Just back from a killer time at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival, hearing great student groups and soul-shaking professionals. And even got to talk with some of them. It’s kind of surreal to be standing in line waiting to go through the scanner at the airport and talk with the incredible vocalist Carmen Bradford as she takes her shoes off. Musicians are such awesome people. So generous and funny and personable.

While at the festival (I was there to critique groups and give a couple clinics on my investigation into practice), I got the chance to chat with Rob Klevan, long-time education director at another festival, the fantabulous Monterey Jazz Festival. He turned me on to a new app and interviews that you HAVE to check out if you’re interested in jazz, or any kind of music practice for that matter. This weekend I got to meet one of the featured players, Sal Cracchiolo, before he went up to play a smoking set with  the always funky Tower of Power.

This thing goes deep. Check out any of these stellar musicians to hear the interview, learn who influenced them, and what albums they recommend you listen to. This is a fantastic resource if you’re interested in playing jazz. One of the most valuable things online, I bet. Check it!

other musicians interviewed in the app (Digital Music Education Project):

Wynton Marsalis
Terence Blanchard
Herbie Hancock
Chick Corea
Cassandra Wilson
Esperanza Spaulding
Christian McBride
Poncho Sanchez
and SEVERAL DOZENS of other great players! You can sort by instrument, too.

Click on the image to go to the iTunes page for the app:

Or check out the page at the Monterey Jazz Festival

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Anyway, here’s Julian Treasure reminding us how important listening is in general, and gives us 5 suggestions to listen better. It’s a short talk and a good reminder to be grateful for the ability to hear, and to listen, mostly to each other, but these thoughts can be applied to music, too. Hope you enjoy it.

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There are all kinds of “travel” instruments out there for surreptitious practice: pocket trumpets, travel guitars in many configurations, and now, this drum set.

First vid is the drum solo, and the second is a quick explanation of the set and how it works.

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~ Osho

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Several months ago I spoke with the fantastic jazz trumpeter Ingrid Jensen about practice. She mentioned that one thing she liked to do was practice with drones, using an Indian instrument called a tanpura (also tampura). She said that playing against a drone was a great way to train your ear/horn coordination. Practicing with a drone allows you to really feel how it sounds to play every note against the tonic, throughout your range. It’s meditative.

Ingrid Jensen

When I hear a great practice idea, I try it, and I’ve been using this one for a while and absolutely love it. I almost immediately noticed a greater ability to match pitch (my fellow musicians mentioned it in rehearsal), and a deeper awareness of sound in general. Part of the reason for this is that playing with the drone makes me aware of where the horn is naturally out of tune, whether because of the way a horn is made or because of the quirks of the harmonic series. But doing this has made playing just one note a meditative experience, even more so than it usually is. And by meditative, I mean it makes it easy to lose the “self” in the sound. Hard to explain, but a fantastic feeling.

I decided to buy the iTabla Pro app for iOS systems. It’s a full version with drones on the Tanpura, but adds many tabla rhythms. All future updates are free. Check the comments for more information about the developer of this great app, Prasad Upasani. He’s also created iTanpura Lite, a free app. I used that for a very short time before I knew this was a great thing to have, so I upgraded to the $25 version.

Might seem like a lot, but oh, man do you get some great stuff. It’s been a boon to help me learn more about Indian music, especially the taals used for tabla, which fascinate me (sixteen beat patterns, 5 beat patterns, 7.5 beat patterns….). You can set it to tell you the syllables used for the tabla and this is helping me learn tabla, too. The app is remarkably tweakable on many different levels.

Here’s a tanpura (you can see a set of tabla in the lower left):

Image via Wikipedia

You can set the Tanpura in the app to any pitch (the tabla match it) and can change those pitches by cents (there are 100 cents in a half step). This is wonderful as it allows me to tune the device to my didgeridoos, none of which are close to standard tuning. It’s a fantastic program and has given my practice a real shot in the arm. I’m incredibly grateful to Ingrid for sharing that information. You can hear the interview in the link below. Anyway, here are a couple demonstration videos of the software. First is the iTanpura (with just the drones and you can get it for free) and then a demonstration of the iTabla pro:

Apple’s App store links:    iTanpura Lite     and      iTabla Pro (has the drone and tabla)

Have fun, and good luck with your meditation, er…, practice.

iTanpura

iTanpura Pro (with Tabla)

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Damian Kulash and Tim Norwind's colorful shoes (Photo credit: thaths)

What do you get when you mashup Blue Man Group with Inspector Gadget and Nascar? Probably something like OK-GO’s new romp of a video for their tune Needing/Getting.

