5 Lesson 2 Franco & Le T.P. OK Jazz Likambo Ya Ngana Single ( 19 72 ) Exercise In Congolese Rumba music melodies are often played with parallel intervals. Inspired by Wes Montgomery, older Congolese music often used octaves so the skills acquired in lesson 1 will be useful for some lines. Moving into the seventies, artists such as Franco began using sixths and tenths and so moving ar ound the fretboard with these intervals is essential to get that soft , airy feel with ambiguity of darkness and light As with lesson 1, p lay t his scale setting the metronome speed to be so slow that you can play legato , perfectly in time with minimal string noise. Slowly increase metronome speed until you can comfortably play at 100bpm. C major / A minor scale in sixths C major / A minor s cale in tenths 6 Exercise Variations 1. Alter the sequence of the scale e.g. 123, 234, 345... or 1, 3, 2, 4, 3, 5... 2. Alter the rhythm 3. Combine variations 1 and 2. 4. Go up in sixths and down in tenths and vice versa. 5. Listen to some Franco tunes and then improvise some melodies in sixths and tenths The Tune ♩ = 110bpm Congolese music has polyphony at its heart. The complexity of sound that emerges through counterpoint of melody and rhythm is such a fundamental component that it makes it difficult to capture the essence of the music as a soloist. We can however learn fro m some rhythmic and melodic ideas expressed in the improvisation in Franco’s introduction to Likambo Ya Ngana. Lots of rhythmic and melodic motifs and are established in this section and these can be borrowed and developed to add interest and dynamics to t he refrain grooves that will make up the main body of the piece. Intro 7 R efrain 1 Franco actually only plays this specific groove in the intro, but later in the piece develops this idea with similar grooves. I think it works great as a soloist to occasionally return to this groove. The most important part of this refrain is the melody i n sixths with the higher part on the D, E and F coming in on the and of 3 . Play around with your own permutations of these notes and try to avoid playing on the 3 rd beat . Additionally, the pickup can be used wonderfully as a launchpad into further improvisation. 8 Refrain 2 Structure for Improvisation The following structure will be a useful starting point for extended improvisations around the themes of this piece. Intro 𝄆 Refrain 1 | Refrain 2 | Improv in 6ths | | Refrain 1 | Refrain 2 | Improv in 10ths 𝄇 Intro (Bars 8 - 10 ) Listen to other early 70’s Franco tunes for inspiration on melodic and rhythmic improvisation. Use the pickup for refrain 1 to lead into improvisation in 6ths and the pickup for refrain 2 to lead into the tenths. It will sound great to recall and develop melodic ideas from the intro in your improvisation. There is a great rendition of this piece by Banda Maravilha where he develops some of the themes on solo guitar before being joined by the band. His version was very useful for me when learning to play this tune.