« My New Rule (for practicing and studying) | Home | Playing the Changes: Baroque Style »
Cantus Firmus Blues
By Ernesto | December 28, 2007
In an effort to add contrapuntal textures to my playing, I’ve been messing around with species counterpoint and trying to apply it to jazz tunes.
Here is my first attempt, a cantus firmus for the blues in Bb:
So first, I started playing it and improvising a line on top of it in first species. This proved a little more difficult than I expected it to be. It’s tough to follow the strict restrictions of species counterpoint in real-time, so I quickly started letting go of a few.
After all, our ears have become used to a lot of dissonances, and what was considered dissonant in the renaissance sounds quite nice to our ears. And besides, a blues ain’t exactly in the style of Palestrina.
Still, there are elements which I did try to keep from species counterpoint…those which promote independence between the lines. One of them is the infamous “parallel fifth” rule. It is also recommended that when one voice makes a leap, the other should preserve step-wise motion. And also that the peaks (highest note) of each melody should happen at different points.
Of course, trying to keep all this in mind while improvising can prove quite discouraging. So I did the next best thing; I sat down and composed an example trying to follow these rules. The idea being that if I do this enough, these concepts will seep naturally into my playing,
Anyways, here’s what I came up with:
And here’s a quick audio sample:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 6 or above) is required to play this audio clip. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
That’s just one example. The idea is to do a few different ones, a few with the cantus firmus on top. Then move on to the other species. And, of course, other tunes.
But I’m just getting started with this. Let’s see if it goes somewhere…
Topics: Counterpoint, Guitar, Improvisation, Jazz, Practicing |
Related Posts:
