| LearnJazzPiano.com archives: Speak Low | |
| Scot -- 01/24/2004, 00:41:18 -- #1074933668 | |
| Speak Low is a great standard, and we should all know it. It's one of my favorite tunes. There are some great recordings out there of it as well. | |
| smg -- 01/26/2004, 09:02:54 -- #1075136574 | |
| Agreed | |
| I second the emotion w/this one.I used to play it with a pianist who liked to put chromatic ii-V's in place of the standard one in the first 6 bars,i.e.in F,instead of Gm/C7/Gm/C7/Gm/C7/Cm/F7=first 8,he'd do something like-Gm-C7/Abm-Db7/Am-D7/Abm-Db7/Gm/C7/Cm/F7;you can expand on this principle(bar 4=Bbm-Eb7/bar 5=Am-D7/bar 6=Abm-Db7/bar 7= Gm-C7/bar 8 as Cm-F79)and use it in similar situations in other tunes when musical taste(and the soloist you're comping for)indicates(use caution when doing this behind someone who is used to playing over the basic ii-V or the next night you might find yourself working on it at home while your replacement on the gig plays the standard changes !! Note:usually this type of thing is used during solos only.. | |
| 7 -- 01/26/2004, 11:21:54 -- #1075144914 | |
| direct link to the chart for this tune | |
http://mapage.noos.fr/realbook/RB/Speak_Low.jpg | |
| Scot -- 01/27/2004, 15:14:38 -- #1075245278 | |
| To Doug | |
| Doug- Did you listen to the Monty Alexander version of Speak Low that he did on his Maybeck Recital hall recording? You and Monty did a lot of the same sorts of things. Nice solo playing! I'd like to hear more of the melody come out. A lot of times you allow the melody to disappear as you play accompanying chords and such. If you can work it in so that some of hte melody notes ring instead of disappearing or stopping when you get into the busy stuff, that would add some weight to your arrangement. On trio stuff, I like that too. I think you might have gone up a bit high in the bass range sometimes, but that might just be that I'm using built in midi sounds from Win 2000 right now instead of my module. I do like the bends you put into the bass here and there. The drums are cool too- kind of Tony Williams-esque. The rim shots on 4 are nifty. I always enjoy it when a drummer does that when things "get going" One thing I didn't hear is that neat half step modulation that people sometimes do in Speak Low. Basically, in the Gm7-C7 and in the Bbm-Eb7 section, you can go: | Gm7 | C7 | Abm7 | Db7 | | Gm7 C7 | Gm7 C7 | FM7 | F7#9 | | Bbm7 | Eb7 | Bm7 | E7 | | Am7 D7 | Gm7 C7 | FM7 | % | bridge... | |
| dougmck -- 01/27/2004, 17:31:51 -- #1075253511 | |
| To Scot - well spotted. | |
| I did this quite a while ago, and dug it out just to get the ball rolling. A few years ago, I bought most of the Maybeck Hall CDs (had to import them into Australia - expensive!) and they were for some time my main tutors in jazz piano, since they were well recorded solo piano concerts by many of the 'greats'. I imagine that I did this after listening to (studying) the Monty Alexander version - so you were absolutely right. I added markers (labels/descriptions of things that might be of interest to students) to this - unfortunately, they are only really useful if the midi file is played within Cakewalk or Sonar. They are a great teaching aid as the interesting bits can be described, and they appear as the Score scrolls along in the Notation page - or they appear as a list on the main Tracks page, and can be clicked on, and immediately, the midi file begins playing at the point that is described. Thanks for your comments - I tried in the group playing to simulate that collective improvisation thing where all 'players' re-act to each other. I sometimes do this by re-recording each of the parts a number of times, so that there is a better chance of being able to re-act to the other 'players'. I can't remeber if I did this when I recorded this file originally. You are also right that the Bass player could have stayed out of the extreme treble range of the instrument - I can't remember which bass patch I used originally. | |
| Thesaurus Of Scales And Melodic Patterns by Nicolas Slonimsky | |
| dougmck -- 01/31/2004, 22:31:43 -- #1075617103 | |
