“Life is a lot like jazz… it’s best when you improvise”
,George Gershwin
The solo piano video shown here is posted by a guy who calls himself the improvisor, and he sure knows how to improvise.
Here’s his solo piano salsa version of On Green Dolphin Street
And here’s my transcription of the first few minutes of this video.
Green-Dolphin-Street-Piano-Salsa-transcription-pdf
It would be interesting to see how the improvisor orchestrated a whole salsa version of this jazz standard with just a piano.
The typical piano guaje in a salsa montuno would look something like this
In the video, we can see the first few bars of the left hand is a repeating pattern of this
Notice how the rhythmic placements of the notes closely imitates the salsa piano guaje shown earlier?
In the later part of the transcription, we observe the right hand took over this rhythmic role.
The left hand now imitates the basic bass pattern of a salsa montuno, which would look something like this
Two thumbs up for the improvisor on his playing in this video!!
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Well, I am flattered. Perfect analysis. Thanks for your interest in my humble improvisation.
Alessandro (theimprovisor).
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Try to write things in 2/2 (in cut time). It is the standard meter for salsa and caribbean music. It is a lot easy to read that way.
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