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Aaron Blumenthal Diary of My Intensive
Master Class With Eddie Daniels
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7/30/09: The Surprise
The trip, as I had been told, was to be a weeklong endeavor
involving the Grand Canyon and some vague catching up time
with my father's old high school friend, Dean. My summary of
the Grand Canyon to my parents was, "Don't be offended if I
don't put this in my autobiography."
The two days at the Grand Canyon had consisted of many
sub-par buffets and a rather uneventful five hour train ride
to and from the large hole in the ground we had all come
with such high expectations to see. Naturally, I wasn't too
excited about the six-hour car drive to New Mexico, to the
land of dry air and sporadic bouts of rain and hail.
Immediately I noticed that New Mexico had far superior
guacamole to California, despite the fact that California is
known for its avocados, and that the featured modern art
galleries around town were so esoteric, there should be a
corollary to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle that states
that you can never know simultaneously what the piece of
bent metal is supposed to be and what it's supposed to
represent.
I won't lie; I was not looking forward to our visit to
Dean's house. From what I had heard of him, he adamantly
refused to brew coffee (which I am completely dependent upon
to play jazz) and had gotten in trouble as a kid at a summer
camp for taking chicken bones and screaming that he had
found the corpse of the founder of the camp. He was probably
just another boring, exotic hand lotion and decorative
coasters kind of adult, and even my mom expressed some
distaste at the idea of spending an extended period of time
at his no doubt immaculate house (little did I know it was
to keep me from suspicion).
We walked to the house, my mom carrying a rather large (and
I thought unnecessary, as the real gift to Dean was that I
had only half considered running out of his house screaming
the bathroom had been infested with cockroaches the size of
my fist) package for Dean, and a dog rushed out towards us
along with a man I knew immediately to be Eddie Daniels.
Naturally my entire world was thrown upside down; this visit
to a boring old friend's house had turned out to be a visit
to the house of the greatest clarinet player ever. I was
speechless. He asked where the clarinet was and my mom
unwrapped Dean's present to reveal my clarinet case!
The next thing I knew we were in Eddie Daniels' house. He
seemed delighted that I hadn't known until that very moment.
When he asked what had given it away, I'd replied that it
was his mustache. I was amazed I had even managed to say
anything.
The first thing he did was to completely change my
embouchure and the way I hold the clarinet. This was going
to be quite the intensive class! Mr. Daniels had me briefly
play a Rose etude and said that he was impressed with my
tone, to which I responded that I try to imitate his tone. I
listen to one of his songs every day before I practice to
really get that sound in my head. It was a corny thing to
say, but it's actually true. He asked me to play one of his
songs, figuring that if I really listened to his music as
prolifically as I had claimed, I would easily be able to
play the head of one something or other. Boy was I nervous!
Admittedly I had spent quite a great deal of time playing
his songs with along with him on the recordings, but I knew
that with my luck I would end up messing up whatever I
played anyways.
I played Resolution from Homecoming and right away he caught
on and started playing a counterpoint right away. I messed
up on the B section but it was still amazing to play it with
him in person, and he was very nice about it. I would have
thought that he would be a lot more intimidating, but he was
very kind and laid back.
We worked on There Will Never Be Another You without the
music and I stumbled through the melody, accidentally
playing it in the alto key at first and then in the right
key but with the wrong notes. It was one of the first songs
I had learned to improvise over and I figured it would be a
safe song to start with, but boy was I wrong!. I was
starting to wish I had known about the surprise so that I
could have prepared something for him to work on with me.
Unfortunately I didn't remember the changes at all and I
think it sounded that way. In spite of this he still taught
me a great lick that gave me a new, more linear approach to
playing over changes. I went home with a newfound resolution
to impress Mr. Daniels the next day.
7/31/09: Some Minor Homework
I was prepared today with an Eb Real Book (no music store in
the state seemed to carry Bb or a 6th edition C book) and I
had played There Will Never Be Another You with Aebersold on
my iPod in the motel. He asked what I practiced, the Neihaus
etudes and some other jazz stuff, and told me I should play
more legit music and that it was important to be focused and
disciplined. He said that there was a reason most musicians
were famous on a specific instrument, because true mastery
of an instrument has to be done with dedicated practice
independent from the distractions of learning all the
woodwind doubles.
When I told him that I played bari, alto, tenor, and
clarinet and was planning to learn flute, he said that if I
wanted to master the clarinet, I would have to make an
effort to practice it much more than, if not instead of, my
other woodwinds. If anyone knows about mastering an
instrument, it's Eddie Daniels, so I guess learning flute
can wait. Hey, I'm not complaining!
I played through every major and melodic minor scale on the
clarinet in one sitting (standing?) for perhaps the first
time in my musical career and then he played an amazing
melodic minor lick that he made up on the spot. Talk about
technical mastery! He wrote it down and it struck me again
as a refreshingly linear approach to playing over changes,
this time an alternating minor 1 to the 5, in this case from
Am to E7. I heard the telltale G# to F natural and asked him
if he was treating the E7 as a flat-nine chord, which seemed
to surprise him.
