PIYW #3 — Meta Feedback

rsl12 · 2025-08-24T03:41:10+00:00

October 15, 2025 EDIT: "Play "Autumn Leaves" Your Way" is now live! You can continue to discuss your preparation of the piece here. The next PIYW will be ann...

diretonic

rsl12 That’s working well, with some nice jazzy touches and sounding quite free.

I’m a big fan of Dave McKenna too, notably his walking bass line style which I’ve noodled half-heartedly before - I might try and offer my palest of imitations for Autumn leaves (and at a fraction of his pace!). I’m reminded from my amateur trio days, when you’ve got bass and drums behind you, you can afford to play quite sparsely and still sound full. No such luck here and I’m not inclined to do the faux-trio thing.

I could upload a baseline recording, if only of a sketch or direction. It might help me to buckle down - not easy these days…

rsl12

diretonic I’m reminded from my amateur trio days, when you’ve got bass and drums behind you, you can afford to play quite sparsely and still sound full. No such luck here and I’m not inclined to do the faux-trio thing.

Simonb Like diretonic I've mainly played it in a trio setting, and crucially always with a bass player. I can't do the Dave McKenna thing, so I will be imagining a bass player!

I've long resigned myself as to not having the musical friends or time required to play in a group, so I've been developing my skills strictly as a solo pianist. If I found myself in a trio, I would be a little lost! So I understand your sentiments.

Simonb

Hi rsl12

I enjoyed your baseline recording.

I've just tried it out and will certainly submit something. Like diretonic I've mainly played it in a trio setting, and crucially always with a bass player. I can't do the Dave McKenna thing, so I will be imagining a bass player!

Cheers

kanadajin

WieWaldi

Well I had a deeper look at Soundcloud and of course (!) I now found the free version, you were right it is there at the bottom and in smaller font. I just created an account (artist) and uploading appears to be straightforward from what I can tell.

Again I appreciate your kind comments and suggestions.

And rsl12, great baseline!!! Love the impro, you have definitely improved this skillset - keep it up!

diretonic

I've uploaded a sketch on the off chance it will persuade me to keep my nose to the grindstone. It quickly fell apart when trying to solo over the walking bass - hence the hasty fade. I'll persevere or rethink...

keff

diretonic Sounds good.

kanadajin

diretonic

Wow, great sketch! I am impressed so far, your past experience with this piece really comes through.

rsl12

diretonic for something you haven't played in years, you sound comfortable with the head! Good luck soloing over walking bass (I may join you in that challenge).

Simonb

diretonic

That sounds very classy, as I expected from someone with your background. As you mentioned Dave McKenna I've been trying out walking bass lines as well. A real struggle, I may just end up using a 2 feel, or even just chords in my LH. Or perhaps I'll hire Dave Frank 🙂

I've just bought a Zoom AM7 microphone which I just used for a quick trial of Autumn Leaves. This plugs directly into my android phone. A vast improvement in sound quality. My B3 upright is very bright, and the last recording I did (Gee Baby) sounded awful to my failing ears. The new mic mellows out the video recording sound. Quite chuffed with it.

I won't be uploading my trial as it's rubbish!

Cheers

rsl12

Simonb I won't be uploading my trial as it's rubbish!

If it's as bad as that, making it public will make everyone else feel better about themselves! Also, we can cheer your improvement 2 months from now!

diretonic

Simonb Thanks for the kind words Simon, these days I plan rather than play, so the walking bass + RH was a struggle for me too. I used to do a fair bit of it on some duo gigs but nothing remotely approaching the skill of the two Daves. (duos? Who could be so cheap? In my day, restaurants and the like could avoid the cost of a license by employing no more than two musicians.)

Re your B3, I wish my wife's old Challen sounded anywhere near as good but of course the sound needs to please the player - getting the new mic was a good move.

ShiroKuro

diretonic Love it!! Now I wanna hear more!!

Simonb

Hi rsl12

Ha ha - that may be true, but I was only trying out the new microphone and really wasn't even making an attempt to create an early demo for here. And for that reason I deleted the file, so it's just not possible now.

What I did find is that there are multiple different ways I could play the piece. I need to decide which way I'm going to play it now.

Cheers

Simonb

Hi diretonic

I used to do some (very) amateur Jazz gigs in a duo, back in the 80s and 90s. I've never really made a serious attempt to play solo with a walking bass (except for blues/boogie), but coincidentally I picked up a 2nd hand Dave McKenna LP not that long ago, and with you mentioning him as well it seems to have set me off down that path. But it's a bit rocky!

Cheers

WieWaldi

Simonb I've never really made a serious attempt to play solo with a walking bass (except for blues/boogie)

May I ask you what walking bass line you played? (in blues/boogie)

I am asking, because there a so many variations out there, beginning from the kiddie version that has the LH on a static position, going up to a alternating octave tones with thumb and pinky, and then of course walk over multiple octaves going from the very left of the keyboard up to the mids.

Simonb

Hi WieWaldi

There's a number I use, some better than others, but the most common would be:

What is known as the chop, which isn't really a walking line, it's more of a one man rhythm section:
I.e. the first and second ones in this video:

There are other variations on that one, that I play as well. One being a mix of the 3rd and 4th in that video.

The Jimmy Yancey LH pattern

That maybe my favourite. It has a number of subtle variations. Most notably the way Prof Longhair used it.

The LH from Honky Tonk Train Blues.
Another that I mess around (pun!!) with is the walking octave style like this:

And of course 4 can be simplified into a single note walking line rather than octaves.

Cheers

WieWaldi

Simonb Thank you.
Never heard the name "chop", I called it the shuffle so far. Or the humptee-dumptee LH 😆
The chop + inverse-chop, (alternating) is currently my to-go LH. The chop isn't that hard, but the inverse at the end of each bar still eats up a lot of my brain power.

About walking bass line, I tried to play the poor man's version. The little brother of 4. Cost me a lot of time to get it under my fingers: Link

rsl12

WieWaldi I feel like the kind of bass you are doing is harder than a standard walking bass. I think you could definitely create and perform an arrangement using walking bass, if you want, and it might be good for your left hand skills!

Improv over walking bass is another matter altogether. Very challenging!

diretonic

rsl12 Improv over walking bass is another matter altogether. Very challenging!

Too right!, but I think the approach should be much like that of blues LH patterns which are played on auto-pilot after enough practice. Most of my duo gigs were with vocalists so the job was mainly comping + walking bass. I knew most of the chords to the songs so the comping I could do on autopilot leaving me to focus on the walking and I found after a while that my patterns were all fairly formulaic so became almost automatic. The soloing (obligatory but short) was sometimes seat-of-the-pants stuff; a bit of walking, a bit of imaginary bass (as Simon mentions above), rinse, repeat.

WieWaldi

rsl12 Thanks for your encouraging words🤗
This is the reason why I call it the poor man's version: Christian taught it as the so much smaller brother of a bigger brother. He is right, playing the bigger brother is much harder. I can play it only if I am doing nothing else. And of course while I am looking at my hand, all the time.
And then I've spotted an even bigger brother of the bigger brother, walking the LH over two octaves. 🤯

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