Lessons

We’re nearly at the end of this Scrapple from the Apple transcription project from Dexter Gordon’s classic, Our Man in Paris album. In lesson five, we are going to tackle clips 8 and 9. Clip 8 is quite straightforward as it mostly sits on one note, clip 9 well – it gets a little complicated. 

In lesson four of our Dexter Gordon Scrapple from the Apple transcription we are looking at the opening 8 bars of Dexter’s solo. Whilst many of us when faced with a group of ii V’s might launch into a series of licks or scales; Dexter sticks to one note and then a couple of simple phrases, (incorporating some Digital Patterns).

In this lesson, we are dealing with clip 5 which marks the end of the ‘bridge’ section of Scrapple from the Apple. As I have explained before, with Scrapple from the Apple, the bridge section is always improvised by the musician, the ‘head’ being the ‘A’ section is only what one has to play as per Charlie Parker’s composition…

In this lesson, we are working on clips 3&4 of the project. Clip 3 is almost identical to clip 2, so it shouldn’t take you too long to work out the ending, (which is the only thing that differs from clip 2.) Clip 4 takes us into the bridge of Scrapple from the Apple. The bridge is based on the same middle 8 as ‘Rhythm Changes’ that is a cycle of Dominant 7th chords moving by intervals of a 4th.

Here is lesson one of our ‘Scrapple from the Apple’ transcription project. You can find the clips below and all the clips are available here.
Clip one is the intro, (which is a short minor 3rd phrase repeated) and then, clip two is where the fun starts with the opening lines of the melod