What I love about this video is taking the idea of the size of an instrument to an absurd and wonderful extreme. It’s also a great way to visualize the form of a piece of music, since you can actually see instead of “just” hear where the form repeats. And the question I have is: how the heck do you practice that instrument? Part of the answer is 4 months of preparation and 4 days of shooting the video, so there’s that.

Having a budget and a team would certainly help, but lead singer Damian Kulash seems to do a great job (and the most difficult one) of driving (at the right speed, of course) while singing. The band is great. Here’s what Ira Glass (of This American Life) had to say (the whole thing is here):

I am here to say that OK Go is more than those videos. The band’s frontman Damian Kulash sometimes makes big declarations like “We’re trying to be a DIY band in a post-major label world” or “Our whole bag is having good ideas and making cool shit.”

I find that convincing.

Yes, it certainly is. See and hear for yourself:

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Damian Kulash and Tim Norwind's colorful shoes (Photo credit: thaths)

What happens if you mix Blue Man Group, Inspector Gadget, and Nascar? You’d probably get something like OK-GO’s new video for their tune, Needing/Getting.

What I love about this video is taking the idea of the size of an instrument to an absurd and wonderful extreme. It’s also a great way to visualize the form of a piece of music, since you can actually see instead of “just” hear where the form repeats. And the question I have is: how the heck do you practice that instrument? Having a budget and a team would certainly help, but lead singer Damian Kulash seems to do a great job (and the most difficult one) of driving (at the right speed, of course) while singing. The band is great. Here’s what Ira Glass (of This American Life) had to say (the whole thing is here):

I am here to say that OK Go is more than those videos. The band’s frontman Damian Kulash sometimes makes big declarations like “We’re trying to be a DIY band in a post-major label world” or “Our whole bag is having good ideas and making cool shit.”

I find that convincing.

Yes, it certainly is.

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As I work on the book, I’ve had to do a little research into some of the many instruments I own, one of which, given to me by a neighbor, I knew nothing about. Here’s a picture of it:

It’s got only one string, which is why Pythagoras is mentioned in the title of the post. One of the things Pythagoras is famous for is his work on the vibrations of strings and how the ratios produce different tones. Touch a vibrating string lightly in its exact middle and the tone will sound an octave higher than the open string. Other ratios

produce other tones.

Anyway, I’ve been messing around with the instrument for the last year or two, but had no idea what it was or how to play it correctly. Finally, I did some poking around and found a sticker that gave me enough information to discover that it’s a Vietnamese instrument called a Dan Bau. If played correctly it has a haunting sound that is quite pleasing. Here’s are a couple videos of the instrument in action, played by someone who knows what she’s doing:

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Have fun and good luck with your practice.

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Yesterday I had the honor of talking with Sidiki Dembele and his wife, Vivian who helped translating some more difficult concepts (thanks, Sidiki and Vivian!).

Sidiki Dembele

Sidiki is a fantastic musician from Abidjan, Ivory Coast in West Africa and now living in Manchester, UK. He plays many instruments (ngoni, balafon, kora…), but his main instrument is the djembe. He overcame some serious hardships and put in an amazing amount of time practicing, and it shows.

But what I found most awesome is the way that Sidiki is trying to give back, to help out disadvantaged kids both back home and in his current home in the UK. He’s been teaching since around age 14 back home in Abidjan with a group known as Denifari, and he has started a similar group in Manchester. Here’s what his website says about it:

Denifari literally means a new way for youth – and that was how the story began. Growing up in a slum area flanking the great commercial capital of Cote d’Ivoire, Sidiki was all too aware of the social and economic restrictions under which the community struggled to survive; and of the temptations faced by local boys and young men whose families strove to provide against all odds, under conditions most of us here in Europe can only guess at.

Poorly educated, sometimes malnourished and dressed in worn tee shirts and jeans, the group moved into a rented shack, provided by Sidiki, where they lived, learned and prepared for the future. Now those original members are amongst the most acclaimed musicians in Cote d’Ivoire, playing at community and cultural events and concerts throughout West Africa, and continuing to manage the day to day affairs of the school on Sidiki’s behalf.  Despite now living in England, Sidiki remains the lynchpin of the organisation and no decisions are made without his input. Denifari is still at the heart of Sidiki’s life and endeavour.

Sidiki has begun a similar endeavor in Manchester and needs help with both space and funding. If you are at all in a situation to help him do this important work, please visit his web site and get in touch with him. (Also, you’ve got to check out his music: full-length samples. My favorite is Ambeh sini)

I hope to put up the interview in the next couple weeks.

Here’s Sidiki playing solo djembe on Jarafoli with the group Anante at Drumroots Live in Manchester, 2011.

And here is Sidiki playing kora with Baba Gale who plays the African flute.

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