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thumbstruck
Ahonui
USA
2168 Posts |
 Posted - 03/22/2010 : 4:02:14 PM
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In the past, I've been asked about improvising. Those of us from the Mainland, exposed to Blues, Jazz, Bluegrass, Rock, etc, are used to somewhat free expression, breakwise--flatted 3, 7, maybe even a flatted 5 now and then. Hawaiian music has the flatted 5 (think the C# played against the D in the key of G. Led uses it. Uncle Leonard Kwan used it in "Opihi Moemoe"). Anything else anyone wanna add?
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rendesvous1840
Ha`aha`a
USA
1055 Posts |
Posted - 03/22/2010 : 4:42:19 PM
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Are you speaking of improvising in general, or the use of blue notes in particular. Most slack key players are improvising when they make variations to the vocal melody. Most singers improvise some as well. Compare different players' versions of nearly any song.
Paul |
"A master banjo player isn't the person who can pick the most notes.It's the person who can touch the most hearts." Patrick Costello |
Edited by - rendesvous1840 on 03/22/2010 4:45:27 PM |
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slipry1
Ha`aha`a
USA
1511 Posts |
Posted - 03/22/2010 : 4:57:45 PM
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| Now, you don't really want to hear from me, eh braddah? The topic of improvisation is a long & slipry slope. Suffice it to say, there are 3 ways to improvise: 1) horizontally, that is, play a new tune to the chords that are there, 2) Rhythmically, that is, screw with the distance between notes, and 3) (the hardest) Vertically, that is, alter the chords to the song with appropriate substitutions, and appropriate is the toughie. |
keaka |
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hikabe
Lokahi
USA
358 Posts |
Posted - 03/22/2010 : 10:23:59 PM
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Thumbstruck... With all due respect, people in Hawaii were exposed to those genres at the same time as those on the mainland.
The flatted 3, 7, and sometimes 5 is similar to the minor scale. Blues and rock use this mode most often like Dorian or Aolian. But bluegrass and a lot of jazz use the major scales predominantly like Ionion or Mixolydian. Of course, I am speaking in general.
For some reason, a very large number of Hawaiian songs use the Ionian or major scale. Very few are minor even though a lot of old chants were almost gregorian sounding. So if you improvise using the flatted 3 or 5 or 7, then you are using the pentatonic blues scale. It can easily be done in slack key music, but would be critisized as not Hawaiian sounding.
Anyway. Improvising in slack key happens all the time. But using different scales can affect the cultural identity of the music.
Having said that, I think Slipry1's post is excellent. Except he left out the part about injesting quantities of alchohol to help unlock the creative and artistic energies deep within. |
Stay Tuned... |
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slipry1
Ha`aha`a
USA
1511 Posts |
Posted - 03/23/2010 : 07:50:53 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by hikabe
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Having said that, I think Slipry1's post is excellent. Except he left out the part about injesting quantities of alchohol to help unlock the creative and artistic energies deep within.
Oh, that... I find a little helps loosen me up but a lot NEVER works for me! |
keaka |
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sm80808
Lokahi
347 Posts |
Posted - 03/23/2010 : 09:26:49 AM
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Hey Kory, maybe I am not qualified to post on this but I will try anyway (kind of like my approach to playing guitar) . I notice that besides open/closed position 3rd and 6th intervals which are prevalent among almost all guitarists, it seems like all the really good local guys have figured out a variety of ways of negotiating chord tones based on simple major/minor triads (mainly major) as opposed to long scalar ideas.
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thumbstruck
Ahonui
USA
2168 Posts |
Posted - 03/23/2010 : 09:30:29 AM
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I know about the Blue notes, but I've found that lots of people from the Mainland try to use the Blue notes when improvising in Hawaiian music. Sometimes it works, but mostly it kinda seems out of place. Example: Ry Cooder (as good as he is) sounded different from the rest of the guys on the album with Gabby because he played Bluesy. (BTW, Bluegrass and Oldtime also rely on modal scales, again, too many tunes, not enough time).
I started this thread because I have been asked how I improvise.
As for alcohol, 1 beer is accordion oil, 2-3 makes for sloppiness. |
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Fran Guidry
Ha`aha`a
USA
1579 Posts |
Posted - 03/23/2010 : 11:41:02 AM
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I remember very distinctly in my earliest days of playing tunes from Ozzie's book, wondering if it was OK to take liberties.
Then I got the Ledward instructional video ... liberties!!!!
