Ghosting Up A Rip, Part 2

Today's post is a followup to my previous one about a common jazz articulation technique I refer to as "Ghosting Up A Rip".

You'll find this throughout the recordings of Bird, Cannonball, Stitt, etc. It involves ghosting a group of ascending notes (usually a fast ascending line), leading up to the peak of a line.

Typically, the starting note of this ascending line is attacked and the "rip" (by rip I mean two or more fast ascending notes leading up to an intended note) is ghosted.

There are two methods of applying this technique. This post will be focusing on the Method 2.
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Method 2

Ghost every note of the "rip" but take your tongue off the reed for the next-to-highest note, and accent the top note: D-N___-E T

Practicing This Technique

Example 2 from "Blues for Alice"

Here we have Bird ghosting many consecutive notes, in this case 4 in a row. This is not rare in Charlie Parker's playing, but it's a bit more common in the double-time lines of Sonny Stitt.

"D-N___-E TEET"

We have a total of seven notes in this line.
The first is attacked unaccented "D",
then 4 in a row are ghosted "N___",
the next note the tongue comes off the reed but it is not re-attacked (you can think of this as "NEE"),
and the the last note is accented and short "TEET".

Vocalizing the Articulation

To really feel the sensation of leaving the tongue on the reed, keep the rhythmic proportions the same, but think of it as quarter notes rather than sixteenths.

Sing/speak the articulation in time:

Then take it to the horn and apply it to single pitches:

Applying the Articulation to Diatonic Shapes

Next, take the shape of the original line and run it through scales as quarter notes. The shape is essentially 123579, approached from a half-step below whatever the "1" is.

Through the key of D Major, for example:

Advancing the Rhythm

Once you're comfortable thinking of and playing it in terms of quarters, set your metronome to a pretty slow tempo (30-40bpm) and start working the articulation up as sixteenths.

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*IMPORTANT NOTE*
You need to be able to play the following shapes all-slurred with an even tone before adding any articulation. If you are unable to play through these lines with a solid tone and an even airstream with no articulation, that needs to be practiced separately first.

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Then, apply it to the shape of the line:

Ghosting Up Rips In Eighth-note Lines

In the previous example, the rip is very double-time oriented and pretty isolated from everything else in Bird's solo. It's also very important to have examples of how this technique applies to lines made up of mostly eighth-notes.

Below is a typical Charlie Parker line which includes a sixteenth-note rip surrounded by eighth notes.

Taking the rip out to practice it by itself, we get this shape/articulation:

The articulation by itself, as quarters:

And broken down into quarters, running it through a scale:

With the rhythm of the original line:
Again, start very slowly and work the pattern without articulation first.

This particular line is great as an approach to 3579 over various chords, and should be practiced (and sounds really nice) moving around by 4ths:

Another Variation: Ghosting Up Rips In Eighth-note Lines

And another variation, this one comes from Bird's solo on "Groovin' High" live at Carnegie Hall.

The shape/articulation by itself:

And as quarters, on a single pitch:

And as quarters, through a key:

​And sixteenths, through a key:

That's all I have for now on "Ghosting Up A Rip". I hope you try playing through these exercises; doing so will help you develop a more intentional articulation style.

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​Stay tuned, and happy shedding!
—Dester