Practicing Chords from the Real Book

**mr. beaumont** · 01-01-2011, 03:23 PM

Kris, I say yes and no.

Definitely better to take the chords from an original recording over just accepting a real/fake book's changes.

But better than that is to listen to 10 different recordings of the tune, and glean what you like from each. It's jazz! There's no one right way to do anything.

**MarkRhodes** · 01-01-2011, 05:04 PM

>>>>>Definitely better to take the chords from an original recording over just accepting a real/fake book's changes.<<<<
The problem here is that some standards have been recorded so many times, so many ways, what counts as an "original recording" is debatable. There's no debate when we're talking "Freddie Freeloader" from Kind of Blue, but there's no similarly definitive version of "They Can't Take That Away From Me." (My favorite is the one by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald.)

I don't think of original recordings as God anymore than I do fake books, unless you're in a period band---like a swing band that wants to sound as much like Basie or Goodman circa 1940 as possible.

**kris** · 01-01-2011, 05:11 PM

Fake/real books exisit from 70's... I think.
How jazz musicians

work with new tunes earlier?

**MarkRhodes** · 01-01-2011, 07:19 PM

Originally Posted by monk

Sheet music piano arrangements were produced with the idea that the person who was buying it was an intermediate player who wanted to sit at the piano in the parlor and have a playable (read easy) arrangement of a popular tune.

Sheet music was how songwriters made money before records. People that sold sheet music had to be able to play it---it's not as if all the customers were coming in wanting the newest hit single.

I think much of the criticism of fakebooks is misplaced. They are not *meant* to be transcriptions from classic recordings. (That's what "Guitar Recorded Versions" are for!) They provide the tune, lyrics, and basic changes (-given what the publishers take to be common practice among their audience). That's a helluva lot for 25 bucks or so!

By the way, there's an interesting book out about the "Tune-Dex" which provided changes on 3x5 cards for working musicians who had to keep up with what their audience wanted to hear (-or at least what the band leader wanted them to hear). I forget the name of the book but here's a link to a story about 7,000 such cards in a single collection. You can see one such card, "Everything Is Peaches Down In Georgia.' Talk about simple changes!

**mr. beaumont** · 01-01-2011, 07:32 PM

Originally Posted by markerhodes

>>>>>Definitely better to take the chords from an original recording over just accepting a real/fake book's changes.<<<<
The problem here is that some standards have been recorded so many times, so many ways, what counts as an "original recording" is debatable. .

Ummm, hence the second sentence of my post?

**Switcherooney** · 01-01-2011, 07:56 PM

Wow, thanks for all the great advice guys! Sometimes I'm going bats trying to make a chord work per the fakebook. It's great to know there is no one "right" way. I feel a lot better about it now.

I've got to learn to trust my own ear more.

**ksjazzguitar** · 01-01-2011, 08:02 PM

Yeah, I think you have to learn several versions and have a good enough ear to hear what is going on. After a while, you begin to know where the "trouble" spots are. Whenever I get to bar 26 of "All of Me," I just have to listen to hear if the bass/piano is playing an Fm7 or an F#dim7 there. Either is fine with me, I just listen and figure out what they're doing. There are a lot of little spots like that in songs.

Peace,
Kevin

**Switcherooney** · 01-01-2011, 09:21 PM

Yeah Kevin, I think that's probably where I'm going wrong - not knowing or at least not listening to several different versions of a song. I believe that's why I'm having trouble with some of the fakebook chords.

I'm only listening to a couple of versions of a song and when I come across a chord that seems "wrong" I can't deal with it because it's not what I'm hearing in the few versions of the song I know.

Thankfully there's YouTube

I think I need to find as many versions of a song I'm working on and give them all a listen.

**MarkRhodes** · 01-01-2011, 09:28 PM

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

Ummm, hence the second sentence of my post?

For you, listening to ten different versions of a songs helps you figure out what to do with it, but I'd never do that. I don't understand what it would be like to want to learn a tune but not have a definite idea of how I want to play it.

Maybe that comes from being a songwriter, maybe it's just a quirk, but for example, I was visiting a friend once and he kept singing "Atchison, Topkea and the Santa Fe," a Harry Warren tune with a Johnny Mercer lyric. I'm a big Mercer fan and I made a vow to learn that tune. As it turns out, it's a crap tune for guitar. So I play it like no version I've ever heard---which is not to say it's anything special, just that there was no version I wanted to copy anything from--and I"m happy with that. The only thing I learned from a record--Marie Claire Hardin singing with a piano trio--was the lyrics!

**monk** · 01-02-2011, 12:01 AM

Originally Posted by markerhodes

For you, listening to ten different versions of a songs helps you figure out what to do with it, but I'd never do that. I don't understand what it would be like to want to learn a tune but not have a definite idea of how I want to play it.

