And here it is……..Misty

I’m currently working an arrangement of the song Misty. It was written in 1954 by the pianist Errol Garner, originally as an instrumental. However, it’s always good to get familiar with a vocal version of a song before starting an arrangement and I particularly like the version by Ella Fitzgerald in the songbook pages. As for a guitar instrumental version, Joe Pass’s version on his album Vituoso #2 in the songbook is great.

When working through the chords of the tune I decided to use the key of E rather than the most common key of Eb as it seemed to fit well with the melody and give me plenty of sustaining open strings. The first three notes of the melody for Misty are particularly recognisable, the first two forming a minor third. In fact I always use these two starting notes of this tune as a way of remembering the sound of the minor 3^rd interval descending.

In the chord progression extensive use is made of the II-V movement

‘                Emaj7         Bm7            E7                     Amaj7

Walk my way, and a thousand violins begin to play

In the above example the Bm7 to E7 is a II-V movement. Once you’re familiar with this type of chord movement you’ll start to hear it in lots of different parts of the songs you play and listen to.

I’ll be covering this in more detail in the forthcoming guitar lessons. Sign up to the mailer on the right hand side of the screen to receive further information.

I’ll post my arrangement of Misty up shortly…..watch this space!!

I thought I’d share with you an article I wrote on the colourstrings teaching method as I think it helps explain my views on ear training and guitar teaching in general. As I explain in the article, I’ve used the method in the past for teaching children from ages 6 upwards and I do believe that some of the basic principles apply to learning a musical instrument no matter what age you are.

The Colourstrings Teaching Method

The colourstrings teaching method was developed in Finland from the Kodaly philosophy where learning starts with singing and developing the inner ear. For very young children, 18 months onward, the lessons are presented in such a way that play and imagination are encouraged. The children sing, clap and march to a carefully constructed musical program built from basic principles of rhythm, pitch, melody, dynamics, tempo, character, form and style.

Initially the children learn by repeating back the actions of the teacher, the teacher sings a song, the children repeat, the teacher claps a rhythm, the children repeat. As they get slightly older this imitation is backed up with hand signs that correspond to the sol-fa system.  One of the first intervals they learn is the minor 3^rd interval, so – me. I’m not sure in about the rest of the world, maybe somebody could confirm, but certainly in Scotland this interval appears regularly in children’s playground songs and is a very natural interval for the children to sing. Gradually through the repetition of songs and clapping of rhythms and then the use of stick notation, the children move onto recognizing the notes on the stave. At the age of 6 the children learn to play instruments, the same method of singing and imitation being used. The children learn to sing the piece being taught and then they learn how to play it on their instrument.

Originally the colourstrings technique was developed for Violin by its founder Geza Szilvay. Each string on the violin is given a colour to aid recognition, hence the name colourstrings.  Musical notation is kept to a minimum with the children only being shown notation that is necessary for them to play. For instance, the child is not initially shown the full 5 lines of the stave, but only the lines that the notes being taught use. The method is very obviously applicable to the violin due to the need for good intonation. If the child can sing the note, then they will know if they are playing out of tune. While this intonation problem is not applicable to a fretted instrument like the guitar, the methodology of developing the ear to instruct the hand is, in my opinion, the best way to teach the guitar. For a number of years I encompassed the colourstrings guitar method, developed by Jussipekka Rannanmaki, into my teaching of children from age 6 upwards and I found the results to be amazing. Fortunately a lot of the children I was teaching had participated in colourstrings singing classes from an early age so were used to the idea of singing. Teaching the child to sing the melody first and then showing them how to play it on the guitar invariably resulted in the music just flowing. While only partially developed as a guitar method, the underlying principles of the colourstrings methodology and the kodaly teachings from which the method was developed resonate strongly with me. When teaching I always check back to the musical principles of developing the inner ear and learning to sing what is being played.

A wee tune for our national bard on his birthday….Ae fond kiss

A Merry Christmas to all…..the christmas song (chestnuts roasting by an open fire)

Listen to the video below and try to follow the melody only. Hopefully this won’t be too hard as the I’m playing the melody slightly louder than the other notes.  This is a standard arrangement norm, keeping the melody in the foreground, and applies to all types of arranging, orchestral music, pop music etc In the process of learning a song, learning the melody first gives us a head start. If you’re struggling with an arrangement, concentrate on the melody, only play the melody if necessary, a good melody will stand on it’s own. Often if students are having difficulty making an arrangement sound fluent it will be because they are losing focus on the melody.  So, my advice is, start with the melody and once you’re playing it strong and sure, start to fill the arrangement out with the other notes

If anybody was looking for ideas for their Dads christmas present……I recently came across an old film now re-released on DVD, “Talmage Farlow” ( available on Amazon !!!) that was a great inspiration to me when I first watched it in the early 80’s. The film looks at the life of Tal Farlow, recognised as one of the all time great jazz guitarists, who came to promenance in the 1950’s. After a 10 year spell at the top of Jazz, Tal turned away from the jazz spotlight to lead a quiter life in New Jersey. However, as he says in the film, he never stopped playing. I had the great fortune to meet him in Glasgow in the early 80’s when I attended a workshop with him. He was a modest man who played with driving bebop lines and (in George Benson’s words) a wild sense of harmony. Check out some of the clips from the DVD at http://talfarlowfilm.com/film_excerpts.htm