Kansas City Trill Timing Issues

[Keith Taylor]

Hey Y’all,

I’m in the process of trying to learn Johnny’s version of Kansas City, and am having trouble getting the timing of my trills down. As in, for the first part it’s called for (bar 44 on the first page) I’ve been playing it where I really don’t trill, but instead left off the G key where I only alternate once before going to the F# and then on to bending the G, G#, and A. Which I believe just makes it an 8th note sequence. Me doing it in time like this helps me know when to start bending the G, G# and A.

That works – okay – on that particular part, but on bars 51 and 52 on the second page, I can’t get it to sound right with doing just that. And when I try to trill faster, more like Johnny does, I seem to lose my sense of time and it all ends up sounding like a sloppy hot mess.

So, my questions for any of y’all that have gotten this part down – or for Johnny – is – how many times do you need to trill the F and how many for the F# before bending into the G. Would it be 16th notes he is doing, or 32nd? I realize that there isn’t suppose to be a set structure for trills – but I feel like I need something to help get my timing right on them. And yes, I’m aware that he offers the bonus video lessons for this song and have already purchased them. He doesn’t cover much regarding the time of the trills in them though. Only what key he is using to do them with.

I’m considering trying to make up my own thing for those parts, or possibly slightly slow down the tempo and see if I can keep up with it better that way. Because I’m beginning to wonder if I have the finger speed to – just to let off that single key and back again to make it sound as he does.

I’m pushing myself to learn this pretty hard right now due to me planning on trying to record it in the next week or so for the yearly wedding anniversary sax thing I do for my wife, but I’ve gotta get this trill thing down or I guess figure out something else to play during those parts.

Please share any insight you have concerning getting the timing of trills down where they don’t sound sloppy and let me know how many times you feel Johnny is trilling each note. I feel like my ears are playing tricks on me at this point due to having listened to it so much.

Thanks!

Keith

[john]

that’s one of my go-to licks. It’s a series of trills that climbs up by semi-tones. would be kinda difficult to explain but I will be making a video of that which will be added to the “Embellishment” series.

what I can say is that you can work on it by just trilling each note once, very slowly. so bar 44 it starts with the base note D, then you’d trill F to F# back to F. then F# to G, back to F#. then G to G# back to G etc.
this is the slightly watered down way but gets you doing the movements. what I do just doubles or triples up on the amount of times I actually trill those notes.
also, to make it sound right we must scoop the first note

[Keith Taylor]

Thanks for the added insight, Johnny. I plan on recording it on Thursday, so, can’t wait for to the video you plan on doing on it. So, I’m just going to make it sound as good as I can, or figure out something else to do for those first measures on the second page.

Also, can you please clarify what you meant by, “to make it sound right we must scoop the first note?” This means I would need to scoop the F natural prior to doing the trill with the top G or ring finger key. Correct? I don’t think you mentioned doing that for that note in your lesson videos for the song – just the G, G#, and A that follows – which I’ve been doing already.

I’ll try and scoop the F, but I’m feeling rushed on the F and F# already due to the whole trill thing, and doing a scoop seems to add to the time needed for each note. For me it does at least. I’ll try it, though.

I may end up slowing down the tempo just a tad, which may make things a bit easier for me.

Thanks again for the added insight!

Keith

[john]

as for scooping, what I mean is to scoop the first note of each group…
I break the entire lick down into 5 notes (or groups).
the first one is the F, F#, F.
the second one is F#, G, F#
the third one is G, G#, G
the fourth one is G#, A G#
the fifth one is A

so, you scoop the F, perform the following trills, then scoop the F# which is the start of the second group, the scoop the G which is the 3rd group etc

[Author]

Posts