Appendix VI - Lesson 26
Summary
Notes to Appendix VI - Lesson 26
We come to the end of another great Mickey Baker Jazz Guitar Course. Unlike Volume 1 where I added review lessons between the harmony and the solo part, Mickey's Lesson 26 is a review lesson of the entire 26 lessons. What have we studied and, hopefully, learned?:
We were introduced to 18 new chord forms. Most of these forms are best suited to chord-melody solos. Of particular interest were the Major and minor forms where we stretched beyond previous unimagined boundaries.
We analyzed these new chords and put them into progressions, most often V - I or Dominant to Tonic.
We moved them in parallel and learned that is symmetric cycles or harmony.
We played with classical music techniques such as Pedal Point and Counterpoint.
We explored cadences or turn-arounds by using all of these new techniques.
And most amazing of all, we did it in 26 lessons. Do you remember what Mickey said "complete the course and then go back through it as it you have never seen it before!"? Upon playing through the exercises in this lesson, it's back to Lesson 1 for all of us, right?
About the Exercises: Mickey has given us some more song fragments marked as exercises, plus a few original compositions. There are a number of editing errors in each of these exercises. Rather than point them, I've put what I believe to be correct in the TEF's and I leave it up to you to look for the book's errors:
Exercise 66 is 10 measures of "I Think Of You." Note the use of a common triad in the symmetric cycle in the last two measures. Very pretty!
Exercise 67 is 8 measures of "I Should Care."
Exercise 68 is 8 measures of "Nevada."
Exercise 69 is 9 measures of "The Night We Called It A Day."
Exercise 70 comprises three originals by Mickey: "Lost Lament", "Pathos", and "Just Bobi." All of these had several notation errors. With the dissonance of the minor 2nd's, it's sometimes difficult to determine if it's a notation error, or the arrangement. Listen to the MIDI playback and compare the TEF's with the book. If you don't agree with my choices, change it and write me with what you changed.
In Summary: My goal in creating this appendix has been to follow Mickey's advice from Volume 1 and copy everything into my workbook or portfolio, putting the exercises in an aural format, and to clean up a very sloppy publisher's editing. Previous to my attempts, generally all that students had were "word of mouth" corrections by teachers and other students to the many mistakes . Somewhere around Lesson 12 or so, I began to feel extremely self conscious to my corrections and began to believe my calling attention to them were starting to be distracting. I made the corrections to rest of the lessons with a minimum of attention calling out the errors. I want to take this opportunity to say that I have the highest respect for Mickey Baker, his teaching abilities and his guitar playing. I hope that my corrections will not be viewed as a criticism of him (after all, he's been a victim of these errors himself), but rather of the publishing bureaucracy that puts a minimum of editing time in a project to get it out the door and starting to earn money with a minimum of outlay. Mickey's Volume 1, more than 55 years old, is still an industry standard, and the most powerful 64 pages ever written on Jazz guitar. I have always thought that Volume 2, a classic in its own right, really should have been an addendum or Appendix to Volume 1. If you will note Volume 1 has 23 lessons on rhythm playing, and 29 lessons on single note soloing. The 26 lessons of Volume 2 would make about a third of the combined lessons, on advance chord-melody soloing. Maybe some day the publisher that owns the rights to these classics will consider printing one compendium as described.
Have you remembered that it is fun and you enjoyed yourself while learning? If not, be sure to do so when you go through the course for the second time!!!!