Scales used for Herbie Hancock style soloing

[leon-]

Have been playing for a few years - but more of a bebop style - which uses fairly chromatic scales.

I'd like to get into playing in a more Herbie Hancock style - I know blues scales and bebop scales and I figure that at his sort of level its more about intervals not scales - but if anyone can provide any pointers other than 'its an extension of the blues scales' I'd appreciate it.

Thanks
Leon

[Rob A]

You have a particular tune in mind? He covers a huge range of styles himself. If you can narrow it down I can maybe help.

[leon-]

Thanks for the offer Rob.

I know its not Herbie playing - and not a 'rhodes' but something like this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbyQ-qGEpU0

kind of funky playing, not just blues scale.

Leon

[Rob A]

Funny, I was just thinking about doing an instructional video on playing clav. Stay tuned.

[jim]

transcribe? transcribe? transcribe and transcribe.

[Rob A]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbyQ-qGEpU

Leon

I only listened to the first couple minutes, but it's the basic dominant thirteenth pattern that you get from two minor triads a whole step apart, B minor and A minor.

Beyond that structure, it's typical clav idiom, which is to say, you play a mix of short of long notes, a lot of accented upbeats, and it's more of a percussive pattern so the notes don't matter tremendously much as long as you keep the feel happening.

Dan's a member on here, you could try asking him.

[leon-]

Great tips- will work on them - and looking forward to seeing your clav video. Stuff like that would be welcome.

[tomogradymusic]

Leon,
Just to echo the comments above, there are several things you can do:

1) Most importantly, transcribe! Listen to all the Herbie tracks you love, any time you hear a lick or run you dig, write it out and practise it in all 12 keys.

Here's an example of a transcription I did (although I've already posted this).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Suw6q1N_mtI

2) You can also read the following article, which was written by my friend Jon Opstad whilst he studied music at Cambridge University. There are all sorts of analyses in there about particular solos, e.g. how the harmony and rhythm create tension in the 'Sly' solo. A great tip I've learnt is that Herbie often plays in the dominant altered mode over the tonic - playing G alt over C for instance. This creates tension and automatically leaves the listener expecting it to resolve to the tonic.

This is the link to the article:
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a910532380~db=all~jumptype=rss

3) One last hint is to play and practise lots of the diminished harmony because that is a fundamental of Herbie's playing along with the blues etc.

I hope that helps!
All the best,
Tom

PS Rob, I'd love to hear / see a clavinet tutorial from you when you have time. I'd love to do one too but I'm in the process of moving house so it won't be for a while yet.[/url]

[leon-]

Tom

Thanks for your help too ! Some great tips !

Cheers

Leon