I knew that over a flat-nine chord you could play the
half-step/whole-step scale of the tonic, and that over a
diminished chord you could play a whole-step/half-step scale
of the tonic, and often when playing chords on the piano I
would substitute a diminished chord for a flat-nine chord
because I'm not the greatest pianist in the world and it's
easier that way, but for some inexplicable reason it had
never occurred to me that the half-step/whole-step scale
over the tonic of the flat-nine chord was the
whole-step/half-step scale over the tonic of the diminished
chord! I had learned two vital pieces of information in two
days!
He asked me to blow over alternating Am and E7b9 chords,
which proved to be quite the challenge in its simplicity.
The two chords seemed to alternate as rapidly and as subtly
as the New Mexican weather, and I was struggling to
differentiate between the two in my improvisation. All the
theory in the world can't help you if you don't have the
technical prowess to back it up!
He said I was a good faker (yay?) and that I was good at
playing jazz for a fifteen year old. I didn't know what to
make of that. Back at the motel I diligently practiced the
licks he had written out and the scale sheet he had given me
and couldn't wait for what I would learn the next day.
8/1/09: The Next Step
Eddie had me warm up by playing all of the major and minor
scales and then I asked him how to approach learning a
difficult set of changes I'd never seen before. Right away
he had me play a few 2-5 licks in every key, forcing me to
think as opposed to just using my ear by telling him the
name of the dominant chord of the 2-5 I had just played. I
had to re-figure out the lick in each key using the scale
degree relative to the chord it was over and it really
helped me get a feel for some of the more daunting sharps
and flats. He then had me play one 2-5 lick backwards as a
5-2, as another exercise in really understanding the chords
inside and out. 5-2's are much harder than 2-5's, and I
really felt like I was being pushed to the next level of
using knowledge as opposed to just my ear and instinct to
play over a difficult set of changes. I then applied this
new knowledge to a song I believe was called Lover or
something along those lines, which conveniently had a set of
chromatically descending 2-5's.
He then made me think with a less-is-more approach, because
before I had been, "boppin' around," as he called it, and he
believes that, "it's not what you play, but how you play
it." He had me play one note for each chord and every time
we would get a few measures into it he would stop me and say
not to play the flat-nine, the thirteen, the #11, etc. He
had me play the chromatic line of alternating 3rds and 7ths
from chromatically descending 2-5's and then told me to try
making up a one note solo again, which proved to be even
harder in its simplicity than the 1-5's!
We went back to eight notes again and he told me to try to
play a pattern over one 2-5 and then to play the same
pattern a half-step lower over the next 2-5, as I had before
but this time improvising the pattern, and once more I found
myself having to think harder than I ever have before.
What I had really wanted to do with Eddie was play Giant
Steps, because that's the song everybody plays to prove that
they know their stuff, or at least to show off how fast they
can move their fingers. At the end of the lesson I briefly
"bopped around" over it before he broke the changes down and
explained the pattern of the chords. The tonics of the major
7ths form an augmented triad, dominant 7ths directly after
major 7ths are a minor third away, and the tonic of the "2"
of a 2-5-1 is a tri-tone away from the tonic of the major
7th chord preceding it. Wow. For homework he told me to
practice playing the 1-3-5 for every chord.
8/1/09: Cramming for Finals
This was the final lesson I would have with Eddie. I was
very excited, and as this was quite possibly the last time I
would ever see him I wasted no time getting straight to the
good stuff. I asked him what I would have to do to fulfill
my goal to become the greatest jazz musician ever. He asked
me why I wanted to be the greatest jazz musician ever, which
really surprised me, coming from one of the greatest jazz
musicians ever.
I still can't really put words to that sort of drive I have,
like an inner fire that has absolutely nothing to do with my
desire to bring up casually at parties that I'm the best
ever at something. I couldn't really put it to words then
either, so I told him it was because I wanted a nice house
like his. He laughed and said I should be in real estate
instead if that was really why! Then he stressed the
importance of mastering the instrument and of being a
flexible musician with a technical mastery that can only
come from extensive practice of the ever-demanding classical
side of music. He had me play through an etude and then
played it brilliantly himself, and we worked on several
exercises for control, focusing largely on smooth
transitions between notes, a steady and pure tone, and even
lines; some of the things that set him apart from all the
other jazz clarinetists.
He gave me some slick new fingerings for some of the tricky
high notes and he had me play some difficult intervals,
putting my new knowledge to the test, before we went to
playing some jazz. Since Giant Steps had proven to be quite
the task, we stepped back and played over Autumn Leaves,
ironically enough. I'll leave that first entry the way it
was for laughs. Looking at his website I realize now that
every kid and his mother asked to work on Giant Steps with
Eddie. I guess that's just the song to play, you know?
Especially if you want to show off to your friends.
