Effective Practice
I just finished prepping every Live Practice class for September, and somewhere along the way I caught myself smiling at how it’s all developed into something very special.
More attendees have been stepping into the famed 
Hot Seat lately, unmuting, playing live, getting real feedback in front of the group. It used to take convincing. Now people are volunteering.
Nothing’s ‘sacred’ about a rough take either. Bomb it and we’ll cut it from the recording, if you want. Or come back next week and redeem yourself – we call that option Take 2.
A bunch of students have asked for materials early to have more time to prepare, so September and future classes will be built out well in advance of the Live class, with a new section on exactly what to prep for each class.
Exciting Multibass Collaboration Opportunity
Somewhere in the middle of all that, I got excited about something else: another multi-bass student collaboration. Last time, we split a tune into melody, solo, comping, and chording across a handful of players, and one of our own tech-savvy folks cut it into a real multi-camera video. Check it out here.
This round it’s The Shadow of Your Smile, my assistant Fred’s pick, going down during October and November’s Open Pattern Practice in the Live Practice. We will dig into the two distinct ways to play this tune, bossa vs swing.
Building it all reminded me what this actually is. Not a series of 45 minute lectures. But rather, focused reps, each with a reason and purpose behind it.
Practice Spark: Bossa vs Swing?
Questions:
- Play the first bar of the melody (if you know it) of The Shadow of Your Smile as an even, straight-eighths bossa. Then play it again swung. What actually changes, the notes or something else?
- A lot of players take the head in bossa and the solos in swing, (on this tune and plenty of others). Why do you think that switch works?
- Bossa bass lines tend to sit in two, not four. What does the bass give up by doing that, and what does it gain?
Scroll down for answers
In our Live Practice we will work it up together in class and you can get into the Hot Seat which is the best learning experience. If you’d like to join, check it out, here.
Answers:
- The notes don’t change, the subdivision does. Swing is long-short, triplet-based. Bossa keeps them even and straight, more rolling, less lilt. Same melody, completely different feel.
- The head is the song melody. Bossa’s evenness keeps the melody smooth. Switching it up in the solos creates a nice contrast.
- The bass gives up the walking line, the steady quarter-note pulse under everything. What it gains is space: root and five in a two feel grounds the harmony simply and adds a bit of hip to the dance moves.
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