| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| thumbstruck |
Posted - 03/22/2010 : 4:02:14 PM
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? |
| 15 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Peter Medeiros |
Posted - 03/24/2010 : 3:08:54 PM
Kden,
But I neva play accordian in ova ten years. 'Coz of da chemo I have neuropathy in my fingers. So I am not able to press down on da buttons on da box or even keys on a keyboard without a little pain. On top of that I got osteo arthritis in my hands and legs.
Getting out of bed every morning is an adventure. I only play guitar or uke nowadays. |
| thumbstruck |
Posted - 03/24/2010 : 2:18:15 PM
Eh, Peter! Now you stay talking my language! DIATONIC, not chromatic (Peter, if you guys didn't know, plays some diatonic button accordion). Many times I'm asked, "Why play a diatonic instrument? You're limited in the keys you can play in." You can play in only one key at a time! I like the oldtime feel of the instrument. Oldtime tunes were made on it. Same with ki ho'alu. The limitations of the tunings helped to structure the tunes and how they were played. |
| Peter Medeiros |
Posted - 03/24/2010 : 12:33:08 PM
Jack,
I am impressed with you as a musician, teacher, engineer and fellow cancer survivor. I think you should be contributing more to this forum (but you really do not have too. Although I haven't posted for a while -- for me, I'm on cruise control).
I can only speak as a traditional slack key artist. Although it was your brother in arms and fellow traveler, Kory who started this post, I think he framed the answer well as to how one approaches improvisation within the genre of slack key with the quote from John Hartford ". Style is based on limitation. Finding the "limitations" and playing within them it the goal." As one becomes more familiar with each genre of music, they become better able to define the boundaries of that music.
One of the major characteristics of ki ho`alu is that the tunings are optimized for a particular key. Although there is some room for transposition (key changes) within the tunings, for the most part, songs will be performed in the key of the tuning. This approach is diatonic and not chromatic where one would be able to play in every key and use all the modes. This is a limitation for contemporary improvisation.
However, chromaticism is more applicable to contemporary music and not slack key. This does not mean that a high level of improvisation does not take place in slack key or that slack key is not as sophisticated or developed. Improvisation takes place within the melody, harmony and rhythm of most songs. Listen to Gabby's entire catalog of music, as well as Atta Isaacs and you will hear a recurring swing element as well as continuous chord substitutions. In addition, there is the element of theme and variation, which we all take for granted. Alternatively, it may be a simple change in the bass line, where a cultural rhythmic preference is a catalyst leading to improvisation (listen to Mele 1 and Mele 2 on the mp3s that I just posted).
When I am jamming with someone and improvising, I am usually thinking about a complimentary line. Rarely will I use a line or chord progression, which is dissonant. What I am trying to do is find my space while not stepping on the melodic line, or covering up what anybody is playing. I am able to accomplish this by using chord inversions, and by clearly breaking up the slack key fretboard into three sections. Position 1 covers fundamental (open chords); position 2 covers the first inversions; and position 3 covers second inversions. Listen to the two guitars in my Kalena Kai posts. Than again I could be real niele and step all over everybody else by taking up all the space (Shine da lite on me salomila, I ste ova hea salomila).
When you were last here, and we were sitting and talking for about an hour or so at Red Hill, You mentioned how you were really enjoying taking lessons from Alan Akaka and getting all of this great advice from Al Machida (Kahauanu Lake Trio) when you went out to Shawn Machida's place. As we talked further, you brought up the process of learning and playing. Moreover, the thing that was most important for a steel player was learning to find the spaces in the music where you could play the steel. I think that your explanation was spot on. Can you elaborate a little more on this? This is one of the key points of being able to improvise within any style of music and you probably should have included this as a part of your primary elements of improvisation post (horizontally, rhythmically and vertically).
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| Mark |
Posted - 03/24/2010 : 11:53:21 AM
Yep, this is getting interesting. Sounds like a lot of folks are using their ears...
Lest anyone thinks that I'm implying Hawaiian musicians playing slack key only do a few simple, melodic types of improvisation ... not at all.
The short time I got to spend one-on-one with Cyril Pahinui years ago was a revelation. I believe he has just about the most highly developed harmonic vocabulary of any musician I've met. The way he weaves complex---and consonant--chords around a melody is just sublime.
And he's not alone: I once met a guy on Maui who sounded like he was playing chord melody swing--- all in slack. Wow!
Just wanted to make that clear.
But, for those of us learning the style--I'd say stick to the basics: variations on the melody, moving lines through the chord changes (like in Taropatch where you do a long descending group of sixths from the 12th fret when the song stays on the V7 for a couple of measures), ornaments, maybe some 6ths & 9ths... and that wonderful #11 (a C# in the key of G, if ya don't know.) etc.
Have fun!
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| slipry1 |
Posted - 03/24/2010 : 10:14:28 AM
Another note: Thaumbs, I watch you doing chord substitutions all da time when you play. Makes playing with you (and listening, too) a downright pleasure!! I believe that you picked it up by playing A LOT! It's hard for someone who has learned by years of experience to explain what he's doing. It's true, gang, the more you do it, the better you get. As one plays more and more, and I don't mean that performing is playing. the more things appear, often through error (what was THAT!!! - hmmmmm.... try 'em again, sounded good!) Thumbs has been playing ki ho'alu morning and night since 1972 and plays a mean button accordion, too. So those of you who wonder what's going on after playing for a year or two, keep playing - it'll come. One of the best definitions of maturity I've ever heard is the awareness that a wish and its fulfillment will not be simultaneous. |
| slipry1 |
Posted - 03/24/2010 : 10:06:16 AM
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. |
| sm80808 |
Posted - 03/23/2010 : 5:46:22 PM
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") |
| thumbstruck |
Posted - 03/23/2010 : 4:58:56 PM
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. |
| Fran Guidry |
Posted - 03/23/2010 : 4:22:17 PM
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 |
| rendesvous1840 |
Posted - 03/23/2010 : 3:40:58 PM
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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| salmonella |
Posted - 03/23/2010 : 2:16:52 PM
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 |
| Mark |
Posted - 03/23/2010 : 12:10:29 PM
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! |
| Mark |
Posted - 03/23/2010 : 12:01:00 PM
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. |
| Fran Guidry |
Posted - 03/23/2010 : 11:41:02 AM
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 |
| thumbstruck |
Posted - 03/23/2010 : 09:30:29 AM
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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