Say it an Play it Lesson 1

Welcome all,

To get started I must say that I was a bit perplexed the first time I heard drummers and musicians use this type op inter-communication. The ability to communicate musically is not that different from the laguage that we speak. Only musuc has two basic parts, melody and rythm. Melody is usually found by planning, writing and or stumbling across a cool chord progression. However rythm is expressed by explaining time. Each note is subdivided and expresses a groove, beat or phrase. The only problem I have found over the 29 years I have been playing is the lack of vocabulary in every setting from the other musicicians involved. Now listen I don't claim to have it all fugured out but I do believe I have come up with a method (partially adopted from other musical schools of thought). The problem as I see it os that not everyone is well versed in what a crescendo, or playing stacatto, or pianissimo, or even DC al coda. using this termanolgy can be quite confusing to the unlearned. Also trying to convey to a keyboardist a simple break in a song wheter original idea or a cover can't always be expressed as 1 e a 2 a and 3 and a 4. Even that can be a costly and confusing way to communicate. However not all situations merit this type of idea, nor need it. This idea is simply to supplement your playing a bit for efficiently and effectively.

It is quite commical to express melodic or rythmic notes using this idea but for our first article I thought I would keep it simple.
Lets take the expample I used above and apply this principle of if you can say it you can play it.
Now for all you techinal monsters out there this will take technique and throw it out the window. Though I do not like to excuse sloppy playing habits with lack of technique I do want to stress that this is a supplemental way of thinking out and expressing musical ideas. Okay enough qualifying here we go!

1 e a 2 and 3 and a 4 could be said like this;

Doo dop a dee da dee dop a doo

Simple I know but try it on a more complex phrase like the following

Skiddley bop a diddley bop a do

Now that interpreted is

Triplet and a triplet and a four

or

RLR L L RLR L L R

Hope this helps!

Sincerely

The REVJPK