Silver Sea
By Rob Smith for #Wonderbrass25
Intro from Dr Rob
Silver Sea is a short and intense piece. It’s is intense – it’s a fast tune that is meant to sound relaxed in performance, so to achieve that relaxed feel you have to have the notes under your fingers. It’s quite a workout!
Get it as fast as you can so that, when performing it, it feels slow and easy.
Play along with the backing track:
Structure:
After a bass intro there are three A sections, each one being a repeated 4 bar pattern.
There then follow B and C (16 bars each) sections.
First solo is over A1 – 16 bars of soloist plus rhythm until band joins in playing 4 x A1
Second solo is over A2 and is 16 bars of soloist plus rhythm until band joins in playing 4 x A2
First solo is over A1 and is 16 bars of soloist plus rhythm until band joins in playing 4 x A3 followed by B ad C as for the intro head.
That’s it!
Improvising:
The harmonies are mostly G (tonic) and D or D7 (dominant) with the occasional Am or C (supertonic, subdominant). That means all the chords come from the scale of G major and improvising starts there – the G major scale.
The adventurous among you might want to experiment with G blues for downward moving phrases or experimenting with temporary dominants (like using A major scales to move to D) but the safe zone is G major. (E major for altos and baritone, A major for Bb instruments)
Bon voyage!
