hey all this is Omer Ashano jazz violinist is
from Israel, who was based in New York City for the past four years. we're going live
with Night Practice session number 2! let's wait a couple of minutes for friends
to tune in. So hello Goran and I hope i'm pronouncing people's
names right and hello Maria and Lucy hello all. I got some nice elevator music
here to soothe us in the waiting room all right it's kind of sad that I put on
this elevator music playlist and and all the music here is basically Bossa Nova so
i don't know do you also find it insulting that Bossa Nova is is tagged as as elevator music? it's
not like bad Bossa Nova music i mean if it was bad Bossa Nova music then i get why it's elevator
music but this is actually kind of like they're good stuff here, this is like Antonio Jobim now
playing Wave i know if you hear it hello hey man all right in the video good to see everyone
here congrats hello Brett congrats to um my American friends which i assume all of them
are liberals so so that's why i assume i should congratulate you um if i have any conservative
friends among my friends sorry for your loss but it is a happy day for the
United States in my opinion all right um so yeah as i said hey don from Argentina ciao mazza averio good to see you guys um okay so again this is uh right denison
strings from Nigeria good to see you man um so again this is a a Night Practice session number
2 i think i'm gonna do this weekly every every saturday now um and uh yeah i'm just doing my
practice routine basically uh hello ismail hola i have uh one of my good friend lives in
Lima now uh i hope things are are okay there um so yeah i'm i'm just basically sharing with you
guys my um uh my practice routine and you get to ask questions along the way um i just figure that
you know i don't have a lot of time to practice so if i can get some more practice time and
communicate with followers this is a good a good combination of the two and i get to learn and
you get to learn so that's a good deal i think um so if along along the way uh you have any
questions regarding what i'm doing how would you like how would i approach something any
subject regarding violin or um or hello anike um and uh in any any subject regarding
violin improvisation jazz blues whatever um so uh you're welcome to to ask
questions and um and make suggestions um and hopefully you'll get some value out of
this and you're welcome to uh join along and practice with me um and hope you get to learn
some stuff uh so let's start i think so well uh let's start with um just with something pretty
basic i i like um shalom victor shabbat shalom i like i like starting with simple stuff
that are more violinist technique oriented and then later on um do some improvisation stuff
so i thought for today an an exercise we could do last um last week uh alan daniel shalom uh
so last week what we did is um we started off from working with it with the tampura and
basically doing some intonation exercises um just playing a scale the tempura uh is um
as a as an indian base instrument um in and some of you some of you might know it if like any
of my students are here they they definitely know about the instrument because i highly recommend
using it um and um and facilitating that into your practice so basically it's it's it's
a very resonant based instrument that is used in indian music um and they practice with it a
lot practice singing with it uh and in this way basically improve their intonation uh on and on
singing or on their instrument um so that's what we did that's how we all started our our session
last week um so this week i think i'm gonna do some rhythm exercise that is also coming from uh
indian tradition actually what we're going to do is is a metronome exercise where we're going to
try and shalom it um we're going to try and divide one beat into into into basically subdivided
into um uh seven subdivisions until we hit we hit eight again uh so four sixteenth uh
eight sixteenth notes basically um so yeah first we're just going to try and hit just
each metronome beat and then we're gonna try and divide that beat into two and then try to divide
it into three and then to four and then five and six and seven and then eight um
so i haven't done this uh for a while so let's see how it goes and um first
we're gonna start just by trying to just trying to sing it so a lot of my again if
there are any students of mine here they probably know that i'm a big advocate of practice singing
in or or or just doing something with your body before you actually get to try and do that with
the instrument because playing violin is freaking hard um so there's no really point in trying
to understand a new subject and and comprehend a new subject on the instrument which is so
hard before you before you make sure that that you're actually getting it that you're actually
understanding it that you're able to perform it with the easiest instrument that we all have
which is our body and our voice um so we start off with that and then once we see that we're able
to control that in singing or tapping or whatever then we can move on and try that on the violin so
let's put on a metronome on a very very slow tempo um now uh please let me know um hello bruno please let me know uh if you hear
the metronome well enough okay once i started let's start a new project so hello germano and monica um can you hear the metronome well enough okay fine great okay so this is not easy this is metronome
on 35 bpm this is um this is already kind of challenging for whoever of you that is not
practicing often with metronome and practicing slower uh slower bigger beats i highly recommend
that okay um this is very important for something that i like to call rhythmic responsibility
which is i think a kind of sense that um that we have in us um and also with intonation
basically i think of it as as responsibility for keeping uh intonation and responsibility um for
for keeping time as well um so it's kind of sense that we have to develop and working with slower
