Music

MuseScore Music Notation Freeware

UPDDATE, OCTOBER 20, 2011: I wrote the following a year-and-a-half ago in May, 2010. Since then, newer versions of MuseScore have worked out the kinks I’ve mentioned below. That the developers of this program are committed to it long-term shows in the way it continues to improve and evolve. So if you want the real score on MuseScore today, make sure you read the latest comment from Thomas Bonte, one of the developers, and my response to his comment. This product is a winner!

A bit buggy but good results, and you can’t beat the price: that pretty much sums up my experience with MuseScore, a free music notation software that I found online a few days ago.

Since this happens to be not only my first encounter with MuseScore but also with music transcription programs in general, I have nothing with which to compare this software. I much doubt that it can compete with Sibelius or Finale, but then, neither does it cost $600. You can’t get more budget-friendly than “free.” And, shortcomings aside, this software is getting the job done for me as I work on my “Giant Steps” e-book.

So what are the shortcomings whereof I speak? Here are a few that have made my notation process a bit frustrating:

* Various items that I’m supposed to be able to drag and drop, don’t.

* Text settings: I customize them, hit apply, and nothing happens. Or something happens, but it wasn’t what I ordered. Kind of like telling the waitress to bring you coffee and you wind up with a cup of tea instead.

* The instruction manual leaves out some key information. It’ll get you up and running, but sooner or later–and my money is on sooner–you’ll encounter an issue that the manual doesn’t address. At that point, it’s a matter of guesswork.

* The program is prone to shut down if you try to make it perform too fast, or what it considers to be too fast. For instance, don’t make the mistake of hitting the “undo” button multiple times very quickly.

So much for the negatives. Those aside, MuseScore is doing what I need it to do for me, and while the going is slow (which could be at least partially due to my own inexperience), I’m pleased with the results overall. Moreover, as the first open source transcription program available, the possibilities for MuseScore are expansive. As has been pointed out in another review, this program could become to Finale and Sibelius what Open Office is to Microsoft Office.

Bottom line: If your needs for music transcription software are fairly straightforward and you don’t have a gob of cash to spend on the brand-name stuff, then give MuseScore a try. The advantages of this software easily outweigh its snags, and I have to say, the results look great! MuseScore is clearly a labor of love, and I think you’ll come to value this free, useful music composition tool.

May 18, 2010 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Jazz, Music, Recording, Reviews Tagged With: freeware, Giant Steps e-book, MuseScore, music composition tool, music notation software, music transcription programs, open source

Giant Steps E-Book Soon to Be Released

If you want to bone up on the theory behind John Goltrane’s landmark tune “Giant Steps,” you’ll find plenty of information online as well as in print. But when it comes to actually cultivating the chops it takes to play “Giant Steps,” you may have a tougher time finding material. Could be that I’m uninformed, but I just haven’t seen much in the way of practice resources for Coltrane changes.

So I’ve decided to share my personal material. Years ago, I went through a period when I steeped myself in “Giant Steps,” and during that time, I started writing down licks and patterns for “Giant Steps” in a music notebook. Today, after supplementing the stuff I had already written with some new material, including licks using the augmented scale, I completed the front matter and introduction.

All that remains to be done now is to register the copyright and set up an online store on Stormhorn.com. The e-book’s title is “The Giant Steps Scratch Pad.” It will be the first product I’ve created and sold on this site, and I feel excited about offering it to you.

If you want to view a sample page (and cop some free licks), click here. Otherwise, stay tuned. I expect to have “The Giant Steps Scratch Pad” available for purchase soon, and will announce its publication upon release.

May 5, 2010 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: Coltrane changes, Giant Steps, Giant Steps Scratch Pad, John Coltrane, John Coltrane's landmark tune Giant Steps, licks and patterns for Giant Steps, licks using the augmented scale, practice resources for Coltrane changes, Stormhorn.com

Shakin’ the Shack: A Dave Koz Alto Sax Solo Transcription, Part 1

Saxophonist Dave Koz is, pardon my French, a bitch. Man, can that guy play the alto sax! I just got a reminder of how good he is after listening to a YouTube cut of his tune “Shakin’ the Shack” from off of his “Lucky Man” CD.

