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How high the moon (1940) by Morgan Lewis, a nice and easy-going jazz standard, with a
catchy melody. A pretty common tune in the gypsy jazz repertoire as well. Contemporary
guitarist Adrien Moignard plays a good version of it in that tradition on youtube. For a quite
different version check out Louis Armstrongs bassist Arvell Shaw play it here. He plays
both the head and a long solo. It's pretty impressive!
My favourite version is by Sonny Stitt and can be found on the album "How high the moon"
with Sonny Stitt and Friends. Look out for a very cool and straight-to-the-point-intro!
So first of all, why do we chose to learn/play the tunes we do? There can be several
reasons: You've joined a band who plays it, it's a common tune played at jam sessions,
your teacher urge you to learn it, you want to study the theory etc. But I think the best
reason we can have for playing the tunes we do, is that we like them! This is often the best
motivation. But here we go:
For learning this tune (and more or less every jazz standard) the following list would be a
good start:
1: Find a good vocal version.
One you really like and learn the lyrics by heart. It will be easier to remember and you get
a more "personal" approach to the song. Instead of just learning a chord chart. You can
almost always find a good version of the most popular jazz standards by some of the old
masters; Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Anita O'day, Nat King Cole etc. For
free versions use youtube.com, deezer.com or your local library for example.
2: Finding the sheet.
Of course the best thing would be to workout every note and all harmonies by ear, but for
most of us that demands a very good ear, a lot of time and a lot of hard work (although I
don't doubt it will pay of in the end). But until then you can find the basic changes in the
Vanilla book. I think this is a good way to start. Start to learn the changes in their most
simple form: major, minor, dominant, diminished without too many substitutions and
extensions. Later on when you know the fundamental changes of the tune, you can start
re-harmonizing.
3: What is the form and tonality?
Most standards are in AABA, AB, ABC or AAB forms.
Look out for which chord the song is ending on. It is often the first chord in the tune, but
not always!
Tonality in this case is G major, and the form is AB. Where the last eight bars in the B
section differs from the last eight bars in the A section.
4: Study the changes.
A: / G / G / Gm7 / C7 / F / F / Fm7 / Bb7 /
/ Eb / Am7b5 D7 / Gm / D7 / G / Am7 D7 / Bm7 Bb7 / Am7 D7 /
Okay, the first 8 bars of the B section is the same as the A section, so no problems here.
Last 8 bars: / Eb / Am7 D7 / G / Cm6 / Bm7 Bb7 / Am7 D7 / G / (Am7 D7) /
One bar of Eb major, one bar of a II-V in G major, which leads to one bar of G major, going
to a Cm6 (! I'll get back to that), to one bar of Bm7-Bb7; a II-V in A major, with the Bb7
being a flat 5 substitution of the normal V-chord, E7. In bar 6 the II-V in G leads back
home to the tonality and end of the song; G major.
In the last bar you normally play a II-V leading to the beginning of a new chorus if you're
not ending the song.
So back to the Cm6 chord in bar 4. In the Realbook they suggest Am7-D7 in that bar. The
melody notes is A, B and C, which is the 6th, the mMaj7 and the root of the Cm6 chord. All
notes works pretty well with that chord. In relation to Am7-D7 the notes A, B and C are the
root, the 6th of Am7 and the 7th of D7 respectively. All notes works pretty well too. Cm6
has the advantage of making a descending bass line (C-B-Bb-A..). On the other hand the
chord will give us one bar with a whole new tonality: The 3rd in the Cm6 chord (Eb) will
stick out. (remember the Cm6 can also be seen as a Am7b5 or F9 without the root).
With the Am7-D7 as the Realbook suggest, we stay in key of G major. If you're the only
chordal instrument in the given group, you can do pretty much as you like. It's really a
matter of taste and what you feel like. Try to make turnarounds which smoothly leads back
to the root chord and dont clash with the melody notes. It is very important that not only
you, but also you're band mates are sure of where you're going. In the end it is all about
getting home in a good way. Follow your heart.. and your ears!
5: Practice the changes with a metronome and/or play along with your favourite
versions of the tune. To practice with a metronome is maybe hard and sometimes boring,
but very rewarding. Playing along with recordings is fun and inspiring!
So, this was the first part. Next in part 2 I will talk about the melody and improvisation
ideas I like. And about Charlie Parker and his piece made over the same changes:
Ornithology.
Hope you liked this first lesson/guide in my blog and learned something, feel free to leave
a message!
Somewhere there's music / how faint the tune..
In this article I'd like to share some ideas on how you can improvise over the tune.
Improvisation is a big topic and there are endless ways of doing it, understand it and learn
it. I don't think there's one right way to learn it, I think it's about finding out what you want to
say and how you want to do it. A lot of people describe good improvisation like 'telling a
story'. I think that's a good way to see it: To tell a story about something you think is
important. But before we can tell such a story we need to have the basic tools to express
it. I hope this article can be a help to find or develop these tools. Enjoy!
each measure.
/ Bb-C-D-E-F-F#-G-A / Bb-B-C-D-E-F-G-G# / A...
So here the chord tones are in bold. And the last note is an A, the 3 rd of the F major chord.
Always good to end you line on a 3rd on the first beat of the bar.
On the off beats you can play whatever you like. A good way to spice up your lines is
playing notes outside the scale on the off beats when it fits. When you work with your
lines, you can, as an exercise, tell your self that you have 8 notes and then try to put chord
tones on each uneven number. It's a great exercise to get familiar with all the chord tones
and to be aware of how you end and start your lines.
Notice how Ive underline some of the notes, this is where the notes are connected
chromatically. To use chromatics is a great way to make your lines flow elegantly through
the changes.
