，練到這些技術，只是沒有這麼「一條龍」吧。又或者採用折衷辦法: 只上一堂Jazz 201，201基本上重温大部份Jazz 101的東西，如果對ii-V-I chord progression及一般scales/modes已有認識，Jazz 201應該跟得上；就算沒有，即管先死記死練一個學期，反正教材在一年內可以慢慢重温，到時才攪清楚究竟亦可。

我的結他雜記: Berklee Chord 201 and Jazz 201

一年前寫了一點Berklee上堂後感，原來頗有網友賞面賜讀。如今又上多兩堂（Chord 201，Jazz 201），也想再和大家分享一下。

Chord 201在三個月前完成，很慚愧，已忘記一大半。最深刻印象的課題如下：
- Chord 101教過triad，是大家熟悉彈鄰近三條弦那一種，更準確來說是closed triad；open triad是最低及最高音分得更開，彈鄰近三條弦就不行了，所以難度高一點，但做出一種開揚的聲音，值得練習和使用。有時為爵士standard編chord melody，不需全用四個音的chord，可試試用三個音的open triad。
- Chord 101已教過inversions，而Chord 201除了重温、加強練習還有應用。Chord 201其中一個重點課題是編chord melody，如果melody的音是chord tone的話，只需直接彈以該音為最高音那個chord inversion即可。即使melody的音不是chord tone，先找出最鄰近但較低音的chord tone及以該chord tone為最高音那個chord inversion，然後應用以下替代公式：Two replaces one, four replaces three, and six replaces five.
舉例：C大調的曲，chord是G7，melody音是E，E最鄰近較低的chord tone是D(5th of G7)，彈drop 2 G7的話選以下這個inversion: 3 b7 R 5 (B F G D)，再由E代替D（Six replaces five），彈B F G E的chord。
當然，除了maj7/min7/dom7這三種由major scale衍生的chords之外，Chord 201還教了眾多其他scales較少見的chords。
- Chord 201亦有和伴奏相關的課題，一個重要的概念是voice leading，指的是由甲chord轉乙chord時，從乙chord各個inversion中，選擇一個使用鄰近甲chord tones的，聽起來就順暢得多。
另一個導師常提及的概念是chord scale，例如C大調彈G7，Cmaj7及Dmin7等等就是來自同一chord scale，也就是所謂harmonized scale。當一首歌長期（幾個bar）用同一chord時，只彈該chord以至inversions覺單調，可以彈chord scale其他chord，該堂有不少示範曲可作參考。
最後想提的也是伴奏使用的Basic Brazilian Rhythm Patterns，那是用手指彈的。該課亦附有一些用手指彈的練習，對平常只用pick的學生相當有用（當然，對我這個常用手指彈的也十分有用）

至於Jazz 201，心態和Jazz 101有點不同，因為已改變急於求成的想法，不再期望在上畢該課後就能即興自如；正如老師所強調，他教的是學習練習爵士的方法，對我們的期望是「畢業」後有能力自行探索。Chord 201, Jazz 101/201都時常提及color及tension這些概念，至今總算有少少得著：老師說爵士即興就像畫畫，調色盤在面前，爵士樂手就像畫家使用不同顏色配搭創造作品。Chord Scale Theory入面每個chord有多種對應的scale，就是不同可供使用的顏色；明白到這一點，就不用太心急全部練熟，就算只得一兩種顏色，也不是不能畫畫，只是單調一點而已；總之要有個起點，其他顏色可慢慢加入調色盤。之前相當困惑的是：每種chord都有個「大家庭」，例如major有major7(#11), major7(#5), minor有m7b5, m6, m9b5, dominant更有7(#11), 7b9b13, 7b9, 7#5, 7alt...等等，連用甚麼scale也記不來，更遑論彈！還有一些令我大惑不解的概念：implied harmony和secondary dominant，即是見到某chord，不彈對應的scale，而彈對應另一個chord的scale，暗示另一個chord；我完全不懂如何運用。原來以上幾樣，需要融會貫通；讀過其他教材（如Sid Jacobs的Mel Bay's Complete Book Jazz Guitar: Lines & Phrases, Joseph Alexander的25 Major ii-V-I licks），尤其是看過Robert Conti在他DVD中的示範，茅塞頓開！他的示範如下：伴奏的彈unaltered chord（如min7或dom7），他彈的是對應altered chord（如min7b5或7alt）的licks，完全無問題（反之亦然）。其實altered就是添加tension，靠這些key以外的音，也就是所謂"outside notes"吧。音樂不外乎就是加tension然後resolution（到I chord, 用chord tones）

