Hi I'm pro saxophonist Jamie Anderson and you're watching Get Your Sax
Together. Every week I sax up your Sunday with
free online lessons covering technique stuff, tips on
improvising and my unique breakdowns of the world's most
famous sax lines. I'm so excited so i've got a really
special show for you this week - it's half lesson and
half performance. The song is Pick Up The Pieces by The Average White Band.
You're going to learn how to play it step by step, then I'm going to perform
the whole song with a star-studded lineup of awesome
guest musicians.
The Average White Band formed in london in the early 70s,
but they all originally came from Scotland - Dundee in particular.
Dundee is less than an hour from where I was brought up so
I like to dream there might be something in that scottish water
that gave me some kind of funk superpower like those guys!
After moving to the US and playing pretty low key gigs, The Average White
Band was signed by a major label and never looked back. Recorded in 1974
(a particularly good year) Pick Up the Pieces was originally the B-side
of a track called Nothing You Can Do, but it proved so popular
that it was then released as its own A-side. Despite the obviously contradictory
band name American radio stations assumed The
Average White band were a black soul outfit based on what they heard, and
the music was so funky that even James Brown the Godfather of Soul
himself made a special trip to check them out
live. Pick Up the Pieces is driven by the Dundee-powered double
sax front line of Roger Ball and Molly Duncan, with Ball on lead alto
and Molly taking the legendary tenor solo in the middle.
On a later live recording at the Montreux Jazz Festival, tenor legend Michael
Brecker famously guests on the solo. I've always loved this tune and one of
my most cherished gig moments of all time was
playing this song with Hamish Stuart from The Average White Band,
when he guested with Incognito at the Jazz Cafe in London.
I didn't know tenor player Molly Duncan that well, but we chatted on several
occasions and he even stood in for me on a few
gigs. Tragically, Molly passed away last year, in 2019, so
this video is dedicated to him. It's been an absolute blast getting
some of my talented buddies to guest on the backing track for this one,
so make sure you stay tuned to the end to see what I'm talking about.
Pick Up The Pieces is one of those tunes that everyone knows, but
nobody knows. Harmonically speaking, it's actually
very simple on sax. If you can play a C major scale on alto, or an
F major scale on tenor, then you already know all the notes you'll need.
Here's the notes you'll need on each sax to play this tune.
Even if you're a beginner on sax, Pick Up The Pieces is probably within reach for
you with a bit of practice, especially on alto.
However, it's the structure of this song that's the real
devil. There's only six short phrases to learn, and even some of them are very
similar, but you've got to spend some time
getting familiar with how they're all put together to play this song.
The easiest way to learn this tune is to go down into the description
and click the link to get your FREE PDF for Pick Up The Pieces.
I spent ages writing out the entire song from start to finish,
for alto and tenor sax, with all the phrases marked in, and even all the
harmonies as well!! This isn't just a bite-sized chart my
friend - you could go out tonight and play the whole song perfectly from
this chart. (if you can sight read well enough) Anyway,
coming right up you'll learn those six phrases, then I'll show you how to put
them all together. But just before we learn the
riffs, if you're enjoying this channel go and check out my FREE one hour
Saxophone Success Masterclass, which is an awesome, special extended
lesson with me, covering a bunch of essential saxophone
topics. This could really transform your playing,
so jump on board by clicking the link in the description or
use the URL below.
Right, without further ado, let's learn the six riffs you need for Pick Up The Pieces,
starting with phrase one played in slow motion.
Phrase two is really the second half of
the first phrase, but for logistical reasons I've split it
in half. Remember, you're learning the main melody part
here, as played on alto by Roger Ball in the original.
If you want to learn the harmonies as played on tenor by Molly Duncan on the
original, go and get the FREE PDF sheet music
using the link in the description. That has all the harmonies for the whole
song. Here's phrase two
Phrase three is an alternative riff to phrase one when the chords change in
measure nine. If you pay close attention, you'll notice that the first four notes
are the same as phrase one, except the first note is up the octave.
Phrase 4 is the first bit of the bridge. You'll play this short phrase
several times in the song, especially at the end.
