As part of the Jeunes Volontaires project (Waï trio) I just had a workshop / lesson with Jean-Sebastien Williams.

It was cool. He listened to “live” takes of the Waï trio on July 24th. Then we discussed :

(more…)

It’s the beginning of August and it’s most likely going to be my biggest “season of changes” for 2010.

Musically, I’ve played the first “official” gigs with the band “Waï”. For the first time ever, I’m playing over 90% of original (and fairly new) material. That’s a big step forward, I think. That is my personal “Milestone”.

.

It really is a different beast : playing originals is (more…)

Attended another jazz jam session last night @ Grumpy’s (on bishop street, Montreal). Great house band, for which I unfortunately missed the first set with Tom Eliasoff (guitar), Eric Thibodeault (drums) and Sage Reynolds (bass).

I had the opportunity to catch up with  (more…)

It’s been three weeks since I updated this blog … I’m very busy and very happy doing what I do!

As always, I spend most of my precious hours doing this :

• Practicing / Composing / Rehearsing
• Playing Sessions and Gigs
• Working on JazzGuitarLessons.net
• Teaching
• (at that’s when I’m not making delicious iced espresso!)

I’m getting better and better at this “self discipline” thing where I put a definite amount of work on each individual task when I’m home. (Say : practice, website and composition)

But that is all “old stuff”, let’s look at what changed since Montreal Jazz Festival ended.

.

Updated Practice Routine

I’ve re-assessed my guitar abilities (weaknesses/strengths) after (more…)

It’s the Montreal Jazz Festival (June 25th to July 5th I believe).

I’m “over my head” in pretty much everything : gigs, teaching, rehearsing, practicing, writing … and yes, going out a lot. It’s great!

I went to a few free shows so far and attended a jam session last night.

I can ride my bike or take the metro to the festival site (I get there in less than 20 minutes usually). I’ll keep you posted …

A big day of hard work today :

1. Learning tunes for choir
2. Practicing “for me”
3. Session (reading original pieces)

Picture this : waking up at 7 AM and digging right into it, take 3-4 meal breaks… and going to bed at 11 PM with only about an hour of winding down in the evening. Quite the day!

.

Pop tunes for choir

I can play most of them now with the recordings. I looked at the charts for keys and specific arrangement… it’s all good. If I give myself another 2-3 hours, I’ll be ready “enough”. Things always change at the dress rehearsal anyways… (example : I spent time on a tune the nail it, then the choir director says : “ok, no guitar on that tune”… you know…)

.

Practicing “for me”
(which is the bulk of my practicing)

• Relaxation and focus “à la” Werner
• Ear training and listening :
  • Exploring 5ths in C major
• Chords : learned a new voicing!
  • (low to high) 1 – 5 – 3 -7
  • Sounds like a piano voicing
• Polyrhythms : 9 over 2
  • Exploring applications to blues
  • Example : double-timed blues (everything twice as fast)
    • Play quarter note triplets on top (which comes back to being a 3/4 blues)
    • Subdivide each triplet in 3
    • Here you go : a blues in 9/8 !!!
    • Fun!
• Patterns in the key of Bb
  • All triads and 7th arpeggios
  • Ascending and Descending forms
  • Whole fretboard
  • with metronome
  • in eights and in triplets
• Working with metronome for faster tempos
  • 240 and 288 BPM
  • over C blues
  • it’s getting easier and easier!

The only thing I wished I had practiced today was the “triad pairs” concept… time was lacking though.

.

Session : reading original pieces

As part of this new project that should be 8 months long (May to December), we will be writing and rehearsing many original tunes. Today was the first of the “Lundis Inédits” (or “Unreleased Mondays”, which is a lousy translation…)

The  new project itself is divided between the band (nammed Waï; which is a guitar trio) and this weekly monday session with rotating personnel.

The basic idea of the “Lundis Inédits” is different musicians each week (4 or 5) each bringing a few of their tunes to play. It’s great for us because we take the time to work on and make suggestions on each other’s tunes…

Today’s first weekly monday was a success : we played 4-5 of my tunes, 4 of the bassist’s tune and 3 of the saxophonist’s.

