Discrepancy between what you listen to and what you play?

[milod]

Oddly on my "other" forum, philosphical and historical rather than guitarical, I found myself mentioning Petronius and how "education" is decreasing even as access to information increases. It was not a dissimilar situation in ways in Rome of antiquity.

 

I think we have a number of different kinds of music that include polarities of the highly learned and its various translations of music through that capability, and the unlearned and often misinformed and its translations of music through that mind set.

 

Frankly I think sometimes that talent can shine through at both those polarities and along the entire line between the two as well.

 

And that, perhaps, is what makes art, art.

 

m

[MissouriPicker]

Milod----Ian Tyson....one of my favorite top 2-3 artists ever. A real cowboy. A real folksinger. He's written so many truly great songs. Here's one of my favorites. BTW, I can't sing like him either...lol..but his songs are so easy-going and easy to sing....He's at the very top.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae4KwdC_dDI

[badbluesplayer]

A lot of jazz players I know (including myself in my youth) did studio time too. If you didn't know how to read music you didn't get far. Most all of my jazz gigs involved only one pass through the chart before playing the real deal. Practicing takes time and time is money. You had to read music and get the nuances of the chart very quickly. For piano it meant knowing the right time to "fill in" during the musical interludes. Jazz guitar mostly had chords and strumming but during solos you had to know the theory. I think some players can do it without theory but those are very rare indeed.

 

So when you say "the chart" are you talking about this:

 

or this:

 

I can play o.k. from the first kind of chart, but I'm slow at reading sheet music. Not fast enough to keep up.

 

Is the idea to be able to play the chords off the chart and then be able to improvise whenever it's time to do that? I think I can do that if I work on it a lot.

 

You figure out the key from the number of sharps and flats. I got that idea, I just need to work on that.

 

I'm just a blues guy, so I'm trying to add in the swing type stuff and work them together. I'm getting more fluent with the major scale.

 

You jazz guys - Am I on the right track trying to learn this way?

[stein]

I would say so...but keep in mind I never reached the point of being a competent jazz player or sight reading.

 

The second example is taken right out of a fakebook. The jazz combos I would see and hang with used these for gigging. Not only for taking request, but if one guy in the group didn't know a tune and they wanted to play it, there it is. And I think it helps with memory as well, and keeps everyone on the same page (hehe).

 

A fakebook has tons of tunes in it, and also, what is written strips the tune down to it's absolute bare essentials.

 

I think for MOST jazz combos, as guitar players they don't expect much from us (lol). The horn player usually plays the melody, and the piano primarily plays the chords, although he is expected to play melodies as well because he CAN. As opposed to the guitar player, who is either filling in for the piano player for the chords and harmony, or is usually expected to strum along with the bass player.

 

Note that this stripped down page doesn't just have the melody and chords, it has the time signature and the structure as well. And many clues as to the timing are included in the melody, beside just what notes to play. And of corse, the lead player will be playing that melody.

 

Personally, I think a lot of folks put too much emphasis on "theory" when it comes to playing your leads when you get one. I think most jazz combos where you are likely to play an improvised lead, most don't care so long as it sounds good and is fun. The whole idea is to jam, not to be all technical and such. And besides, thats YOUR lead, meaning improv is the hallmark, the tradition of many types of jazz.

 

Where theory comes in is to help you get through that chart. It can help with building the chords (especially on the fly), it lets you know what notes NOT to play if you can recognize when there is a key change (note the "accidentals" in the melody as well as the MAJ7th chord...a clue it has possibly switched to the "blues scale" for that part), and for advanced hacks, when you can't grab the whole chord as written in time, so you can sort of cheat by choosing an easier chord that fits.

 

Besides all that, I think fakebooks are great for just playing or learning tunes. Jazz is a whole different world than blues, in that every tune can be in a different key, different structure, and such.

[milod]

Missouri...

 

First met Ian like in '64... Then again a cupla years ago and talked with him a half hour or so.

 

The guy takes a beating and keeps on ticking. He's not necessarily the nicest guy in the world, but a great talent. Dunno what more to say.

 

I've been doing some of his material at least since '64.

 

If you liked Someday Soon, listen to Barrel Racing Angel...

