Alrighty.

Week 5 was great, but I will get to that. I figure I should put more in detail what I am doing with what Sal teaches me for those interested so..... here goes.

Since my week 4 meeting with Sal, I have been using Autumn Leaves as my playground a bit as I am more familiar with it and using Georgia on my mind as more theoretical study. Which is proving just as helpful.

On Autumn Leaves, I have experiemented a bit on that one like I mentioned. I would play it straight the way I have it in front of me. I do that most of the time. Just getting more familiar. Then, I went through and changed all the V7 chords with the bII7 chords. Didn't always sound great, but I just didn't do it again if it didn't work against the melody for me. I also substituted the 7b9 chords with it's dim7 and other 7b9 cousins (Still workin on this one). I also dropped the chords out and just played the 3rds of each chord in various places about the neck. I am now adding the 5th's of each chord into the equation. For example, after the walk up from Emin, I play C and E over where Amin is then F# and A over D7 and so on. I listen to how each note, where ever it is I play it, works in the song as I go. If I like something but it doesn't seem to resolve to the next chord the way I want, then I just keep it in my back pocket until another opportunity comes along where it might fit better in my ears. Also doing this with the chord substitution previously. Starts pretty randomly, but a method begins to come of the chaos.

On Georgia on my Mind, I merely went through the sheet music and wrote in pencil above the chord names the subs. I also went through the vocal melody and put down what interval the note was of the chord it was being sung over. Pretty much all I did with that song. Just a study in spelling the chords.

Sal commented on my standards book. He really digs it. For those interested, it is called Jazz Standards and is by Budget Books.

Here is the book on Amazon.

Great price.

This week, we jammed a bit on Autumn Leaves. That was definitely cool. I am getting less nervous playing in front of him. That is a progress in its own right as far as I am concerned. We also played around with chord tones and how they make up the vast majority of popular melodies. All of Me and the Cradle Song and all that. Very interesting. Explored chord tones over Autumn Leaves: took the root, 3rd and 5th of the chords and played in various orders.

Was a lot of fun.

There won't be a Week 6. He has a gig. So... I have two weeks to work on what we have done up to this point.