tempos really helps um develop this sense of of rhythmic responsibility because we don't have
a constant beat or constant drumbeat that shows us where is every eighth note or every
quarter note now we just have like we can think of it as a beginning of a beat right and then we
have to at the beginning of a bar excuse me and then we have to fill in all the rest and just try
to subdivide it in our mind and be very focused it takes a lot of work but
eventually you're able to expand the distance between each beat that um that
you're practicing cheshire um so so yeah so i guess most of you guys will probably be
able to to tap along 50 bpm but then when you go down below that it gets it gets pretty
complicated and you need to practice it often um but the more you practice it the more you
you'll be able like the farther beats you'll be able to comprehend and your brain will be
able to um kind of perceive them as one bar okay so 35 is still slightly um slightly challenging
for me but there are people there are drummers that can go even lower than that i saw
people doing these kind of exercises with 15 ppm okay so now we're doing the one subdivision basically
i'm just hitting the the downbeat of the box now i want to try and subdivide it into two two one two one two one two okay so now we're
going to try and subdivide it into three okay now i'm breaking i'm breaking it up but
eventually what would what we would want to do is do the transition between all the subdivisions
without stopping which is the hardest part so now we're dividing it into three one two
one two three one two three one two three one two three one two three one two three
one two three one two three next is four one two three four one two three
four one two three four one two three four one two three four one two
three four one two three four one two three four one two three four one two three
four next is five one two three four five one two three four five one two three
four five one two three four five tactic take okay so you can do you can um try and create
the beat in whatever way you want you can do it by voice you can do it by starting by snapping you
can do it by snapping you can do it by clapping anything that you feel that it is easy and most
importantly anything that is um articulated it's very important that um first
i started when i started syncing my singing i realized that i'm
actually not articulating my uh my numbers that well and that kind
of it helps you kind of cover up for rhythmic inaccuracies so i would really recommend
to to try and sing a veriticulate and short uh syllables that and in this way you you can
really tell if you're if you're on time or not at times last one wasn't as stable we'll try again six and again don't rush with any of these exercises just give yourself time and
give yourself time to listen seven so i'm gonna do the seven uh hey really
every day for breakfast with the coffee um okay seven so when we do um basically
when when we do the difference of division subdivisions we also have to think about
um what um what clave we we want we want to to do the subdivision right because a 7 the the
7 for example we can some we can divide that uh those seven beats in many different manners the
most popular ones are um uh two two three um or uh three two two okay so one two three one
two one two that's one version or one two one two one two three um let's do let's do
the um uh one two one two one two three clave one two one two one two three one haven't listened enough one two one two one two three one two one
two one two three one two one two one two three one two one two one two three
one two one two one two three dot dot okay and one two three four one two three four
one two three four one two three four one two three four one two three four
one two three four one two three four all right so now now let's try and
move between the um between the yeah it's freaking hard um so
now let's try let's try uh and move between the different subdivisions without
stopping so let's say we'll give two uh two bars basically each click each each click is a
new bar um so let's do two bars for each uh subdivision and move on to the next
subdivision see sif we're able to do that one two one two one two three one two three one two three four one two three four one
two three four five one two three four five one two three one two three one two three
one two three one two three darker darker okay that wasn't that wasn't that stable um i
also think like probably need more like maybe four bars for each subdivision uh just so we have
time to sink into that new subdivision and and make sure it's it's really uh
in good touch with the metronome one two one two one two one two one two three
one two three one two three one two three that wasn't good so we don't move on right
we gotta fix the transition that was a lame transition between the between the um the
two and the three so let's let's work it down one two three one two three 1 2 3 1 2 3 2 one two three four five six one two three four
five six one two three four five six one two three four five six one two three four five six
one two three four five six one two three four five six one two three four five six one two one
two one two three one two one two one two three one two one two one two three one one two one two
three one two three four five six one two three four five six one two three four five six one
two three four five six let me take your breath we're at five duck tack da okay now let's try and do um let's try and do two uh two bars for each um
subdivision and see if i'm able to do all the ascend at least all the ascend uh in one breath
without stopping because i'm out of there maybe if i let's try and clap oh no more projects okay okay here we go you that was bad so in the six i kind of kind of lost
it so let's let's do from six and keep going down five i'm not focused let's go from uh five um keep going down four five four three two and one okay let's take the violin let's
try and do that with the violin um hello i'm doing four of each subdivision be 7.
