2 Minute Vibraphone Masterclass - Ed Saindon

2 Minute Jazz Vibe Masterclass – Topic: Solo playing on “Have You Met Miss Jones” based upon comping using various voicing concepts. I was working with this concept this past week with an excellent vibe student. I initially got this concept way back from Gary Burton who told me about it and how he used it. He said comping behind Stan Getz playing Jobim songs like Chega de Saudade and O Grande Amor helped him develop his solo pieces on those songs. A lot of his solo pieces were derived from initially comping on the songs. After that, we can tie the voicings together with usually an upper melodic line but also with inner lines or a contrapuntal bass line. You can hear all of this in his playing. We can intersperse an arpeggio or run here and there to mix things up. An important thing is to keep the feel relaxed and moving. It helps to use a lot of rhythms with syncopated figures.

As far as voicings go, they are not necessarily always voiceled and can jump from a low voicing to a mid-register voicing at random. Also, it can be good to use closed and open voicings. Even more, we can use for example, a three note voicing with guide tones in the left hand along with a tension in the right or a six note voicing with an Upper Structure Triad (UST) on top while breaking up the chord. Sometimes we can play all of the notes concerted and sometimes play double stops, play from top to bottom of the voicing, contrary motion of the hands, right hand octaves, etc. All different techniques and voicing concepts to keep it interesting. I’m using voicing concepts here from my book and include: intervallic voicings, symmetrical diminished voicings, simple reharm, voicings with UST, closed/open voicings,….Let me know if anyone has any questions. Ed

#voicingconceptsforthejazzvibist