The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    So I just had a bad experience at a jam the other day where someone gave me an unfamiliar chart and counted off 1234 and I got lost in the chart during my solo. This has happened with a several times at these things and I always feel like crap when it does. I study with a really great Jazz guitarist and he gives me the lessons in notation only so I can read well enough to learn charts and solos properly but I sometimes choke with the pressure of a band. Any tips for practicing with the "pressure"?

    Thanks

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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  4. #3

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    Basically, just keep putting yourself in those situations. And working on reading daily so your overall skill level improves.

    Practicing reading is not the same as other kinds of practice. You want to read NEW material only once or twice before moving on to something else. Once to do the initial read, and once more to see if you can improve any difficult spots. Beyond that, you are no longer practicing reading but actually practicing the tune.

    I think it was rpjazzguitar who laid out a good approach to reading in another post: when you get a new chart, look for the overall key and any key changes, plus ID the highest and lowest notes in the tune so you can quickly determine what position(s) most of the tune will fall in. If you have time, take a quick look at any oddball rhythmic phrases or melodic twists that may pose a challenge. By now the bandleader is probably counting off the tune...

    SJ

  5. #4

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    A couple of tips:

    1. Often, a musician is handed an unfamiliar chart. But, it may be that the other players have played it before. That's an advantage for them. I play in a big band with tough charts that have me struggling while the horn players are nailing everything. Eventually, I had several of them play a session with my book -- which they hadn't seen before. They made plenty of mistakes of the same kind I make. So, my tip is, if you can't get the chart ahead of time, don't be too hard on yourself.

    2. Keep the solos simple until you can hear/feel the changes. And, don't play so loud that you can't hear the comping. It's easiest to get lost when you're trying to do something rhythmically fancy and you can't hear the changes well. Or, if the comping instruments (read: piano) decides that your solo is an appropriate time for them to play Free Jazz.

    3. The pressure/tension comes from the desire to play great conflicting with the difficulty of doing that with an unfamiliar chart. Be forgiving to yourself on that. But, photograph the chart with your phone, record the session with a handheld recorder and practice it for next time. Preparation is the best way to reduce tension.

    4. Count your blessings. You're in a steep part of the learning curve right now and that's a great place to be.

  6. #5

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    I have found this book by the late Mike Longo to be extremely helpful:

    https://jazzbeat.com/?product=how-to...d-type-rhythms

  7. #6

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    "Any tips for practicing with the "pressure?" Boston Mike

    Hi, M,
    Practice under pressure.
    Marinero

  8. #7

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    I usually just pass on soloing on a tune if it's totally unfamiliar (I'd mostly pass on soloing altogether, actually; I love to comp).

  9. #8

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    It helps a lot to be able to play without looking at your fretboard, so you can follow the flow without having to shift your eyes between the chart and your hands. This is not easy to do - I decided months ago that I was going to master it after playing for 60-some years without ever learning to do it. After several months, I’m much better at it but I’m far from expert yet. I’ve been practicing it on gigs and the Virtual Jam forum here and find it very very helpful.

    So I’d add this to the suggestions already offered. Once you can concentrate on the score, you’ll find it a lot easier to sight read.

  10. #9

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    I have certainly had a similar experience as you when I first started playing at jam sessions. Just having the experience of doing it is crucial. Listen to a lot of standards and see if your can hear your way through the changes. The progression for me was: getting lost and not being able to find my way back; getting lost but hearing cues that got me back on track; not getting lost (very often) when I followed the chart; Using the chart only as a reminder/reference after memorizing a lot of tunes. Now, I can play mostly without the chart if it is a familiar standard, but I still keep my Real Book close by as a “safety net”. I also have lots of notes, corrections of the harmony, reminders, etc, written all over the pages of my Real Books.

  11. #10

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    The other thing I’m doing now is just reading a lot of music. I find it very relaxing (and good practice) to read through a classical piece or two in the evening.

