Fast Track To Fast Lines

As he develops his organ solo on “Oh Da Manitee,” Ricky Peterson ups the ante and excitement by playing blazingly fast! The sixteenth-note lines flow and the ideas come fast and furious. But what seems to happen in a flash really takes many hours of concentrated thought and practice to execute. Knowledge of the scales Ricky uses to create his lines is the first step. Coming up with a plan to internalize his phrasing is the second. Here’s the plan.

Ex. 1. Start by taking a pattern that you want to learn and slowing it down to a manageable speed. Here’s a pattern that Ricky uses in his solo, notated in eighth-notes; play it with a metronome on an extremely slow setting until you can’t miss. Instead of immediately speeding up the tempo, try changing the rhythm, which gives you different target notes to aim for on the beats (1b). Using eighth-note triplets emphasizes different notes, and will help you develop finger independence and control (1c). Follow the instructions from the previous examples. After you’ve had fun experimenting with the scale tone pattern, try it in a similar rhythm to Ricky’s line of sixteenths (1d). Keep the tempo slow, and gradually increase it as you become more comfortable.

Ex. 2. Got a longer line that you’d like to learn? Break it down into shorter bits for practice. Here’s the first part of another Ricky Peterson phrase, notated in slower note values, using notes from the C7 bebop scale (2a). Now try it with sixteenths, but instead of trying to rip the entire phrase, stop on strong beats and then pick up the sixteenths again after a beat (2b). After lots of repetition and gradual tempo acceleration, then try the fragment up to Ricky’s speed.

Ex. 3. Find a cool melodic fragment that has a repetitious aspect to it (3a). Then isolate the repetitious part and really crank up the reps (3b).

All files performed by Scott Healy.