其實Jazz 201不折不扣是Jazz 101的延續，所教的均建基於101已學過的scales及概念，例如101教過harmonic minor的5th mode（即Mixolydian b9b13），201除此之外另加melodic minor的幾個modes: Lydian b7, Locrian #2, 及常用於dom7th chord的altered scale. 101教過dominant bebop scale, 201就教了major及dominant b9b13 bebop scale, 除了無結他手不識的minor pentatonic, 201教了major b6及dominant 7 pentatonic.101教過的Diminished scale, 201再深入探討，並提供一些常用lick/pattern的例子，這一課的內容和Robert Conti及Sid Jacobs所教相若，印證爵士教材大體上萬變不離其宗。其餘幾堂則是建基於這些知識以上，分析幾個非一般ii-V-I 的chord progressions，例如Rhythm change，及the Coltrane matrix（即採用John Coltrane名作Giant Steps的progression之曲子）提起Coltrane這位爵士史上影響極深的巨匠，201除了剖析在Giant Step progression的即興手法外，也借另一首Coltrane名作Moment's Notice探討Coltrane的風格；201探討的還有殿堂級結他手Wes Montgomery的風格。最後介紹以ECM公司旗下音樂人（如Pat Metheny）及其作品為佼佼者的現代爵士風格，教了一些在slash chord即興的手法。想成為一個全面的爵士結他手，以上所講的都值得鑽研一番，幾年的時間是少不了。

The week of uncommon instrumentations

I have been to my fair shares of rock/jazz/classical concerts. Most of them were small combo (with bass + drums as rhythm section), large orchestra or common solo instruments (violin/cello/piano/guitar etc) The past week was really special: I saw performances that featured:
- a guitar quartet
- solo electric basses
- 6-string electric bass + basson
- sax, 6-string electric bass, drums and percussions

1) Seasons Guitar Quartet
The performance was at JazzSchool in Berkeley (not to be confused with Berklee College of Music in Boston which has the famous jazz program) I have heard of the JazzSchool for a while but have never been there. Turns out it's on the same block as Freight and Salvage, which I went for the Mimi Fox/Martin Taylor concert last time. The concert was in the "basement" (you know, the type of room with windows near the ceiling that can be seen from the street if people crouch down), which was small but cozy, making the performance an intimate one. I was glad that I bought ticket in advance 'coz it was sold out when I arrived. It's funny that sometimes you think it's such a big event that everybody would go but many empty seats left. And the opposite happens too. It seems to me that such a unique event would be able to attract most jazz guitarists in the community and thus deserves a bigger venue and more promotion. Oh well. What do I know? I do know about their music since last year though. It's because of the "Guitar Heroes" exhibition at New York MET museum from 2011, for which master luthier John Monteleone created a set of 4 heavily decorated archtop guitar.  Monteleone commissioned jazz guitarist Anthony Wilson to write some music for this quartet. The piece was performed using these guitars and was recorded and released on CD. I read about all these on the web and listened on Rhapsody. After that, Anthony Wilson started touring the country with 3 other guitarists to play the music plus some more arrangements. To be honest, among the 4 of them, I've only heard of Julian Lage, a up-and-coming jazz guitarist, before. Of course, I see the appeal of playing jazz on 4 guitars, with different lines interleaving, and tons of harmonic possibilities. Unlike a string quartet with 2 violins, 1 viola + 1 cello, the 4 guitars in the quartet all have the same range and are all capable of playing from low to high, which I found really interesting as both an amateur violist and guitarist. For a review (of the performance by the same group in LA) by professional music critic, please read this.

2) Solo Bass Night 5
I consider myself a bassist even though I rarely play (twice this year so far. Just jammed with bandmates for a brand new song 2 weeks ago!) so I couldn't believe I missed Solo Bass Night 1-4 (the event has been on hiatus for 5 years though. I could only find info about No. 2 from 2006 here.)I have seen bassist-led groups performed before (Stu Hamm, who played rock/fusion, and Edgar Meyer, who played classical.) I've also seen bassists played lengthy solo. However, it's a first time for me to see a show in which the majority of the pieces featured nothing but a bass! The opening bassist, Dave Grossman, played a few Bach pieces transcribed to his 6-string electric bass. I could see it's really challenging. He was followed by Ariane Cap, who showcased her masterful two-hand tapping techniques. It got even more interesting when she was joined by her bandmate, bassoonist Paul Hanson (their group is named Oon!) This unusual pair of instruments complimented each other very well. Next, the show went back to one-man-band, 11-string master Jean Baudin. He created music with complex texture and layers using his bass, effects and loopers. Finally, the most famous performer of the night, Michael Manring, got on the stage. Ironically, his bass has the least strings, four only! Still, his technique was "visually dazzling" as he kept flipping the levers on his specially designed bass which allowed him to change tuning at will. To be honest, this constantly changing tuning didn't result in great melodic music in my opinion.

3) The Rhythm Collective
This was the 2nd time I went to concert at the (relatively) new SFJAZZ center. This band is also named as a "collective" (was SFJAZZ Collective last time. It always reminded me of the "How I met your mother" episode that made fun of an architecture firm who named themselves as a "collective") and also led by SFJAZZ resident musicians. This time was saxophonist Miguel Zenon, whom I saw with a more established musicians years ago. Now he has become a big name himself. Don't be fooled by the name of the group though. Their music is not all about rhythm. It's also very melodic (think Oye Como Va, the piece that concluded the show, made famous by Carlos Santana of course.) In fact, it showcased another application of 6-string bass, namely, the ability to accompany with strumming complex chords, played by Aldemar Valentin.

