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Working on Endings ...


Tusker

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Just wondering what types of endings you use with your band. This thread was prompted by Dave Ferris' excellent tutorial on the Basie ending:

 

Actually it's most often referred to as a "Basie ending". At 3:12

[video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbbBeU1vHew

 

And that ending is often voiced wrong. In the key of C it's--

LH -stays on an A a 6th above middle C for the whole RH sequence.

RH- plays E (10th above middle C) & C (+5 up from the E) , F & C (5th apart), F# & C, G &C.

 

Sometimes the lick starts on beat 3 (like in the video above), in which case the sequence/lick omits the E & C of beat one and starts on the F & C . LH still plays the A all through this.

 

In Satin Doll, yes, a lot of arrangements use the *Basie ending* even though Duke played his intro (which most people play wrong...it's in a drop 2 chord voicing) for the ending.

[video:youtube]

 

One of the bands I'm playing with is a five piece and it's all over the map. Currently there are three broad categories of ending I guess:

 

1- Song is a cover with a crisp ending. We duplicate that. It feels good.

2- Song is from the great american songbook. We do a classic turnaround or last line repeat. End in the roar. We are all looking at the drummer for the last hit. Let me know if this sounds all too familiar. :sick:

3- We come up with something cute but now we have to get everyone to remember it.

 

We need to work on moving more songs from category 2 to 3. Maybe build a repertoire of them. Anybody working on endings? What are you doing?

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If I had a band of my own ( I do not ) I would want to create endings.

Ever since the advent of pop music scene... we have had fade outs with an producer/engineer ending the song; too bad, and not creative at all.

While Basie and Ellington had their wonderful way of doing things, and a few are standardized.. I do not see any reason why those ways cannot be modified to any degree you wish.

 

Another ending for pre 1960's music is eg Key of C maj when bass line starts at F# to F to E to Eb D to Db to C

 

Another fade with a cued ending is variations on (eg key of C major) C to Bb to C to Bb etc It can be Bb maj 7 or Bb 7. You can even pedal a C throughout.

 

Another one I only use on one song, shame on me

is Playing (eg key of C major) without harmony eighth notes descending one octave 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 C major scale. with an abrupt short last note ( the Tonic )

 

Dizzy Gillespie used to go on and on with a tag ending key of C major

variations on E7 A7 D7 G7 all kinds of harmonic variations.

 

These are harmonic ideas mostly... but more creative is composed endings which are not just harmonic, but more complete with harmony rhythm melody dynamics etc.

 

"Cute" and April in Paris come to mind where Coda is repeated ( I think it's the Coda ).

 

Many people think of an ending as louder,, but a very soft ending is a nice variation.

 

One soft ending is a fade where people drop out, leaving just the bass ( roughly speaking ).

 

But creativity is what is needed!

 

You don't have ideas, ideas have you

We see the world, not as it is, but as we are. "One mans food is another mans poison". I defend your right to speak hate. Tolerance to a point, not agreement

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In my projects, I've always insisted on having definite endings that either fall in to your categories 1 or 3, or, that segue. In fact, working on endings is a great way to work segued sections in to your set list(s). Those eliminate much of the need for that "banter" from the other thread and give you a chance to dictate how the crowd responds to your sets.

 

But either way, IMO, endings are an important part of high level professional distinction.

Nobody told me there'd be days like these...
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With songs with actual endings, simple enough, we usually use that! Sometimes a live version provides a nice ending that we use.

 

For songs that fade out, one of two things usually happens in the bands I've been in:

1. something is worked out, but drummer/somebody forgets it and then you get into this long "spiral of uncertainty" where nobody is sure how long to play. Not good....this is the way the song ends, not with a bang but a whimper...

 

2. fall into one particular type of ending--let's say 4 bars on the main riff and drummer does a small fill + sharp ending as an example--and it gets used on too many songs. Even if it's tight I just think it might be best to mix it up and not end everything the same way, but who knows. Beats #1 :)

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....this is the way the song ends, not with a bang but a whimper...

 

Yup. The single biggest pitfall in live band endings IMO. There HAS to be a definitive endpoint to cue the applause, if for no other reason.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

-Mark Twain

 

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There HAS to be a definitive endpoint to cue the applause, if for no other reason.

I agree with this. I like nice tight endings, but for crowd management the rock-band-end-in-a-roar ending keeps people in applause mode. The tight ending sometimes will take people by surprise and they delay the applause for a beat or two.

I'm just saying', everyone that confuses correlation with causation eventually ends up dead.
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The top 3 bar band typical endings:

1) Extended drum roll and chord to an accented chopped chord and muted cymbal crash

2) The 3 chord chop , cha-cha-cha (mostly country)

3) The last line of the chorus doubled and the tonic chord strummed once and allowed to decay naturally coupled with a cymbal crash.

Boards: Kurzweil SP-6, Roland FA-08, VR-09, DeepMind 12

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We like to do an orchestral - type ending sometimes where you have the big rock-and-roll crescendo ending going and then after a count of 4 go silent on the 1.

 

The Allman's did this on Hot 'Lanta on the Filmore East recording. It's really cool!

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We like to do an orchestral - type ending sometimes where you have the big rock-and-roll crescendo ending going and then after a count of 4 go silent on the 1.

 

The Allman's did this on Hot 'Lanta on the Filmore East recording. It's really cool!

 

:cool:

 

Going to add this to the repertoire.

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