I bought the CD years ago and was so enamored with Koz’s electrifying, hard-bop approach to smooth jazz that I transcribed a couple of his solos. I thought I had lost those transcriptions long ago, but guess what surfaced the other day while I was sifting through some old music charts I had written? That’s right: my transcription of Dave Koz playing his solo on “Shakin’ the Shack.”

Well…at least part of the solo. Evidently I never completed the transcription, which is really a shame, because this first section is just the preamble. Dave is a fabulous musical storyteller, and his solo really starts cooking in the section that follows, building momentum and tremendous excitement in a joyous musical romp that makes me want to laugh and shout and dance and do other things most unbecoming of a 54-year-old white, Germanic male.

I regret that I can’t offer you the full transcription of Dave’s solo, but such as I have, I share with you now. Click on the thumbnail to enlarge it.

If you’ve never heard “Shakin’ the Shack,” I strongly encourage you to give it a listen so you can hear how the solo actually sounds in its musical context. For that matter, do yourself a biiiiiig favor and buy the entire “Lucky Man” CD. It’s beautifully produced and bubbling over with joie de vivre–traveling music of the first order, perfect for putting a smile on your face when you’re out on the open road.

April 29, 2010 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: alto sax, Dave Koz, Lucky Man, saxophonist, Shakin' the Shack, solo transcription

The Return of the Trains: Sax Reflections from the Railroad Tracks

It’s good to see the trains again.

As a jazz saxophonist who loves to practice his horn in his car parked by a set of railroad tracks out in the countryside, I noticed last year that something was missing. Used to be, I could count on seeing the distant semaphore light turn green and watching as the white pinpoint of a headlamp miles down the tracks brightened, drawing closer until I could hear the rumble and then the roar of the locomotive and the clatter of freight cars rushing past. I enjoyed that experience at least once, and normally two or three times, during most practice sessions.

But as the bottom dropped out of the economy and Detroit’s auto industry languished, the giant spigots that sent the trains hurtling along the pipeline between Lansing and Grand Rapids closed to a trickle. Those hundred-car, three-locomotive strings I was so used to became, just like that, a thing of yesterday.

Until lately. It gives me much pleasure to say that the trains are returning.

I still don’t see them with the frequency I used to, but I am noticing that there are more of them, and they are growing longer. Two days ago, parked by the tracks in Alto, I paused in my practice to watch as a train boomed by in front of me…and kept on booming. It was one of those hundred-car affairs, just like in the good old days, which really aren’t old at all but certainly were enjoyable.

Now those days seem to be on the way back. It may be a modest return, but the spigots are reopening. It’s heartwarming to think, as I sit by my beloved tracks working out my saxophone chops, that I’m once again likely to hear the sound of another horn, far off in the distance and growing closer, and to feel the powerful, exhilarating, reassuring rhythm of a train rushing by.

April 14, 2010 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Life, Michigan, Music, Outdoors, Saxophone Tagged With: freight cars, jazz saxophonist, practice his horn, practice sessions, railroad tracks, return of the trains, roar of the locomotive, sax, saxophone chops, trains

Sax Practice: A Chromatic Motif on the Cycle of Dominants

If you want to develop fluency at voice-leading and switching keys, cycle exercises are mandatory and the cycle of fifths is supreme. Taking dominant patterns and licks around the cycle of fifths is a longstanding habit of mine. As with a lot of musical disciplines, at first I delayed, I kicked, I resisted tackling this one for a long time because, well, it was work. Finally I decided to buck up and eat my spinach, and today the circle of fifths is a key component of my practice regimen, particularly for V7 chords.

After all, the dominant seventh, more than any other chord, defines the key center; it’s the chord that screams “resolve me!” So it pays for sax players and other jazz improvisers to consistently drill their ears and their fingers with exercises that can build their facility with dominant seventh chords.

Here’s one such exercise that I’ve been having fun with lately. Click on it to enlarge it. There’s nothing mysterious about this little motif; I could pull it off easily in a number of keys right where I stand without making a practice issue of it. I’ve practiced enough related material that my fingers already know the way. But spotlighting the figure makes it likelier that I’ll use it in my solos; it ensures that my technique will follow me into any key; and, as with all cycle of fifth exercises, it helps me hear how the pattern lays out in root movements by fifth.

