Lesson 44

Home

Lesson 44 TEF's

Notes to Lesson 44

Lesson 44 gives us our opportunity to create Rhythm Changes using the riffs, runs, and scales we've studied until now.  This lesson is going to be quite intimating until you sink your teeth into it, but then it'll be pure fun, and an opportunity to see how we've all been progressing.

Our task is to take all of the Bridges we worked on in Lesson 40 (six of them) and create six Rhythm Changes around them.  In the A part of the tunes he wants us to use the Lesson 39 riffs.  When we finish, we are to transpose them to the keys of F, G, Ab, and C.

Lots of work!  But I've made it somewhat easier for you because you can take my Student Examples and juggle the riffs.  Since we are working around six previous bridges, those become our constant.  If I may suggest, go to Lesson 39 and find your riffs that are transposed to Bb.  You'll need to put six riffs per Rhythm Changes (24 measures divided by 4).  Since we only have 12 riffs, that means we'll be recycling quite a bit.  With your copy and paste skills, you'll knock this exercise out in a lot less time than you originally thought.

Note that in the last couple of versions, I took some of Mickey's riffs and dropped them an octave.  Instead of playing them on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd strings, we play them on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th (and sometimes, the 6th) strings.  Also notice that except for the notes on the 5th string, they finger identically to the original fingerings.  Think of this as a sneak preview of coming attractions.

As there is quite a bit of work writing in this lesson, I won't give any extra or Bonus exercises.  What we will have when we finish this exercise is a group of solos that go beyond the boundaries of Rhythm Changes and you'll be able to adapt many of this solos just by writing new rhythm parts.  Remember we can force most of Mickey's riffs against practically any of the harmonies in a key.  Mickey eludes to this by saying "...you gain a wider musical knowledge."  When you have some spare time, play theses solos against other vamps you may try as A parts.  I guess we could say metaphorically that our perceived suitcase of knowledge just became a storage depot.

Just keep it FUN!