#azjazzlessons #3: How Julian Lage Practices Guitar

For jazz guitarists & jazz improvisors:

#azjazzlesson #todayIlearned

So I'm trying to learn something new everyday by documenting what I learned from watching a YouTube video. Today I looked for something from Julian Lage and stumbled on this amazing 28-minute workshop video. 

Here are the main things I learned from the video:

On learning the guitar fretboard:
1. Take a note a day for 12 days so you know all the notes on the guitar

On Improvising:
2. Improvise in A Major but in random order, set a tempo, play in time and let your ear guide you (within 2 octaves)

On Technique: 
3. Julian thinks of the pinkie finger as the anchor, as finger 1 for the fretting hand of the guitar and how it relates to the whole arm, to the shoulder 

On Counterpoint:
4. To start playing with counterpoint on guitar, leave a note ringing while moving other fingers. This is a way to start.
5. The 2nd way is to consider just the bass & soprano parts. The important thing is to play in time. 
6. Play the bass part into the alto voice
7. Practice scales with two lines in the opposite directions
8. Sing each line of a contrapuntal part you play to really hear it

Thanks Julian for the knowledge & thank you to Liana Polanco for recording this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utvS0sIQKZQ

#improvisation #jazz #technique #guitar

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If you're interested to learn more in depth, lessons are available worldwide via Skype & in person in Kuala Lumpur.

Register for the 2-month jazz guitar masterclass here:http://www.azsamad.com/jazz

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#azjazzlessons #2: How Horace Silver Builds His Solo

#azjazzlesson #todayIlearned

What I learned today:
From 18:35 onwards on Horace SIlver's solo:

1) Repeated phrases build up tension and intensity
2) Vary ideas with sequences between repeated phrases
3) Go back to similar ideas when at the same section
4) End clearly with a chordal stab to cue next soloist

#learningneverends #youtube #jazz #improvisation #concepts

--

If you're interested to learn more in depth, lessons are available worldwide via Skype & in person in Kuala Lumpur.

Register for the 2-month jazz guitar masterclass here:http://www.azsamad.com/jazz

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#azjazzlessons #1: How Kurt Rosenwinkel Practices Scales

#TodayILearned

1. Learn 7 scale shapes starting on each note of a major scale
2. Memorize each pattern as a visual shape
3. Improvise on each shape
4. Combine 2 shapes together to make a bigger shape
5. Combine all 7 shapes 
6. Create lines all over the fretboard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn2uEBvekcE

#jazz #guitar #improvisation

--

If you're interested to learn more in depth, lessons are available worldwide via Skype & in person in Kuala Lumpur.

Register for the 2-month jazz guitar masterclass here:http://www.azsamad.com/jazz

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[Review] Suteru Tabi - M1 Singapore Fringe Festival

Suteru Tabi Photo credit: Shawn Bryon Danker

Four chairs on the stage and three towels set the stage. When the show begins, we see a man sitting in one of the chairs. There is a long pause and eventually he starts sobbing uncontrollably until he moves the chairs away. There is an air of fear in the audience as there is a threat of the actor possibly throwing the chair on stage.

Later on, it appears as if he is in between the state of anger and playfulness. I’m not sure whether he is a child trapped in an adult’s body or whether he suffers from a medical condition. Gradually, I discover that he is a child and this begins the journey of the play.

The magic of Suteru Tabi is in the complexity that is hidden in the simplicity. There is a reference to myth and continuous non-linear storytelling. We are in a half real, half memory, half dream state and an all-in-all elaborate world created by director Shiro Maeda.

Suteru Tabi Photo credit: Shawn Bryon Danker

In the post-show discussion, we discover how director Shiro Maeda purposely wrote this play with this format to tell a story in this manner. There is so much attention to detail and knowing that the play has been performed numerous times over the course of five years is interesting. I also discover that it was a piece meant for the domestic Japanese market yet has managed to connect with audiences around the world.

The theme of loss is perhaps the key. In the play, the main character revisits himself losing his dog and his unborn son to face his father’s death. The floating fleeting sensation evoked by this play is half hallucinatory and the illogical is soon accepted as the norm. In moments such as a scene at the hot springs, we are led to believe the characters are undressed even though they are fully clothed on stage. The strong acting transcends what is obvious and takes you into this universe.

By the end of the show, there is a reconnection with the opening scene with the burial of the father. We’ve been taken on an emotional journey and because of the narrative (or lack of a conventional linear narrative), it is as if we have woken up from a dream.

Suteru Tabi Photo credit: Shawn Bryon Danker

During the post-show discussion, the director explains more of the piece and how it has developed over the years. As with a piece like this, the cast has seen it change over the years. With a piece like this, it is worth revisiting as an audience member as well.

I hope I will.

- Az Samad, 10 January 2014 

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[Review] An Enemy of the People - M1 Singapore Fringe Festival

An Enemy of the People Photo credit: The Pond Photography

As I enter the space, the actors move around the stage. At first I wonder whether they are already in character or not. Soon, I notice someone acknowledging an audience member. As the hall fills and eventually becomes full, the lights go out and the actors line up. They make announcements, thank the sponsors and the show starts. In this production, the actors take turns as narrators setting the scene. He or she describes the space, where the doors are and where we are.

The interesting part of the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival’s presentation of Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People is on many levels. For one, it’s a translated work into Mandarin with surtitles. I don’t read or speak Mandarin but enjoy theatre regardless of language. On another level, the stage is sparse and the actors themselves move the props around in between scenes. It’s very minimal but presents enough objects on stage to create the mood. 

For the actual acting, hearing the dialogue being spoken in Mandarin is fascinating. Just like watching a foreign film, you do a balancing act of reading the translation and catching the nuances of the acting. Your mind does a composite of the translated words and the action on the stage. Part of the magic in this piece is how Nine Years Theatre manages to bring you into the piece being a part of the realism. There is the realism in the acting, the hyper realism in the exaggeration of the emotions and the sparse impressionistic nature of the set.

The story, now retold in a different language, with a tango musical backdrop brings attention how society often struggles with the same issues in different eras. The issues are timeless and the core of the problems never disappear, perhaps. In the end, sitting through the post-show discussion, there is a mention of the importance of ‘truth’ and how it is as an important value. In the end, the thoughts and questions we have after a piece leaves the space is all we have.

And, by then - theatre has done its job.

- Az Samad, 10 January 2014 

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