Week 9 / Summertime

Summertime is our next project.

When learning a song or "tune", learning (and singing) the lyrics has been suggested as the first step by many.


 Summertime

[Verse 1]
Summertime
And the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin'
And the cotton is high

[Verse 2]
Oh, your daddy's rich
And your ma is good lookin'
So hush, little baby
Don't you cry

[Refrain]
One of these mornings
You're going to rise up singing
Then you'll spread your wings
And you'll take the sky
But 'til that morning
There's a'nothing can harm you
With daddy and mammy standing by

[Instrumental Bridge]

[Refrain]
One of these mornings
You're going to rise up singing
Then you'll spread your wings
And you'll take the sky
But 'til that morning
There's a'nothing can harm you
With daddy and mammy standing by


If you look to the right of the screen, you will see various version of Summertime.  Listen to them all.

What were your top two favorites?  Which one did you like the least?

Next, let's listen to the "backing track" -- the "rhythm section" alone, so YOU can practice the "changes."

here is another version, to which bassists should listen carefully

and yet another.

and here are the changes










Looking at Summertime, we see many of the same minor chords, namely Dmin7, Gmin7 and the occasional Emin7b5.

Recall that the Dorian minor chord is spelled 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7.  The chord tones are 1 b3 5 b7.  In the case of a min7b5 chord, the chord tones are 1 b3 b5 b7, and the scale is the Locrian minor scale.

There is a "trick" for playing the rather complex Locrian scale.  In the case of Emin7b5, you play an F Major scale, starting on E, that is E F G A Bb C D E.

[we know an E Major scale is spelled E F# G# A B C# D# E.  Given these two chords, can you figure out the numerical "spelling" of the E Locrian chord?  I start for you:  1, b2, ...... ]

We also see some old familiar Dominant 7th chords, as well as some Major chords.  This is quite a departure from our most basic blues, which was all dominant 7th chords.

So what to do?

1. learn the melody...transposing if necessary.
2. Learn the chords
    1.  play the arpeggios of each chord, to the 7th, up and down
3. Incorporate past material

This of course is a work in progress...this blog, your relationship with this particular song and set of chord changes and your overall musicianship.  All of which will change significantly in the remaining few weeks.

For now, this should probably keep you going!