Charlie Parker licks
With
Gerard Presencer
What's in the course
12 lessons (1h 49m) · 1 free
Lesson transcript
Music Lesson
Thank You!
Thank you very much for joining me over the course of lessons. You are now ready. If you've worked carefully and considered the exercises, they're often very simple but have very specific instructions.
Moving Forward
Now, we will move forward into my book with a modern approach to playing.
Preview: Bebop Head by Charlie Parker
I want to show you a bebop head by Charlie Parker called Au Privave. The goal is for you to listen and think about all the different things I'm incorporating. Not too carefully, but certainly in a way where you get an idea of the potential for everything that we've worked on and how it translates into my approach to playing, particularly in bebop and this great composition by Charlie Parker.
Playing Process
I'm going to turn on Philly Jo Jones.
- To get that really good sound, I will do this in phrases.
- This time, I played through the whole melody to save time.
- However, what I should do is take each phrase and:
- Work on legato
- Breathe it
- Make sure I'm really breathing it
- Then move on into articulation, again out of tempo, and finally play it in tempo.
Maintaining Legato
What happens once you go into tempo is crucial. If you start to change your physical approach, you may get tense or stop flowing air, making it become much punchier. You may find yourself stopping and starting the air because you're using articulation. That means you're doing it wrong.
Key Point:
You need to maintain this legato approach throughout your whole body when you're playing the trumpet. It's not just about your lips; it's really about the larger air support we need to think about.
Another Tune: Donnelly
Another tune that I enjoy is Donnelly, also by Charlie Parker. This piece is somewhat easier because it doesn't have so many short stopping notes.
Focus on Last Eight Bars
I like to play the last eight bars because it consists of a line of eighth notes. It's also essential to talk about using the descent where you're crescendoing into the descent. This is where the notes can tend to break up, causing the line to falter and forcing things to come out.
Let's play the finale:
The last eight bars of Donnelly.
Final Thoughts
What I feel there is I need to do more of a crescendo on the descent.
Great! And goodbye.
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Meet your guru
Meet your guru
Over the past 25 years Gerard Presencer has carved out a formidable reputation as one of the most respected trumpeters on the European scene. He exploded onto the international scene aged 18, when US3 asked him to play the solo part on Blue Note's Cantaloupe Island (re-imagined as Cantaloop Flip-Fantasia), which became one of the biggest selling jazz records of the 1990s. Since then he has performed with a who's who of international jazz artists, and continues to push himself and his instrument, moving outside his comfort zone in order to develop as a player and writer.
In other genres, Gerard has recorded as a session musician with artists such as Sting, Jamiroquai, Zero 7, James Brown, Ray Charles, Joni Mitchell and Jonny Greenwood.
Gerard has also been an essential member of Charlie Watts' various jazz groups over the last 25 years, touring the world and releasing several albums with the jazz-loving Stone.
As an educator, Gerard was Head of Jazz Studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London from 1999 to 2010, and is currently Head of the Brass Department at the Jazz Institut in Berlin. In this course he shares his internal approach to playing the trumpet - the mental and physical habits behind a great sound - so you can develop tone, control and musicianship from the inside out.