Fun so let's do the transition between uh six
and five again that was kind of not very stable um four let's do go from five to four go let's move from four to three again down one okay so um there's much more work to be done for this
for me i don't know about you maybe you guys did good um so yeah in my in in my level i would
put actually more time into practicing the singing uh part of it and only then would approach the
violin i eventually i was able to do like to do the transition some of the transitions well
enough on the violin but it's not it's not good enough the fact that um that i'm still uh hello
thiago the fact that i'm still stopping between um between the subdivisions and still not able
to to seamlessly complete a whole round of going up to subdivisions and then doing the descending
version of the subdivisions means that i need to do more work also singing and also violin but um
i drilled your brain enough for tonight with this so let's do something else now let's see
um is andrea here uh no andrea is not here uh too bad she was asking about um um playing chords with the violin um so i
explained to her uh that we can't really play chords with the violin uh best thing we can
do is play double stops there are people that um you know you could say that you can play a
chord out of the four strings if you kind of break it up you just do a very quick sweep
of the bow uh all throughout four strings but it's very limited it's not it's not like it's
not being played together as a chord it's still broken up as just a very quick arpeggio um and
um and it's also it's very very hard to do so if we want to try and actually play um like do a
companion for for a player if we're in the session and we're playing with someone and we want to
accompany him by um like expressing the chords basically on the instrument it would be very
hard and also won't sound that good because it's very high on dynamics to try and play
a full chord on the violin like doing um so so a better way would to
approach it would just be to um to play um to play double stops and try to emphasize uh notes from the chord that are that are really
defining the chord um hello jonathan um so so usually uh when your a common voicing
of a piano player would be to play one five of the chord with his left hand
and then three and seven um with his right hand and doing different inversions of the
three and seven so sometimes it would be uh seven three and sometimes it would be three and
seven talking about the the degrees of the chord um so uh what we can do with the violin is try
to create a companion that is based off of um the three and seven degrees of the chord and that
would really give um a nice color of the sound um and um we can also do very interesting voice
leadings with with these two voices of the of the chord and it won't sound too classical
now i hear a lot of violinists that um that do a companion in their playing um but many
times i'll take more like classical violinistic uh kind of double stops so they emphasize let's
say the one in the three of the chord or the one and fifth and it works but it's also um it's it
it's not as hip it's not as interesting in my opinion like you could you could really bring
out the the beauty of seventh chords and and the beauty of the different tensions if you
if you pick if you know how to work with the tensions of the chord rather than take the root
so this is hard um like you really need to nail down the changes the chord changes of whatever
tune you're playing if you want to do that um and really have a good a good um familiarity
with with the instrument with the neck and when you think about a chord you immediately
immediately know where's the third and where is the seventh degree of it in and in what
