About two weeks ago I started working on a couple of Charlie Parker tunes: Donna Lee and Ornithology. I was going through a lull in my musical growth. I was a bit frustrated with feeling like everything I was playing was the same. My thought was by incorporating stuff I haven’t played in a while I could push my abilities in a newer direction. I had to move things along somehow.
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Why Ornithology?
Ornithology is Bebop. Bebop is a fun and challenging form of jazz characterized by fast moving notes and intricate fingering passages. Charlie Parker is the epitome of a saxophone icon in the bebop style.
Ornithology is an absolute must know Charlie Parker standard chart. I practiced and learned Ornithology many, many years ago when I played predominantly on alto sax. I didn’t have a tenor way back then. Since it’s in a different key signature on tenor than it would be on alto the notes all lay differently. Essentially it’s relearning how to play the song again. Which is exactly what I needed.
I think people get bored of the repetition. We can keep on practicing all the stuff we’ve been practicing on but if we don’t add something new we go backwards. With skill if we don’t use it we lose it. We either push forwards or fall backwards. Maybe that’s a simplistic way to put it but if you want to get better at a skill you have to challenge yourself.
So when practicing gets stale and you are having trouble the answer is to add new material.
Donna Lee and Ornithology can be found in the Hal Leonard Real Book Vol 1 Sixth Edition (Bb).
Donna Lee
Donna Lee was a good song for me to learn as well. It demonstrates a lot of the same techniques Charlie Parker uses in his solos but at an easier, more tame, level than the improvised solo. It’s a very challenging song and the way the Bb tenor sax part dips into the very low notes on the horn really helps to practice the response on that area of the horn.
It’s worth noting that even though this is credited to Charlie Parker, Miles Davis is probably due the credit for the chart. In either case, these are both jazz greats well worth learning from!
Goals
Each time I added a new song to my practice session I find that my improvisation feels less stale and more alive. I feel that the flow of my fingers naturally absorbed the techniques written out in the song and added it to my musical vocabulary. Like Charlie or Miles gave me a message and said “play it this way.” When I write a sentence like that it sounds like some kind of magical process, and while it is, it only happens after repetition after repetition.
If you get something completely right the first time through then you aren’t playing music that is hard enough!
The first time through a song is always a bit rough. Often I know what the song is supposed to sound like but the fingers need to learn where they are supposed to be and when. The second time through is usually a bit cleaner. Notes I missed the first time get caught and fixed. The important thing is never to practice your mistakes. Fix them right away as you go so you never have to unlearn them. Gradually the song comes together.
Final Thoughts
You’ve probably heard this before: start slow. You build speed as you gain competence. When I was younger I really hated having to slow things down. It’s important that we do! Play songs as slow as you need to in order to clean the music. It’s an amazingly simple concept that if you do it right builds a super strong musical foundation in any style of music.