Personnel :

Dalhi Gonthier – Sax
Joel Ker – Bass
Pierre Haché – Drums
Yours Truly – Guitar

I’ll probably be recording and uploading clips of the “Lundis Inédits” in the future. Stay tuned for the Wai website and other infos!

I’m playing my last duo gig @ L’independent for the summer tonight. Yet another gig we lost to the terrace…

.

Practicing :

• Warmup in E major Scale
  • Hearing/Listening 4ths and 5ths in key
  • A few scalar patterns for fingers…
• Slonimsky
  • #22 – Interpolation of 4 notes
  • experimenting w/different groupings
  • very odd!!! (5, 7, 3)
  • then #23 and #24 as is
• I Should Care
  • Blowing through the form
  • @144 then 176
• Triad Coupling : F and G
  • A few exercises (routine…)
• Fast Ab blues
  • Metronome as “quarter time”
  • Max 288 today
  • that’s fast and I’m still relaxed and free!

.

Gig at night was fun. Clinton is always “on top” of things and inspires me to play better.

Zat sit…

Last gig tonight? We are supposed to be stopping the gig for the summer (terrace is opening soon…) I practiced like mad today in order to play better tonight…and possibly keep the gig. (just kiddin)

Practice sesion :

• Warmup : 6 patterns in Gb major scale
  • 2 patterns in 8ths
  • 4 patterns in triplets
  • all over the fretboard
• First inversion 4-note chords (Ted Greene)
  • in Eb and Bb
  • Strings 6 – 4 – 3 – 2
• Triad Pair F G Doing 4 exercises :
  • ascending
  • descending
  • asc / desc
  • desc / asc
  • All over the fingerboard…
• Slonimsky
  • Tritone Progression
  • All interpolation of 1 note
  • All interpolation of 2 notes
  • in fact : pages 1 through 5
  • Good “accents” workout for different strings.
• Practicing Along Came Betty
  • Melody
  • Shout Chorus
  • Improv
  • Chords
  • Yeah!

.

The gig at night was fun. My good friend and colleague Pierre had to sub out for another show he was playing. I had the honor to play with Kevin Warren on drums instead of Pierre this week (with the regular and amazing Clinton Ryder on bass). Clinton also kicks my ass at badminton…

This week, two days were almost “twins” : I practiced the same things, was teaching at night… and even played badminton on both days!

Practice session (for both days):

• Some scale patterns in major scale(s)
  • Over 2-3 octaves
  • Thinking about creating a page on JazzGuitarLessons.net about that…
• Slonimsky interpolations (hard stuff)
  • 2-3-4 notes
• Triad Coupling (F and G)
  • a few exercises in triplets and in sixteenths
  • all over the fretboard
• Polyrhythms : 9 over 2
  • trying to hear from and to quarter notes, eight notes, etc.
  • with metronome
  • VERY hard to hear and feel right now!
• Practicing two Benny Golson tunes :
  • Along Came Betty (new!)
  • Stablemates

.

So now for the difference between both days : on Tuesday, I played a session with the great saxophonist Frank Lozano. Beforehand, I was visualizing the session as going “yeah!” all the way through… it, of course, didn’t happen this way. Frank has at least the same amount of experience as the rest of the band combined (guitar/bass/drums)!

After the first tune (Stablemates), it became more of a workshop/masterclass for us. What a humbling experience! I expected to walk in and be “one of them” and I simply ended up having a free lesson… that’s bitter & sweet at the same time. For me, that’s also the time when I learn the most.

.

On the very practical level, the aspect that struck me the most (and probably the topic on which Frank Lozano insisted the most) was playing “of the half note” or playing “of the whole note”.

.

That is :

If the bass/drums are playing an up-tempo swing kind of feel, improvise by emphasizing the half-note. It makes you play lines as if you are implying the actual half-time (but the form of the song is still passing by as is).

The end result is improvisation rhythmically anchored in beats 1 and 3 of each bar of 4/4. (The half notes!) … and it grooves very hard!

If it’s very fast, it’s even possible to imply the whole note of each bar (it’s like “quarter-time”).

In short : less work, more groove. (By work, I mean struggling on long streams of 8th notes instead of relaxing with quarters, half and whole notes…)

[On a personal note : I guess the opposite is also possible and common. Playing faster value on slower tunes, like ballads for example.]

What a great session/lesson it was!