So far, we've been talking quite a bit about chords and harmony.
But let's not forget that the most important thing
that we hear in any song is melody.
We're going to be playing a lot of solo guitar material.
A lot of this comes from how we interpret the melody.
And that word "the interpretation" is very important.
How do we interpret a melody?
If we take, for example--
[PLAYS "HAPPY BIRTHDAY"]
You get the idea, right?
OK.
How about this.
[EMBELLISHES "HAPPY BIRTHDAY"]
Same song?
Yeah, more or less, but certainly a lot more interesting to listen to.
Now, appropriate?
Well, it depends whose birthday are doing,
and do they understand anything about contemporary creative improvisational
music?
The idea is to take an existing melody, particularly
a melody that might have been played the same way 15 million times, and saying,
how am I going to interpret that melody in a way that's unique to me?
How am I going to make this so personal that when somebody hears it,
they say, oh, yeah, that's John's version of whatever the song might be.
So let's take a very standard song, "Autumn Leaves,"
and listen to the original melody of the first eight bars
the way it was originally written.
I'm going to play it in the upper octave here because I think you'll
hear it better and melodically up here.
[PLAYS "AUTUMN LEAVES"]
Isn't that boring?
Look at some of the examples that I've got.
I'm going to take it back down to the lower octave.
Here's the original first two bars.
[PLAYS "AUTUMN LEAVES"]
Rhythmic anticipation--
[EMBELLISHES "AUTUMN LEAVES"]
--same notes, rhythmically I just varied it
a little bit so it makes more logical sense.
Here's another one, 1, 2, 3, 4 1.
[RHYTHMICALLY ANTICIPATES "AUTUMN LEAVES"]
All anticipated there.
Here's one with a delay, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1.
[RHYTHMICALLY DELAYS "AUTUMN LEAVES"]
Here's one with a lower neighbor.
This is often referred to as a chromatic note.
And lower neighbor means we're going down chromatic and then coming
back, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1.
[EMBELLISHES "AUTUMN LEAVES"]
An upper neighbor, 2, 3, 4, 1.
[EMBELLISHES "AUTUMN LEAVES"]
Not chromatic this time.
Could be though.
Suppose I turn to chromatic.
[EMBELLISHES "AUTUMN LEAVES"]
That could work.
Next one with a couple of chromatic approaches in it, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1.
[EMBELLISHES "AUTUMN LEAVES"]
And the next one also with some chromatics-- in fact,
there's a double chromatic approach in here, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1.
[EMBELLISHES "AUTUMN LEAVES"]
Are you still hearing "Autumn Leaves?"
You should.
It's more hidden now, but it should still be there.
Next one, 3, 4, 1.
[EMBELLISHES "AUTUMN LEAVES"]
That was a double chromatic approach coming down.
[PLAYS DESCENDING NOTES]
Next one, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1.
[EMBELLISHES "AUTUMN LEAVES"]
Indirect resolution-- that means ultimately my resolving goal
is to get to that note.
And I got to it from B below it and the D above it.
Listen to that again, 3, 4, 1.
[EMBELLISHES "AUTUMN LEAVES"]
So now let me come up with one that I'm just going
to do this off the top of my head.
Now that you have kind of an awareness of what the beginning of "Autumn
Leaves" sounds like, let me play this how I would normally
play it if I'm on a gig, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1.
[EMBELLISHES "AUTUMN LEAVES"]
That was the first 16 bars.
Oftentimes you'll look at a lead sheet from any type of fake books filled
with all of these standard tunes, and if you read the music exactly as written
in the songbook, you're going to play the basic part
of "Autumn Leaves" and other tunes.
But nobody really wants to hear you do that.
That's a learning tool.
And when you're first learning the song, you
should try to learn it as that just so you know
what the basic element of the song is.
But as soon as you've got that, you need to interpret it differently and start
being more creative with how you play them.