| Maybeck Hall Recordings | |
| I forgot to mention in the post below that most of the Maybeck series (about 40 CDs) are now available from Emusic (at http://www.emusic.com). They are the best learning resource for solo jazz piano I know. A lot of standards are played, so that helps, and many of the greats have recorded in the series. The piano is well recorded, and they really are a goldmine of ideas. You can feel confident that the site is quite safe to visit, and there is a free 50 downloads to begin (about 6 or 7 of the Maybeck series CDs for nothing!). You can subscribe for a montha at a time - depending on the number of downloads - about US$12 to US$19 for 50 to 90 downloads per month. I have subscribed for a month, and left it for a while and re-subscribed when I found some more stuff that I wanted. They never ever pestered me to join, and I had no problem cancelling after a month. And of course, all of these downloads are completely legal! They have a huge catalogue of solo jazz piano stuff - for instance, lots of Chick Coreas latest albums, many of the Marion McPartland Piano Jazz series from radio where she interviews (and plays duets with) lots of jazz greats, Oscar, Monty Alexander, most of Bill Evans' albums, George Shearing, as well as some of the newer guys - check out John Taylor with singer Norma Winstone. Does anyone know of any other similar sites? Doug | |
| smg -- 02/02/2004, 06:34:28 -- #1075732468 | |
| Rhapsody re-e-music.com | |
| I'll second "dougmck"'s post and add that they have an amazing amount of out-of print stuff over there as well,I was just listening to some stuff I downloaded this AM.....Although I haven't yet investigated it,comcast.com has a music download section called "Rhapsody" that offers the same kind of 30-day trial,looks good..also there's sound click.com which has a lot of "up and coming" bands mp3's,from what I've heard over there( for free),so-called "established" bands had better watch out..... | |
| Beverly Redding -- 06/08/2004, 12:12:15 -- #4831 | |
| recording of "Speak Low" | |
| I recorded, did a very lush arrangement and sang Speak Low on my album " A taste of love. It's my favorite and lst song on the album. conga beat and very contemporary feel and yet keeping it in tact, but I did get permission to change lyrics and make additions vocally. I'm proud of the way it came out.Love "Speak Low". | |
| staggs89 -- 07/09/2004, 17:46:05 -- #5527 | |
| Speak Low | |
| One of the attractive things about the song is the Dorian Mode right at the beginning. Gm9 to C13 is great to play on! I prefer to keep it simple this way and not become some chromatic showcase like alot of young players like to do. The ear gets set in Gm9 then is startled when Bbm7 to Eb7 shows up for it's vamping turn. This color change is what must be kept intact! Gm9,C13,Gm9,C13,Gm9,C13,Am7b5,D7b9,Bbm9,Eb13,Bbm9,Eb13,Am7-D7b9,Gm7-C7b9,FMa7,Am7-D7b9. Does it for me the first 8 bars! | |
| benjamine -- 02/17/2005, 05:03:18 -- #11273 | |
| The crave | |
| hi i am ben i want piano sheet -the crave- in the movie regent of 1900 please sent to my e-mail goya_maya@hotmai.com thank you.. | |
| staggs89 -- 07/30/2005, 20:49:22 -- #17094 | |
| Up date! | |
| I thought maybe we should finish the song. The bridge to "Speak Low" is very interesting in itself. I prefer an Fm7 chord to begin the bridge altough many people play AbMaj7. Either one is Ok. Since the melody is on Eb - the Fm7 chord sounds a little hipper to my ears. In the 3rd & 4th bar of the bridge, we change one note in the harmonic sequence ("C" of the Fm7 chord to "B"- the flat seventh of a Db9th or 13th chord) with the upper notes of the Db13th chord finally resolving down to chord tones of the EbMa7 chord in the 5th and 6th bars. The last two measures of the bridge present the II-V of F Major to get us back to FMajor(Gm7 & C7), although we fool everyone and go back to the IIminor 9th chord (Gmi9). Next time - the final 8 bars! Cheers! Staggs89 | |
| Thesaurus Of Scales And Melodic Patterns by Nicolas Slonimsky | |
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