  12. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by BostonMike
    So I just had a bad experience at a jam the other day where someone gave me an unfamiliar chart and counted off 1234 and I got lost in the chart during my solo. This has happened with a several times at these things and I always feel like crap when it does. I study with a really great Jazz guitarist and he gives me the lessons in notation only so I can read well enough to learn charts and solos properly but I sometimes choke with the pressure of a band. Any tips for practicing with the "pressure"?

    Thanks
    Yes. Overtrain. Practice reading the hardest charts you can stomach with a metronome so that easy stuff won’t be a problem. Try not to go to pieces when you make mistakes but always KEEP GOING.

    focus on rhythmic reading, not just pitches - Bellson’s modern reading text is just rhythms. The better you are at reading rhythms the less likely you are to get lost. But also get good at clocking DC’s, codas, repeats, first and second time bars etc.

    Takes a while obviously.

    i would advise working with a slow metronome but also a fast one sometimes. It’s good to practice reading slowly for accuracy, but it’s also good to practice what it’s like to approximate on the gig; good sight readers are good at approximating where they need to. Also record yourself.

    do it every single day and you will feel the benefit

    this is the main use of things like the Real Book and Omnibook.

  13. #12

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    Btw, I like using a real book chart for a tune I don’t know and recording it; do chords and then a separate track of melody and a solo on the changes. It’s a lot of fun. I don’t normally totally sight read it but see it more as a ‘quick study exercise’

    Also reading along with the track at full or reduced speed can be good too.

  14. #13

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    Did the chart you got include Chord symbols or was it all manuscript notation? You said it was during the solo that you choked. You're going to be soloing over the changes, following the feel of the harmony rather than the complexities of the head.
    How good are you at hearing changes in Roman numerals? If you can think/hear in intervallic harmony (The piece if in Bb and the changes are III- VI- II- V7... hmm you can hear a rhythm changes form and you're good on that); less thinking with the eye, more playing with your ear.
    If you practice harmonic forms, learn standards by ear in Roman numeral form (or otherwise by ear) you soon realize that there are only so many forms and they're movable. You can acquire the skill to recognize conventional forms, even on the fly, and the piece will become playable quite quickly.
    It's a way of practicing, ear first, and while I attended jams when I lived in Philly, the old cats wouldn't let me off the stand even if I didn't know the tune. They'd say "You know this, you just don't know you know it." I learned to know a piece within a chorus or two of hearing it played. By changes, by standard form template.
    Maybe this might be helpful, maybe not. Best of luck to you!

    Oh, did you record the piece. Looking back with the ability to hear the actual piece can be really helpful in "decoding" the changes at your leisure, and then applying that skill in training yourself to do it in real time. Learn to work with and listen hard to the bass player.

  15. #14

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    It sounds like less of a reading issue, then it does a recognizing issue.


    Unless it’s something pretty different like a Wayne Shorter tune, it’s probably built using chunks of familiar tunes. What I mean by that is, for instance on a song like have you met Miss Jones, the a section is similar to a rhythm changes, while the bridge is descending ii v’s.

    So while you should definitely work on your chart reading skills, you should also make sure to keep on learning new tunes, and how to analyze them quickly. Lastly, practice soloing by ear on unfamiliar things just in case you get lost.

  16. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by vintagelove
    It sounds like less of a reading issue, then it does a recognizing issue.


    Unless it’s something pretty different like a Wayne Shorter tune, it’s probably built using chunks of familiar tunes. What I mean by that is, for instance on a song like have you met Miss Jones, the a section is similar to a rhythm changes, while the bridge is descending ii v’s.

    So while you should definitely work on your chart reading skills, you should also make sure to keep on learning new tunes, and how to analyze them quickly. Lastly, practice soloing by ear on unfamiliar things just in case you get lost.
    +1. Exactly what he said.