I was hearing the chords fine, I guess, but the notes just
didn't seem to fall into place, and Eddie asked me what I
was thinking when I looked at a set of chords. I replied
that I was mostly looking for the line 3rds and 7ths as a
way of keeping my bearing and making the changes, and for
someone who had spent the last three days giving me linear
licks that accented the notes of the chord, he told me that
I shouldn't think so mathematically about just those two
notes, but should think about the scale that corresponds
with each chord.
This makes a lot of sense, as it immediately gives me six or
so more notes to play; the interesting notes aside, and the
changes of perspective was a bit freeing. He had me play a
little riff over one chord by giving me the scale degrees
and had me transpose it over every chord, forcing me to
actually think in the scale by converting
1-2-3-4-5-3-2-1-4-3 into a series of actual notes every
measure.
He seemed to tell that I thought that playing the same lick
over and over, over each chord, hardly made for an "Eddie"
quality solo, but he wanted me to demonstrate a command of
the changes, and not just play around in A minor. I hadn't
really thought of myself as doing that, but when he said it
I realized that I was missing some of the key harmonic
concepts that would show I knew exactly where I was at all
times.
It was, admittedly, a bit frustrating that the only two
apparent options for me at this point when I want to stand
and do a solo are to take the 1-2-3…1-2-3…1-2-3 approach or
to do a solo that isn't worthy of Eddie's approval, but I
guess that's what practice is for. I'm sure there was a
frustrated -or at least dazed and overwhelmed; this is Eddie
Daniels, after all- look on my face, because he kept asking
me what I was thinking.
I feel somewhat guilty because I didn't really have an
answer for him and I think he expected something profound,
but all I said after three tries to put the music and the
theory and everything that had happened in the past four
days swimming in my head to words I managed to say rather
stupidly that, "Everything's just…happening, you know?" I
know that doesn't really make sense as an answer, and I
don't even really know why I said it, but I think I was
trying to convey the sense that I was in Eddie Daniels'
house and living in the moment of something I knew I would
remember for the rest of my life.
Part of me wanted to just stand there and take in the
features of Eddie's face and his workshop, the many assorted
barrels on the desk of various shapes and sizes, the
Hercules stand in the corner of the room, the mirrors, the
windows looking out to a beautiful New Mexican sky, or
clouds, in short, everything. Of course there was learning
to be done, but I wanted to cherish the moment a bit and not
just rush through and walk out thinking, "Woah, that went by
fast!"
Well, it did. No matter how hard you try to savor it, four
days is a mere grain of sand upon the shores of life, and
although I have vivid images in my mind of his couch,
polished wooden floors, coffee table, and Maxine, they can
no more take me back in time than the sweet sound of his
clarinet. What I hope will have made a more lasting
impression on me than these images, however, is the drive to
practice and excel he instilled in me.
I have only been playing jazz for two years, so perhaps in a
couple years' time I'll have the experience under my belt
along with the ear and the theory that I'll need to play
good jazz. I am enthusiastic both to practice until I've
worn the gold off of my Hamilton keys and to keep listening
to jazz, Eddie's albums in particular. I'm really grateful
both for Eddie's kindness and generosity with his time and
talent and for my parent's support and encouragement in
whatever crazy thing I've gotten myself obsessed with this
month. I'm just saying, an album with Eddie Daniels and
Kenny Garrett would be pretty cool.
8/26/09: Master Class in Review. Don't Worry, it's Short…ish!
I was supposed to send this to you? Whoops, sorry about
that! But I might as well take this time to say what the
month after the master class has been like. I've been
practicing the clarinet for two hours every day, which I
think is a big improvement over zero, along with my usual
two hours of sax. I know he wants me to focus in on one
instrument, but that really isn't practical, seeing as I
play saxophone in two big bands and two combos. I'm still
using that as an excuse to not practice the flute though!
I did notice gradual improvement in my control of the
clarinet, especially over "Eddie's Slo-Mo" exercise. I have
drastically reduced the amount of squeaks going from one
extreme of the horn immediately to the other, and my
tonguing speed, control, and accuracy has increased quite a
bit from the classical etudes I've been playing.
The most important two things I learned were definitely
"one-stop shopping," where I don't roll my lip out when I
put the mouthpiece in my mouth, and thinking about the scale
I play over the chord rather than just the notes in the
chord. I feel much more free when I solo, even if I don't
venture into the world of extensions and polytonality,
because I have eight or so notes that definitely work as
opposed to four. I know, I know, I'm repeating myself. But I
don't when I solo!
I'm finding more and more that I enjoy playing classical
music. Before, I would just say that to humor the people
that cared about me that keep trying to shove it down my
throat, but now I can confidently say that it's right up
there with smooth jazz in regards to how much I enjoy it. In
other words, I like it, but I don't tell my friends that I
like it. After all, I want to keep the small scraps of
respect I've earned as a "strictly illegit" player.
Aaron Blumenthal
Email
eddiedaniels1006@msn.com to schedule your next
musical breakthrough.
Eddie breaks down the barriers between student and
instrument. Making music becomes more fun.
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