Listening to ten different versions of a song is how you get a definite idea of how you want to play it. It's all about options. The more you've listened, the more options you have. It's better to go to the well with a bucket than a thimble.

**Stackabones** · 01-02-2011, 02:28 AM

I don't know about y'all, but youtube and other online sources have made it so much easier to compare 10 (-plus) different versions.

**mr. beaumont** · 01-02-2011, 03:41 PM

Originally Posted by markerhodes

For you, listening to ten different versions of a songs helps you figure out what to do with it, but I'd never do that. I don't understand what it would be like to want to learn a tune but not have a definite idea of how I want to play it.

Mark, I think as you get further into jazz, you'll see this is pretty much the way it has to be done. We're not playing cover tunes like a bar band where everybody has to "learn their part" and then we play. We're taking songs, many of which are generations older than us, and making them new. A little precedent to get a few ideas, and then I'm doing my own thing. There's no correct way--in fact, very rarely do I come across songs where I like the original (or at least, oldest recorded version) best!

Maybe it's because I've been into jazz for a long time now, but I've lost that kind of "respect" a lot of rock/pop players have for a song where they feel it needs to be played "correct" or not at all. I hear a song I like and I immediately think "Oooh! How can a fuck with this one?!"

Don't feel like you need to treat songs like a sacred entity-- a song is a melody, sometimes with words, sometimes without. Everything else, harmony, rhythm, phrasing (including that melody sometimes) is up for interpretation. That's jazz.

**Stackabones** · 01-02-2011, 04:41 PM

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

Mark, I think as you get further into jazz, you'll see this is pretty much the way it has to be done. We're not playing cover tunes like a bar band where everybody has to "learn their part" and then we play. We're taking songs, many of which are generations older than us, and making them new. A little precedent to get a few ideas, and then I'm doing my own thing. There's no correct way--in fact, very rarely do I come across songs where I like the original (or at least, oldest recorded version) best!

Ya know, I kinda miss the old garage band days where we'd sweat it out learning Rush or Led Zep or Grateful Dead -- sometimes note-for-note in Rush tunes, but oftentimes with a looser approach in GD or Allman Bros type tunes. It'd be great to get that vibe again, that garage band vibe, where you work up tunes instead of just reading charts in a restaurant pick-up gig. Ok, maybe not in the hot August garage ...

Sorry about the sidejack. Mr B's comment just got the wheels spinning.

**cosmic gumbo** · 01-02-2011, 10:00 PM

Originally Posted by monk

For the most part, the sheet music business has always been aimed at the amateur musician with a few exceptions.

A big exception might be pro groups with more than 4 or 5 people. I can't imagine a cruiseline showband, jazz big band, musical pit orch, jazz septet or larger, etc, not using charts. Then there's classical music. If it's larger than a jazz combo, I want charts. Most pros I know own more sheet music than amateurs.

**gingerjazz** · 01-03-2011, 06:43 PM

Lets face it if you never listened to any other versions of the song you would end up playing an original tune.Surely you have to reference one of the other versions a some point oterwise youve written your own song(NOT THAT THATS A BAD THING)

**MarkRhodes** · 01-03-2011, 07:20 PM

Originally Posted by Stackabones

Ya know, I kinda miss the old garage band days where we'd sweat it out learning Rush or Led Zep or Grateful Dead -- sometimes note-for-note in Rush tunes, but oftentimes with a looser approach in GD or Allman Bros type tunes .

Ah, the smell of the garage... I was never much for learning rock songs note for note, except for Elliot Randall's opening solo in "Reeling In The Years" and Knopfler's closing solo on "Sultans of Swing" because I just had to.) I had that 'looser' Allman Bros approach. Indeed, my ear was bad when I was a kid so I wrote all my own songs to have something to play. (My mom, who has as near to perfect pitch as I ever encountered in an untrained player, used to make me take my guitar and go outside because I would play in one key and sing in another.)

Most of the songs I play now are songs I wrote, though since taking up jazz, I've learned a lot of tunes other people wrote. I hated jazz guitar for years and still am most likely to learn a tune I heard sung well than one I heard a guitar player do something remarkable on. (The first standard I learned was "Mean To Me" because I liked the lyric and tune; I've yet to hear a guitarist play it and have no interest in seeking one out, though I'm sure some good guitarists have done fine things with the tune and if I ever hear them, I'll no doubt say, "That's grand," but if I never do, that's fine too.)

But it is like the garage in the sense that if I decide to play a tune, I work it up the best way I'm able, trying this and that, and if it sounds okay, I keep playing it and refine it. If not, well, on to something else. Yesterday I opened the Real Book to the last page just to see what was there and it's "You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You." I've heard Frank Sinatra sing it. Nice little tune. I'll see what I can do with it. Maybe a lot, maybe a little. Meanwhile, I don't want to hear anyone else play it, especially a guitar player.

