Jay Oliver’s Piano Solo on Dave Weckl’s “Heads Up”

Transcription of Jay Oliver’s piano solo on Dave Weckl’s “Heads Up”, with brief theoretical analysis.

Jay Oliver did a wonderful piano solo on this tune “Heads Up” from drummer Dave Weckl’s album. Here’s the youtube clip :

Here’s the transcription of the piano solo in PDF format :

jay-oliver-piano-solo-transcription-on-heads-up

The basic harmony during the piano solo is an E dorian. However, the E mixolydian can also be applied.

Superimposed Chords

Observe bar 5 to bar 6 of the transcription, which can be heard at 3m29s of the video clip.

 We see the use of an Am superimposed chord in bar 5, and a Dmaj7 superimposed chord in bar 6. The cutout shows how the melody notes also follow the superimposed harmony.

Am Chord

The Am chord requires the use of the note C instead of C#, which implies the use of the E Aeolian scale, with a sound comparatively “darker” than the original E dorian the listener would be expecting.

To get a better picture, go to this link  and observe the difference between these two scales. You will see how the aeolian scale differs from the dorian by only a flattened 6th degree.

Dmaj7 Chord

The Dmaj7 chord doesn’t require the use of another scale, but by emphasizing on its chord tones gives us an interesting and colorful sound, somewhat similar to extending a simple E7 chord to an E13.

Have fun and enjoy…. 🙂