Author: wjl

I’m following Andreas’ Youtube channel ‘creating your own music‘ since a while, and I can really recommend it to anyone who wants to learn about music theory. He explains it so that you can really understand the stuff, no matter what previous knowledge you might have.

But there’s more. The professor seems to be a really really nice guy as well. Yesterday I was watching his talk on ‘Exploring Harmony for Jazz Improvisation‘, and all of a sudden he made a remark like:

“I transcribed Cory Henry’s solo from the Snarky Puppy video ‘We like it here’…”

– and that stopped my right there. Couldn’t believe it; that solo starts at around 4:20 minutes in the following video, and lasts pretty much to the end of the song, which is at 10:44 or so. Wow. Look and listen:

So on Andreas’ channel I wrote how amazing that is – just imagine the amount of work he did, with transcribing each single note of what Cory played there! And, curiously, I asked if I could have that transcription.

And guess what Andreas replied, in German? Something like “sure, drop me an email and I’ll send it”.

Wow.

Thanks Andreas! As a kind of reward, I’ve put your first two books on my wishlist, and I’m pretty sure that once I have these, I want the next ones as well!

Andreas’ homepage is here; go have a look if you’re interested in a good and nice music teacher.

So, thanks again, Prof. Dr. Andreas Kissenbeck!

P.S. (Update from Wednesday, 3rd of May, 2017):

Andreas sent me an email with the transcriptions – and after reading this blog entry, he wants to emphasize that he didn’t do the work all alone – but he corrected a single-note transcription of Cory’s solo, and added the chords which were played. So double kudos to Andreas for being nice and honest. Cannot wait to hear him play with his own band…

(ka)-chun-ka-chun-ka-chun-ka-chun-ka-… (Americans: say this with a looong letter “u”, like in “choon”)

If you listen to modern music, you won’t hear much of that rhythm anymore, and maybe that’s why most people now have a horrible rhythmic feeling. They count the ones and the threes, and all they can do is stomp and clap their hands in absolutely the wrong moments. Don’t. Just don’t be that guy (or girl) who claps on the 1s and 3s. There’s so much more.

And hey, before you can even start dreaming of doing the bop like Bird or Diz or Monk, or of being cool like Miles, you have to go way back in history, and re-learn how to swing. That’s how you’ll become one of the cool cats, and that’s promised.

Just saw a short and sweet intro into this from Aimee Nolte. Look, listen, and feel:

Now the first piece she mentions – “April in Paris” from the Count Basie Orchestra – is a nice piece – if you’re able to even hear those small little accents on 2 and 4, and hear that “ka-chun-ka-chun” from the rhythm section (guitar, bass, drums) – which you probably don’t. I’ll show you anyway, just for reference and because Aimee mentioned it:

Nice. But much stronger than that is the one from Nina Simone which Aimee mentioned, and it’s called “My baby just cares for me”. Now these are the really cool cats, and maybe you’ll hear (and feel) it in that one:

But the one where you should really get it is the “C Jam Blues” from the Oscar Peterson Trio – those 2s and 4s are so strong, and after these 9 minutes you should recognize that your right foot hurts from just lifting on those last 8th triplets before the following (downbeat) quarter notes – and remember and listen what you can do with a main melody of just two notes!

Yeah. Aimee’s right. Train that for 10 minutes each day. Listen to many more swing titles, saying “(ka)-chun-ka-chun-ka-chun-ka-chun-” – and after a while, you might feel the swing.

Then take your instrument, whatever it might be, and start using that rhythm. Or if you don’t have an instrument (yet), play it with your spoon on your cup of coffee, whatever. These guys could do it. They had that rhythm in their blood.

It’s a totally different experience especially for the young ones which maybe never heard something like that.

Enjoy.

I’ve made this today:

Done with a nice commercial sample package from XLN audio called “Addictive Keys Studio Grand” – but on Linux (it’s a Windows version, you can also get it for Macs).

And this is how it sounds:

I wanted it to sound like recorded in some cellar hall, but didn’t use fancy stuff like a Klangfalter reverb yet. Just a Limiter on the master bus, and leveled to -23LUFS.

Anyway – I like the piano. It’s a Steinway Grand, recorded somewhere in Sweden.

Thanks for reading (and listening).

Just stumbled over this one. It’s Katharine McPhee, and yes, if you like TV shows, she’s also the actress from “Scorpion”:

Enjoy…

Here’s a complete concert, duration 1:44:48, filmed by an amateur (as he calls himself), but with good enough equipment to make it worthwhile:

Cam 1: Nikon D5300 w/Nikkor 18-300mm Lens
Cam 2: Nikon D5100 w/Sigma 17-50mm Lens
Audio: Rode Stereo VideoMic Pro(on camera) SBD Matrix } Zoom H6 w/X/Y Capsule(on stage) + Studio Projects LSD2(Blumlein on stage)

It’s black & white & so cool:

I also really liked Jamison Ross on drums on this one. Never seen him before, but what a cool cat he is! Oh, and don’t get me started on that Nord Stage piano – definitely the thing to take with you in case there isn’t a real one on stage already…

Enjoy!

Well I have to feature someone else again – and like so many times lately, found her on Youtube. So here’s her channel, her playlists, and her homepage.

Aimee is a mother of four, and most of her videos are pretty much advanced stuff – not your typical beginner lessons. But these are definitely fun, so let me give you a short example here:

You have cool stuff like this, and it goes on for hours. Easy to recommend this, especially if you like jazzy tunes (but she also covers simpler stuff at times, like for instance Adele). I find some of her stuff incredibly inspiring and useful – and I’m not even a pianist.

Enjoy!

I found a really good guitar teacher on Youtube. His name is Bradford Werner, and he is from BC, Canada. Here is for instance his lesson about Tárrega’s “Adelita” which I showed you played by a real master in my last blog post:

This is like lesson 79 of his series, and there are far more important ones for the beginner, so if you’re interested in exploring or learning classical guitar, make sure to look at his complete Classical Guitar Lessons stream.

He also shows useful tips from other guitarists in there, in fact his whole Youtube channel is worth subscribing to, as well as having a look onto his web page.

On his lessons page, he got the order mixed up a bit, in my opinion his lesson 3 should be watched *before* his lesson 2, but otherwise this is very recommendable. What he teaches in a 15 minute video would take a whole 45 minute lesson with a real teacher – still a real teacher makes sense of course in case you are taking this seriously.

But this is fun to watch – Zuleikha laughed about his “crab” hand demonstration for instance. Bradford seems to be a very good teacher, so I recommend watching him.

Enjoy.

It’s just music. So best is to close your eyes while listening to “Adelita” by Francisco de Asís Tárrega y Eixea, played by Julian Bream:

Simple and stunning. The best interpretation I’ve heard so far.

Enjoy…