René Thomas solo on A Night in Tunisia

René Thomas and "the green note".

I'll give you an example: one of the first René Thomas's transcriptions I did, was a solo from " A night in Tunisia". I liked the sound of the instrument, it was absolutely original, the timbre was clear even in the low register, and every detail was easy to understand. It was perfect for transcribing. There was a note which would particularly catch my attention. It was a sound which I have already heard by Clifford Brown, but I never stopped the song in order to understand what it was. I used to recognize it but it would always escape from me. I called it the green note.
Actually, that colour was the unity of a chord which consisted of a particular interval, specially in the case of a minor chord on which was played the major 6th, and the fact it was learnt by listening to a real example, that is by listening to the music, it got fixed in my memory in an indelible way.

By giving you this example I don't mean that the traditional ear training exercises aren't useful, those exercises where you are asked to identify the melodic and harmonic interval, but it's essential to combine those exercises with the listening to the recordings, with the real world made of different timbres mixed together with some inaccuracies and mistakes.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• René
• Thomas
• Night
• in
• Tunisia

[bopfr]

Great work, thank you very much for your transcriptions of René Thomas!