 

m

[Elmer]

So when you say "the chart" are you talking about this:

 

or this:

 

I can play o.k. from the first kind of chart, but I'm slow at reading sheet music. Not fast enough to keep up.

 

Is the idea to be able to play the chords off the chart and then be able to improvise whenever it's time to do that? I think I can do that if I work on it a lot.

 

You figure out the key from the number of sharps and flats. I got that idea, I just need to work on that.

 

I'm just a blues guy, so I'm trying to add in the swing type stuff and work them together. I'm getting more fluent with the major scale.

 

You jazz guys - Am I on the right track trying to learn this way?

the second example has 2 sections of the song covered, the rithm and the chords to play and the melody' you are not supposed to play them together on 1 instrument, but you may do it ofcourse.

[zigzag]

badblues, stein is correct about the notation page being from Fake Book (updated and corrected version is the Real Book) and his comments are dead on. Typically, jazz guys doing a gig would all carry this book along with them. The band leader would call out a number (in this case no. 263), and all the musicians would know what song and what key. What the notation shows is called the "head." The head would be played, then players would improvise different solos, and then everyone would end with the head.

 

I'm not the best sight reader, but the way I would approach any piece would be to determine the key- which is A-flat major (4 flats). A-flat major has the same notes as F minor. I would find the appropriate scale at the correct position on the neck. Some people actually determine the note and corresponding string/fret and play the time value of the note. Others determine the note intervals and play those at the designated timing. (I suspect that really good sight readers do both.) By looking at the chords and their extensions/alterations you determine what scales/modes/arpeggios are available/appropriate for improvising solos, and you're off to the races. The really great musicians just play what they feel and it works.

[FirstMeasure]

The first "Chart" is completely foreign to me. The second one is what I know how to read, although not so fast as I could when I was 20.

 

Gives you the Key Signature, Time Signature, melody line, chords, repeats, and an ending. Doesn't tell you how many times to repeat so I would assume the band leader would cue the Coda. What it doesn't tell you is the rhythm of the chords, but being a blues that's open for interpretation. The fact that the melody line is written completely in single notes tells me this chart is for horns as well as piano and guitar.

 

What's I'd like to see along with this would be charts of rhythm figures and fills. But that wouldn't be Jazz Band, would it?

 

{edit} Upon closer examination we find it's a 16 bar blues in uptempo cut time (since it doesn't state the BPM, the band leader would set that). That would give the piece an almost "Skiffle" feel, ripe for a Dixieland arrangement.

[MissouriPicker]

Milod, I've never met Tyson, but read that he can be pretty cantankerous (and was even so back in the 60's). Sylvia Fricker says he's always been very stubborn and that they simply grew-apart as their careers grew....She also said (and I paraphrase)----Ian has never been a violent guy, but Ian has always liked the ladies....lol....He's definitly an original. One of the last of his breed, for sure.

[badbluesplayer]

O.K. all you hep cats. I think I'm headed in the right direction. I'm familiar with the "Book". My bandmate has a copy. I don't know if I can get to the point where I can just read it and play the melody. Maybe.

 

It may be too much to expect, but one thing I'm trying to accomplish is to be able to play pretty much anything by ear. Not complicated weird stuff, just swing type stuff. I just need to work on it.

[stein]

O.K. all you hep cats. I think I'm headed in the right direction. I'm familiar with the "Book". My bandmate has a copy. I don't know if I can get to the point where I can just read it and play the melody. Maybe.

 

It may be too much to expect, but one thing I'm trying to accomplish is to be able to play pretty much anything by ear. Not complicated weird stuff, just swing type stuff. I just need to work on it.

That's another freaky simularity we have. That's pretty much where is was.

 

My "swing" type of stuff was pretty much sounding all the same, as in not much variation to it or different "tools" or options I could dish out. In addition to that, I was doing it/using it to practice the major scale side of life- as in, something other than the blues scale, minor pentatonic, or minor scale types.

 

I was at the point of just getting familiar with the major pentatonic and playing it, getting used to the sound and the licks. I would find myself automatically going back to the scales/licks I am familiar with, so it is kinda fun and challenging to play in a style where I have to force myself not to do that.