For each dominant chord, the exercise ascends chromatically from the ninth to the third, and then from the root to the seventh. I’ve set it in triplets, but you’ll want to experiment with different rhythms. I might add, this little motif sounds great in blues solos.

No need for me to say more–except, of course, to pester you to check out more exercises on my jazz page. Have fun practicing!

March 27, 2010 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: blues solos, chromatic motif on the cycle of dominants, circle of fifths, cycle of fifths, dominant seventh chords, fluency at voice-leading and switching keys, jazz improvisers, root movements by fifth, sax players, sax practice, V7 chords

Intuitive Jazz Solos: Hearing the Music with Your Fingers

Last night, after a particularly inspirational practice session, I found myself thinking about what it was that I was accomplishing. Saturating myself in the rarely used key of concert A, as I’ve been doing lately, and also taking new material through all twelve keys, has not only been unlocking my saxophone technique overall, but it is also causing me to consider the result I’m after. In a nutshell, I want my fingers to hear the music.

That’s my way of saying that I want to get the muscle memory in my fingers integrally linked with my inner ear, and my inner ear to what I’m actually hearing moment by moment in a given improvisational setting, so intimately that I can conceive ideas instantly and execute them flawlessly.

Have you noticed that there are certain keys in which your fingers just naturally know where to go? Keys and tunes in which you’ve mastered your melodic materials to the point where they’re innate; where licks and patterns are just tools in your toolkit, not your life raft that keeps you afloat? Concert Bb, F, and C major are keys most jazz musicians are quite familiar with, for instance. But what about B, D, A, or F#? The American Songbook may not abound with tunes written in the “hard” keys, but lots of songs have momentary digressions to them.

“Ornithology,” for example, has a temporary excursion into the key of concert A in the form of a iii-VI7-ii-V7 progression. The bridge section to “Cherokee” includes an entire four-bar ii-V7-I cadence in that same key. Spending time trying to master those two tunes has given me incentive to hash out the key of A, to the point where my fingers are starting to “hear” in that key. They “feel” where the third and leading tone of the scale are, and how those notes fit into different harmonic contexts; they’re getting better at handling the avoid-tone of the fourth; they’re becoming friends with passing and non-harmonic tones, and growing more adept at using non-diatonic notes to realize borrowed harmonies.

It’s a process that begins with thinking things through, then working your thinking into your fingers through repetition over many practice sessions. The result, over time, is less deliberation (“If I play an E, that’ll be the #9 of the C#+7#9 chord, moving down to D, then resolving to the root”) and more instantaneous response. Once you reach that point, you no longer need to tell your fingers what to do; they feel it for themselves in their wee little finger souls. Your thinking speeds up, and your fingers are right there with you, eager to serve your ideas and fully capable of doing so.

How many keys, and how many tunes, can you hear with your fingers? Pay your dues in the woodshed, transcribe and memorize jazz solos, play out whenever you get a chance, and over time, your fingers will develop big ears.

March 23, 2010 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Band, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: American Songbook, Cherokee, hearing the music with your fingers, improvisational setting, inner ear, jazz musicians, jazz solos, licks and patterns, muscle memory, Ornithology, transcribe and memorize jazz solos, unlocking my saxophone technique

Charlie Parker: His Music and Life (Book Review)

Intellectually, all saxophonists understand that Charlie Parker had to pay his dues just like anyone else. We’ve heard the stories about a high-school-age Parker learning to play on a clunky old artifact of an alto saxophone held together by rubber bands; about his mortification when drummer Jo Jones “gonged” him by skittering a cymbal across the floor at a jam session; about Parker woodshedding for 13-hour stints in the Ozarks, developing his formidable technique. In theory at least, we know that Bird wasn’t born with an alto sax in his hands. He had a learning curve just like the rest of us mere mortals. There was even–and I realize this will leave many of you in a state of shock and denial, but it’s nevertheless true–a time when Bird sucked.

We know these things. Personally, though, I still find the idea of Charlie Parker as a novice hard to wrap my mind around.

