Happy to have found these playalong recordings that bassist and Tristano student Peter Ind recorded way back in 1969 called “Time for Improvisation.” Just walking through some of the favorite tunes of the Tristano School. You can check them out here:
I always loved Peter’s ringing tone on the London Concert recording with Lee and Warne.
I’ve recorded with a couple of the tracks in anticipation of actually getting to play with people again!
Check it out!
Thanks to Peter who is currently 92 years old living in England. You can see him in action here in 1977 with the great Louis Stewart:
On January 19 the print edition of Bach Shapes for bass clef will be released here and on Amazon.
This includes a brand new intro from bassist Lincoln Goines, a new cover design and bonus pages from Bach Shapes II. The kindle edition will be available the same day on Amazon.
If you already purchased the older version of the ebook, send me an email and I’ll send the new one along for free!
Otherwise you can order from Amazon next week! Excited about this, next up Bach Shapes II for Treble and Bass instruments.
Original Press Release
At the prompting of the Berklee College of Music Bass Department and other institutions, Jon De Lucia has rewritten the successful book of saxophone studies for bass instruments. In addition, there is bonus material presented from the upcoming Bach Shapes Two, which will be released in volumes starting Summer 2020.
“Who doesn’t love some Bach?! Jon has done a great job in researching the Bach vocabulary and finding phrases that fit in the jazz idiom. Great melodic snippets that can be applied to common standards and in any contemporary music style. And also great reading material, from the intermediate to the advanced player, with enough variations to keep focused on the page.” –Sandro Scoccia, Assistant Chair of the Berklee Bass Department.
“This is a great book for reading and diatonic fingerboard dexterity.” – Lincoln Goines, Faculty at Berklee College of Music, played with Dizzy Gillespie, Michael Brecker, Sonny Rollins.
“Jazz musicians have naturally gravitated towards the music of JS Bach for years, so a book like this one has been a long time coming. Jon has done a wonderful job capturing various snapshots of Bach’s seemingly infinite musical language, organizing these shapes in a setting that could be very useful to improvisers. A truly interesting and enjoyable book that will hopefully lead to more volumes in the future.” –Miguel Zenon, International Touring Artist
“Excellent. Beautiful presentation and great content.” –Walt Weiskopf, Freelancer and Educator/Author
The book presents four original etudes on jazz standards, along with many unique patterns taken directly from the music of J.S. Bach and presented in all 12 keys.
These sequences can form a strong foundation for melodic invention. The range is from E below the bass clef up to B middle of the treble staff. There are numerous articles written by De Lucia available at bachshapes.com that further expand on the material. Videos and masterclasses are presented on the Jon De Lucia Youtube channel.
On a virtual meditation retreat a few weeks ago I learned about a Buddhist concept known as the Five Hindrances to Enlightenment. A sort of Buddhist Seven Deadly Sins, but not in the right or wrong sense, more in a “something to be aware of” kind of way. They have different translations but they basically boil down to these:
Sensual Desire
Aversion
Sloth and Torpor
Restlessness and Worry
Doubt
These were immediately familiar to me and I’m sure to you as well.
I recognized all of these states as general obstacles to any given practice session, whether music, T’ai Chi, or meditation. But what was helpful was identifying them! This enables you to learn to work with them and get past them. I thought that I would go through each one with you in this post and see how they might relate to the practicing musician.
Kannon-samas near the great swordsman Miyamoto Musashi’s cave where he wrote “The Book of the Five Rings” incorporating Buddhist philosophy into the martial arts.
1. Sensual Desire
This applies to wanting anything: food, sex, alcohol, to talk to someone in the next practice room, etc. For me it might be practicing while only thinking about lunch, or some microphone I want to order, or anything that might take me out of focus.
Antidote: One solution might be to just recognize that you are feeling this desire right now, and hone in on it, which will allow you to let it go. Non-attachment. This doesn’t seem like it would work, but I have been repeatedly surprised. Of course, if something like hunger is really keeping you from focusing on your work, you may have to just take a break and give in! It’s not about fighting the urge: either recognize it and let it go, or recognize it and satisfy that desire.
2. Aversion
This would include anger, annoyance, disgust and the like. This is a common one in college style practice rooms, where it can be very hard to ignore the drummer in the room next to you, or the guy honking out long tones all day.
Antidote: The traditional solution to this is metta: loving-kindness meditation where you wish someone, in this case someone you may not like very much, health and happiness. Send out some silent words of encouragement for the guy in the next room to finally hit that 6th overtone on the horn with confidence. Not saying this will always work, but it’s worth a shot!
