21/06/20 - week 2
Tune
Discovering Julian Argüelles' album Home Truths has been an enormous amount of inspiration. Mike Walker's playing on this lesser known session is magic, and I was lucky enough to ask him a few questions via Zoom this week.
Mike, like many other brilliant harmonists, hears the gravity of the individual notes in every chord and voice leads accordingly. To reach this level of comping competence, Mike suggests improvising with two notes simultaneously, then three and four to develop your ear. Once these tools are ingrained, voices can be added or removed to control the density of sound. A brilliant example would be Mike's improvised tune from Argüelles' recording: Quietly Peeping Around Corners.
Twang
Inbetween practicing Parker's downwards minor arpeggios, I've been getting in to Jim Hall again. While he's not known for his solo guitar playing, I had to transcribe this as soon as I heard it!
Getting it down on paper was a bit of a challange. Writing out rubato playing makes transcribing in time seem like a doddle! Check it out:
Thought
Listening to an episode of Tim Ferris' Tribe of Mentors podcast, I was reminded that following one task at a time is far more beneficial than pursuing everything at once. Trying to master the styles of Guthrie Govan, Wes Montgomery and Joyce is a lifetime's work, not a week's!