So reading the book Charlie Parker: His Music and Life by Carl Woideck has proved not only enlightening, but also reassuring.* Musical genius though he was, Bird was still just a very human, flawed possessor of a God-given gift that he worked hard to develop. Seen in that light, Parker represents not an unattainable ideal, but a waymaker, a teacher, and an inspiration who encourages the rest of us to keep at it; to push past our personal limitations; to practice, practice, and practice some more.

A number of excellent biographies have been written on Charlie Parker, providing fascinating glimpses into his quirky personality, immense talent, and tragic excesses. Rather than merely adding one more book to the firmament of Charlie Parker life stories, Woideck has taken a different approach, focusing on the development of Bird as a musician. Woideck’s tome offers eye-opening and profitable insights into the different phases of Charlie Parker’s music, from Parker’s apprenticeship with Kansas City saxophonist Buster Smith, to his tenures with the Jay McShann and Fletcher Henderson big bands, to his co-development of new musical concepts with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, to his peak playing years in the late 40s, to his latter period in the 50s, when Parker’s sense that he had taken the bebop approach as far as he could left him groping for a new direction even as his addictions increasingly took their toll.

A glance at the table of contents reveals the book’s logical, easy-to-follow organization. Part one offers a brief biographical sketch of Bird, creating a context for the examination of his musicianship that follows. Part two explores Parker’s music in four different periods: 1940–43, 1944–46, 1947–49, and 1950–55.

Woideck substantiates his discussion of Parker’s musical trajectory and playing style with copious analyses of Bird solos, using excerpts from such tunes as “Honey and Body,” “Embraceable You,” “Ko Ko,” “I’ve Found a New Baby,” “Body and Soul,” “Swingmatism,” and many more to illustrate Bird’s changing palette of nuances and techniques.

This is easily the most comprehensive exploration of Parker’s music that I’ve come across, made all the more so by appendices that provide a select discography and four complete solo transcriptions: “Honey and Body,” “Oh, Lady Be Good!” “Parker’s Mood” (take 5), and “Just Friends.” Being an alto sax man myself, like Bird, I could wish that the solos had been transcribed in the Eb alto key that Parker played them in. However, from a standpoint of general usefulness to all musicians, it’s understandable that the transcriptions and discussion examples appear in concert pitch.

Painstakingly researched and written with clarity and crispness, Charlie Parker: His Music and Life is a fascinating and enriching book for any musician and a must-read for alto saxophonists.

__________________________

* Carl Woideck, Charlie Parker: His Music and Life (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996).

March 20, 2010 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Band, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Reviews, Saxophone Tagged With: alto sax, alto sax man like Bird, alto saxophone, analyses of Bird solos, bebop approach, biographical sketch of Bird, Bird as a musician, Carl Woideck, Charlie Parker, Charlie Parker had to pay his dues, different phases of Parker's music, four complete solo transcriptions, Jay McShann, Jo Jones, must-read for alto saxophonists, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie

Recording Session with Ric Troll and Dave DeVos

This afternoon was a great time in the studio with my friends Ric Troll and Dave DeVos. Ric’s recording studio, Tallmadge Mill, is a topnotch home studio. Some years ago, Ric and I used it to record Eyes on Mars, a CD of free jazz and experimental music featuring drums and saxophone. Now another project is on the griddle, this time with the very welcome addition of Dave on bass.

After warming up with “Big Foot,” a Charlie Parker blues, the three of us launched into a broad variety of original tunes, some with written heads and changes by Ric, and others that were simply concepts and musical games which maximized listening and empathic, responsive improvisation. What a privilege to make music with two such high-caliber musicians–guys who enjoy exploring far beyond the American Songbook, and who possess the imagination and technical finesse to turn such experimentation into a genuinely musical experience.

More recording lies in store. I’m not sure just how much, but I’ll keep you posted as things develop. At some point, I should also have a few audio clips to share with you, so stay tuned to this blog for updates.

March 14, 2010 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Band, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Life, Music, Recording, Saxophone Tagged With: Charlie Parker blues, Dave DeVos, drums and saxophone, empathic responsive improvisation, Eyes on Mars, free jazz and experimental music, musicians, recording session, recording studio, Ric Troll, Tallmadge Mill

How to Use the Flat Sixth of the Major Bebop Scale

It was when I picked up some David Baker books on bebop scales back in my junior year in college that I finally began to make some sense out of how jazz worked. Nobody had told me that one of the secrets of those bop musicians was to smooth out the seven-note scales and modes by interpolating an extra note–typically a raised seventh in Mixolydian modes and a raised fifth, or flatted sixth, in the tonic major scale. Once I latched onto that concept and began to flesh it out with various licks from Baker’s great publications, things slowly began to gel for me.