My number one suggestion would be to play one brief passage over and over (vamps are a good place to start) and make small variations in note choice and rhythm - move the last note a 1/16th earlier (not that I count 16ths, move it just a little). Add a hammer or use a pull off, slide up from a note below, slide down a whole step. Turn one note into two, or three. But keep the rhythm section (the thumb) steady and solid and musical the whole time. If the thumb is happy everybody's happy! And keep the passage short so you're trying new things, not trying to remember where you are.
When you hear something especially interesting, cool, original, classic, whatever, do it a bunch of times to lock it in. You're assembling the building blocks of your style.
Fran |
E ho`okani pila kakou ma Kaleponi
Slack Key Guitar in California - www.kaleponi.com
Slack Key on YouTube
Homebrewed Music Blog |
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Mark
Ha`aha`a
USA
1628 Posts |
Posted - 03/23/2010 : 12:01:00 PM
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Here's my two cents:
I've thought about this a bunch, cuz the one question I get asked the most is "how do you improvise?"
There seems to me to be a fundamentally different approach when improvising in a Hawaiian idiom vs Afro-American based styles (rock, country, blues, jazz...).
Although this is a gross oversimplification; with the Afro-American idiom, your job is to create a new melody. The more "rootsy" the music, the more your tools will be based around a single scale that fits the chords--- think 10,000 guitar wankers blowing through a pentatonic minor scale. (That's 1-b3-4-5-b7, BTW)
As you move up the food chain, you use more and more interesting chordal extensions in your playing. First up, you get the "blues scale" (add the b5 & 6 to the above.) Or modal playing-- "Kind of Blue" Miles. Or playing different scales suggested by the chord changes.
And, yes, you will end up re-harmonizing the chords, too.
You may even quote from the melody--or, more likely, from another melody related to the same chords.
But the bottom line is you are creating something new and unique that may have little or no melodic relationship to the song you are taking a break over.
When I hear a great Hawaiian guitarist like Kevin Brown, or Led (duh!) -- what I hear is a series of variations on the melody and/or variations based on chord tones and those great little sixth & third runs that fit over and move though the chords.
Very, very rarely will I hear someone go "outside" the basic chords or scale tones ('cept Led... but not in the way a jazz player would. Led'll go chromatic on you, but I've never heard him suggest an altered dominant chord with a half-whole diminished scale.)
The other aspect I hear a lot (again, I'm mostly talking slack key here) are the twisty, bite-its-tail kind of melodic figures. Again, think of Led's cool bass runs over the V7 that just go on and on until they eventually resolve back to the I.
As Kory sez, folks who haven't grown up with the tradition--particularly anyone who'd played guitar in a garage band -- often approach a break in a Hawaiian song as if it was a chance to play all the hot licks they learned from Clapton records. Save the b3 a & b7 for the reggae tunes.
Incidentally, the whole concept of "playing it differently each time you play it" is essential to just about every musical tradition I have been exposed to.
These are my observations--and I could be way off. I'd appreciate hearing from some more of ya guys. |
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Mark
Ha`aha`a
USA
1628 Posts |
Posted - 03/23/2010 : 12:10:29 PM
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quote:
Add a hammer or use a pull off, slide up from a note below, slide down a whole step. Turn one note into two, or three.
Now that is right to the point! Good on ya, Fran.
Yep, that's what I meant by "melodic variations." The next thought I left out is how the variations get increasing complex by adding more ornamentation each time through---hammers, pulls, slides, triplets.
Onward! |
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salmonella
Lokahi
240 Posts |
Posted - 03/23/2010 : 2:16:52 PM
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what a great topic.
Please keep it coming.
Mark... can you please elaborate on what you mean by "variations based on chord tones"?
Thanks
Also, I think of this topic as different than "arrangement". I have seen whole pieces of songs (sometimes not Hawaiian songs) inserted into the middle of a slack key piece. Is this a form of improvisation or is arrangement a different idea?
Dave |
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rendesvous1840
Ha`aha`a
USA
1055 Posts |
Posted - 03/23/2010 : 3:40:58 PM
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The idea is to be so familiar with the idiom that you can modify within that framework. The things that makre it slack key are intact, but it's not a note-for-note copy of some other person's playing. But you don't want the idiom to be removed, or mix idioms. I suspect that the Hawaiian fondness for the third interval is one reason there seem to be mostly ionian (pure major)melodies. The flatted 3rd that creates a minor is outside that natural third scale. Instead of ionian, it becomes aeolian, and only one more change makes it dorian. These are very common in Celtic and Appalachian music, much less so in Hawaiian. There are exceptions, Kawika and Maui-Hawaiian Suppa Man come to mind. The mode change in Ko Ma`i Ho Eu Eu, and in Braddah Smitty's Hi`ilawe are also examples, but Smitty's is an arrangement, not a new composition. If you eliminate the common 3rd & 6th intervals, it won't have the characteristic sound that IS slack key. Blue notes, pentatonic scales, minor modes might be used sparingly as flavoring, but as a whole pa`ani it would be incongruous to the slack key arrangement,IMO.
