Contemporary Guitar “Dragon’s Gate” any of you maybe amit ieee 0 munr bluse crnpose by eax {real Wayne Shorter If not, lok it up in ‘your Real Book. Its often done by impro- visers at ll levels because theresa lot to ‘work with: the always-fertle key of C minor, plus the special contemporary feel- ing that any piece by Mr. Shorter possess. es. Having sald that, and having played “Footprints” so many times mysolf, 76> ccenily dec'ded to write an aternate work with similar elements. | compose "Dragon's Gate,” which is inspired by a Chinese tala about the dificult of accom- om7 m7 plshing beautiful things, as a follow-up to Shorter’ tune. ‘Waynes opus has 12 bars, but ‘Gate has 16. And while bars § through 8 of Footprinis" go up 8 fourth, "Gate" as- ccands a halt-tep, in the tradition of Miles Davis’ “So What." The melodies are quite diferent, too; "Gate" has a lot more notes, is less mysterious, and covers a wider range. In many places, you must play consec: utive notes with the Same finger. In bar 1 for example, Eb and Bb are played with the left-hand 4th finger, folowed immedi ately by Cand Gwith the tst finger. Bar 2 's loaded witn further successive finger “Dragon’s Gate” env on LARRY CORYELL ings, ard bars 9 and 4 even more 80. Note the Efrto-Ab slide in the fourth measure and the hammer-on in bar 8. The hhammer-onis optional, but it seems king of natural (no pun intended) to do it there; the Bf isa “harder” note, in terms of em- phasis, than the Next month, we'll look at the last four bars ofthe Rea, plus bit ofthe improv Larry Coryell helped pioneer fusion in the late Os and has recorded with numerous Jegendary musicians, including John ‘MeLaughin, Sonry Folins, and Stephane Grappell. By Larry Coryell om? m7 om7 Dm? (©1969 Coryell Music. Used by permission. Alrghts reserved ‘See Notational Symbols, page 100 anuary soeveumneuwer 105Contemporary Guitar “The Dragon Gate,” Part 2 © looked atthe first 12 bars of my tune “The Dragon Gato" last month, Now let's look at the last four bars of the head and a few measures of my improvisation over the song's changes. The final four bars of the head begin in the fifteenth position and work their way down to the ninth position (look atthe slide from As to Gon the fit string), ‘eventually setting in the seventh and eighth positions as the solo begins. Bar 18 is noteworthy because it's the first place since the beginning of the composition Eek that has more than an eighth-note rest. ‘And notice how the improv complements the shape of the melady; the phrase con- tains a generous number of fourths, Triplets are used in bar 21, followed by four more beats of rest into bar 22, an eighth-note tied toa triplet, and then into bar 23, whore wo have the long Di, fol lowed by the succession of Es that runs through bar 24. Notice thatthe fist note of bar 25 is also an Ep; this note is both the {34 of Cm? and the Sth of Cam. We'll ‘stop there—that’s enough. For the rest of he soo, you can check out my aloum The “The Dragon Gate” LARRY CORYELL Dragon Gate [Shanachie], What | found in teresting about this two-part column was the journey from composing a piece (based, in this case, on Wayne Shorter's "Fooiprin’s") io analyzing the solo shapes that might be used to improvise over i. 8 Larry Coryel helped pioneer fusion in the late '603 and has recorded with numerous legendary musicians, including John MeLaughiin, Sonny Rolin, and Stephane Grappell By Larry Coryell (©1986 Coryell Music. Used by permission Al rights reserved! ‘See Notational Symbols, page 100 Fesruare woucummnuven 103