HinoteKU

Hey Tony!! hope all is going well -

I was talking to a friend of mine today about shakes. Do you (or do any readers) try to finger notes so that shakes or doits or whatnot fall within the 'harmonic pallette,' for lack of a better term?

An illustration: say you have a shake on a G just above the staff - would you shake it fingering 13 if you were on a GMaj chord versus open on a C7? Or 12 on an A7? I tend to think about this a lot, but then I decide nobody really gives a crap and I stick with whatever fingering i use for the base note, but I'd love to know how people who get paid for this think :)

dmo

kadleck

Hey Danny -

I honestly have never thought of this, but it makes sense.

I think that rather than using alternate fingerings, I'll sometimes do a 1/2 valve thing during the shake. That way the pitch isn't as pronounced (like your G-Bb on a Gmaj7 example). It seems that it would make the Bb not stick out as much. Just a thought.

Any other ideas?

Tony

Blazing Asian

Is shaking just slurring really fast? I've never been able to sound like the shakes on jazz albums...

Harold Zinno

When I studied with "Jake", his approach to shakes worked very well.
Once on the note (using alternate fingerings where necessary, i,e 1,3 for G) that you are going to shake, raise your tongue slightly in your mouth and shake the horn using your right hand/arm. The first action is to bring the horn towards your face and then out. You should use your elbow as the fixed point of your arm so your bicept remains fixed and your forearm does the moving. Jake also employed this technique in the employment of vibrato as well.