Advanced Transcription continued: The Next Step

The next step was implementing Bird's ideas into my own soloing.  A lot of what I have been working on the past 3 years or so is playing solo saxophone and trying to reflect the harmony of the tune I'm working on, and/or be able to "perform" it almost like a pianist does.  The saxophone is very capable of this, and the greatest alive right now are capable of being entertaining, astounding and creative playing minus the rhythm section.  Practicing cadenzas and plotting them out is probably the most fun I have practicing today.  It is also the most challenging practice technique I've ever encountered, and involves tons of creativity, especially if you have no exact target audience, and would be able to entertain any listener, from advanced to someone that may know very little or nothing about music, or just your average listener.  The amazing John Coltrane and the living legend Sonny Rollins, Chris Potter, Joshua Redman, Seamus Blake, the now unfortunately deceased Michael Brecker, all are amazing examples of saxophonists that use this technique and make the song sound like a rhythm section is there.  You can hear the piano, the bass line, the harmony from every angle, the melody is always there...this is another level, but approachable if you try to connect it altogether and plot it out in the most musical way you can.  I'm always having fun, experimenting with ways I can get better at this.

After working on the Charlie Parker Just Friends solo, I just wanted to play over Just Friends all the live-long day.  It was challenging and fun, and this is what I came up with--3 different practice examples of plotting out what I wanted to do if I were performing a "solo saxophone" concert, or just cadenza playing in general.  You will probably see that by the third example, I have it mapped out a little better, but I'm not quite where I'd like to be in terms of the whole story.  I'll follow this with some explanation.

Some of my articulation is messy.  Of course, it doesn't help that my saxophone neck is messed up, which is why the octaves aren't responding the way it should.  But those are just excuses--working around the problems makes you better, right?!  Bird could play on any horn, any mouthpiece.  Gotta make it work, like Tim Gunn says, hahha.  Back to the solo:  My first goal is outline as many chords as I can remember and really try to connect the harmonies.  The second goal is to make it interesting, and try to use the full range of the instrument, which I think is extremely, extremely important when being creative.  The third goal is to split the octaves, using my lowest notes, like Cs, Bs and Bbs, to give it the appeal of the left hand on the piano.  The fourth goal is how do I get from a starting free-time feel into an obvious swingin' time feel, where the 8th notes are really happening.  On this take, it's developing, but the time feel isn't as clear as I would like it to be.  The ideas aren't really bouncing off the way I would like, either.  Here's the second take:



The plan is more coming together here.  However, I feel I am not completely convincing of the pronounced bass line and should work to maybe even "walk" some bass lines to demonstrate an obvious difference of the bass vs. the harmony vs. the improvising and melody.  I also noticed that after playing so many notes from the original Bird solo, that I am playing many, many notes myself.  There's so much energy in me after working on that solo and the ideas flow more clearly because of it.  It's Bird, the gift that keeps on giving. The third take is here:



Again, I didn't entertain enough to the idea of the walking bass line.  I did start in the stratosphere of the saxophone, which gives it a different approach.  I can hear the harmony a little better on this take, but I feel my energy dies towards the end too much and the ending isn't as pronounced as I would like.

If you aren't critical of yourself when working towards certain goals (in this case, playing a solo unaccompanied and making it both rhythmically and harmonically interesting), you are limiting yourself to the possibilities you have of getting increasingly better.  Also, you should constantly be recording yourself and listening back and just being honest on the things you would like to do better.  Articulation and an obvious time feel, and the splitting of the octaves are my most wanting-to-improve points here.

I had a lot of fun working on this, and will expand later.  Thank you for reading and letting me share!  Any thoughts and/or critique is strongly welcomed!