 

Kinda makes me want to get back at it.

[milod]

Missouri...

 

RE: Tyson... I'd say that cantankerous is a huge understatement. He can be quite charming, though, or almost literally unthinkingly venomous.

 

I find that quite sad.

 

His songwriting is exceptionally artful in fitting melody and lyric, and the lyrics themselves are miniature masterpieces of metaphor.

 

Frankly I think there are very few who can do that in combination. Fats Waller? Hoagy Carmichel? Irving Berlin? I dunno. I think in ways that's almost a lost art. Tyson is certainly one of the few.

 

Yet he perhaps is his own worst enemy. On reflection, perhaps that's why in a sense I feel a degree of affinity there because some might suggest I resemble that remark.

 

I reeally, reeeeally wanted to like the guy when we met as two creasy-faced old boys who appreciate the "western" lifestyle, music and guitars.

 

Unfortunately I kept only my most sincere appreciation of his talent and skills.

 

m

[jdgm]

So when you say "the chart" are you talking about this:

 

I can play o.k. from the first kind of chart, but I'm slow at reading sheet music. Not fast enough to keep up.

 

Is the idea to be able to play the chords off the chart and then be able to improvise whenever it's time to do that? I think I can do that if I work on it a lot.

 

You figure out the key from the number of sharps and flats. I got that idea, I just need to work on that.

 

I'm just a blues guy, so I'm trying to add in the swing type stuff and work them together. I'm getting more fluent with the major scale.

 

You jazz guys - Am I on the right track trying to learn this way?

 

Aha, the Real Book. I played this tune from an earlier version of this chart in a Django-type quartet in the 80s - I was on rhythm and the violinist, younger than me, was a Doctor of Music and an incredible sight-reader and melodic improviser. That's what he'd done since he was a kid with no breaks. Man, I learnt a heck of a lot. Cue humility.

A few of the chords are slightly different in older versions. The Real Book now runs to at least 3 volumes; however not all the tunes have the 'right' (as composed) chords and there are mistakes here and there in vol 1 and 2. This is because in many places they have transcribed a modern arrangement with altered dominant chords/harmonies. I also know the New Real Book vols 1&2 which has mostly completely accurate arrangements but not as useful to learn from in fact.

 

Then there is Jamie Aebersold. 2 years ago I got a gig with a couple of ferocious 'name' young saxophonists of the U.K. jazz scene; they had been through music school, NYJO, worked on the Cunard QE ships and it was all read from Aebersold charts without the benefit of any rehearsal. I got through it but I was hopelessly out of my league...they won't call me again! The 1st tune on that gig was 'If I should lose you', a favorite of saxophonists as it's done by Hank Mobley on 'Soul Station', the classic Blue Note hard-bop record. The Aebersold chart for this tune is all altered doms, 2 or 4 changes to a bar, and the 1st chord is a diminished....and yes, they did lose me.

 

But I can tell you that the Real Book with the chart above has been one of the most useful learning tools - and continues to be - I have. I would never have learnt or understood jazz changes without it, and it's used on my gig every time.

 

Yes you are absolutely on the right track! You have to try and hear a few versions of the tunes you are looking at to get a complete idea of what the original chords might be. And - interesting - usually no-one messes with Duke Ellington changes as...seems it's just not done.

[rocketman]

Wow I NEVER saw the first "chart" in my life. The second one is the one I always saw. The piano chart just had the chords with a few notes here and there. Guitar is pretty much the same.

 

I started learning all the chords by using the root chord. For example on guitar you play a D9 using the notes D-F#-C-E-A. Once you are comfortable with that then you start looking into inversions.

[rocketman]

Here's what it sounds like. Interesting chord movements. Note that the piano player is improvising the entire part.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiIYuDa0XEQ

[quapman]

Here's what it sounds like. Interesting chord movements. Note that the piano player is improvising the entire part.

 

 

 

 

Actually, so is the sax player after the first 00:28 seconds. At least as far as that piece of notation is concerned.

I'm not familiar with that tune so I don't know if pages are missing. But the only parts that match that music is the first 28 seconds.

[badbluesplayer]

Actually, so is the sax player after the first 00:28 seconds. At least as far as that piece of notation is concerned.

