Know the Tune, revisited

“Know the Tune” is one of the foundations of improvisation, alongside “Speak the Language.”

I continue working with the Mike Garson online masterclass, mentioned a few weeks ago. One of his ideas takes “Know the Tune” to a higher level. He quotes the jazz pianist Thelonious Monk: take one tune. Set the metronome (he suggests setting it to play on beats two and four of the measure, and if you are new to this, set a fairly slow tempo), and play the tune. For two hours. You can play whatever notes may happen; you certainly should vary it, add chords or countermelodies, move it to different keys, whatever occurs to you. But don’t lose the groove; stay with that click. For two hours.

It is often good to take the same tune again the next day: he had one of his students play “Autumn Leaves” in this manner for two weeks, two hours a day. One thinks of the disciplines of the Desert Fathers or the Zen masters.

The virtues are many:

• After two hours, you will definitely know the tune, especially if you have played it in both hands (and the pedals, if you are at the organ), in a variety of keys, and perhaps different modes (such as Minor or Dorian instead of Major).

• You learn to Keep Going, another cardinal virtue of improvisation. It doesn’t have to sound good; it can sound positively awful (you are practicing, after all). But it has got to stay with the groove. You will learn that keeping the rhythm going is more important than what notes you play. You will learn, also, to take “wrong” notes (even in the tune) and turn them into “right” notes by what follows – it is probably an unexpected dissonance, so you can resolve it, use it as a pivot into an unexpected new key, repeat it so that it becomes an “ornament” to the tune or part of the form, or even an essential motive. A first step is to see if you can repeat it, make it a “variation” instead of a “mistake.”

• Most of all, as Garson explains, you will use up all of your “licks” in the first twenty minutes or so. Then there will be a while where it is not so good. And after that… you will begin to play as you never have before. You will find sonorities, approaches to the tune, that would not have occurred to you.

• And, best of all, it is fun. The only “pressure” is to stay with the groove; otherwise, anything goes.

Upon reflection, this is much of what I did when I was beginning to improvise at the organ and had finally gotten beyond harmonizing scales. I would sit at the organ on Fridays and Saturdays and play around with the Tune for a long time, very often an hour and sometimes two. And the “good” stuff wouldn’t start happening until well along into that time, exactly as Garson says. I would try to remember what I did (a tape recorder or similar device helps, and a pencil with some staff paper) and use it as the basis for Sunday’s improvisation.

Nowadays, it goes more quickly, especially if I have already worked with the Tune. This happens more and more with the middle service improvisations, for I have made it around the liturgical year a couple of times with improvising a prelude every Sunday. But in some respects it is even more important with a Tune that I know well; I have to get all of the stuff that I have already done with it out of my system in order to find something new to say about it. The ultimate example for this (as with almost anything else musical) is Bach; consider the chorales that he set multiple times for the organ, and how differently he approached it the second (or third, or fourth) time.

I have been working at the piano in this manner, with adaptation to my circumstances, for a couple of weeks.

For one thing, my encounter with the Yamaha and Casio hybrid pianos had already caused me to change my work day, putting higher value on playing the Steinway in the church. I go upstairs, take the cover off the piano, raise the lid, say the prayer, and play for at least a half-hour, no matter how much other work I must do. Not two hours; I cannot justify that. But a half hour at the least, sometimes forty-five minutes or so. Before, if I had a lot of organ practicing and other work to do, I would often go many days without playing the piano, then scramble to catch up on Friday and Saturday. And I would just push the piano cover back, leaving the lid down, because I was always in a hurry.

No. For the time that remains to me, I am going to enjoy playing this piano. I am going to luxuriate in the visual beauty of the strings and plate and soundboard, the immediacy of the sound, the fabulous acoustic, the surroundings, the divine Presence in the tabernacle, its candle flickering.

I think that this attitude helps my music. It makes me more aware that it is all Gift.
It is not to be despised, or taken for granted.

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I begin with the unison tune, in the key that I intend for Sunday’s improvisation – typically a fifth above the key of the first hymn. I use the same one or two or three tunes all week, the ones that will be in the Sunday service. I sing along with the solfege syllables, especially if I am less familiar with the tune. As the Tune attains a comfort level, I add things, let it take me where it wants to go.

I do not often use the metronome, because I want to have the opportunity to change tempo between variations. But I do keep the “groove” – the meter and rhythm and general feel - going. And I do not stop; if it is one tune, I aim for it to be a continuous set of variations. There might be what sounds like a stop – a whole note chord, perhaps several whole notes tied. Or rests. But underneath these long notes and rests, the pulse continues. Thus, when the music moves on, it continues to feel like the same composition.

If my intent is to work with multiple tunes, I might move to the second tune in the dominant or other related key, as if I were building a sonata form, and I might continue in that manner, with development of one or both tunes and a recapitulation – and then, if there is time, continue with more variations. If a two-tune improvisation is my goal, it often seems to work better to work with just one tune the first day, the second tune the second day (so that it is thoroughly worked out and “known”), and both tunes from then on.

When it is time to stop, I make my best effort to bring the piece to a convincing conclusion, for that is something I must practice doing. If the first attempt is not so good, I might stretch it on into a little coda so that I can make another attempt.

There is a final benefit: Later in the day, I will hopefully make it over to the Pilcher. I open its fallboard, sit down, turn on the music lamp, say another prayer, and dig into my work on the repertoire and the hymns, often challenging, hard work that pushes me to the limit.

And I find that this, too, is Gift. It is not to be despised, or taken for granted.

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Footnote: Here (again) is the link to the Mike Garson masterclass.

I have now listened to the four parts – roughly two hours – twice through, parts of it more than that. I may share a few more ideas in future essays, but I do not want to say too much; it is his work, copyrighted, and I hope he makes some money on it.

In one sense, there is hardly anything in it that is practical. Mostly, he sits at his piano and talks, occasionally demonstrating things. There is not much “nuts and bolts” information about jazz scales, or harmonies, or anything that one might expect in a master class: “I teach by inspiration,” he says in one of the videos. But there is a lot that has made me think about my playing, and I consider this all the more valuable, more so than any amount of “nuts and bolts,” and more applicable to what I do, which differs in important ways from what he does.

And there are nuggets of pure gold, such as the one I have here described from Mr. Monk. There is excellent advice on Slow Practice and working on details, one measure or a half measure at a time. There is a lot about the spiritual nature of what we are doing, of listening to the Higher Self, and seeking to find that in one’s students. And healing: for oneself, other people, and the world.

I will not work in this manner forever; there is much else that I should do, such as contrapuntal work, additional work with forms, and technical development – things like scales, arpeggios, exercises drawn from repertoire.

And imitation of the masters: that must wait for another essay.

[Added Feb. 2017: Here is a later essay, related to this one, and a YouTube example of a practice session using the ideas described above.]