**mr. beaumont** · 01-03-2011, 07:34 PM

Of course, in one of life's many ironies, you'll find a slightly different versions in the Sixth Ed. Real book and in Real Book Volume II, second ed.

Bars 23-24--forget the slash chords and just roll with an A-/E7/A-

Oh, and just for clarity, when I'm "researching" a tune, I'm definitely not just listening to guitar.

**mrbean** · 01-03-2011, 07:51 PM

The best advice I ever got from any guitar player fits in with this, learn the plain vanilla changes, then get as fancy as you please.

Fake books are just that, and not always with the plain vanilla or even the correct chords.

The art of jazz is in how you arrange any song to suit your own taste.

**Dad3353** · 01-03-2011, 08:22 PM

Originally Posted by mrbean

The best advice I ever got from any guitar player fits in with this, learn the plain vanilla changes, then get as fancy as you please...

Good evening, mrbean...
Here, here. Well said, sir. At least for amateur players, that's been (sorry, should that be 'bean'..?) my approach for over 40 years. Not the same if you're animating with a big band, or contracted on a cruise ship, I'm sure, but that's not been (oops, at it again...) my reason for playing. I have a healthy 'garage' approach, and, as a hobby, am not constrained by anything other than my own (admittedly poor...) taste. I quite often start playing in G, with Mickey Baker chords, only to finish up 30 minutes later in D with Joni Mitchell, or Fairport Convention. Mix'n'match, so to speak.
I have tons of Fake Books, but rarely try to learn a whole piece. It takes me ages to sort out the first few bars even. I try, but it's darned slow. Vanilla is fine for me (or vanilla fudge..?)

**hurricanebob** · 01-14-2011, 01:46 AM

Originally Posted by Stackabones

Ya know, I kinda miss the old garage band days where we'd sweat it out learning Rush or Led Zep or Grateful Dead -- sometimes note-for-note in Rush tunes, but oftentimes with a looser approach in GD or Allman Bros type tunes. It'd be great to get that vibe again, that garage band vibe, where you work up tunes instead of just reading charts in a restaurant pick-up gig. Ok, maybe not in the hot August garage ...

.

Well. The obvious thing to do is to get another garage band! I am totally serious about this. I'm in one now. We've done some small-scale performing, but mostly, so far, we get together on the weekends and work on stuff, have some wine, and enjoy the joy of making music. It's just about the best thing I do that doesn't involve anything illegal, immoral, or expensive.

**deciferthis** · 02-04-2011, 08:17 PM

Im in high school jazz band and we have all those voicing in our chords, but we play power chords which are basically 5th and 7th chords depending on the shape, but its a lot more easier and I am looking to get this book for some local coffee shop gigging and what not.

**Drumbler** · 02-05-2011, 08:43 AM

I go to Ralph Patt's site and take a look at his Vanilla book.

Love his site. Ralph is in his 80's. (Sent him an email once thanking him for his site but never heard back unfortunately.)

Now you could do what Ralph does yourself if you understand the process. Which is the key.

The experienced guys (gals) know this so bear with me as this is for the newbs.

When I learn a tune I simplify the changes using either Ralph ideas or maybe with my own. I defer to Ralph however in most cases. It's much easier to learn a tune this way with the vanilla changes. I'm lazy. Ha! Ha!

If you understand chord substitution you can modify these vanilla changes as you play.

I'll take a look at the Real Book too and compare that. The Real Book has substitution possibilities generally. But I don't necessarily use them. I use my own from what I like which means from my jazz chord vocabulary as it exists which has its limits.

Now for the newbs you need to get into chord substitution to understand. I cannot emphasize this enough. Chords, chords, chords.

Going right to the Real Book is fine but if you do not understand the process you are missing much.

Develop a love affair with chords. Don't spend all your time improvising over "So What".

Uh...now what was the question???

**Dad3353** · 02-05-2011, 02:05 PM

Originally Posted by Drumbler

I go to Ralph Patt's site and take a look at his Vanilla book...

I'm with Drumbler on this...
I have goodness knows how many versions of 'Misty', but the only way I can make sense of them is by referring to the Vanilla book. It's the only version I can play, for now (although I have recently acquired the 'Conti' one, in Vol VI; looking good...).
The 'roots' are in the Vanilla book, the 'Real' books are what others have already created from that (or rather from the basic composition...), but these variants are up to us to adopt or modify, or even ignore, depending on our taste and level of playing and understanding.
I've never been able to play 'as is' from a real book, but using Mickey Baker chords over Vanilla, I can work out my own. My referencing the 'Real' books only serves me by illustrating how little I know..!
(but I'm lazy, too. I consider it to be a quality...)