This excerpt from the Public Television program The Piano Guy is brought to you by
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I'm really excited to work through this tune with you today its I Left My Heart in San
Francisco. Great tune, great standard used all the time a great one to get underhand
and with me to work thorough it today is my good friend Dave Powers
Hi Dave
Hi Scott
How are you?
I'm great, yourself?
Doing well thank you
Wonderful
Hey I am really excited about doing this tune with you in particular cause I'm gonna have
you sing it if you are ok with doing that?
Yea hum, no problem
Yea that's right, hum
The reason I want to do that obviously Tony Bennett who had the giant hit on this
its huge
and I mention a lot, we talked about the difference between solo style and accompaniment style
and in my mind there was not a better accompaniments on the planet and still is than Ralph Sharon,
who was Tony Bennett's long time accompaniments
Fantastic player
Actually we did some research and found out that he's who brought this tune to Tony. That
yea Ralph Sharon brought the tune San Francisco to Tony to do it and it ended up being his
signature tune
So, having said that, there's a couple and its kind of rare I think in accompanments
world to have a kind of a signature lick. Yet this one hasn't.
So we want to work through that, we want to give those away and a just kind of hammer
through the tune a little bit and discuss the difference between solo style playing
or accompanying yourself singing.
So, having said that why don't we play the first couple of measures so everybody kind
of gets to where we are and
(music) ohh (music) laughing - doing it in a different key
Right, yea
Ok, so there's the tune
a little bit off track
Of course we can't say without the old joke, I left my Harp in Stan Franstisco right?
It's an old musician joke, having said that how do you approach when you just start out
cause I know you sing a lot when you work gigs.
Explain to me the difference in the way you break down playing solo style playing vs.
oh I'm singing on this one I'm gonna do something different, kind of explain that if you would.
well some piano players that sing basically will just play chords while they sing. Um,
I'm a little different that way. I listen to a lot of music
You're a little different in a lot of ways.
But I listen to a lot of different music and I like to hear extra little nuances that people
expect to hear.
I mean when San Francisco is played and its played by many groups everyone expects to
hear that signature lick as you say
The great comedian Pete Barbutti does a great comedy routine with this and he has this trumpet
that's all wrapped up in duck tape and he brings it out and he starts playing you know
he starts playing the melody the whole band sings ta da da da ta da da cause they expect
to hear that tune
Let's go ahead and give that away actually while we are talking about that
Let's just visually give it away that lick, so.
I'm going to play it in this register but it's played an octave up normally and if I'm
not exact I'm pretty darn close
That's Ok
And I don't know if they ripped that off from Ray Conniff when Ray Conniff did It's a not
for me to Say for Johnny Mathis
It's Not for me to Say started out going
(music)
Back in 1957. When San Francisco came out in 62.
Ok, so let's give that away
It starts out on, I'm in the key of C so, Simple so it just marches up a C Chord.
And actually that melody, I'm gonna throw something out the is so obscure, but not that
obscure. In the late 20's there was a song The Wedding of the Painted Doll and the melody
was, It's a holiday today today's the wedding of the painted doll, but it's the same.
It's one of my favorite songs, I'm such a nerd. (Laughing)
Now the second part of that is I left my heart, ba du do ta da in San Francisco
Yea, the second chord, that's a D Chord so he's playing a descending chord if anyone
was gong to play this and go
Kind of like that, the melody would be
But if you want to be a bit more expressive you can, slide those notes so is just slides
down like,
Nice, it gives it a little bit more expression
So the first one again starts on a C, Ok, now the second one starts on the D
There we go, I think that's going to be a great thing for our viewers to just get under
hand because boy every one can relate to that when they play this tune.
So where it falls in the tune is you would be singing
(Dave partially Singing the tune)
You have to fell that you've done a pretty good job as an accompaniments when you have
a signature lick and its just the accompaniment.
True, well if you are also a piano player that sings and you are singing you want to
feel in those extra gaps in your song. If you were in a band playing and you had a sax
player and a vocalist would sing and when there was a little gap the sax player would
always fill in those little extra measures with some fluff or whatever he wants to do.
