Lesson

This tune by Pat Metheny is titled Letter from Home and was featured on a CD of the same name that Pat put out in the 1990s.

The left hand accompaniment is mostly single line arpeggios which provide rhythmic movement and keep the piece flowing. The right hand uses octaves occasionally, which really sound good on vibes.

Note: Example tune is All The Things You Are, I only played part of the melody.

Check out how important dynamics are in separating the melody line from the accompaniment. It's especially noticeable in the first 8 measures of the tune.

just a quick application comment...

this line is quartal vocabulary (or fourthy vocabulary hahaha).

it's a quartal chord just in an inversion. If you made C# the bottom note voiced... C#, F#, B, E you would have stacked 4ths.

where to play this? Well it could be...

Emaj giving you scale degrees 13-9-5-1
Amaj (3-13-9-5)
Dmaj (7-3-13-9)
C#minor (1, 11, 7, 3)
F#minor (5-1-11-7)
Bminor (9-5-1-11)
E7 (13-9-5-1)
Bb7alt (#9-b13-b9-#11)

I'm sure I left a few out. But do you guys see how it fits into all of those chords?

Simple Etude. Play F# B C# E up and down your instrument. Try it fast. Hard right? I think of these as asymmetrical arpeggios.

Just do that for a few weeks and then come back to it, every now and then. I just did it yesterday and I sucked at it! Your turn!