way you can play them together um so um let's take for example i can i can take um a common voice leading that
they do in piano is basically um so playing three and seven of the um of them let's
say we're in two five progression okay we have a two two minor five dominant progression into
resolving into atomic so let's say we're doing d minor seven g seven resolving um resolving
to c major seven so what we can do is take the third and the seventh of d minor seven
which would be f uh f natural and c natural and and then um voice lead the seventh of
d minor seven to b which would be the one of uh which would be the third of g okay of g7
and then the um the f is the seventh of g so um so we're taking again it's we we um we basically
swap between we we first we play the three and the seven of d minor and then we played the seventh
and the three of g7 so let me just sing the the bass line for you shabbat shalom let me sing
the bass line for you so it it's more clear and then we can we can do so we resolve resolve that g7 into uh into the
c major which is um uh i resolve it basically to e natural and b natural which would be the third
and the major seventh of uh of c major seven so we have three seven of d minor
7 3 of g7 and 3 7 of c major okay so that's a very interesting um interesting voicing so what i would do with that
is just just try and practice it in like we can take we can practice it in going down whole steps
we can practice that around the circle of fifth um so now let's let's say i'm i'm i'm going down uh whole steps let's do a little uh
bosa nova inspired inspired rhythm okay so now i resolve that seventh of
the c major into sixth of uh c major so this the second sequence was um was basically
the uh three seven of c minor seven then seven three um s no excuse me that was
three and seven of c minor and um and 7 3 of f7 and then um seven uh three and seven of b flat major seven and we can also resolve that
take that seven into the sixth a so okay so now that was just this three
seven um uh three seven voice leading um going down whole steps we can do that over the
circle of fifth which would be a little more complicated let's let's put on a backing track for
that and then you can hear you can hear the bass line and that would help you understand what
is that um what what degrees i'm emphasizing basically that is loud all right okay so let's try and practice this
hello um good to see you and you guys um so yeah what i'm doing basically is
working on some violin companion um or not necessarily com companiment we're we're
basically working um on playing double stops and emphasizing different different chord tones
now that is something that you can just implement in your in your playing it doesn't have to be
a part of of um you know just comping someone um it's something that i like to do sometimes
it's just like play a double stop and then play a line and then add another double stop and
play another melodic line hello loon digiz okay that is awesome and and b flat g g flat mine i'm lost okay b minor e7 hey we're back at the top hey irene all right and so on um so that's one type of
um uh hello kristoff so that's one type of voice reading that you can practice
you can come up with different different types of voice leadings that you can
you can just practice and move along the circle of fifth or move in different progressions such as
moving down half step or moving down a whole step but basically going going around the circle
of fifth or circle of fourth uh will will make sure that that you're going
all throughout the 12 keys um let's think of a different a different um
kind of voice leading that we can do with it so we're thinking about uh d minor
7 g7 resolving to c major 7.
