Inner Urge

[cyb3rvampire]

Hey guys,

What are some solo strategies for the tune "Inner Urge" by Joe Henderson? This is such a bad ass tune but the harmony throws me pretty hard most of the time. What do you guys do over this one?

 

[yZe]

Never have tackled that one

Looks like lydian #5 city

Any downloadable Inner Urge BT's ?

 

[cyb3rvampire]

#5? There all b5

 

[yZe]

#5? There all b5

lydian assumes #4 included

 

[Gene]

Fun tune to play on. Like any music, so many possible ways to improvise on.

The lydian #5 sound is cool. Gives it a nice edge compared to lydian sound. Since the harmony stays for 4 bars most of the time, you can do some cool reharms with your lines.

Good place to start is just transcribe Joe Henderson's solo and check it out and start using some of his pet bags in your playing on other tunes and be creative.

 

[cyb3rvampire]

what are some of your personal favorites gene?

 

[KRosser]

Fun tune to play on. Like any music, so many possible ways to improvise on.

The lydian #5 sound is cool. Gives it a nice edge compared to lydian sound. Since the harmony stays for 4 bars most of the time, you can do some cool reharms with your lines.

Good place to start is just transcribe Joe Henderson's solo and check it out and start using some of his pet bags in your playing on other tunes and be creative.

I used to play this tune a lot in a duo with a vibraphone player, maybe about 10-12 years ago. It was always one of my faves but I haven't played it in a long time.

I worked with the original recording too quite a bit but I seem to remember picking up more tricks from the McCoy Tyner solo, like this one thing where he sorta 'cascades' these C and D arpeggios over the F#m7b5 chord in a really beautiful way

 

[Gene]

what are some of your personal favorites gene?

I don't know if I have a favorite bag because it depends a lot on who I am playing with and how I am hearing on any given day.

But here is one: I sometimes use a variation on the Giant Steps cycle. A cool simple one is: G-7 E7 AMaj7 Ab7 DbMaj7 C7 FMaj7

I might use this over the static Fmaj7#11 starting on bar 5. It really generates a cool sound if you minimize the intervals and use a lot of chromatic approaches to the above sequence. Hope you enjoy it.

 

[Gene]

bit but I seem to remember picking up more tricks from the McCoy Tyner solo

Most definitely. One of my favorites.

 

[KRosser]

Most definitely. One of my favorites.

Joe Henderson always was as well - I just found McCoy easier to lift from on that particular track

 

[cyb3rvampire]

I don't know if I have a favorite bag because it depends a lot on who I am playing with and how I am hearing on any given day.

But here is one: I sometimes use a variation on the Giant Steps cycle. A cool simple one is: G-7 E7 AMaj7 Ab7 DbMaj7 C7 FMaj7

I might use this over the static Fmaj7#11 starting on bar 5. It really generates a cool sound if you minimize the intervals and use a lot of chromatic approaches to the above sequence. Hope you enjoy it.

Can you go a bit more into that progression? I'm not super familiar with coltrane cycles, but it's something I'm starting to get into. Care to go a little more in depth? Thanks for the helps guys. Much appreciated.

 

[Gene]

Joe Henderson always was as well - I just found McCoy easier to lift from on that particular track

Yes. Joe and many sax players are tough to transcribe because for me, the rhythm is so in the cracks of what I can write down on paper.

Reminds me of a great story about Dizzy:

After a tune, someone in the audience yells out to Dizzy "I bet I can write music you can't play!" and Dizzy's classic reply is "I bet I can play music you can't write!". Brilliant.

 

[Gene]

Can you go a bit more into that progression? I'm not super familiar with coltrane cycles, but it's something I'm starting to get into.

It is a progression based on splitting 1 octave into 3 equal parts. Notice I say 1 octave. This becomes very important when you start splitting octaves with other intervals equally.

What I posted earlier is a backwards version of Countdown type progression. The Countdown would go G-7 Ab7 DbMaj7 E7 AMaj7 C7 FMaj7. The 3 tonics being F, Db, A, and F. The earlier one goes F, A, Db, F. I just use the ii-7 as a starting point but you can use I as well.

Using elementary school math, you can come up with enough cool sounds to last you a life time. Gotta say, I love math. Truly one of the more elegant pursuits around.

 

[russ6100]

Been a favorite of mine for a long time and I work out on this often.

I don't know if it's because of the way I approach this tune, but it seems that when improvising through the A secion, when a chord changes, I very seldom have to alter an idea that I'm working with, very much or at all in many cases.

I guess what I'm tryting to say is that I find it pretty easy to avoid that "new chord - new idea" syndrome...that "being lead around by the changes" thing, despite that fact that's it's decidedly very modal sounding.

Fun tune...

 

[dewey decibel]

To me this is a tune where it really helps to think like a piano player, namely with triads over triads.

Been a favorite of mine for a long time and I work out on this often.

I don't know if it's because of the way I approach this tune, but it seems that when improvising through the A secion, when a chord changes, I very seldom have to alter an idea that I'm working with, very much or at all in many cases.

I guess what I'm tryting to say is that I find it pretty easy to avoid that "new chord - new idea" syndrome...that "being lead around by the changes" thing, despite that fact that's it's decidedly very modal sounding.

Fun tune...

I think it's because one way to look at a maj7#11 chord is with 2 triads, so Fmaj#11 could be an F triad and a G triad. So when the chords descend in whole steps a lot of what you would play over one will work over the next.

Same for the B section, it's something like:

Emaj7 | Dbmaj7 | Dmaj7 | Bmaj7....

You could think descending triads starting on E for that:

E | Eb | D | Db...

Or something like this:

Dbmin7 | Cmin7 | Bmin7 | Bbmin7

This is the sort of thing where pentatonics and little clusters of notes work really well.

 

[suckamc]

Cool tune. Obviously the trick is to not sound like you're moving down 2 frets with every new chord. Obviously.

I think Rob's approaches are ideal. Like he said, doing pentatonics over Lydian chords sound great (either a 1/2 step down from the chord or a 3rd up... some of Rob's suggestions were a minor third down... the traditional sound... but not my favorite), plus they allow all of your rock stuff to shine through. Not to mention the fact that with the way those chords move in "Inner Urge", they open up some interesting patterns with the pentatonics. Rob pointed out one way, but also try getting rid of the pentantonic-down-a-minor-third ones and replacing them with the two I mentioned. You'll still find interesting patterns (though Rob's was very cool.... down a fret each time... so cool).