It's a common technique in bebop improvisation, even though I only see it as a small part
of getting the 'bebop sound' (which is indeed also has to do with, rhythm, syncopation and
accent).
For more info about bebop lines and chromatic lines I recommend this site.
Ornithology.
Charlie Parker was the great pioneer in the bebop revolution in the 1940's. He
experimented with altered chords, soloing with the upper extensions of the chords, rhythm
and syncopation. His tunes or 'heads' was typically based on 3 different kind of chord
progressions:
1) Blues: Bloomdido, Chi Chi..
2) Rhythm changes: Anthropology, Moose the Mooche..
3) The popular tunes of the day: Donna Lee, Scrapple from the Apple, Ko-Ko. Was based
on the changes of 'Back home again in Indiana', 'Honeysuckle Rose' and 'Cherokee'
respectively.
In this case his 'head' Ornithology is created over the changes of High high the Moon. A
study of the head of Ornithology compared to the melody of How high the Moon, is a good
way to see two very different approaches to the same changes. Both 'styles' would be
good to use in your improvisation: The rhythmically simple, melodic chord-tone way of
How high the Moon and the rhythmically sophisticated bebop way with extensions and
altered notes of Ornithology. For further study the 'Charlie Parker Omnibook' is the the
'bible' for most bebop'ers. It contains transcriptions of most of his tunes and his solo's.
Playing Arpeggios.
This is a good way to mix up your lines if you usually play scales. Django Reinhardt used
this technique a lot. I will divide this in two areas:
1) Inside-arpeggios. Are arpeggios which stays in the given tonality. So over an G major
chord you can play any chord from the scale of G major: Gmaj7, Am7, Bm7, Cmaj7, D7,
Em7 F#m7b5. Of course some works better than other. Try to relate each chord to the G
chord and see which notes each arpeggio contain.
A Bm7 arpeggio will give you the notes B, D, F# and A. So if we relate those notes to a G
major chord we'll have the 3rd (B), the 5th (D), Major 7 (F#) and the 9th (A). In other words
a Gmaj9 chord without the root note (the G). A 'nice' and 'airy' sound and a good way to
outline the changes (remember the 3rd and the 7th are the notes which are defining the
have all our personal vocabulary which we use in different situations. So when you're
playing over a certain chord or passage and you start to use your usual 'tricks', try to stop
it. Make a pause, listen to the groove and see if some new idea spontaneous comes to
mind and do that instead. It's better than the usual licks we more or less mindless normally
pulls off. This is a good way of breaking up our usual licks and habits.
For a simple exercise to get started, you can do like this: start a backing track with a tune
you know well. Then start your lines on the second beat of the bars. Get use to the feeling
of letting the first beat start before you do something.
If you listen to the old masters you've hear how they do it. Another good exercise is to do
like this: Take a good tune you like. Confirmation by Charlie Parker is a good example.
Then count along the recording (tap your foot or your finger in 1,2,3,4) and listen to where
on the beat he starts his lines.
Next you can experiment with different places to you start and end your lines. The
important thing is to have some variation and have a good sense of time.
Tension and release.
We could also call this 'building a climax'. The idea, as pointed out in the first part of this
guide to How high the moon, is about getting home in a good way. One of the ways we
can make interest in our improvisation is to create tension and then release it. It's like a
telling good story, and in literature there's tons of stories with the Home-away theme. You'll
start your journey and experience all kinds of exiting things and get home as a new man!
So how do we apply that? It's a big and very interesting subject, so I will only talk briefly
about it and give a common example:
First take your instrument and play a 2-5-1 in any key. Play it slowly and pay attention to
each note of each chord. You'll hear how it feels like 'getting home' when you end on the 1
chord: It's safe and stable. So it's typically over dominant 7 th chords you would create
tension. For example when playing over a turn around or at the end of the A or B sections.
In How high the moon, try to do it in the end of the A section (bar 15 and 16) and the B
section (29 and 30) and release it when you get home on the G chord.
So how do you create tension? There are several 'tricks' you can use:
- Play harder, louder more intense. (Check out Django Reinhardt's solo on 'I'll see you in
my dreams' from 1:09 - 1:16).
- Play notes outside the tonality. For example an outside-arpeggio.
- Play fast! (Check out Sonny Stitt on Just Friends 1:15 - 1:28).
- Play a repetitive pattern. (Guitarist Grant Green was great at this. check his solo on
Alone Together 3:19 - 3:32 ).
After you've created tension, now you can release by showing you're 'home again':
- Play soft, quiet and calm.
- Use silence.
- Play melodic or a small part of the original head (It will make it obvious to everybody that
you're home again).
- Play 'stable notes' or 'inside notes'.
There are endless possibilities of doing it. And it's a good way to avoid monotony in your
playing. It can seem a bit awkward to do it like following a manual like this example, but it's
a good place to start until it begins to feel natural.
Practice time!
As mentioned earlier I think the very best way to practice is to start slow and simple and
then increase the tempo when you got it. Play along your favorite recordings of the tunes.
Use backing tracks. The best ones I've used so far is by Jamey Aebersold. In his vol. 6 All
bird you'll find Ornithology and other Parker backing tracks. You can also find How high
the Moon and a lot of other good backing tracks here. If you're in to a jazz-manouche style
of backing track, you can use this one (Be aware of a mistake in the displayed chord
changes).
So, lock the door, turn off the phone and kick out your girlfriend for a while! Or throw out
your TV and buy a metronome! As a fellow guitarist once told me. A just go for it. But in all
seriousness; isolation and focus on only one thing can get you very far, but of course in the
right doses. I guess we all have to find our own 'golden mean' which work for us.
I'll finish this guide to How high the Moon with a Louis Armstrong quote, which I think
expresses what it's all about: Playing good, honest, swingin' music.
There is two kinds of music the good and bad. I play the good kind.