Kenny's feedback.

At first I was pleased with how my meeting with Kenny went, though having digested what he said, I have even more ideas now than I did in the first place!

My initial idea was to take three distinct artists - esbjorn svensson, Bill Evans and Thelonius Monk, for example, and reharmonize hymns in their styles.

Kenny asked why hymns, and I couldn't really give a good answer.  Any typical pop song would do, I suppose.

He said that I wouldn't have to go as in depth as I'd think for each artist - perhaps just getting the main aspects of their harmony together would be good enough.  He also mentioned a good point about how these players playing goes further than their harmony - their use of rhythm, their solos, the band they play with (even though I'd be focusing on solo piano instruments).
I was pleased at how knowledgable he was at the subjects I'm thinking about.  He seems to be an accomplished keyboard player with a great deal of knowledge over various jazz artists, which is very helpful for me.

My second and what I thought most interesting idea was to create a small EP of tracks reharmonized in the specific style of one artist.  The catch would be that the chosen tracks would be tracks that were written after the artist died.  I'd learn the styles of the recording artists so in depth that upon first listen, it would seem as if the artist I'd chosen were playing the recorded track, even though it would have been physically impossible for them to have done so.

Kenny's feedback for the last idea mostly applied to this one too.  I said that it would probably too adventurous to do for an honours project - I've looked up pages online about an artist's style, and the kind of detail I'd be looking to go into is more akin to that of a master's degree in jazz.  Kenny said that I could give it a good bash and wouldn't worry about that though, so that's encouraging.  Not entirely sure I'd be able to actually do it at the level I'm at just now, though.

He gave me many more ideas - like how to discover what about an artists makes his own style his own style?

He also made me think about gospel playing more - I mentioned that I couldn't really do a project based on gospel music because I'm not as experienced in it as I'd like to be, and especially couldn't do organ based music (which I'd love to do) because I don't have and have never played a real B3/C3 - all I have is a Nord Electro.  Again though, he questioned why that would be a problem and said that if I really wanted to do a project on gospel i could.  He also mentioned the idea of me playing some of the many organs he owns if I absolutely needed to!  The prospect of that excited me.  Though I don't think it'd be a good idea to do an honours project just because it meant I'd get to play a real organ...

Decisions decisions.  I'm pretty confused now but will hopefully have a EUREKA moment soon.

Hopefully.

Meeting with Kenny

So I had a meeting with Kenny and he seemed interested in many of my ideas - he spent a lot of time thinking about the first idea, which I was surprised at.  It's been a long day so instead of making a new post I'm just going to copy and paste the document I used for notes in the meeting. Hopefully it won't effect my mark!

Will post later on in the week going over what he said.

J

Project: Jazz Harmony - reharmonization 

First idea: Study various different styles of keyboard based jazz (jimmy smith type organ, gospel organ, piano - bill evans, thelonius monk, esbjorn svensson, etc) (artist specific) and record a collection of hymns in the style of said artist.

Second idea:  Study the style of a particular artist - a deceased artist. Learn harmony, commonly used voicings, stylistic elements, key phrases, etc - using that knowledge, reharmonize tunes that were released after artist’s death.  Goal: Create a convincing recording that makes it sound like the artist himself is playing a song that he couldn’t possibly have played.  Would be played on pianos that are edited to sound very old/out of tune. 

To the average listener, difference between an existing track by artist and one of the new recorded tracks should be identifiable as the same person, even though it’s not.

Eg. Study Bill Evans in depth - cover songs written in this decade in his style.  

Cons:

 Can I feasibly learn someone’s techniques/style as well as required within a year?

 According to what little research I’ve done, the level of depth I’d be looking at is verging on masters/doctorate level.

Third idea: Study artists who have reharmonized music extensively - ie. dirty loops, etc...Work out their methods and style - what is it that makes the reharmonization of a chord sequence work? AIM: find any key traits or similarities.

Fourth idea: Study various artists styles.  Combine them together to create my own style.  Use this style to reharmonize various tunes - pop, hymns, etc...)

Fifth Idea: Gospel organ.  Hymns are reharmonized in beautifully colourful ways - would love to study this but gospel harmony would take me down a path different to what I’m currently on - jazz harmony.  Would be like starting from scratch - couldn’t really do gospel organ in depth with a single Nord, unless focusing purely on harmony.  

Refined ideas 2 - list of ideas

Below is a list of every idea I've come up with so far:

-Reharmonize hymns into a modern gospel style.  2-3 ye olde hymns reharmonized into a gospel style with jazz-based chord voicings and changes.

-Study 2-3 artist's style of jazz playing and try to emulate as close as physically possible.

-Study artists who have already made a living reharmonizing music (Dirty Loops for example) and find out what they did to their reharmonizations - how do their chord charts differ from existing chord charts?  Look at before and after - what do they do that makes it effective?

-Study the styles of various artists and combine their styles to make a single style - Question could be something like "To what extent is it possible to merge the distinctive styles of well known jazz artist's together?"


I keep having thoughts about a synthesis based project - starting a sound from scratch (ie. a raw waveform) and trying to emulate a separate instrument as closely as possible in order to create a replication of an existing orchestral piece that sounds very similar if not indistinguishable from the original.  It seems a tad difficult though and a little unrealistic, though we'll see.

I have a meeting with Kenny on Friday and will present what little i have to him there.  I have a feeling I'll need to cram as much information as possible into a file to make it look like I have something worth presenting!  Though from what I've gathered, many people in the course (or at least the musicians) are in the same boat as I.  We'll see...

J

Jazz harmony - first ideas

I've had many ideas about what my project may be.

Some of these have been based around other jazz players - trying to emulate their styles and find out what exactly makes their style their styles.  This idea may work, but needs more thought.  I have to look at each idea and think critically about it.  My thoughts about this idea: what exactly would the academic purpose be?  People emulate styles of their favourite artists all the time - many just do it for a hobby.  Why would this idea be worthy of an honours project?

The concept of reharmonisation interests me.  If you listen to any recording of any jazz standard by  a well known jazz pianist like Bill Evans, for example, you would be forgiven if you didn't realise what tune they're playing until a few minutes in when you can just make out parts of the head (or melody) of the tune.  what is it each artist does and why does he do it?

Finding out how other jazz artists reharmonize standards into their own style would be good, but again, what would the academic purpose be? 

I need to look into each idea with more depth.

Another problem I'm having is coming up with a question.  I'm led to believe that we need to have some sort of research question or statement.  How would I word a project like that I mentioned above in question form?  

I've a lot to think about and a lot of ideas to develop.  I'll make another post soon mentioning briefly every idea I've had up to this point.  Perhaps seeing them written down will help me develop them better.

J

Refined ideas

Having thought about what makes a successful project and what I'd actually like to learn more about, I've decided that my project is to be focused on jazz harmony.

Simone said something in her lecture that helped me decide on the spot: "This is an opportunity for you to find something you're really interested in and would like to see yourself specialise in and develop your knowledge of."  Or words to that effect.

I could compose anything any time, and don't see myself as much of a composer, so the composition idea was out.  Synthesis and production skills are more hobbies than anything, and I don't think I could dedicate an entire year to a project based around those.

Jazz based skills and harmony theory, however, I use every day in many aspects of my playing.  They are both things that interest me greatly and areas of my musicianship I'd like to develop as far as I can.  Not only would I enjoy a project based around this more, but they'd help me develop my own musicianship more than anything else on the list in my previous post would.

The next few posts will be based on my initial thoughts about my possible approach to this project, and ideas as to how I could make a project based on jazz harmony and it's practices work.