C blues with Candy Bars

[Matt Helbing]

While I’ve been plowing through module 3’s second set of bebop calisthenics–what beasts they are!!–I’ve also been working with the candy bars and alternate rhythms from module 2. I feel like I could spend several months with just the module 2 candy bars to really get them ingrained. I started out trying to learn them all at once, but I’ve been focusing on 3 licks and slowly adding more rhythms with just those three licks. Feels a bit wooden. My time is terrible. You don’t really notice until you record yourself and listen back a lot. Good swing feel that sounds like bebop is really tough to nail.

Anyways, here’s a brief take from tonight’s candy bars practice.

• This topic was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by Matt Helbing.

[Robert Stralka]

Matt,

don’t know from which background you are coming, but from my beginners POV this is really ok! I tried to listen attentively to your first chorus. What I felt:

– Bars 1 and 2: a bit linear, the start into your solo could stand some more swinging articulation.
– Bars 3 to 8: just great! Relaxed and bluesy walk meandering up and down, sounds absolutely accomplished and wanted, not like a student ruggedly stitching together licks. The little slides into some of the notes are perfectly set.
– fretting of some notes in the turnaround failed–nothing that couldn’t be fixed after playing a few times. I wonder if the reason for these little failures might be that your confidence of the V7 fingering is not as distinct as the other two. At least that is the reason for similar errors that I tend to produce–the five chord occurs scarcely in the blues chorus.

Hope it was ok to comment on your playing, since you didn’t ask explicitely for that… But I think we could have a bit more exchange among Richies students here in the forum.

Robert

P.S.: How did you record your playing together with the backing track (gear/software)?

[Matt Helbing]

Thanks for the comments and constructive advice, Robert. That’s exactly what I was looking for. The funny thing about the candy bars, for me, is that I have a lot of trouble making them “swing”. They are pretty much in line with the kinds of things I play while transcribing solos from bebop players, where I can copy the articulations and sound a lot more authentic, yet when playing these candy bar lines over and over they just feel wooden. I’m not at a point yet, I think, where I have developed my own sense of swing feel, and that definitely comes out when playing with a backing track!!

I used Logic on my MacBook Pro to record this. I place a large diaphragm condensor mic in front of my amp and send it into Logic through an Apogee Duet audio interface. I just import the backing track into Logic, set it loop a gazillion times, then record myself playing the exercises.

Thanks again for the reply. I wish this forum was more active!

[Richie]

Hi Matt,

I think it’s good. I can hear the approaches you’ve been working on (especially the use of chromatic neighboring tones) and good voice leading at the point of chord change! Robert added some good constructive criticism. Wish more members would post some of their solos…

Keep up the good work and I look forward to hearing more!

• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by Richie.

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