Same thing to being a really good accompaniments, accompanying yourself you've got 10 fingers
to do whatever you want you are already singing the melody and you've got your accompaniment
going. So you can sing the song, you know whatever, so you have all of that space to
use for um,
That's clearing things up a little bit. I mean maybe another way to rephrase what you
just mentioned is you basically, while the melody is going on whether you are singing
it or playing it, you are just playing chords underneath it
right
The minute the melody stops and there is a gap you then need to fill in some of that
space with something melodic as an accompaniment. And you will notice that if you listen to
the recordings that you listen to
Well yea this is the perfect one, yea you have Tony Bennett singing I left my Heart
in San Francisco then there's a place and Ralph Sharon is playing and more accompaniment.
Ok, well this is a great example to do that on. Let's move on through the tune a little
bit, and kind of push forward a little bit and work through any other things that might
be traps for anybody who is working through this tune.
Being that it's a ballad you can add a little rhythm to the song by maybe playing in the
left hand you know the note and then a chord, you know like 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4
Ok, so that's kind of a real easy stride bass almost
Yea it's like a slow stride
You are reaching down playing a single root and then going up an octave to play the chord.
Which is something I can probably handle on a ballad but I would never be able to do it
on a really fast tune, but that's great. That's a good call for a slow tune to target practice
isn't quite so tough.
Yea, practice. Practice slow, take it slow, take the note maybe if you want to play a
little octave and then chord. You know play an octave, play the octave, and what I would
do, how I started doing the stride stuff when I was younger and really understanding stride
getting from point a to point b. Sometimes I would see, like here's the root, see I'm
in the key of C, here's the fifth. so maybe I would go down, I would desend from the fifth,
so the root, but in a way that helps my hand get to the right spot.
So if I just did this...
But if I went...
Sound wise you are hearing like a bass player going...
Right, cause its filling a spot there
yea doing it that way, Let's go to the bridge of this tune there is another accompaniment
lick that I want to give away
Little cable cars
And then usually in that gap you imitate let's give that one away
Right usually they echo an answer
So, little cable cars
Sounds pretty OK
And its not, you don't have to play that verbatim you want to fill in the gaps with something
so, I would encourage people to be a little more creative in that part.
Ok
But if you want here's a good way of getting around it...
(music)
You know as I see you do that maybe a easy thing we can tell our viewers is that whenever
you need to fill something you are always safe sticking to whatever the chord tones
are, right.
so whatever chord you are playing in your left hand you could always just open it up
and play chord tones in some pattern with your right hand and you want to do it up higher
to give yourself a little you know
Your right,
So, of you are playing it and not singing it.
(music)
So the point is what chord are you on here, any of those chord tones, would work out up
high as you are doing that
Exactly
So, here's an Eminor and then you go...
Yea, you are safe doing that, it's kind of
Filling out the chord right
That's probably a pretty good mental thing to hang your hat on then to not panic and
think oh I've got to be so creative and come up with all these beautiful melodic lines
and you really don't. At a beginning level if you want to take that first step off the
cliff that way just go up and make sure you are sticking to the chord tones and whatever
you are doing somehow just spell them out and do that.
sure
That's a good call
Indeed
Now, when you work through a tune, the next thing I'm going to talk about is arranging
it I guess if you are working through one. When you are singing do you normally sing
a chorus and play chorus and sing a chorus, I mean any thoughts on how you approach that?
Well melody is very important to me in a song and when I'm making my point vocally getting
the words, because people like to hear the words you use and they are very important.
I will play the whole song all the way through and then put a little instrumental chorus
in and maybe, in a song like San Francisco I won't start at the beginning again, I might
start at the half way point
And work your way up
Yea, my love waits there in San Francisco, its right after the little cable cars part.
So give yourself a little section to do some instrumental work then come back in and wrap
up the tune vocally.
I think there's a mistake that some performers make cause they want to go back to the beginning
of the song again and
do the whole thing through again
Well I think people get bored after that for a while. When you hear a pop song on the radio,
most of these songs, the point is already made within 3 minutes
Ok
Maximum
Even when it comes to ballads unless you are playing an improve with a combo and everyone
wants to take a chorus, of San Francisco that's a different story
But if you are performing as a solo act you know I'll play an instrumental part halfway
through the song so in essence the whole song will be performed twice through.
Ok, this is Dave Powers playing I Left my Heart in
San
Francisco
(music)
Outstanding, that's a great version Dave, I sure appreciate your helping us with that.
My pleasure Scott, thank you.
Alright
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