Update on blind rhythm changes

I've added two elements to blindfolded rhythm changes. One, to do the same thing with my own composition, improvising on it until I can improvise on it successfully, and secondly, to do the same thing on "Don't Blame Me." The idea is not to get stale, and not to learn improvisation in only one key. At some point there will be a breakthrough, in which the improv in these other tunes will be as good as in rhythm changes.

On the classical front, I played one of the Mompou "Música callada" series for my teacher, and she said it was very good, in very specific ways that she could tell me. She is not one for empty praise so I knew that she meant it, and of course she still had suggestions. It feels very good to master a piece at this level. It is not difficult, but I couldn't have played any piece that well last fall.  

I've thought about my goal on the piano as getting to 80%.  But 80% of what?  If I can be at 10% but play well, within that limit, then that is like being at 100%.

Learn by doing it

The obvious bears repeating. We learn to do something by doing it. If I want to learn to speak Italian then I should speak Italian. If I want to learn to read it I should read it. Cross-training is good, but doesn't provide the skill that direct training does. For example, speaking Italian won't make me as good a reader as reading does.

I've been trying to learn improvisation, and the thing to do there is to improvise. Studying the theory behind is necessary, but you won't learn until you do it. My technique is called Blindfolded Rhythm Changes, and it involves just playing the chord changes of I Got Rhythm over and over again. I've learned some things about it. For example, the improvisational ideas tend to gel and become compositions, and hence on as improvisatory any more. It can get stale, but these stale bits can become vocabulary items or "licks" that make improvisation easier. Once I get too set in a pattern I have to play something else. At some point I will have to learn the changes in another key.

My idea often sound unhip or unjazzlike. This is fine for now, as long as they are intended, heard before they are played, and with some melodic and phrasal shape to them. I'm able to do some improv over my own left-hand walking base, but I feel my ideas are restricted that way, as opposed to having the right hand play what it wants and the left fill in rather than playing four quarter notes.  Still, a week or two ago I could play the bass line but couldn't do anything with the other hand.

We learn to write scholarly books and articles by writing them. It would stand to reason that someone who's done more will be better, more masterful.  I don't believe in the paradigm of someone who writes and publishes very little and all of it is brilliant.  The mass producer of mediocrity does exist, and is a mystery to me.

BFRC

I am posting this as a benchmark, not because I think I'm playing very well yet.  The idea would be post a video every month for a year and see if I can do better.

BFRC (4-6)

The other day I did these actually blindfolded, rather than just in a dark room or with my eyes closed. It makes a difference because I can no longer open my eyes to cheat, and I get the full effect of depriving myself of that one sense. Playing the piano is not a mostly visual proposition. We think it is because we need to read sheet music.  That is fine for learning but not essential for playing. We also think we need to see where the key are. Maybe so, but the hand should know this, just as when I'm typing now I am not looking at the keyboard at all.

If I hit a wrong note I should also know what note it is, and decide whether I have played an E instead of an F, for example. My ears should tell me this.

I should also be able to hear the notes before I play them and sing along in real time to my playing. Surprisingly, I can do this. The ears can be trained even for an old guy.

Then I started playing other tunes to the chords of I got rhythm, seeing whether they fit or not, the 1,6,2,5 of Blue Moon at the beginning for example, which also seemed to work with "These Foolish Things."

***

I saw a movie the other night, Mr. Church, in which the "magical negro" part is played by Eddie Murphy.  It is interesting that jazz is used as the metonymy corresponding to the "magical negro" trope. The character mostly plays in the style of the 1920s or early 30s. This makes sense because making him a bebop player would be not safe enough for a character who is supposed to represent the dignity expected out of this character, even though the movie itself takes place in the 1970s and 80s!  Of course I object to almost any treatment of jazz in a movie.  I can't help it.  

Blindfolded rhythm changes (3)

I did some BFRC this morning before I went in to work, mostly with eyes closed. I explored some of the bop ideas I found last night.  To me bop means two things: lots of chromaticism, and fluid combinations of swung 8th notes, 8th note triplets, and sixteenths, with some sixteenth-note triplets too.

***

I had a dream that my colleagues (or some group of people) had voted a certain way, against hiring someone for example, because they did not understand two fundamental concepts: that literature is metaphorical and that is fictional. So I very brilliantly explained those two concepts to them to encourage them to change their votes.

Then when I got up I realized that this was actually a basic point that people forget often. There are three main ways in which we define literature:

Fictionality: refers to a world that does not exist.

Figurative language: the language refers to something, but it is talking about something else, not what it refers to.

Musicality: the work is distinguished by structure, form, sound, and other aspects comparable to musical structures and sonorities.

Fictionality and figurative language are clearly linked, even though they are separate concepts. For example, a poem could be about a real pigeon, but the pigeon might be a symbol. Or a novel could refer to someone who does not exist in reality. Those are different things, but the mistake my dream-colleagues were making was literal-mindedness in both cases.

Blindfolded rhythm changes (ii)

Today was the first day. I didn't use a blindfold, timer, or metronome yet, but that will come. I made some progress and for the first time in my life felt that I was playing bop-like phrases. I learned most of "Anthropology" and just stole some phrases from that when improvising. The idea is to do this 365 times. It might take slightly longer than a year, but that's ok. I'm going to count this as day two, since I played some rhythm changes the other day in the dark just to see if I could.

***

When I got back from Chicago from hearing Julia play in the "Homenaje a Federico García Lorca," I found that I was a better piano player, even having not played for a few days in a row. I suddenly was better at reading music, learning, and playing with confidence. Yes, it is possible to improve on the piano as a relatively old guy (57).

A year of blind-folded rhythm changes

Here is a very simple idea: Play rhythm changes on the piano every day, blind-folded, for a year. The blind-folded part is probably the least important. The idea is to increase one's proprioception, that nice little sense that tells you where you fingers are without looking at the piano. I can play ok without looking, so that's the easy part.

I know the chords, so that's not particularly onerous. My weakness is in the improvisations, which sound very square to me, relying on a few cheap tricks. But I figure with a year, I can find some ideas.    

The "year" and the "every day" part are what's difficult. Since I already play piano every day, I could do this, but I also want to play other things. And then, the experiment might fade in interest for me after a few weeks or months, rather than lasting a year.

Still, it is a good concept. The idea would be to change it up if it got boring, so you could do only bass line for a week, or do it in a weird key, or work on a particular song with rhythm changes as its basis.

[The chord changes to "I got Rhythm" by Gershwin is a standard vehicle for improvising in jazz, and for writing new tunes with the same changes, or variations thereof.]