I'm not familiar with that tune so I don't know if pages are missing. But the only parts that match that music is the first 28 seconds.

 

I learned the tune from the "chord chart" thing. It's easy because you can see the structure of the verses right there and if you get lost you can tell where you are in the chart by where you are in the verse.

 

The whole sax video does follow the chord progression the way it shows in the chord chart. It just varies from the sheet music. I do find it way easier to work off the "chord chart" thingy.

 

Plus, the keys seem like they're always transposed in the Real Book thing. Like they've been changed for piano or something.

 

Here's Frank and Andreas:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nceGuWV0Ps4

[Notes_Norton]

While I listen to just about anything but rap (no melody, it bores me) I really prefer to listen to "Classical" music from the Romantic period to the contemporary - especially the dark, brooding Eastern Europeans and Russians.

 

I play pop music in a variety of styles. I was once asked if I had a choice, what would I be playing?

 

First idea in my head was "The Blues" - because I cut my pop music teeth on it, and it is emotionally satisfying. But it is limiting in chord structure so ...

 

Jazz is great, but it doesn't have the raw power of the blues so

 

Rock is mid-way between the two, and can lean jazzy (Steely Dan) or bluesy

 

But what about Latin American music? I love Salsa, the chord changes are different, and so are the harmonies, and the rhythm is sublime

 

So this went on for a while in my head, and probably the only kind of music I don't want to play is rap. So I want to be in a band that covers a wide variety of music, and does each of them authentically.

 

What about my first listening love? Classical from the Romantic to the Present. Nope, don't want to play that, but I'd love to conduct the orchestra. The conductor plays the orchestra.

 

We played at a yacht club last night, and at the end of the night someone asked us to play something we like to play. I replied we liked everything we played tonight. A lot of people think we should be playing something and liking something else. I'm weird. I like almost all of it. Of course there are songs I don't care for in every style of music and others that I either like of love.

 

Notes

[quapman]

I learned the tune from the "chord chart" thing. It's easy because you can see the structure of the verses right there and if you get lost you can tell where you are in the chart by where you are in the verse.

 

The whole sax video does follow the chord progression the way it shows in the chord chart. It just varies from the sheet music. I do find it way easier to work off the "chord chart" thingy.

 

Plus, the keys seem like they're always transposed in the Real Book thing. Like they've been changed for piano or something.

 

 

Here's Frank and Andreas:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nceGuWV0Ps4

 

 

Ok,, so back to the topic of Izzy's thread. Learning that piece, the way its played there, is indeed thuarted by the limitations of my talent... lol that was hot!!

[stein]

I learned the tune from the "chord chart" thing. It's easy because you can see the structure of the verses right there and if you get lost you can tell where you are in the chart by where you are in the verse.

 

The whole sax video does follow the chord progression the way it shows in the chord chart. It just varies from the sheet music. I do find it way easier to work off the "chord chart" thingy.

 

Plus, the keys seem like they're always transposed in the Real Book thing. Like they've been changed for piano or something.

 

Dude, if you are reading it enough to know who is playing what and where, that's pretty solid.

 

Make sure you got the right book! Horn players' music is often written in B flat as opposed to C. I have seen at least the C and B flat versions of Fakebooks.

[badbluesplayer]

Here's me trying to play "I Get a Kick Out of You" off the top of my head:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1o6xlCFijI

 

Next stop... Carnegie Hall!

[milod]

Bob "Notes" wrote:

 

"A lot of people think we should be playing something and liking something else. I'm weird. I like almost all of it. Of course there are songs I don't care for in every style of music and others that I either like of love."

 

I can tell you that my problem is that I love, and love playing, so many different styles of music that it is just that for me: A problem.

 

Gotta put together some books some day for a "country-cowboy," "true rock classics done jazzy," "folkie-fingerpickin'," "Swing and pre-swing," "Doo-wop, 50s pop and such," and...

 

Hmmmm. The problem tends for me to be, what do I play when and where. It's easy for the annual cowboy music, poetry and art benefit I do every year in a tiny Montana village, but... anywhere else it's "Sheesh, what will hit the crowd????"

 

m