Rhythm in Parker's Mood

I'm using the omnibook. The transcription doesn't fit with the music. I'm taking the mp3 from Bird's nest. Could be my problem. Parker's Mood bars 11 and 12 have a riff repeated with minor mods 4 times. Shown 3 times here:
Parkers Mood 11 half 12.jpg

In the transcription the first two triplets are twice as fast as the second which is not what I hear. Help anyone?
 
You wanna play like Charlie Parker? A braver man than me lol, I still have problems listening to some of his stuff. My ears won't listen that fast.

I would say if you can hear what he's playing, play that. The transcription is probably someone's best shot at writing it down. It may even be a typo.
 
You are correct in that the omnibook has noted the first 2 of the 4 triplets as 32nd note triplets, and the other 2 as 16th note triplets. If you listen to the recording it is quite different and you should use the transcription as approximation to what Bird played.
The slower tunes are very difficult to notate, and play. So I would use a program like transcribe to slow it down and try to copy his phrasing.
Bear in mind that these tunes were transcribed years ago without computers and slowing down software. There are many errors in the omnibook that you will find once you dig deep - but nevertheless it is a wonderful resource that lets you appreciate just what a genius Bird was - his sound, ideas and groove.
 
You wanna play like Charlie Parker? A braver man than me lol, I still have problems listening to some of his stuff. My ears won't listen that fast.

I would say if you can hear what he's playing, play that. The transcription is probably someone's best shot at writing it down. It may even be a typo.
Anthropology from A Night In Tunisia is a good example of ridiculously fast, but there is an Art Pepper version which is listenable. I don't aspire to play like Charley Parker - more a case of mining for good ideas. Some of his phrases are quite simple and very effective.
 
Two years later. Bars 17 and 18 are impossible to get up to speed unless there is some tricky fingering I'm missing. in passing I note bar 15 is short of notes!
I'm not really sure about your bar numbering system. Are you counting the two spurious lines that look a bit like barlines towards the end of line 3? Note there are 12 bars between the two double barlines.
Anyway, if you're talking about bars 10 and 11 (counting from the first double bar) then I guess it's the 2nd triplet that's causing the difficulty. For that you need to hold the C and just flick the top Eb key (no octave key). 3rd triplet is just side C.
 
Neat tune. Thanks for calling it to our attention. It's nice to find a Parker solo that is accessible to us mortals without his blinding technique. I agree with Nick on the use of the C to D trill fingering. The B to C and back is also easily played fingering B and adding the middle side key. Sometimes knowledge of alternate fingerings can make all the difference in the world. The Jason Stillman transcriptions seems to be right on. Thanks Altissimo for that link.
 
I was counting from the start including the 6 bars of intro. It would make more sense to count from the first double lines. I was also mislead by the spurious bar line at the end of line 3.
Thanks for the transcription and the Eb key trick. I slowed bar 10 ( last on line 4 counting 1 to 12 now) and the A just isn't there otherwise the Stillman transcription is great. Maybe there is more than one recording?
BTW my other favourite is K C Blues. I just love playing these two. I can't play up to speed or keep the rhythm right but they still sound good to my ears and keep me bashing away at them. I often find it hard to get started and also hard to stop!
 
If you have a program that will let you slow down a recording to play along like The Amazing Slowdowner or others it helps to practice playing along with the recording to build rhythmic accuracy and good style. In effect, you are getting a private lesson from Charlie Parker every time you play along. I am currently doing that with some Cannonball Adderly transcriptions to study his articulation and some of the nuances that make his style so unique. If you do that day after day increasing the tempo by 1 or 2 beats per minute per day, you can eventually play at or near the regular tempo. It just takes a L ------O------N------G time when you have to start at 40% of the original tempo to get all of the notes at first.
 
Maybe there is more than one recording?
there were a 5 takes of this tune, 3 of them


the other 2 takes are false starts where his reed squeaks within seconds of beginning to play, something which crops up regularly - you get used to him whistling loudly to stop the recording as you work your way through the complete Savoy and Dial recordings box sets

as far as I know, all transcriptions will be of the same final take which is the one that was originally issued on record. Transcriptions of alternate takes may exist, but they will be labelled as such.
There's a lot to be learnt from this apparently simple tune and Parker's wonderful improvisations.
It's been nearly 30 years since I first started listening to the Savoy and Dial recordings and I'm still amazed by them.
 
Two years later. Bars 17 and 18 are impossible to get up to speed unless there is some tricky fingering I'm missing. in passing I note bar 15 is short of notes!
bar 16 is short of a quarter not rest and a sixteenth note rest after the first riff. I'm counting from bar one. Bar 12 has to be changed to an eighth note rest before the first and third riffs and the time doubled on those notes. That makes them 32nd note triplets with a sixteenth on the end. I tried to upload a photo but no luck with that. if you want to send me a pm with your email address I'll send the photo. Here's my "Supersax" version of Dewey Square -sopranino, baritone, alto, saxophones and flute solo.
 
I haven't played from the omnibook for years but I do remember this tune being one of the more accessible mainly due to its tempo . Thing is ; is it important to essentially " copy " these solos down to every 16 even 32 note ? If it is a typo then there is nothing we can do about it so improvise....shock horror !! Put your own phrase in there or borrow half a phrase from one bar half from another...just so long as it fits and keeps the continuity ; that's the important thing .
 

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