21 Minute Jazz Ramp by Tommy Igoe?

[wolfereeno]

Anyone else a fan of this exercise? It's on Groove Essential 1.0's CD but I rarely see much talk about it. To me its worth the price of the book.

It's 21 minutes of play along bass and piano playing a simple jazz progression that for each repetition speeds up from super slow to super fast over 21 minutes. They switch up the progression a bit just so it's not annoying. And it tops out at 360 bps.

What I like most is it forces me to to play at the extreme tempos that I don't practice as much, esp the super slow ones. And at the very fast tempos you start to figure out all the little muscle movements to maintain speed or skip notes and still try to swing. So sometimes I'll rewind it to the areas where the tempos are at the edge of forcing me to change a motion and try to find the transition and play around with it. Like, can I go a little longer pulling with my fingers before I have to switch to all down bounce to keep up and vice versa.

And when I'm low on any ideas I find ways to play it differently like:

• Left hand Ride
• Brushes
• double shuffle
• HH on all 4 beats like tony - this one kills me!
• Left foot to BD where I just straddle the FT. It kind of helps the one above in making my mind feel the pulse on the left.
• Someday maybe I can incorporate some clave foot patterns

I'm 57. I wish I had this when I was a young student. Instead I wore out my Pat Metheny and Buddy Rich records looking for the fast tunes.

I wish he had a version on itunes or similar because I'm always looking for my copy on my ipod or am telling people about it.

 

[ThomFloor]

Interesting, sounds good, on which Groove Essential CD is it...1.0 or 2.0 or..?

 

[wolfereeno]

It's on Groove Essentials 1 and is listed as an Extra practice track, Track 88. He doesn't really write much about it. It's only mentioned on practically the last page of the book.

 

[Seb77]

I did something similar: the brush dvd by Nussbaum/Smith has play-along tracks at different speeds, amd you can speed each track slightly to get in-between tempos. Good to work your way up.
360 bpm is quite fast! Not easy to find a band that can play that kind of tempo.

 

[wolfereeno]

I like playing with the speed function on youtube and speed up some stuff (or slow it down!).

Yeah, 360 is fast. When you're done with the whole thing you need a break!

The thing I like about the igoe piece is the grooves are musical. It's not meant as a thing you just solo over like a lot of the other play alongs.

 

[jaymandude]

It's not meant as a thing you just solo over like a lot of the other play alongs.

Yeah, but once you do that you can put it on youtube

 

[RIDDIM]

This is a good workout:

 

[gids73]

This is a great exercise. I feel that it covers so much of your fundamental jazz time playing. Do this and the rudimental ritual everyday and you're all set!

 

[Paradiddlebob]

Anyone else a fan of this exercise? It's on Groove Essential 1.0's CD but I rarely see much talk about it. To me its worth the price of the book.

It's 21 minutes of play along bass and piano playing a simple jazz progression that for each repetition speeds up from super slow to super fast over 21 minutes. They switch up the progression a bit just so it's not annoying. And it tops out at 360 bps.

What I like most is it forces me to to play at the extreme tempos that I don't practice as much, esp the super slow ones. And at the very fast tempos you start to figure out all the little muscle movements to maintain speed or skip notes and still try to swing. So sometimes I'll rewind it to the areas where the tempos are at the edge of forcing me to change a motion and try to find the transition and play around with it. Like, can I go a little longer pulling with my fingers before I have to switch to all down bounce to keep up and vice versa.

And when I'm low on any ideas I find ways to play it differently like:

• Left hand Ride
• Brushes
• double shuffle
• HH on all 4 beats like tony - this one kills me!
• Left foot to BD where I just straddle the FT. It kind of helps the one above in making my mind feel the pulse on the left.
• Someday maybe I can incorporate some clave foot patterns

I'm 57. I wish I had this when I was a young student. Instead I wore out my Pat Metheny and Buddy Rich records looking for the fast tunes.

I wish he had a version on itunes or similar because I'm always looking for my copy on my ipod or am telling people about it.

I'm also 57 and I use that chart with my advanced students (and myself). It's awesome.

 

[wolfereeno]

This is a great exercise. I feel that it covers so much of your fundamental jazz time playing. Do this and the rudimental ritual everyday and you're all set!

My two favs.

 

[Tracktuary]

This is a good workout:

Just a hair over 300 bpm.

 

[marc3k]

Anyone else a fan of this exercise? It's on Groove Essential 1.0's CD but I rarely see much talk about it. To me its worth the price of the book.

I ordered the book and now I'm also a fan of this exercise! And as you said, the different parts make it interesting.
Thanks for the heads up!