| "Duke Ellington?..Oh yeah...watch this!" |
This post is the essence of what this blog is all about. Listening to a great musician and learning. It's what Garner did his whole life. He never learned to read music. I don't advocate that but I do advocate just playing over just reading. (soapbox out) Okay. So while listening to Garner's superb take on "The Way You Look Tonight" (remember, that's the song I'm working on this week), I notice he is comping straight 8ths almost THE WHOLE SONG. Even during his solo. It's not as easy as it sounds. It requires your left hand to focus on the harmony and rhythm and your right to focus on harmony, rhythm AND melody. Sometimes the rhythm is similar in both hands, but most times different! That's alot for a budding musician to tackle. I have a question: How do you eat an elephant? Haven't heard this one yet??? Well, if you don't know, it's just like every thing else...one bite at a time! So my first bite is to play the first chord of the song, Eb7, straight in my right hand and play the different modes of Eb in my right (and whatever else comes to mind). Just to get my mind and hands wrapped around the idea of doing different things simultaneously.
How did I come to practice this technique? Did I read it in a book and say, "Hmm, that would be cool."? No, I heard it and wanted to play it. Get's no better than that. Now I can say I studied under Erroll Garner even if he was on the 4th floor and I was on the 3rd ...hahaha...
Don't forget to check out Garner's version, it's awesome, of course!
The Way You Look Tonight - Erroll Garner
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