'Moonlight In Vermont' - solo piano lesson - The Whole Tone Scale

I tried to make this a workout using the Whole Tone scale within a 'Standard' (Moonlight in Vermont) played as a solo piano piece.

In Film music, it is almost a cliche - used commonly to create atmosphere supporting such things as dream sequences, misty scenes, etc. Because all its intervals (whole tones) are the same, it has that ambiguous, indistinct character - not minor - not major.
And of course it has a history in solo piano music too (Debussy and the French impressionists)

The melody, form and harmonic structure of 'Moonlight In Vermont' (not to mention the lyrics - '..falling leaves', ' ..ski trails on a mountain side', ' ...warbling of a meadowlark') make it a good choice.
This was completely improvised some time ago - and has not been edited. I can think of other 'effects' that I could have incorporated, but have resisted the temptation to edit! For an excellent version of this same version by Bjarne E. Nielsen played on a Steinway, got to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQEmZLHMwoI

As always, the video is free to download from my Website at
http://www.bushgrafts.com
A very accurate printable transcription created by Bjarne using Sibelius is on my DVD along with over 140 others. ($25)

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Moonlight
• In
• Vermont
• solo
• piano
• lesson
• The
• Whole
• Tone
• Scale
• tutorial
• jazz
• Doug
• McKenzie
• improvised

[boswell255]

Hey Doug, great piece, and very nicely played. In fact this piece is the reason I bought your dvd. I'm a little disappointed the transcription or video isn't on there though :(

[jazz2511]

Contact me and I will email it to you Boswell

[pjefpjef]

Hey very very cool! I see the leadsheet under the blue box but you play a lot more. Does that mean everything above the blue box you improvise?

5stars though

[jazz2511]

Thanks for the comment! Yes - you are right. I put the original melody at the bottom - in case you want to compare the improvised version to the original melody to see how far it is different - I didn't put the original chords though as you can get them from any real book version. The whole thing is in sync though - even in the very free-time first chorus.

Doug

[vegetasrevenge]

I have an arrangement for guitar for this piece and you just gave me a lot of cool and interesting ideas. Thank you, a real beaut!

[kratanuva725]

I really enjoyed it. :)

[kratanuva725]

Is the audio file for this for sale somewhere, or can you give it to me?

[zonebass]

The whole tone scale was used by the master Debussy in his beautiful compositions, actually this song remember that kind of vibe, the 3d mov of 6th measure for example sounds just like "Reverie".

Great!!!

[boswell255]

Thanks Doug, 'preciate it :)

[dabigkid]

Man I love you! This is one of my favorite pieces, thanks so much for playing it.

Your videos are so useful. <3

[sweetfingazz]

sweet!

[pjefpjef]

Thanks for the reaction...Keep up the good work!