  17. #16

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    Pat Metheny said when he started out playing in an organ trio, the leader would say ‘Do you know this tune? (naming some standard)’. Pat would say ‘no’ and the leader would go ‘ok, 1234’ and start playing anyway!

    So Pat soon learned to figure out the basic harmony of the tunes by ear, and how to come up with some kind of viable solo. Seems like a good skill to practise and develop.

    Actually this is something Bruce Forman is always going on about, i.e. get your nose out of the real book/chart/whatever as soon as possible, and use your ears, listen and react to what the other players are doing.

  18. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by grahambop
    Pat Metheny said when he started out playing in an organ trio, the leader would say ‘Do you know this tune? (naming some standard)’. Pat would say ‘no’ and the leader would go ‘ok, 1234’ and start playing anyway!

    So Pat soon learned to figure out the basic harmony of the tunes by ear, and how to come up with some kind of viable solo. Seems like a good skill to practise and develop.

    Actually this is something Bruce Forman is always going on about, i.e. get your nose out of the real book/chart/whatever as soon as possible, and use your ears, listen and react to what the other players are doing.
    This is one of the big delineators between old school training- the strength of "Big ears" and a lot of younger players with incredible YouTube chops but a weakness in putting together longer arc solos by ear.
    A trained ear really does give one a solid footing in telling the forest from the trees, and how to find yourself within.

  19. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by grahambop
    Pat Metheny said when he started out playing in an organ trio, the leader would say ‘Do you know this tune? (naming some standard)’. Pat would say ‘no’ and the leader would go ‘ok, 1234’ and start playing anyway!

    So Pat soon learned to figure out the basic harmony of the tunes by ear, and how to come up with some kind of viable solo. Seems like a good skill to practise and develop.

    Actually this is something Bruce Forman is always going on about, i.e. get your nose out of the real book/chart/whatever as soon as possible, and use your ears, listen and react to what the other players are doing.
    An approach I find most helpful when pushed into an unknown tune is to listen carefully to the head to get an idea of the form and where the lead line takes it. There are usually a few key intervals that help me see the “shape” of the harmonic frame, and I may not even play through the first pass if the head is difficult or the form very unorthodox.

    There are almost always a few critical changes that define the path through the tune. I learned to look for them years ago when playing the ballad At Last with no chart, knowing it only from hearing the Etta James recording a few times. The most critical changes are in the second line of the bridge (“a dream that I can call my own”), resolving to the 3m (Am in the original F) on “own”. Once I heard that, the jump from the 1 at the end of the prior line was a tritone into the 5b-7-3m.

    Faster jazz tunes are harder to follow, but once you start doing this, it’s a big help for many. Think about the critical changes that shape Miss Jones and the “graph” they define. In the original F, the bridge jumps up a 4th to Bb, then down a step into an Abm-Db-Gb (a “mini 2-5-1”) and down 1 again into another “mini 2-5-1” etc. It’s the graphic line formed by those changes that I hear/see in my head and follow like a kind of chord chart.

    You may have to lay out through the first pass. But what you don’t play is as important as what you do play. The first time I played At Last, I thought I knew where the bridge goes and hit a big, beautiful, sophisticated, loud Em7-A7-Dm something instead of the correct Bm7-E7-Am. From that moment (which had to be almost 60 years ago), I played nothing at all if I didn’t know and couldn’t hear what should be played. Laying out through the first lead and bridge to figure out how to play the second one is like bunting to advance a runner. You’re taking it for the team.

  20. #19

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    This has diverged between discussing working on your ears and working on your reading.

    I mean you want both right?

    Its important to know what you are working on at any one time. Both skills, while overlapping are practiced differently.

    At the end of it… Learning a tune by ear is the best way of learning to learn tunes by ear. Reading is the best way of learning to read. Doing it on the bandstand is the best way of developing the ability under pressure.

    If it feels like you had a bad experience, maybe reframe - you had a learning experience.