The San Francisco bay area may not be the capital of music like New York but no one can discount its attractiveness a great variety of musicians to perform here.

我的結他雜記: first Flamenco lesson

學Flamenco結他的念頭有了好幾年，不過這兩年忙於上Berklee的爵士結他課才暫時擱下。還記得最早接觸西班牙結他，源於十幾年前在香港坐雙層巴士樓上，聽兩位學生哥分享結他心得，他們先談major及minor，我都不感陌生；但接著他們又提到西班牙結他就是混合major及minor，對我相當新鮮；現在想來，他們指的應是Mixolydian b9b13，和natural minor差不多，但用major 3rd（似major scale）及minor 2nd。

言歸正傳，其實教Flamenco結他的老師比起教rock的少得多。我之所以找到這位老師，是因為他在本地Flamenco（歌及舞）協會開班。好不容易找到他的聯絡方法，請他教單對單。約好的地方是他的studio，該詞既可解作工作室，又可解作寓所，事先毫無頭緒；去到更是搲頭：地址是downtown一間餐廳！心想難道在台上教，即學即表演？原來老師的工作間位於餐廳後樓梯一角。一開始，讓他看看我那支thinline electric acoustic nylon guitar合不合格，除了細聲一點，問題倒不大。然後再請教一下正宗姿勢，原來和古典不盡相同，反正古典我也是自學，話改就改。接著叫我彈些東西，我當然事先預備了幾首，包括Tarrega的Lagrima(Preludio)以及Malaguena，不大見得人，只是讓老師了解一下程度罷了。

正式開始教彈第一首！他指正了我的右手姆指及中食指的彈法（雖然比起pick更常用，我的fingerstyle實在有限公司）然後逐個逐個bar的教，教了8個；原來Flamenco傳統是靠模仿來學，不是看譜，以前在西班牙學的窮等人家，連書也不會讀呢。之後再教8個bar的arpeggio，可以和以前那8個連續使用；原來表演Flamenco guitar就是把不同的pattern（第一首不是一曲而是一個名為Solea的pattern）自由組合，我想多練的話不久的將來應做得到（起碼不像即興爵士般遙不可及）而且強迫記憶，不會依賴睇譜，拿起結他就表演多麼有型呢！說不定有助防止老人癡呆。

Al Molina, Strunz & Farah

An old schoolmate was in town. She's a huge jazz fan and immediately thought of me, "famous" for going to live jazz. Of course I (more like fellow performers in the bay area) didn't disappoint. Before the first show, I took her to Guitar Center on Van Ness for sheet music (the selection is small but still interesting enough) We also had oyster from the Swan Depot on Polk for our happy-hour. Then we drove to Brisbane (a city that I'm not familiar with. I've only been to Cow Palace to saw Twins' concert there years ago) and the 7 Mile House (which I've never been to but learned that it has been in business for 160 years, even earlier than the 100 year old Swan Depot!) However, when I arrived, I almost thought I was in the wrong place: it looked run-down and small. And I was hesitated to go in with my friend. In fact, if she's your typical HK chick, I would have left immediately. She's a seasoned world traveler though and actually convinced me good stuff is found from hidden gems like this! Man, she couldn't have been more correct. First of all, it also "doubles" as a sports bar with several games on big TV (baseball, hockey and basketball playoff!) Second, the food was pretty good. We shared a bowl of seafood. We were really surprised that all tables were reserved on a Tuesday night (we sat at the bar) When music started, we knew why: trumpeter Al Molina and his bands played top-notch jazz. His show was a tribute to great pianist Horace Silver. We sat so close to the trombonist that I could actually read his sheet music (and I did!) I found that the solo order for each instrument was written on the sheet music. I hesitated to write that down with my band but not any more.

The second show was at the world-famous Yoshi's, the one in Oakland. Avant garde jazz bassist William Parker was playing at Yoshi's SF, but I'm more interested in the world music/new Flamenco guitar duo Strunz & Farah (accompanied by a percussionist and a flautist/clarinetist) I have seen them live before but they have a huge catalog and also have new music coming out soon. I was impressed. So was my friend.

Chick Corea and the Vigil

I gave a hint that one of the two concerts I attended during the weekend was Chick Corea. He is certainly one of the biggest names in jazz today. You could be pretty sure it would be a good show. Indeed, I saw him with his group "Origin" many years ago. While I didn't find the music spectacular, it was a good show nevertheless. Same for one of his more recent album, Five Peace Band Live. I'm more impressed by his piano duet with the young Hiromi. He is the type of musicians that makes the others play better. He seems to be in a even better physical shape than I saw him last time. And I also enjoyed the music better this time.

One thing I really like is instead of drawing attentions to himself, the big star, he made the whole band shine, especially the up-and-coming guitarist Charles Altura, as well as the horn player Tim Garland. As a guitar player myself, I paid a lot of attention to the former. Here's a video of him playing with his group:

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In addition to playing the same ES335 with Chick Corea, he also played a nylon acoustic and sounded great on it too.

I am really looking forward to hearing the new album from this group.

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.