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Topic: Giant Steps explained |
Andy Volk
From: Boston, MA
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b0b
From: Cloverdale, CA, USA
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Douglas Schuch
From: Valencia, Philippines
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Posted 22 Nov 2018 1:40 pm
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I stumbled across that video the other day. Wow! Amazing stuff! I wish I understood it better...huhuhu! I'll just go sit in the corner with my dunce cap on for a while. _________________ Bringing steel guitar to the bukid of Negros Oriental! |
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Godfrey Arthur
From: 3rd Rock
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Posted 23 Nov 2018 7:10 am
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"I start in the middle of a sentence & move both directions at once." _________________ ShoBud The Pro 1
YES it's my REAL NAME!
Ezekiel 33:7 |
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Mike Neer
From: NJ
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Fred Treece
From: California, USA
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Posted 23 Nov 2018 10:04 am
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I never thought of plotting the modulations visually on a circle of 5ths wheel. They form a Bermuda Triangle of Keys, where novice improvisers go to disappear forever... |
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Bobby Nelson
From: North Carolina, USA
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Posted 12 Dec 2018 12:47 pm
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Once I started playing with my thumb, like Wes Montgomery (which changes the whole dynamic of your playing on 6-string), and playing through a lot of the Jamie Abersol play-a-longs, I got fairly proficient with jazz standards - though, I would never have called myself a jazz guitarist. I had always had it drilled into my thinking that if you were going to consider yourself a jazz player, you had to be able to play the Coltrain changes - Giant Steps. I was actually pretty proficient with Monk, which (to me) is a kind of modern extension of Ellington. But when it came to the really crazy modern jazz (which, to my mind, starts with Giant Steps), I eventually found that I didn't really like it enough to warrant all the hard mental work and study of learning it - same thing with Giant Steps for me. After a few years of intermittently tinkering with it, learning the progression, I never felt too inspired to actually learn to solo through it - just didn't like it that much. I guess that I tend to be more of a melodic, than harmonic guy. |
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Fred Treece
From: California, USA
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Posted 12 Dec 2018 1:11 pm
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Bobby Nelson wrote: |
But when it came to the really crazy modern jazz (which, to my mind, starts with Giant Steps), I eventually found that I didn't really like it enough to warrant all the hard mental work and study of learning it - |
Shhhh....don’t tell anybody you don’t like bebop....
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Bob Watson
From: Champaign, Illinois, U.S.
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Posted 13 Dec 2018 2:19 am
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Thanks for posting this Andy, its a very cool explanation of Giant Steps. A friend of mine who is a brilliant Jazz piano player told me that you can play a six note scale called the augmented scale over the changes to Giant Steps. He said that you wouldn't want to use nothing but that scale, but that it comes in handy when other idea's aren't flowing. https://jasonlyonjazz.wordpress.com/2014/03/24/playing-giant-steps-with-one-scale/ |
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Earnest Bovine
From: Los Angeles CA USA
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Tucker Jackson
From: Portland, Oregon, USA
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Posted 13 Dec 2018 9:32 am
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Snort!
Good to know I, too, can play Giant Steps. In C. |
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Charlie McDonald
From: out of the blue
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Posted 14 Dec 2018 9:30 am
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Mike Neer wrote: |
I’ve been messing around with GS for years and always have fun with it.
Here is one of my own personal favorite takes on it. I literally broke out my Strat for the first time in a long time to record this.
https://soundcloud.com/user-708420441/giant-steps |
Yow! |
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Greg Cutshaw
From: Corry, PA, USA
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Posted 14 Dec 2018 12:19 pm
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The 1st three chords, if you make the 2nd one a dominant 7th and the 3rd one a maj7, match the intro that Emmons used on Night Life. I've seen this sequence mapped out and played with different chord variations like 7ths, maj7, maj etc but never knew where it came from. |
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Nick Fryer
From: Ohio, USA
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Posted 16 Dec 2018 8:39 pm
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I’m surprised that a video that breaks down Giant Steps doesn’t mention the Slonimsky book! This was the book that Coltrane practiced from and was the basis for the whole tune. File under: Good musicians borrow, Great musicians steel !! |
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Jim Robbins
From: Ontario, Canada
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Posted 19 Dec 2018 9:24 am
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Awesome. Still sounds hard at that tempo. |
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Roger Rettig
From: Naples, FL
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Posted 19 Dec 2018 3:55 pm
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I hadn't realised that - 'Giant Steps' is a trick! _________________ Roger Rettig - Emmons D10s, Quilter TT-12, B-bender Teles and old Martins.
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David DeLoach
From: Tennessee, USA
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Brooks Montgomery
From: Idaho, USA
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Posted 1 Jan 2019 11:43 am Re: Giant Steps explained
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Andy, thanks for posting that! I love that vid. I've been forwarding it to my musical friends as if throwing New Years confetti ! _________________ A banjo, like a pet monkey, seems like a good idea at first. |
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Charlie McDonald
From: out of the blue
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Posted 2 Jan 2019 4:14 am
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Thanks for the laugh, David. |
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Andy Volk
From: Boston, MA
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