Um yeah let's do something with with these um
seventh intervals uh that could be interesting oh i also forgot to paint a comment
here just uh just make sure people can just read what's happening here if they
don't want to listen to the whole thing so so that's not practice session number two when you get to watch my practice routine and ask questions so we both earn here okay um all right and guys let me know if
you have any questions along the way uh things that you'd like me
to cover now how do i okay so yeah i'm taking um we're doing two five
progression to c major seven and i'm playing um first degree seventh degree hello kami um first degree seventh
degree and then we're doing d and c sharp which would be um sharp eleven and fifth would
be the fifth and sharp eleventh of um of g7 right oh kind of a augmented sound and we're resolving it into the um it's another seventh interval uh which would be
the third of c major and the ninth of c major so that's going to give us
a pretty interesting sound um let's try let's try and do that
over around the circle fifth circle fourth section be and g flat e flat minors it's really hard to target i think i get confused we're at the top okay um so yeah these are um um there are plenty of
more stuff you can do with these different voice leadings of of uh these chord progressions
the next stage would be to to actually practice practice that um on on standards or on
any other tune that you'd like to place taking try and take these um corporate these these
voice leadings that you do with uh with intervals and just instead of applying them uh just on an
exercise just going around two fives in the circle of fourth or just going two fives going going down
whole steps the next stage would be to try and apply that in standards and try to play with um
play with uh the intervals on the on standards that you're practicing obviously you're not
going to have two to five progressions all along unless you're playing uh the tune
take five by west montgomery um but um but you you will that the feeling of these
different intervals and emphasizing the different voicings uh of the chords will just get
into your fingers most of my knowledge of how to how to play with intervals while i play is came
just from practicing arpeggios just but from knowing all the arpeggios of the different
chords really well so you just kind of remember where is each note um each tension
of the chords is located on the instrument um so you kind of so i'm able to
improvise with these intervals and um and try to play along with them as i'm improvising
over over a jazz standard um but doing these patterns like i practiced now of just doing the
voice leading of the three seven seven three two three seven of the tonic um it's just very
useful to get the feeling of it get the sound into your head and it will just come out naturally
in your playing at some point so let's let's try and improvise over a standard and implement these
intervals um what's what's uh standard should i play on do you guys have any suggestion do we
have anyone here uh with some some jazz background all right i guess i'm gonna
have to pick for myself um let's see let's take stick just friends big me um um um okay um blue um okay so that was some some jamming with um
with those uh intervals and with this voice leading stuff so this didn't happen because i
was constantly thinking about oh i'm playing the seventh degree and the third degree
of that chord and now i'm going to play and approach melodic approach chromatic
is just happening from muscle memory is um obviously knowing the chord thinking about
the chord changes in my head but then once i think about the chord changes i have all
these different patterns and different shapes of arpeggios that are in my fingers and
i'm able to con combine them and then sometimes i i just hear like you know um how one voice could
maybe go down and maybe another voice can go up and that's when i start really improvising with it
but it's mostly just um like the most theoretical thing that's happening here is me thinking about
the chord changes nothing more than that so don't be intimidated if you think that i was doing
all these crazy calculations of now i'm going to play the seventh degree and third degree of that
chord leading to the third and seventh degree of the fifth of the tonic this is not happening
it's basically just um just practicing this these different um progressions voice leadings
of intervals um in emphasizing tensions of the chords rather than the rather than the roots
or fifth or third of the chord the third the third and the seventh in the chord are most
important so if you you're able to emphasize them in your um in your interval uh voice leading
that's gonna sound great um so they're practicing those practicing arpeggios and that's basically
how you get them under your fingers and then you're starting to just messing around with them
and implementing them when you're playing and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't and
then you fix it which is part of the artistry of improvising is knowing how to make a
mistake sound like um like the most hip plan tension you ever planned all right folks
um so that's enough practicing for today i mean one hour is not enough but you
should practice more after this session um so great to see you thanks for tuning in um
make sure you check out uh the modern jazz violin playlist i curate on spotify you can
get to check out some other cool jazz violins contemporary jazz violinists and i'm
going to try and update it every few weeks and uh yeah i think i'm gonna
do this on a regular basis uh of course man my pleasure good to see
you i hope things are are better in nigeria hopefully they'll be better now as also as as
trump is gone but the world is uh yeah the world is going crazy um it's uh it's a process this is
how the world works everything breaks down then we rebuild and then the whole world breaks down again
and then we rebuild and just keep on doing it um so yeah i'm gonna try and do this on
a weekly basis probably every saturday great glad to hear that um
so please uh come back and um and you're welcome to send me over any questions
that you have uh before before saturday arrives um things you'd like me to go over and i'll try
to do my best to incorporate that into my practice routine and i'll also remind you that i give
um that i give private lessons if you want more personal um to to get more personal
audit of of your playing in your progress and i also do that uh but anyways you can get
a lot of stuff from these live sessions so i hope i'll see you next week uh and that's
it good night practice swing and um and drink healthy juices all right good night folks