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I'm really excited to work through this tune with you today its I Left My Heart in San

Francisco. Great tune, great standard used all the time a great one to get underhand

and with me to work thorough it today is my good friend Dave Powers

Hi Dave

Hi Scott

How are you?

I'm great, yourself?

Doing well thank you

Wonderful

Hey I am really excited about doing this tune with you in particular cause I'm gonna have

you sing it if you are ok with doing that?

Yea hum, no problem

Yea that's right, hum

The reason I want to do that obviously Tony Bennett who had the giant hit on this

its huge

and I mention a lot, we talked about the difference between solo style and accompaniment style

and in my mind there was not a better accompaniments on the planet and still is than Ralph Sharon,

who was Tony Bennett's long time accompaniments

Fantastic player

Actually we did some research and found out that he's who brought this tune to Tony. That

yea Ralph Sharon brought the tune San Francisco to Tony to do it and it ended up being his

signature tune

So, having said that, there's a couple and its kind of rare I think in accompanments

world to have a kind of a signature lick. Yet this one hasn't.

So we want to work through that, we want to give those away and a just kind of hammer

through the tune a little bit and discuss the difference between solo style playing

or accompanying yourself singing.

So, having said that why don't we play the first couple of measures so everybody kind

of gets to where we are and

(music) ohh (music) laughing - doing it in a different key

Right, yea

Ok, so there's the tune

a little bit off track

Of course we can't say without the old joke, I left my Harp in Stan Franstisco right?

It's an old musician joke, having said that how do you approach when you just start out

cause I know you sing a lot when you work gigs.

Explain to me the difference in the way you break down playing solo style playing vs.

oh I'm singing on this one I'm gonna do something different, kind of explain that if you would.

well some piano players that sing basically will just play chords while they sing. Um,

I'm a little different that way. I listen to a lot of music

You're a little different in a lot of ways.

But I listen to a lot of different music and I like to hear extra little nuances that people

expect to hear.

I mean when San Francisco is played and its played by many groups everyone expects to

hear that signature lick as you say

The great comedian Pete Barbutti does a great comedy routine with this and he has this trumpet

that's all wrapped up in duck tape and he brings it out and he starts playing you know

he starts playing the melody the whole band sings ta da da da ta da da cause they expect

to hear that tune

Let's go ahead and give that away actually while we are talking about that

Let's just visually give it away that lick, so.

I'm going to play it in this register but it's played an octave up normally and if I'm

not exact I'm pretty darn close

That's Ok

And I don't know if they ripped that off from Ray Conniff when Ray Conniff did It's a not

for me to Say for Johnny Mathis

It's Not for me to Say started out going

(music)

Back in 1957. When San Francisco came out in 62.

Ok, so let's give that away

It starts out on, I'm in the key of C so, Simple so it just marches up a C Chord.

And actually that melody, I'm gonna throw something out the is so obscure, but not that

obscure. In the late 20's there was a song The Wedding of the Painted Doll and the melody

was, It's a holiday today today's the wedding of the painted doll, but it's the same.

It's one of my favorite songs, I'm such a nerd. (Laughing)

Now the second part of that is I left my heart, ba du do ta da in San Francisco

Yea, the second chord, that's a D Chord so he's playing a descending chord if anyone

was gong to play this and go

Kind of like that, the melody would be

But if you want to be a bit more expressive you can, slide those notes so is just slides

down like,

Nice, it gives it a little bit more expression

So the first one again starts on a C, Ok, now the second one starts on the D

There we go, I think that's going to be a great thing for our viewers to just get under

hand because boy every one can relate to that when they play this tune.

So where it falls in the tune is you would be singing

(Dave partially Singing the tune)

You have to fell that you've done a pretty good job as an accompaniments when you have

a signature lick and its just the accompaniment.

True, well if you are also a piano player that sings and you are singing you want to

feel in those extra gaps in your song. If you were in a band playing and you had a sax

player and a vocalist would sing and when there was a little gap the sax player would

always fill in those little extra measures with some fluff or whatever he wants to do.

