Appendix VI - Lesson 19
Application of Symmetric Cycles
Rhythm Chord and Melody Playing
Notes to Appendix VI - Lesson 19
I have to admit that when I first came to this lesson I was totally confused as to what Mickey was presenting. After quite a bit of study and thought, it dawned on me that Mickey is giving a lesson on what now is commonly called "comping", either the guitar is playing a melody harmonized by chords or the guitar is the main instrument of backup to a singer or a melody instrument like a clarinet. Let's review a little history of Jazz groups up to the 1959 writing of this volume. With few notable exceptions, jazz groups centered around that "orchestra in a box", the piano. The guitar, or similar instrument such as the tenor banjo, was relegated to the rhythm section, where the hard driving, on every beat without missing a beat, chunk style rhythm was king. With virtuosos like Eddie Lang, Django Reinhardt, Carl Kress, Dick MacDonough, Les Paul, and Charlie Christian emerging, many with the help of the guitar world's modern marvel, the electrically amplified guitar, the role of the guitar morphed into that of the group leader.
By the time Mickey was writing Volume 1 in the early 1950's, the guitar was still emerging, with the piano or maybe a horn section as the focal point of the group. Drummers were now an integral part, playing more aggressively. The stand up, or double bass has replaced the tuba in the 1930's as the bass voice in groups, and now coming on to the scene was the "Fender Bass", an amplified bass guitar. Bassists were also playing more aggressively and even taking solos. Guitarists were in the rhythm section and sometimes were permitted an opportunity to take a solo chorus.
As this volume was being written, the makeup of a typical group had shrunk from 20+ members of the 30's and early 40's Big Bands to a piano, bass, and drums or guitar, bass, and drums. And quite often, the singer would be one of the instrumentalists. When the singer sang the opening chorus, the guitar was now filling in the holes and adding fragments of the melody or counter melodies, just as the piano had been doing, and horn sections before that. One famous example is the 1940's recordings of the "King Cole" Trio, with Nat "King" Cole singing and playing piano, and Oscar Moore on guitar.
This new style of small group accompaniment is now referred to as "comping" and has been the predominant style for 50 years now. All the techniques taught in this volume are brought together in this lesson to demonstrate how to write a chord melody or comp behind another soloist. Mickey has given us fragments of five examples, one from Lesson 11 and four new ones, and none of which I knew before this course. What I have done is given the solo melody a clarinet voice in the MIDI module of the solo in our lesson's TEF's and the voice of the guitar is an amplified guitar.
About The Exercises: I discovered numerous notation errors in the scores and a couple caused me quite a bit a patience, but I believe that what's in the TEF's is closer to what Mickey originally intended.
Exercise 45: Very lovely arrangement by Mickey with one exception: the symmetric cycle of augmented chords in the next to the last measure sounds out of place and possibly more at home in a Boris Karloff movie. If I were performing this tune, I think I would change those chords to perhaps 7+5 chords.
Exercise 46: This is the most fun to play in my opinion. This fragment made me wish for a score of the entire tune.
Exercise 47: This tune barely lost out to Ex. 46 as the most fun to play. The melody is catchy and I've caught myself humming it a number of times. I really like Mickey's ideas in his arrangement.
Exercise 48: This tune is the easiest of the arrangements to play and I recommend that students start with this exercise first in this lesson.
Exercise 49: Mickey's used this tune three times in this volume, each a little differently. I'm not exactly sure if Mickey means for us to play straight eight's, or rag them a little. I played this arrangement several times using different arpeggios, but maintaining the last two measures. They all sounded nice. Here's an opportunity for you to be creative.
Additional Exercises: Take any tune that you may have in your standards portfolio and try your hand at writing an arrangement in this style. Remember that simple played well is always better than complicated played so-so. Also remember that the first one you do will be the hardest, so be sure to do at least two to prove that point. As an example, I've attached to this lesson my arrangement of the wonderful Cole Porter classic "Let's Do It." It was arranged for guitar, bass, and drums and has a little bit of everything we've studied. The bass gets to solo and the comping guitar part is several styles. If the bass part seems familiar, it's because I've adapted Mickey's riffs from Volume 1 for bass. The title of this classic is great advice for those times when we seem to have more excuses to put off finishing an arrangement. Hopefully, you'll be reinforced with confidence and stick to the project long enough to crank out several of your favorites as well!
Let's "comp" that fun!!