[Dave Wright]

Does anyone have any experiences with this study, positive or otherwise? I'm thinking of spending some time with it.

Thanks

 

[matty]

Man, I really Tried to work with this book....just too cerebral for me. There are some great lines in there, but they seem to happen accidentally. I'd rather not construct my solos thinking about intervals. I loved his 1st book - Melodic Structures - and the one on Pentatonics, but just couldjn't get myself to dive into the Intervallic Melodies.

 

[Selmer's_glu]

I have the book. Its fun to look at & read thru, there IS alot there.

I think a good way to go w/it would be to--go thru & play some of the lines, pick a few that you like, that "catch your ear", then take one and spend a little time playing it everyday & "transposing it in every key" (which means, play the interval line/shape on different starting notes)

I think if someone did that with a few of those & didnt try to rush thru & do a bunch of stuff, it can be a great mental & ear training excercise. You could really get the sound of a chromatic-type line in you ears, then later you could play around with it, changing it or making up your own line.

A couple of these lines go a long way. You dont need to memorize or work on ALL of them. Once you know the "ins-and-outs" of a few, it could help you ears alot--or at least you would have a few "bursts" of "out" stuff you could blast out, in certain solo ocassions.

I think the problem guys have, if they are into Bergonzi or Grossman, is either being stuck only playing their signature cliche chromatic licks (w/o really hearing it, to come up w/their own stuff) or just trying to ONLY play that way, w/o being able to really play the changes in a more traditional, harmonic fashion.

To sum it up--the more time you spend with one or two lines in this book, the more useful (IMHO), if you rush thru & try to conquer the whole thing, your not going to get much out of it.

 

[Tim Price]

Does anyone have any experiences with this study, positive or otherwise? I'm thinking of spending some time with it.

Thanks

Regarding Volume 5 of Bergonzi's Thesaurus of Intervallic melodies.
What jerry suggested to me to start this book was take the first ten pages and sing them over a C major triad, then over E major and Ab triads then some minor triads, this way the ear accepts the harmony rub. He also suggested as you play these, key in on the intervals that you like, think of it as an intervallic highway non patterns, then try over the open vamps take some lines and play them across the vamp then even try it through a blues like for instance there are some play alongs in the back. Check out one of the blues and start to play some lines over top of it. From the first ten pages....his words were play it across the changes eg. the changes are in one lane you're in another going past the changes but not necessarily in the same lane as them.
If you also check out jerry's new CD, Dreaming Outloud on Wailing City Sound CD's a lot of the tunes that are in this book are finally out in performance form so you can hear some of this inovative and intervallic playing that jerry is about.
Jerry described to me that the book is good for not only improving your technique and sight reading, but also breaking finger habits which we all have and developing a different approach to pitch retention.

I think that should help you dial in a little bit better with this book.

I myself have been using the book over two years and have started taking some of the melodies into my bassoon playing via bass clef and also compositionally.
There are some things I could also mention but without going through these first steps such as taking the first ten pages and singing them over the triads it can get pretty confusing because you want to get your ear to start keying in to some of these new intervallic melodies.

I think this book is probably one of the most unique tomes Bergonzi has come up with yet.

It's been a big help to me, plus having jerry as a friend so I can just get into this book faster by knowing him and asking him stuff when I hit the wall.
I think also a lot of my stuff I've been writing out for the last half dozen years, through studying with Jerry's childhood friend Charlie Banacos is of paramount importance here harmonically. It kinda opened my ears big time with his chordal stuff I do on piano.

Another way to think of this sinse it's not a lick book, is to get a CD METRONOME and play " in time" over the drum feel. Letely I've been using the CD METRONOME of FREE BOP, and finding some lines to use and letting my EAR expand the shapes etc.

This book also breaks bad fingering habits like really fast.
EG- playing your stuff over and over.

Anyhow it's a great book it makes a lot of sense and I hope what i said helps.

 

[Nefertiti]

Along with Tim's advice another thing that is great that I was doing was if I had a long ride to a gig I would put on the CD that comes with it and try to sing through the exercise to the CD while I was driving. I would stick with the same line and then went it went to the next track and key I would sing the line again over the new key. This was incredibly hard for me but I think it was good to hear and produce the pitches against the different tonics. That reminds me I have to start practicing that again!:shock:

 

[matty]

Regarding Volume 5 of Bergonzi's Thesaurus of Intervallic melodies.
What jerry suggested to me to start this book was take the first ten pages and sing them over a C major triad, then over E major and Ab triads then some minor triads, this way the ear accepts the harmony rub. He also suggested as you play these, key in on the intervals that you like, think of it as an intervallic highway non patterns, then try over the open vamps take some lines and play them across the vamp then even try it through a blues like for instance there are some play alongs in the back. Check out one of the blues and start to play some lines over top of it. From the first ten pages....his words were play it across the changes eg. the changes are in one lane you're in another going past the changes but not necessarily in the same lane as them.