Same thing to being a really good accompaniments, accompanying yourself you've got 10 fingers

to do whatever you want you are already singing the melody and you've got your accompaniment

going. So you can sing the song, you know whatever, so you have all of that space to

use for um,

That's clearing things up a little bit. I mean maybe another way to rephrase what you

just mentioned is you basically, while the melody is going on whether you are singing

it or playing it, you are just playing chords underneath it

right

The minute the melody stops and there is a gap you then need to fill in some of that

space with something melodic as an accompaniment. And you will notice that if you listen to

the recordings that you listen to

Well yea this is the perfect one, yea you have Tony Bennett singing I left my Heart

in San Francisco then there's a place and Ralph Sharon is playing and more accompaniment.

Ok, well this is a great example to do that on. Let's move on through the tune a little

bit, and kind of push forward a little bit and work through any other things that might

be traps for anybody who is working through this tune.

Being that it's a ballad you can add a little rhythm to the song by maybe playing in the

left hand you know the note and then a chord, you know like 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4

Ok, so that's kind of a real easy stride bass almost

Yea it's like a slow stride

You are reaching down playing a single root and then going up an octave to play the chord.

Which is something I can probably handle on a ballad but I would never be able to do it

on a really fast tune, but that's great. That's a good call for a slow tune to target practice

isn't quite so tough.

Yea, practice. Practice slow, take it slow, take the note maybe if you want to play a

little octave and then chord. You know play an octave, play the octave, and what I would

do, how I started doing the stride stuff when I was younger and really understanding stride

getting from point a to point b. Sometimes I would see, like here's the root, see I'm

in the key of C, here's the fifth. so maybe I would go down, I would desend from the fifth,

so the root, but in a way that helps my hand get to the right spot.

So if I just did this...

But if I went...

Sound wise you are hearing like a bass player going...

Right, cause its filling a spot there

yea doing it that way, Let's go to the bridge of this tune there is another accompaniment

lick that I want to give away

Little cable cars

And then usually in that gap you imitate let's give that one away

Right usually they echo an answer

So, little cable cars

Sounds pretty OK

And its not, you don't have to play that verbatim you want to fill in the gaps with something

so, I would encourage people to be a little more creative in that part.

Ok

But if you want here's a good way of getting around it...

(music)

(music)

You know as I see you do that maybe a easy thing we can tell our viewers is that whenever

you need to fill something you are always safe sticking to whatever the chord tones

are, right.

so whatever chord you are playing in your left hand you could always just open it up

and play chord tones in some pattern with your right hand and you want to do it up higher

to give yourself a little you know

Your right,

So, of you are playing it and not singing it.

(music)

So the point is what chord are you on here, any of those chord tones, would work out up

high as you are doing that

Exactly

So, here's an Eminor and then you go...

Yea, you are safe doing that, it's kind of

Filling out the chord right

That's probably a pretty good mental thing to hang your hat on then to not panic and

think oh I've got to be so creative and come up with all these beautiful melodic lines

and you really don't. At a beginning level if you want to take that first step off the

cliff that way just go up and make sure you are sticking to the chord tones and whatever

you are doing somehow just spell them out and do that.

sure

That's a good call

Indeed

Now, when you work through a tune, the next thing I'm going to talk about is arranging

it I guess if you are working through one. When you are singing do you normally sing

a chorus and play chorus and sing a chorus, I mean any thoughts on how you approach that?

Well melody is very important to me in a song and when I'm making my point vocally getting

the words, because people like to hear the words you use and they are very important.

I will play the whole song all the way through and then put a little instrumental chorus

in and maybe, in a song like San Francisco I won't start at the beginning again, I might

start at the half way point

And work your way up

Yea, my love waits there in San Francisco, its right after the little cable cars part.

So give yourself a little section to do some instrumental work then come back in and wrap

up the tune vocally.

I think there's a mistake that some performers make cause they want to go back to the beginning

of the song again and

do the whole thing through again

Well I think people get bored after that for a while. When you hear a pop song on the radio,

most of these songs, the point is already made within 3 minutes

Ok

Maximum

Even when it comes to ballads unless you are playing an improve with a combo and everyone

wants to take a chorus, of San Francisco that's a different story

But if you are performing as a solo act you know I'll play an instrumental part halfway

through the song so in essence the whole song will be performed twice through.

Ok, this is Dave Powers playing I Left my Heart in

San

Francisco

(music)

(music)

(music)

(music)

Outstanding, that's a great version Dave, I sure appreciate your helping us with that.

My pleasure Scott, thank you.

Alright

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