The thumbnail your right shows a G major bebop scale, with the D#/Eb serving as the raised fifth/flatted sixth. Click on the image to enlarge it.

NOTE: All examples on this page are in the key of G major. Because note function changes relative to chord function, all references to the flat sixth in the following discussion are understood to mean the flat sixth of the major bebop scale.

The flat sixth most likely came into use as a passing tone designed to create an eight-note scale which could smoothly take a player from tonic to octave. But the note has applications that make it useful as more than just a linear connecting device, and I suspect that its insertion into the major scale also involved harmonic considerations. Chordally, the flat sixth of the major bebop scale helps define structures that a jazz improviser regularly encounters.

The most apparent harmonic use of the flat sixth, as the flat sixth (or flat thirteenth) of a tonic major chord, is not as common as other applications. But it is nevertheless an interesting and colorful tone which imparts an augmented sound to the tonic chord–a suspended sound that wants to resolve downward to the fifth. The second example on this page outlines a GMb6 chord, ending in a lick that emphasizes the b6.

The flat sixth crops up much more often as a minor third of the IV chord. It’s common to encounter a change of modality from major to minor in the IV chord, and the flat sixth is the tone that establishes this shift. The third example shows both CM7 and CmMaj7 chords. It’s common, in the shift from major to minor, to also lower the seventh, as shown in the bebop lick that’s included in the example.

Another extremely common use of the flat sixth is as the flat nine of a V7b9 chord. This next example outlines a D7b9 chord. Because the V7b9 is so ubiquitous in jazz, the flat sixth, far from serving as merely a passing tone, can often become a target tone. Also, as indicated at the end of the example, it can serve as a chromatic bracketing device.

The final example shows how the b6 fits into a V7b9 lick.

The harmonic applications of the flat sixth that I’ve just described are just three of its uses. It also functions as the b5 of a IIm7b5 chord; as the major third of the V7 of VI chord (ex. B7 in the key of G); and in other borrowed-chord applications that easily relate to the tonic key.

I’ll leave it to you to figure out the rest. This article should give you a good start. If you enjoyed it, be sure to check out other articles of interest to saxophonists and jazz improvisers on my jazz page.

February 24, 2010 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: bebop lick, borrowed-chord applications, chromatic bracketing, eight-note scale, flat nine of a V7b9 chord, flat sixth, harmonic use of the flat sixth, jazz improviser, major bebop scale, minor third of the IV chord, passing tone, raised fifth, saxophonists

An Easy Way to Use the Augmented Scale in Major Keys

As I’ve continued to spend time incorporating the augmented scale into my working vocabulary as a jazz saxophonist, I’ve made one recent discovery which simplifies its application, at least in part. It is this: the same augmented scale used with the tonic chord in a major key also works beautifully for the altered dominant.

For example, in the key of C, use the C augmented scale for both the tonic C Maj 7 and the G+7(b9, #9). Just keep in mind how you handle the root of the scale when the G dominant is sounding, same as you would do if you were playing a G Mixolydian mode.

The reason this same-scale approach works is because every augmented scale, being symmetrical by design, is actually three different scales spaced a major third apart, all sharing the same notes and interval relationships. The C augmented scale also functions as an E and an Ab augmented scale, and each version works nicely with an altered dominant seventh chord built on its leading tone. Thus the Ab augmented scale is the scale of choice for imposing the augmented sound on the altered G7 chord.

Try the above tip with a blues as well. It works fine, adding color and enough “wrong notes” to sound right, providing you bring the free-floating augmented sound back to earth by resolving it properly to a chord tone and maybe adding a nice, earthy dash of the blues scale.

If you have other ways in which you like to use the augmented scale, please drop a comment and share them. And check out my jazz page for more articles and transcriptions geared for the practicing jazz musician.

February 19, 2010 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Band, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: altered dominant seventh chord, augmented scale, easy way to use the augmented scale, free-floating augmented sound, jazz saxophonist