Stealing Kenny Barron's LH Moves on Misty
Published 11 days agoΒ β’Β 2 min read
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Reader,
One of my favorite recordings of Misty is this one from Kenny Barron. All throughout this recording, he perfectly demonstrates one of the most important ways to play a solo piano ballad.
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Kenny Barron
From A Room With a View, Cinematic Jazz #10 (1991)
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Kenny's right hand beautifully and freely phrases the melody, but it's his left hand that allows for that to happen.
His left hand moves in strict quarter notes throughout. In essence, the left hand is they rhythm section playing a slow stride, alternating bass and chord on every beat. On beats 1 and 3, he plays the bass note but harmonizes it with another note above it. This fleshes out the harmony a bit more than the single note would. On the other beats, he fills in with rich rootless voicings.
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Your Practice Plan
- Grab Misty from your Real Book and focus on just the left hand. Play the stride in its simplest form: single bass note alternating with 3 and 7 for the chords.
- Measure by measure, upgrade to the harmonized bass notes by adding a 5th, 10th, or 7th above the root.
- Finally, upgrade the other beats to full rootless voicings.
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Workshop this Friday
At our workshop this Friday we'll work through this together step-by-step.
You are signed up, so I'll see you Friday, April 24th, at 1:00 Eastern.
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Josh Walsh
Say hi ππ» on YouTube or Instagram.
Or, just reply to this email.
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