  21. #20
    Something that has helped me over the years is to sight-read something every day. So, take at least 15 - 30 minutes of your daily practice to sight-read stuff (books, charts, anything).

  22. #21

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    The OP was talking about getting lost during a solo.

    So, there's a question about why that happened. And there is more than one possible answer.

    I know that when I get lost in a solo it may be one or more of the following.

    1. I try to play something rhythmically sophisticated (for me, that is), and I play it too loud and suddenly I'm out to sea and I can't see (or hear) land.

    2. I have something specific in mind to play but I don't execute it as intended and I take a random number of beats for recriminations. At that point, I don't know where we are in the tune any more.

    3. The chart is legitimately difficult. Think unusual harmony, odd numbers of bars, time signature changes, random numbers of bars per line on the chart or something else that requires more cognitive headroom than I can supply at the moment.

    As an aside, the issue of cognitive headroom seems increasingly relevant with advanced age. It's one thing to read a RB leadsheet. It's another to be reading the Piano (in print) and Guitar (in pencil) chart for a big band arrangement with some of the guitar part in bass clef (yes it happens), instructions for which instrument is tacet and for how long, notations about what else is happening in the band, complex and frequent hits with horn stings, bad handwriting, smudges, wrinkles, page turns, penciled in comments from previous guitarists etc. At some point I feel like "Pick, say five. Not eight. I can deal with five things, but more than that is overwhelming".

    4. The supporting players aren't comping right. TBH, it's usually me, not them, but a fella can dream.

  23. #22

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    Make ur unfamiliarity know to fellow plyer who knows the tune, then get him /her to prompt u as u do ur solo. If they re a trumpet player etc they will be stood scratching their arse, so will not be busy.

  24. #23

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    For me it is a real gig pressure...
    I try to imitate it at home to practice it. It helps more or less...

    Just taking a chart setting time and play through it without stopping, if lost then also no stop - just trying to pick up...
    that makes sense of course only if I can do it at a slower tempo and understand what to do and the only issue is 'the speed of real-time gig'.

    After that I try to figure out where and why I was lost and if it was because because of lack of vocabulary/technical issues - then probably practice it - something like that...

    Also for me reading at least more or standard jazz charts on spot is mainly reading idiomas... not every single chord, but see immidiately a set of changes, where it goes to - what it can be reduced to... etc.

    During solo I also play a lot by ear... but I need hear changes at least once to get it into my ear.. if the changes are not too tricky of course.

  25. #24

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    The boppers always faced situations like this. One of Bird's piano players got bushwhacked by ATTYA.
    He just went home and shedded it all week, and the next time he was ready for it.

    Things go by so fast when you're playing in a band, a complicated tune you don't know will kick your ass every time.
    I've written close to 50 big band charts over the pandemic, and I've seen players who can play like Chris Potter, Freddie Hubbard etc... step on their dicks on some of my more progressive charts.
    Yet when we play stuff like Dolphin Dance, Moment's Notice, they don't have any problems with them.

  26. #25

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    I'm confused. Is this about sight reading (playing a musical part from musical notation) or about not getting lost in a solo reading chord symbols?

    For sight reading (a.k.a. prima vista reading) my personal approach is threefold: practice, practice and practice.


    For not getting lost soloing over lead sheet here are some of my personal tips:

    Avoid playing with people who give you not even the few seconds it needs to cursorily inspect the sheet and have a breve overview over the changes.

    Lower your volume to make sure you hear the rest of the band better.

    Develop a sense for 8 bar structures so you just feel them. (Comes automatically with the years)

    Accept the challenge and solo over music only by ear (I know it sounds scary first, but it's very helpful and ... it's fun!)

    Admit openly to your fellows that you've got lost (eye contact). Lot's of fellows are really nice and will help you with hints. I knew this bass player who would always start singing the melody loudly when he realized someone "stands in the wood" (that's what we called "getting lost" in the days)
    Last edited by DonEsteban; 07-15-2022 at 04:51 PM.