Phrase five is exactly the same as phrase four
apart from the last note, and it always leads into phrase six.
The final phrase to learn is phrase six, which is exactly the same as phrase four
except there's an extra long note at the end. There's actually two versions of
phrase six - I'm going to call them 'phrase 6A'
(which has the held note for one measure) and 'phrase 6B' (which has the held note
for four measures). Just another example of
why Pick Up The Pieces is a complete cluster-foof to play live! Now
remember, you hit the last held notes in phrase six on the last beat of the bar
before, so take care when you're counting - you
hit the note, then start counting on beat one of the next
bar. ... "one two three four"
Now we can put it all together. As usual, make sure you observe the right
long notes and short notes when you play this if you want to sound convincing,
and really try and dig into the rhythm. If you want to sound more pro and less
like a beginner, check out my recent YouTube Live Session
linked on the card above now. So the magic, and curse, of Pick Up The
Pieces is the way the stabby melody chunks are played by
the saxes, followed by space for the rhythm section
to groove. It's magic because the rhythm section is so amazing,
but it's a curse as nobody ever knows how long each groove section lasts!!
The easiest way of getting to grips with the whole song
is to break it into large chunks first. We can call these large chunks the Verse,
the Bridge and the Solo. So, after that famous four bar intro of
strumming guitar, we have verse one, which is repeated. On
the structure diagram you can also see which phrases make up each section.
Verse one is followed by Bridge one. Verse two is next,
then Bridge two. The solo section is 16 bars long on the original, although it's
opened up when played live. After the solo we get Verse two again,
followed by Bridge three. Bridge three is an extended bridge.
The song closes with an eight bar outro groove
section and one last riff. Just watch out for how long each mini
groove section is. Sometimes it's two bars, sometimes it's
four bars. The easiest thing is to get the PDF from
the description and just follow along. Even if you don't
read music you can memorize the six phrases and
just follow the phrase numbers through.
Right, I'm actually gonna play the entire song now, from beginning to end. If you're wondering how to play those
high notes in the solo, check out my epic video on how to play altissimo, linked on
the card above now. I'm afraid there's no isolated backing
track for you to play along with for this one -
the musicians on here didn't sign up to make free backing tracks for everyone
I'm afraid! That said, you can easily get a backing
track for a few bucks online. Mind you, the original has unison
saxes playing together, so just treat this performance
as the backing track that you can play along with. I'm so lucky to have
such a talented group of musicians to play with this week- I've been like a kid
in a sweet shop! On drums we've got Nick Van Gelder. Nick
was Jamiroquai's drummer, and alongside all his own awesome productions,
he's featured on the million selling album "Emergency On Planet Earth".
Next, an incredible musician, a great DJ and a wonderful
touring bandmate, bassist Francis Hylton forms
the bedrock of Incognito's legendary groove,
and last, but definitely not least, Shawn Lee is the Da Vinci of sound -
a multi instrumentalist and a true renaissance man.
Shawn could have played every instrument on this track, but I thought we should let
everyone else have a go, so he's just covering the two guitar
parts here. You'll find links for all these guys in
the description for this video. Many thanks you guys, I owe you one. Right,
let's get on with a very special performance of Pick Up The Pieces by The
Average White Band. You'll hear the famous four measure
jangly guitar intro, and then the saxes come in - Enjoy!
Man was that a treat or a what? Who knew lockdown could be so much fun!
Special thanks again to Nick Van Gelder on drums, Francis Hylton on bass, and Swawn
Lee on guitar. You can check them all out using the
links in the description. Don't forget to pick up your special
FREE PDFf from the link in the description
and if you want to learn some more in-depth sax stuff go to
www.getyoursaxtogether.com/masterclass to get your free one hour lesson with me.
As always, thanks for watching and supporting me and if you're loving this
channel, give the video a thumbs up, leave me a
comment, subscribe to the channel, click the bell icon to be notified when
I upload new content and check out my Insta and Facebook
pages. Next Sunday you'll be learning one of
the most important things of all on sax - playing in tune! Until then, thanks for
watching and have fun practicing. See ya!
I'm so lucky to have such