We're very close to the perenial question, "What Is Slack Key" again. When you go outside the idiom, is it still what it was that made you want to play it in the first place? Is it still bowling if you knock down the pins with a golf club? How about if the ball has outriggers? I always thought I'd have scored better that way. At least less balls would have gone in the gutter!
Unko Paul
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"A master banjo player isn't the person who can pick the most notes.It's the person who can touch the most hearts." Patrick Costello |
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Fran Guidry
Ha`aha`a
USA
1579 Posts |
Posted - 03/23/2010 : 4:22:17 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by salmonella
... "variations based on chord tones"?
Not Mark, but ...
an idea for a variation based on chord tones - take the rhythmic outline of the first bit of melody, keep the rhythm but apply it to a different inversion, then when the chord changes use the same rhythm outline on the new chord, then an inversion ... move up the neck as you do this.
Which brings up a topic - motifs. The "trick" I just described uses the rhythm of the melody as a motif or theme, and varies the melody. But any snatch of melody or rhythm or both can become a motif to tweaked and toyed with.
And the best thing about improvising - if you keep a smile on and the thumb going no one can tell a goof from a clever bit.
quote:
Also, I think of this topic as different than "arrangement". I have seen whole pieces of songs (sometimes not Hawaiian songs) inserted into the middle of a slack key piece. Is this a form of improvisation or is arrangement a different idea?
...
Medleys (stringing together verses) and quotes (borrowing brief snatches of melody) can be either arrangement or improv. The difference is nothing more than when the idea occurs and how often it's repeated. It might be an improv that becomes an arrangement because it works so well.
Fran |
E ho`okani pila kakou ma Kaleponi
Slack Key Guitar in California - www.kaleponi.com
Slack Key on YouTube
Homebrewed Music Blog |
Edited by - Fran Guidry on 03/23/2010 4:24:37 PM |
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thumbstruck
Ahonui
USA
2168 Posts |
Posted - 03/23/2010 : 4:58:56 PM
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| Mark, Fran and Unko Paul came through. I had the point clearly in mind, but not in mouth (or keyboard). The guy that taught me back in '74 said. "Can play any kine, 'lon as it fit. Keep da t'umb moving, play da right chords, no fo'get da vamp!" Like John Hartford said, style is based on limitation. Finding the "limitations" and playing within them it the goal. |
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sm80808
Lokahi
347 Posts |
Posted - 03/23/2010 : 5:46:22 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Mark
..... Save the b3 a & b7 for the reggae tunes.
Great post Mark.
In terms of scalar ideas, you don't hear a lot of guys using flat 7th over the root chord, except when it is over the I7 proceeding the IV chord where you here guys playing stuff that could be considered "bluesy" all the time.
I have noticed that quite a few guitarists will substitute dominant chords in for the IV chord (mainly the IV9 or 13 chords) or occasionally for the I chord in livelier more upbeat arrangements which sounds kind of "bluesy". (ex. Brothers Cazimero's "Tewe Tewe") |
Edited by - sm80808 on 03/23/2010 5:54:08 PM |
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slipry1
Ha`aha`a
USA
1511 Posts |
Posted - 03/24/2010 : 10:06:16 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by salmonella
what a great topic.
Please keep it coming.
Mark... can you please elaborate on what you mean by "variations based on chord tones"?
Thanks
Also, I think of this topic as different than "arrangement". I have seen whole pieces of songs (sometimes not Hawaiian songs) inserted into the middle of a slack key piece. Is this a form of improvisation or is arrangement a different idea?
Dave
Improvisation based on chord tones is what I mean by "vertical improvisation"; alteration of the tone quality of a chord while retaining the basic structure of the song. Speaking of modes, one of the huge breakthroughs in jazz was the development of modal jazz by Ahmad Jamal, picked up by Miles and brilliantly executed on "Kind of Blue". Each chord for a scale tone (do, re, mi,etc) has an accompanying modal scale, which I won't go into here. Getting into modal stuff in the mid '70's turned me into a competent improviser. That's on piano, btw, expanded to reeds and pedal steel guitar. Don't use it for Hawaiian music and non-pedal steel. And, yes, Unco Paul, it's da same modes we learned about for old time banjo. |
keaka |
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Any Thoughts on Improvising?
