Going up the country, reharmonising/building a song
And now, for something completely different. #
I started with a very simple blues pattern, 3 simple chords, and one phrase of voice, and I asked how to further develop it. I received the suggestion, to listen to blues players, like Robert Johnson, because they use fingerstyle patterns, and fill the parts where there is no voice. A pattern occurred to me, so I decided to practice playing it with the voice. It felt difficult at first, but it proved to be excellent cognitive exercise, and a fun musical activity.
I am learning jazz and blues riffs, because it seems similar in effectiveness to solving code puzzles. The riffs are 2-4 bars, but they can be expanded, and further developed using inversions, and permutations of musical elements. Here is a riff I learnt, an early 1950's jazz riff, from the BeBop era. Although I used to think that learning jazz from books was not an effective endeavour, I now think otherwise. Reading programming books is an actionable lead measure of success in learning to code. Similarly, I sense, working through jazz/music books, is an actionable lead measure of success in playing music. Learning jazz and blues riffs seem to be a 20/80 activity, that creates exponential positive effects in musical ability.
"YOU CAN LEARN ANYTHING!" 😉