3. Sloth and Torpor
I haven’t been sleeping well lately, so this has been a very common one for me. If you are extremely tired, take a nap. There is no point trying to shed when you are too tired to focus, or maybe you can try something less physical for a bit, and see if you bounce back.
Antidote: However, for times when you just feel a little bored and sleepy, you can remind yourself that the amount of time you have to be the next saxophone superstar is limited. Make use of this half hour you have set aside to practice. This is the Buddhist concept of Right Effort. A little reminder of the goals you have set for yourself may be the push you need to wake up and get to work.
The See, Hear, Speak No Evil monkeys in Nikko, Japan. Restlessness is often reflected in the “Monkey Mind.”
4. Restlessness and Worry
Another common one for me! That feeling of wanted to get this over with so you can get to the next thing. As a doubler, I apply this to the days where I may just play flute for a few minutes, switch to clarinet, then to saxophone, and never really get very deep on any of them.
Antidote: An antidote to this might be to set a timer, focus on one aspect of something, and try to find that flow state. For example, if I work on a clarinet etude and just try to get through it, I haven’t achieved much. But when I stay in the first few measures, or notes even, and go deeper with the sounds I am making, whether they sound good to me, etc, I start to create a deep concentration that will extend to the rest of my timed practice.
I like to use Clockify to time my activities (like writing this blog post). At the end of the day you can see where you have spent your time.
5. Doubt
I think as artists we all experience serious amounts of doubt. Doubt that we are good enough, that we’ll ever be able to make a proper living, that we are spending our time on the right thing at any given moment. I get this all the time when practicing: “Oh maybe this tune is too easy, I should try an etude and work on my technique, oh shoot maybe I should be playing more tenor, I’ll never be any good at clarinet anyway,” etc. It of course also applies to jealousy of other players.
Antidote: I think one solution to this could be measuring your social media use! We’re always seeing videos of great musicians/peers doing things we wish we could do and we’re measuring ourselves against that. It can really wear you out. Take a breath, spend a day working on your own thing, and see if that give you the space to appreciate other players from a non-competitive perspective.
The way I’ve been working on these and the way that was taught on the retreat is to sit and go down the list and see which of the five you are experiencing right now. If you aren’t feeling one of them, rejoice in the fact that you aren’t! Use that to inspire your practice. If you are, which you probably are, just identify it. That already goes a long way.
I hope this is helpful, it has certainly been an eye-opener to me and my daily activities. Happy practicing!
In this post I’m just sharing my own realizations, but you can read more about the Five Hindrances and how to deal with them from the real experts in these articles:
I will be doing a FB Live seminar on Bach Shapes today at 3 pm EST. Hope you can make it! I’ll probably stream to Instagram as well, and the recording will go up on my Youtube Channel.
The Kindle edition of the first book in treble clef is out today on Amazon, and I would very much appreciate a review if you own the book or buy it!
First bit of news, Bach Shapes, the first book, will be available on the Amazon Kindle for only $9.99 on November 23, 2020. You can in fact already preorder it here: Bach Shapes for Kindle. You will need a Kindle that supports graphics, like cookbooks and comics, in order to view the book properly.
It will also now be sold print-on-demand from Amazon as well, starting the same week. This means I could really use all of your reviews on Amazon if you get a chance! Leave a review for Bach Shapes on Amazon.
Excited to announce that the Bass Clef edition of Bach Shapes will be up next on Amazon, which means you’ll be able to order print copies of that soon too. It will include a foreword from the great bassist Lincoln Goines, along with a revamped introduction. Digital pdf’s directly from my site here are still the best option of course!
Now, to celebrate the imminent arrival of Book Two, I am holding an Etude contest on Instagram or Facebook. Using the hashtag #bachshapesetudecontest record yourself playing along with me on one of the etudes below. You can download the videos from the links and edit them together with your own clip.
Number One is from Book One, on the tune “How Deep is The Ocean.” Number Two is from Book Two, still to come, on the tune “Indiana” or “Donna Lee.” These studies are both great at implementing Bach’s melodic material to jazz chord progressions. The third option is to write your own etude using the patterns available in Book One, which I highly recommend trying. Either way use the same hashtag and I can’t wait to see what you put together!
I’ve included PDF’s in Eb, Bb, Concert and Bass Clef below.
Winner gets a digital and/or physical copy of the new book when it is done, or if they prefer in the 50 states a print copy of the first book asap. More perks to be announced later. Good luck!
P.S. Complete this survey if you have Bach Shapes One. Your input is much appreciated: Bach Shapes Two Survey
