Tatum favoured three-finger runs, usually 3-2-1, sometimes just 2-1. The
strongest fingers naturally give the smoothest, most even result. As Chopin intimated, it's all about fingering. The runs should be like waterfalls, pearling, cascading. That means cultivating a subconscious response, a Zen-like 'no-thinking'—which in the end just translates to lots and lots of work, at least for me.
Tatum often liked to start these descending runs with an initial flourish, a turn slightly different fingering to the recurring pattern, so I have included a few of them in the following examples. They fit under the fingers and serve as a 'springboard' for the run. I would like to eventually be able to mix and match these runs so what may begin up high as a 9th arpeggio becomes a 13th, then scales (literally) down to the target note. What seems fuzzy at the moment for the artist after due process (practice) can indeed become natural, and express in an organic musical way.
For other viewpoints there are a few Tatum books out there, please check them out if you haven't already. I first discovered the genius of Tatum's conception about twenty years ago, the "I Surrender Dear" transcription, but I began my specific investigation of his runs due to the inspiration of a guy on YT under the moniker rkjp56. Please check them out:
https://www.youtube.com/user/rkjp56/videos
Man, thank you for sharing this beautiful knowledge.
Besides a couple of transcription albums, there's a great book called "The Right Hand According To Tatum" by Riccardo Scivales. It has some fantastic stuff. But I always thought, what about Tatum's left hand? That subject to me is even more interesting, and after I get through these right hand concepts I'll be delving into those dark and very interesting waters.
Again, I reiterate these are my Tatum 'pickings', my observations. You may have different views, different conclusions. Everything you find here should be considered my take on Tatum, and music in general. We don’t have any definitive guide as to what fingering he used when, where and in what context. So in this sense, please view the following as my educated guesswork, even though I'm in a constant process of trying out and establishing the best fingerings that work for me.
And by highlighting Tatum in these initial posts, I don't want to convey the impression that many might jump to - that this is the music of the past and somehow irrelevant. My whole take on this is that we should look at these ideas and build on them. To make Tatum's concepts work in a new way, to integrate them with everything else we play from the more contemporary tradition.
I would like to get this kind of information out there because I don’t really find it anywhere else on the net. What I'd like to get across is the Tatum concept of harp-like arpeggios using a simplified fingering which gives an even sound to the descending patterns. Seeing the piano is a just like a harp it seems a pity that modern jazz piano has seemingly forgotten this aspect which so pervades classical and romantic piano tradition. Let's not forget that Tatum was thoroughly schooled in the European classical tradition, just as much as he was in the blues. And have you heard him sing the blues?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eecqu_YSPZY
Tatum often liked to start these descending runs with an initial flourish, a turn slightly different fingering to the recurring pattern, so I have included a few of them in the following examples. They fit under the fingers and serve as a 'springboard' for the run. I would like to eventually be able to mix and match these runs so what may begin up high as a 9th arpeggio becomes a 13th, then scales (literally) down to the target note. What seems fuzzy at the moment for the artist after due process (practice) can indeed become natural, and express in an organic musical way.
For other viewpoints there are a few Tatum books out there, please check them out if you haven't already. I first discovered the genius of Tatum's conception about twenty years ago, the "I Surrender Dear" transcription, but I began my specific investigation of his runs due to the inspiration of a guy on YT under the moniker rkjp56. Please check them out:
https://www.youtube.com/user/rkjp56/videos
Man, thank you for sharing this beautiful knowledge.
Besides a couple of transcription albums, there's a great book called "The Right Hand According To Tatum" by Riccardo Scivales. It has some fantastic stuff. But I always thought, what about Tatum's left hand? That subject to me is even more interesting, and after I get through these right hand concepts I'll be delving into those dark and very interesting waters.
Again, I reiterate these are my Tatum 'pickings', my observations. You may have different views, different conclusions. Everything you find here should be considered my take on Tatum, and music in general. We don’t have any definitive guide as to what fingering he used when, where and in what context. So in this sense, please view the following as my educated guesswork, even though I'm in a constant process of trying out and establishing the best fingerings that work for me.
And by highlighting Tatum in these initial posts, I don't want to convey the impression that many might jump to - that this is the music of the past and somehow irrelevant. My whole take on this is that we should look at these ideas and build on them. To make Tatum's concepts work in a new way, to integrate them with everything else we play from the more contemporary tradition.
I would like to get this kind of information out there because I don’t really find it anywhere else on the net. What I'd like to get across is the Tatum concept of harp-like arpeggios using a simplified fingering which gives an even sound to the descending patterns. Seeing the piano is a just like a harp it seems a pity that modern jazz piano has seemingly forgotten this aspect which so pervades classical and romantic piano tradition. Let's not forget that Tatum was thoroughly schooled in the European classical tradition, just as much as he was in the blues. And have you heard him sing the blues?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eecqu_YSPZY
The plan is to present my current take on all the descending 9ths chords; then the descending 13ths and their variations; then look at other runs and effects, such as whole-tone clusters (foreshadowing Monk). Quite a lot of Tatum is the genesis for later piano developments, which should be acknowledged. In later posts I'll be taking apart Tatum's left-hand concepts, and look at how he made a simple II-V pattern, a two-bar sequence into eight chords as a flowing melodic accompaniment.