Anyhow it's a great book it makes a lot of sense and I hope what i said helps.

...well I may have to give it another go. Very interesting way to go about it, esp. the SINGING part. Thanks for posting, Tim

 

[Dave Wright]

Thanks Tim , for taking the time to explain that. It makes things a lot clearer . I'm just trying to to get my head around playing that freely and using a random mathmatical approach.
Anything that expands the ear is a good thing, Its probably exactly what I need to dive into in fact.

 

[Tim Price]

Thanks Tim , for taking the time to explain that. It makes things a lot clearer . I'm just trying to to get my head around playing that freely and using a random mathmatical approach.
Anything that expands the ear is a good thing, Its probably exactly what I need to dive into in fact.

Dave - glad to help. If you read Bergonzi's forward and the stuff
he sais in the book it's a help.

This book is not a book like Jerry Coker where everything is lick based or key center. It's a step beyond that.

The play along that comes with it is great too.

Thank you Dave- best of luck with your persuit.

 

[JimD]

The problem with this book, and this is common in music books, is that it's impossible, at least for an average bear like me, to know what is supposed to be going on. The arrows I can understand but those arrangments of ABC and D are not explained and don't seem to apply to what is written on the staff. You also have a set of letters and numbers at the top of the page and then a whole different set above every set of 4 or 5 notes. And what do they mean anyway? Excuse me Jerry but you dropped a page of the introduction on the floor before it got to the printers. The book is usable, so is Lateef's, without knowing what's going on but it seems to be an integral part of this that there is a method in there somewhere and it would be nice to be let in on the method behind these lines, especially after I've bought the book, otherwise they are just random.

Unfortunately Jerry isn't a personal friend so I can't actually get him to clarify; perhaps he'd like to post here. Just because you are a musician it doesn't mean that you're not expected to write clear introductions and explanations. Maybe it's to maintain the mystery but it actually undermines the value of the book.

 

[Bub99]

The arrows I can understand but those arrangments of ABC and D are not explained and don't seem to apply to what is written on the staff. You also have a set of letters and numbers at the top of the page and then a whole different set above every set of 4 or 5 notes. And what do they mean anyway?

The two tables on page eleven comprise a two stage mapping of pitch change directions and intervals (minor 2nd, 2nd, etc.) and are used to create a five-note line.

The first table shows all the possible consecutive pitch change directions using four consecutive pitch changes. Since there are two directions this is a binary alphabet and this gives a total of 2^4 = 16 values. This lends itself to a binary alphabet representation but Jerry did not choose to show it in this way. Only the first four rows of sixteen are shown:

  Jerry      Binary
---------  ---------
A ^ ^ ^ ^  A ^ ^ ^ ^
B ^ ^ ^ v  B ^ ^ ^ v
C ^ ^ v v  C ^ ^ v ^
D ^ v v v  D ^ ^ v v

The second table on page eleven contains the intervals that are applied to the pitch change directions in the first table to create the five note line (for four intervallic changes). It looks to me like he has restricted the total intervallic jump per change in this example to a maximum of four semitones. Each possibility is represented by A, B, C and D, where A is a minor 2nd, B is a 2nd, C is a minor 3rd, D a third.

Since there are four entries in second table there are 4! permutations, 4*3*2*1 = 24.

Understanding this you can see how he gets the example shown on page seven. In the example called "F11", from the first table F = ^ ^ v ^, and from the second table 11 = B C A D which maps to 2nd, minor 3rd, minor 2nd, third. Applying this to a five note sequence starting on C gives:

  2 -3  -2  3
  ^  ^   v  ^
 C  D  F  E  G#

He also shows three and five interval constructions. This is an exhaustive mathematical approach to constructing a line based on consecutive intervallic relationships. This is the easy part. The hard part is figuring out what to do with them, how to apply them.

 

[cann0nba11]

I think my brain just exploded...

 

[Nefertiti]

I think my brain just imploded..........!:shock:

 

[hakukani]

Wow, I ordered this book and the Pentatonic book. Unfortunately they're on a
barge on the way to the islands. Talk about a Slow Boat to China!

I can't wait for my head to ex/implode.

 

[Agent27]

Wow, I ordered this book and the Pentatonic book. Unfortunately they're on a
barge on the way to the islands. Talk about a Slow Boat to China!

I can't wait for my head to ex/implode.

ex/implode? Is that anything like ex/im radio?

 

[Nobby Keys]

I have the book and understanding what is going on is not a problem, playing the lines is not a problem, but trying to get them into your playing is another thing.

However there are many benefits to using this book even if you just play through a page a day, as I generally do.