Sunday, October 28, 2012

New Etude #9!!: 'Meditations on a Special Eb' for Solo Flute



I hope you like my little 'fantasia', centered on practicing around about the Eb fingering.

Please give me comments and feedback.

Sincerely,
Errol Weiss Schlabach


Thanks for looking and studying.
Errol

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Flute Etude #2: Meditations on the long Bb



Click on image to enlarge and copy.


I hope you like the information; please give me feedback and comments.
Sincerely,
Errol Weiss Schlabach


Flute Etude #1: Right Pinkie Warmup


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I hope you like the advice.  Please give me feedback and comments.

Sincerely,
Errol Weiss Schlabach


New!! Blues Piece with piano accompaniment




A Golden Rule to Remember!




NEVER LOOK BACK:
THE PAST
IS A WORLD
OF MISSED TOMORROWS.

Please give comments and feedback.
Sincerely, 
Errol Weiss Schlabach


Wednesday, October 17, 2012

New!!: PROCRASTINATION WILL TURN TO LEARNING




Procrastination Will Turn To Learning

A universal foible of humanity: find this or that to do before doing the chore.  We think that's a weakness,  but why does everyone have this quirk?  Maybe it’s valuable for perfection; a tool supplied in our collective subconscious?  I think this time is among our most valuable gifts: we are in a relaxed, Zen mode, receiving an array of intuitive, instinctual messages from our subconscious.

Consider your procrastination as a chance to rehearse: think about breathing through a planned passage, plan scale patterns, and imagine fingers vibrantly bouncing off the fingerboard; if working on a tune for improvising, go over the shape, form, changes, and chord scales.  You are rehearsing!  When the instrument is finally in your hand, much of the busy work will be completed.

John Coltrane was asked how he was able to play so fast, to which he replied: “I practice slow”.  As you practice slowly, you are focusing, burning, saving onto your hard drive, and the more your focus, the stronger the brain signal you'll build, that intangible treasure you want to receive in a performance----the reward for which you've practiced.

I believe the process to perfection is acquired in three stages: thought and planning, physical practice and internalizing, and finally the performance, the time when  you have no conscious control: all you play is intuitive, fed from by your instinct, your subconscious, which works 20,000 times faster than your conscious control.  When you're finally performing, any attempt at conscious control and planning will interrupt that strong intuitive brain signal.  You really have no control over what you play, for you play what you ‘must’!; the source of that ‘must’ was probably found while procrastinating. 

Please tell me your thoughts on this essay.
I want your feedback and comments.

Sincerely,
Errol Weiss Schlabach
  

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

New!! Orignal Tune By Errol For Clarinet or Sop Sax





New!! Etude #8: Lydian Hexatonic & The Blues



LYDIAN HEXATONIC: WHY IT SOUNDS THUS

The Lydian Hexatonic is a hybrid, half way between a Lydian Mode and the very mild, homogenous Pentatonic scale.  To build this scale, the 7th step of the Lydian is removed.  When this is done, the sound becomes slightly Oriental, but less so, because the raised 4th is still present, so a tritone still exists, unlike a Pentatonic which has no 4th step and no tritone.  What occurs with the Lydian Pentatonic: the tritone is present but cannot resolve properly, leaving a slightly haunting sound. 
A Lydian Hexatonic works well when played over a 7sus chord, so it sounds very well in the 12 bar blues.  Before leaving the theoretical study of the scale, I’ll dissect it and form some permutations.  It can of course be played just as a scale.  Ordering the   notes in consecutive ascending and descending fourths creates a very interesting stack toped by an augmented fourth.  Using 5 notes, a ‘So What’ chord can be created.  Starting with the tonic of the scale and ascending, using all the notes in intervals of a third will reveal a 69 Augmented 11 chord. Play patterns that place the notes of your underlying chord on downbeats, as is also true of the Augmented and Diminished scale.  Here are some musical examples to demonstrate the above information.
I will give the example on a F7sus, but the successful student will transpose the examples to all 12 keys.








Please indulge, inspect, and enjoy this study and please let me hear your comments and feedback.
Sincerely,
Errol Weiss Schlabach 

Friday, October 5, 2012

NEW!! Quartal Harmony: Study and Etudes



THE PERFECT FOURTH INTERVAL
('CHAMELEON' INTERvAL: PLAYS weLL WITH MANY OTHERS)
Quartal Arpeggios And And Their Applications

I present here various practice etudes to internalize the perfect fourth interval and quartal harmony in it’s various formats and applications.  The interval will be shown in 2, 3, 4, and 5 note series, resulting in quartal duads, triads, the 4 note series, which when compressed reveals a very useful 4 note scale (each can sound well in 4 different scales ), and the 5 note series which is the Pentatonic Scale when compressed.

Perfect fourth harmony is very homogenous, able to easily slide from one key to the next, for no tritones exist; therefore no definite tonality is established.  Pattern #1 shows how quartal triads can contain diminished and augmented fourths, but these are less frequently found and used.  The complete palette of Quartal chords offers a tool to express any musical thought you wish to express.








I hope this study and these etudes prove useful, and that you’ll give me comments and feedback’
Sincerely,
Errol Weiss Schlabach



Wednesday, October 3, 2012

NEW!! Hear it and you can play it!!!


JUST HEAR IT,
AND YOU CAN PLAY IT!!!
I am drawing this valuable information from high motivation, received from the great jazz pianist, Hal Galper. 
His inspiration was a book by George Kochevitsky (The Art of Playing the Piano), on the mental importance when playing the piano, the essence of which: your hearing is the main enabler to technical ability: “If you can hear it, you can play it.”

He then related a morning when he by chance watched the Mr. Roger’s show, in the 1980’s, when the great concert pianist Andre Watts was a guest.
Roger’s posed the question: “Well Andre, how do you play music?”.  Andre replied with this gem: “It all depends on the intensity of you concentration and the vividness of your AURAL imagination.”  That’s a treasure of information!

Later Hal tells of hearing Dizzy Gillespie at a workshop and answering a question: “Mr. Gillespie, what do you think and hear as you are playing music?”.  He answered: “Well most think I hear ‘deu be deu be deu be’,  but I’m actually hearing:
deu be deu be deu be’!!!!!,
because you must hear and know what you are going to play in order to play it well.  And this is for any type of performing, whether classical, jazz, country-western, ----whatever: the material must be internalized and heard in your mind in order to play it well;  you must hear it
LOUD!!!!!
And this is a treasure of truth!!!
The great Clark Terry, jazz trumpet player extraordinaire, gave as brief, but as clear of the learning/internalizing process as I have ever heard:
"IMITATION,
INTERNALIZATION,
INNOVATION!!"

Sincerely, Errol
And please leave comments and feedback.