Charleston Rhythm (10:04)

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From the course by University of Rochester

The Blues: Understanding and Performing an American Art Form

337 ratings

University of Rochester

The Blues: Understanding and Performing an American Art Form

337 ratings

The blues is an American art form and the most important musical form in jazz. Although there are other formal paradigms of the blues, such as 8-bar or 16-bar, this course focuses on different incarnations of the 12-bar blues. There are considerable differences between Early Jazz blues, Swing blues, Bebop blues, Modal blues, and Post Bop blues. Each type has its unique harmonic syntax, melodic vocabulary and, associated with them, improvisational techniques. While other aspects of jazz performance practice have been constantly changing from one stylistic convention to another, the blues has never lost its identity and expressive power, and continues to exert a powerful influence on the harmonic and melodic syntax of jazz. This seven-week course explores important aspects of the blues, blues improvisation, basic keyboard textures, jazz harmonic and melodic syntax. Topics include: (1) Blues Progressions; (2) Blues and Other Scales; (3) Improvisational Tools, and others. This course will also cover valuable theoretical concepts enabling the student to master the art of jazz improvisation. Each topic will be introduced from a practical perspective with the clearly stated goal: to improve one’s improvisational skills. Jazz improvisation is rooted in spontaneity, creativity, self-expression and, at the same time, self-control and order. A unique pedagogical approach based on a one-to-one musical interaction conducted with different instrumentalists will help to reinforce many of the concepts introduced in this course and realize its stated objectives.

From the lesson

Keyboard Realization

Lesson 3 introduces the concept of guide tones and its association with invertible counterpoint. Four-part and five-part chords are discussed in detail by exploring their construction and function, as well as techniques to facilitate good voice-leading between chords using chordal inversions.

Lesson 3 Introduction (3:45)3:44

Guide Tones (8:53)8:52

Invertible Counterpoint (4:20)4:20

Charleston Rhythm (10:04)10:04

Four-Part Chords (9:35)9:34

Five-Part Chords (9:43)9:42

Comping Texture (18:58)18:58

Meet the Instructors

Dariusz Terefenko
Associate Professor of Jazz Studies and Contemporary Media
Eastman School of Music

Even though I played the previous progressions in time,

they hardly sounded idiomatic.

What was missing from my realizations,

was the presence of idiomatic rhythmic gestures

that would energize the overall presentation of the blues progression.

By using certain characteristic rhythmic devices we can

invigorate the progression and make it sound more in keeping with the jazz idiom.

Let me introduce you to a useful rhythmic gesture known as the Charleston rhythm,

which is derived from James P Johnson, the Charleston, from the 1920's.

Let me play that tune and

I want you to pay attention to the rhythmic properties of the leitmotif and

then we'll discuss the characteristics of that, of that figure.

So here's the tune.

[MUSIC]

Okay, so, have you noticed what happened with that head gesture?

[MUSIC]

So on the screen, you can see the rhythmic properties of that gesture.

That figure is comprised of two parts.

First, occurring on the down beat on beat one.

And the second on the up beat at the end of beat two.

So one, so let me count off the tempo.

One, two, three, four.

One, two and.

One and, two and,

one and, one and, one and, one all right?

So that's a very, very important rhythmic figure that you can use

while practicing your progressions.

And that figure is also extremely useful for developing various counting patterns.

And in lecture four we're going to discuss that figure and

the concept of written displacement in greater detail.

For now, it suffices to say that the Charleston rhythm [SOUND] starts on B.

On.

[SOUND] Beat one and the second part of that figure is on end of beat two.

[SOUND] And one more thing before we move on,

when you displace that figure on beat three,

so one, two, three.

[MUSIC]

The second part of that figure will always anticipate the forthcoming harmony.

So for instance in our blues progression in measure two,

there's a different chord E flat 7 as opposed to B flat 7 right.

So if you want to play that figure in measure one on beat three,

you're going to anticipate next chord on end of four.

So one, two, three, four.

So that's the only thing you have to remember,

that when you place that rhythm on beat three,

the second part of that figure will anticipate the forthcoming harmony.

So, now, let me play the basic blues progression using the Guide-Tones and

the Charleston Rhythm.

As you can hear that the addition of the rhythmic dimension will

completely change the presentation of the overall progression.

Okay? So, one, two, a one two three four.

[MUSIC]

All right.

We're going to take the same progression and practice it with the same rhythmic

organization, using the concept of invertible counterpoint.

So instead of starting,

[MUSIC]

We can start,

[MUSIC]

And so forth.

And for those who still find this realization not particularly challenging.

Let's work on the left hand.

So instead of playing whole notes we'll now play in 2-feel using two half notes.

And the content of the left hand will be mostly occupied by the roots and

either third, the fifth, on beat three.

In the case where you have two harmonies per measure,

we're going to use four quarter notes.

Roots, thirds, or fifths.

Roots, thirds, and fifths.

All right.

So let me play that progression in 2-Feel using a Charleston Rhythm.

On beat one and of two.

One, two, one, two, three, four.

[MUSIC]

Okay.

So we can see that the left hand uses root at the beginning

of each measure and either third or fifth.

So for instance, in measure five, we have roots and fifth.

I want to talk about measure seven and

measure eight, connecting chords related by thirds.

B flat to G7.

You'll notice that the A flat, which is circled,

is the passing note that anticipates the arrival of G7 by half step,

[MUSIC] This is a very characteristic gesture to

create a very successful baselines.

So you notice the use of A flat corresponds with the quality of

the underlying chord, which is B flat 7,

[MUSIC]

So as opposed to playing chords in thirds.

Which would have been okay, I departed from that practice and

used a passing note.

And as before,

it's important to practice that progression in invertible counterpoint.

Earlier, I mentioned the possibility of anticipating the upcoming

harmony when you displace the Charleston rhythm and place it on beat three.

So for instance, in measure one, instead of placing that figure on

beat one, if you play that figure on beat three,

the second half of the figure will anticipate the upcoming harmony.

So listen to that.

One, two, three, four.

[MUSIC]

Right?

So, one.

[MUSIC]

All right so, we anticipate next harmony.

Now when you look at my hands in a coordination of

a hands it is important to remember that your right

hand slightly anticipates the down beat on B3.

[MUSIC]

And remember what we talk about in the previous lecture about Jazz notation.

Even though we're using straight eight notation,

the eighth note doesn't really appear in the middle of the beat,

it's most closely packed to the end of that beat.

So it's like slight anticipation to get that swinging feel.

[MUSIC]

So think about sub dividing the beat into

three eighth notes under the triplets.

[SOUND]

[MUSIC]

And the same progression with invertible counterpoint.

[MUSIC]

Will sound totally different, but you will still be using the same notes.

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