Angelo

[Angelo]

Tony: I play guitar too, and you are the guy who introduced me to the Conti material. His “Assembly Line” is one of the best teaching products I have ever purchased. I talked to Conti once on the phone, and we are both from the same hometown. Now if only the piano lent itself to the consistency of fingerings that the guitar does (in terms of “Assembly Line” chord melody ideas)!

David H:
With the goal of voicing on the fly from fakebooks, are you recommending that we voice:

a)various chord/melody note clusters and keep them in mind;
and/or
b) focus on “patterns” of clusters found in songs?

Thanks again

[Angelo]

Ok so it looks like I got an answer about learning to play songs on the fly from fakebooks: I’m going to quote below a response that David (Markham) gave to me a little while back about some hints to playing on the fly. For further discussion, see my earlier question (topic) regarding playing on the fly. But here’s David’s response:

“Not to sound facile, but by voicing a lot of songs and being lazy about writing fractions all the time. And finding the dots way too tedious.

Your hands just have to learn a lot of patterns. If you’re still working through fractions note by note and thinking about each one, you just can’t think and then consciously direct your fingers fast enough. When you see a Cm7 with a Bb melody, for example, the chord has to appear as a single shape to you, not as a collection of individual notes.

In that sense it’s not really different than reading traditional notation.

A few suggestions:
1. Actually write out the fractions for at least a couple dozen songs, even if you ‘know’ the chord. The repetition will help you see the patterns.
2. If you’re struggling with a song pick a different one. For various reasons some songs will be easier for you.
3. You’re not trying to memorize the song (a different sort of task, a different discussion) so quantity of songs is more important than retention at this point. You’ll need at least a couple good fakebooks. Full size lead sheets.”

Seems to me that practice time can be spent learning songs (I sure need practice playing smoothly) but also just looking at and trying to internalize chord shapes that are used in a multitude of songs.

Sound like a good strategy?

Thanks again

[Angelo]

Thank you Mark and David! Much appreciated!

[Angelo]

Thanks David; maybe/hopefully others will post their play.

[Angelo]

Here’s a version of “All the Things You Are” that I recorded yesterday. Not sure if one intent of this forum was to post recorded songs, so David Haynes, please feel free to delete this post if you see need to!!! Anyway, here’s the tune:

Thanks for listening.

– Angelo

[Angelo]

Thanks David.The “ton of repetition” needed to keep those songs in hand can take some fun out of it and take too much time (for me, anyway).

[Angelo]

Hello All:
Another blast from the past here. Angelo here. I first got the course in 2007 and I also had times of really getting into it. The sounds coming from those clusters are something that hit me.
I originally started my music career with the guitar, and I currently play guitar in a jazzy/rock and roll type band (we mostly play for free). I’ve been able to notate a way of playing what are called “chord melody” arrangements of songs on guitar that kind of sound like Sudnow type stuff.
But not really. Nothing beats the sound of the piano, to my ears, anyway. Being 53 years old, I am thinking I’m too old to play piano like I would want to. I want to play piano with songs in the Sudnow style.
I’ve had starts and stops with the Method. I know how to voice (by “voice” I mean getting the fractions written down) quite easily.

But the Achilles heel for me has always been twofold:
1) if I don’t play a song over and over and over I simply forget it. Very very frustrating. I just can’t seem to hold more than a few songs in my hands at any given point in time. I can play none now except maybe a little of “Misty.” So if you want to hear one of the biggest frustrations I had, well that was it.
2) I never could get around to playing somewhat on the fly from a Fakebook. Now if I could accomplish THAT, then that would REALLY take away problem #1 above!!!

So that’s my dilemma. I want to play songs in the Sudnow style, but my memorization skills continue to betray that desire. So close, yet so far from my goal of just playing standards.

Now if there can be a method that someone can teach of playing the Sudnow style on the fly from fakebooks, the I am most extremely interested!!

Thanks for listening,
Angelo

[Angelo]

Thanks Carole! Hope all is doing well for you.

[Angelo]

Hi Don!
Great to hear from you. I haven’t had a chance yet to peruse the full extent of the new website yet. Working on “Misty” again it’s bringing back memories. Those sounds! Keep in touch

[Angelo]

Thanks for replying; Twitter is extremely simple and free! There is already on these forum pages a place to tweet the Method and I did already; I believe my “followers” just saw a reference to the Method. If I can help, let me know; of course I’d help pro-bono.

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