Sunday, February 19, 2012

Transcription: Jon Christensen - Dansere

This goes out to my old friend Tim Willcox, who turned me on to this record- Jan Garbarek's Dansere, with Jon Christensen on drums. Christensen is pretty important to the current thing going on in drums in the Pacific Northwest- a lot of younger-than-40 drummers here are working in this vein. I think of him as sort of the Billy Higgins of the 70's- unpretentious and infinitely musical. This transcription starts at the beginning of the 5/4 section in the middle of the tune.




Notes:
- Covers the beginning of the 5/4 section through the piano solo.
- He appears to be using three cymbals on the recording, which I've transcribed as two- a ride cymbal and a smaller cymbal. I believe the ride is a Paiste 602, possibly a Dark Ride, by the way...
- I've used parenthesis to give a sense of shape within measures. Notes in parenthesis are very soft ghost notes, and accents in parenthesis are just for shape- play them slightly stronger than the surrounding notes. Regular accents and housetops have their normal function.
- Each measure of 5/4 is divided into 3/4 + 2/4, with a tied note on the & of 3.
- The main cymbal line is played on the ride cymbal, until the last measure of the piece, where the right hand plays the hihat, as noted in the transcription.

Get the pdf | Get Dansere by Jan Garbarek | get mp3

YouTube audio after the break:




5 comments:

u.hejsek@tele2.at said...

Jon Christensen transcr.:
Really phantastic - long awaited
THANK YOU, Todd ...
Do you know anything about hi hat cymbals jon christensen used ?
In the erarlier times he used paiste 2002 14" regular. And later/on the youtubevideoa seems like a or k zildjians ?
Do you have a transcr. of something in 4/4 ? Jons versatile k/bossa / 8th ...?
Thanks a lot
Ulrich Vienna, Austria

Todd Bishop said...

Glad you could use this, Ulrich! All I know about his cymbals is that he had a K ride he used a lot, and a 22" Paiste dark (either 602 or Sound Creation); pretty clearly there's a 602 flat on this track-- probably a 20"? That's good to know about the 2002 hihats-- I've been looking for an excuse to buy some!

I think the only other thing of his I've transcribed is Long As You Know You're Living Yours, from Belonging, which has that ECM funk groove on it. I'll try to find something else suitable soon, though. tb

Me [LFoaB] said...

Pretty certain that would be a 22" Paiste SC Dark Flat on that recording.

-Scott

Todd Bishop said...

Excellent, thanks for the info!

Anonymous said...

I just came across this in searching for things about one of my favourite drummers! Great transcription! As for Christensen's ride, it's a 22" old K Istanbul orchestral cymbal, very heavy and close to 4000g. It has a lot more tone than a flat ride. He had a 16" cymbal and and 18" cymbal in his kit. Sometimes the 18" was an old K and sometimes he had a Paiste 2002 Crash (probably what's on this album). He did not play a 22" SCDR, though the Paiste profiles book says he did. There's no flat ride on this recording. It couldn't be the Paiste SC Dark Flat anyway since that didn't come out until 1984 (a year after Paul Wertico joined the Pat Metheny Group and started playing it with them). If you want to hear Jon Christensen on a flat ride I think there's one on Ralph Towner's album Sound & Shadows.