Comping Techniques

[diijay]

Hi,

I was wondering if there is a book or video tutorial that teaches how to play piano like that song below, comping with arpegios and regular chords with similar voicings of that song.

Is there a song or artist that remind you this style of playing?

http://soundcloud.com/dj-meme/hardsoul- ... er-dj-meme

Thanks.

[tapper mike]

Hi,

Technically that's not really comping. Yes "comping" ia an abreviated word for accompianment but.. because it is abreviated so is the usage of the term. Comping mean limiting chord to playing three notes at once. Usually it is used in tight rhythmic form or strong foundation.

Usually keyboard players comp with the left or right but rarely to never both.
If they are performing a solo arrangement usually (once again not always) they comp with the left and play the melody with the right.



When you have established enough foundation behind the piano that is not to busy but there to define the beat the piano's character of being "timekeeper" is diminished. This allows you to back the lead melody instrument without stepping on it while it is performing and provide a response area. Often times it is referred to as call and response. As a singer or lead instrument performs the melody the keyboard supports it with harmony. However singers have this thing called breathing. And a memorable melody breathes regardless of what instrument is performing it. In that space of breathing for the main melodic instrument another instrument can create a "fill" The "fill" can be a melodic response to the melody, a melodic germ/meme/motiv of it's own or can be a riff. Riff's by nature are repeated.

So listening to the song it's not really a riff or a response motif to the melody. It's more a wandering improvisation based on but not limited to the harmonic structure (chords) of the piece.

While you could study the masters of this medium to gain insight to what they are doing, mastering it requires much improvisation and in an environment suited for improvisation and interaction. Interaction means you interact musically with other musicians and they interact with you. It's not something that can be done using a backing track.

[diijay]

So you would call that an accompaniment?
Having said that he used broken chords based on the original harmony and improv, right?
So there's no literature or tutorials to help me learn that way of playing?

Another interesting thing you said and I was wondering that as well is how to create an answer to a melody.

Thanks.

[tapper mike]

Hi,

You can learn how to play a song exactly as performed depending on the transcription. And you can learn how to do sweeping arpeggios, runs etc.
That education of learning from sheet music only goes so far.
It teaches you exactly what the person played but not "how to interpret" the piece.

Learning technique and learning songs note for note is wonderful. In the pop/rock/country/r&b fields it's a craft but not an artform unto itself. I was a cover guy many years ago. I played songs exactly as they sounded on the record and I was often complimented with the "that was amazing, just like on the record"

Then there is the jazz / classical/ blues approach.
I didn't believe that classical was an improvised form but it is just not in the same way blues and jazz are

Jazz is many things to many people. It's not all swing or bebop or modern or funk or jazz rock or smooth jazz. Improvising involves taking an existing piece of music at its essence and then rebuilding it. You need to preserve only so much as to make it barely identifiable so that the melody remains the same. The chords can be reharmonized the rhythmic structure can be altered you can use subsitutions. It's kind of like painting by numbers. You get colors and a brush and lines but you don't have to put the color that's numbered on the canvas and your are allowed to paint outside the lines.
So improvisation is more of an art form then a craft. You take what you've learned from others. You look at the song and you say to yourself. I don't need or want to make a carbon copy of the song I know what I'm doing and I'm going to do something different here that will sound just as good. Now like I said the melody is "mostly" preserved. The bassline, the harmony, the solo and other parts are up for grabs so long as it doesn't go too far out of whack. Usually people cover songs of artists they admire. There is nothing wrong and most things right with that because it's your taste in music that leads you down a road and your inner music critique is the one you have to answer to. Sometimes if you are lucky and smart and only slightly talented you become more then someone trying to be someone else. Stevie Ray Vaughn was a great blues player. Stevie Ray Vaughn idolized Albert King. Stevie Ray Vaughn learned all of Albert King trying to play like Albert King. Much of Stevie Ray Vaughns technique came from studying Albert King. Eric Clapton once said of SRV. "I love SRV's playing but I didn't always. It wasn't until SRV stopped trying to be Albert King and started playing like SRV.

And so there you have that. You learn in the style of the music you love to listen to you. You apply what you've learned with style but you don't chain your own musical identity to the persona/style. You go through two liberations. First you try to attain some mastery by covering others. When you do try to empassion your playing. Then you liberate yourself from reading the sheet and doing what you are told thru improv. While improvising you will reach for familar phrases and rhythms but you'll also begin to connect with developing your own ideas or borrowing ideas from those that you've studied.
Then if you are lucky you'll liberate yourself enough from your role models and begin to form your own musical identity.

That's the hope at least.

About call and response. I hate the song below but it helps my point.
Some songs are just written that way. And it's one of the oldest ideas in the book.



So Bill Haley sing, brass section replies/responds. Again and again.
But if you notice something. Even though the brass section is "riffing" The riffs aren't exactly the same. They put a little variation each time.

And if you merged his singing with the brass sections playing you still would have a melody where you could identify the "motives" as a call and response.

[jancivil]

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