<![CDATA[A Peek Inside a Master’s Head]]>

<![CDATA[A Peek Inside a Master’s Head]]>Visualization can be a great way to catch a glimpse of how something complicated works – especially the creative mind. Watching the animated sheet music to Coltrane’s Giant Steps is a fascinating look into how he did it even if, like me, your sheet music reading skills are less than stellar and your music theory knowledge minimal. David Slusser, a coworker of mine and a mean sax player himself, said

Really nice, but music readers should take note that the sheet music switches from concert key (piano part) in the head (melody), to the Bb tenor part a whole step up when Trane starts soloing, and then back again for the out head. Otherwise this person did a great musical service. That’s pretty much what one hemisphere of my brain is doing whenever I listen to this piece (and I’ve been trying to play it on tenor for decades). It also brought out one great aspect of true jazz artistry…did you notice how the rests popped? They swung (the masters always used negative space – it’s just as important what and when you leave something out).

This geometric interpretation is also interesting.

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