Re: Barry Galbraith's Fingering on Donna Lee


Bill Williams wrote:
Thanks from me also, Gerry, this is a great resource to have.

Bill Williams
Gerry-
Measure 6 is yet another deviation from the unReal Book's version of
Donna Lee.
That's why you were puzzled about the G I was talking about on beat 3&.

Barry has it B, E, Eb, Db and the RB has it B G Eb Db a Eb7+ arp.
This upsets the fingering for the 7th measure if you follow the RB
version.

The whole point of fingering this tune is to be able to play it at a
fast tempo without fucking up the hard parts.
If you accept the fact that Barry was the world's greatest "fingerer"
of modern jazz of the 50s (and beyond with George Russell's stuff),
then you have to pay close attention to how Barry solved these
problems.

I've been playing this tune every day for the last ten years, but I
still *** up at 320 and above on the metronome at 4 different places.
At below 320, I can play it in my sleep perfectly.

1- Measure 2 going from the A to the C. Barry doesn't notate it, but I
assume he uses the 2nd finger for the C and then plays the rest of the
phrase in 8th position.
This is already an improvement, because I started it in 3rd pos.
(Barry starts in 8th) and had to switch to 5th pos, on the D natural in
the 3rd measure.
This is yet another reason why Barry is up there, and I'm down here,
scratching my ass.

2- The killer phrase beginning on beat 4 of the 4th measure.
I thought I solved the problem by playing it in 3rd pos. with three
stretches.
But Barry solves it by playing it in FOUR positions(!)- 6th to 8th to
10th to 8th.
This is what you meant by "diagonal arps", and it works better than
my version.

3-The same is true for the diminished arp at the end- Barry does it
diagonally again, hence eliminating the 2 string leap from B to G that
I used playing it in 3rd pos. with a few shifts.

the 4th tricky spot is the chromatic line in bars 25 and 26 and I don't
have Barry's version down yet, so I can't comment on it.

I have the Guitar Improv book but haven't worked on it yet, but the
Rochinski book wasn't as useful as I thought it would be.
You may be able to get visual verification on raney's playing if you
can play region-free dvds on your dvd player. Dave Gould has dvds of
raney, bickert and j.smith-search his site.
I don't know when I'll be seeing Eddie Bert again (that summer gig is
over), but I'll ask him about the 2 LPs

.

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