Question and Answer

Pat, I'm a high school guitarist thats been playing for a couple of years and my jazz band has just about all of the big band arrangements of your songs. The ones we mostly play are Have You Heard? and See the World. I can handle HYH?'s changes pretty easily (although I've tried to do some of your stuff from the Road To You album and I just can't do it now). See the World's changes are pretty tough though. Do you have any suggestions for soloing over it?

Steve

hi steve,

well, if it makes you feel any better, i scuffled like crazy on that tune every night for a year - it's hard! maybe one of the hardest to play on tunes i have ever written.

the only advice i would say is to practice it really slow and work your way up to tempo. this is the kind of tune for me that i would just have to shed for 4 or 5 hours a day for a week or two, just to try to get to the point that i am so familiar with the changes that i can start to forget them and just play melodies. also in a tune like this, knowing all the common tones between every adjacent chord intimately will give you a grid of stoppin places along the way where you can catch your breath a little... good luck!