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I'm a total newbie to Jazz. I have decent knowledge of theory, but I can't read music. I recently started working through the beginning lessons in the Mickey Baker book, inspired by Rob MacKillop's videos. I just recently started playing again after a long break. I've been mostly working on arpeggios, which I continue to do. Outside of that, most of my Jazz work as been focused on Charlie Christian and his approach so I've been trying to learn some of his tunes with varying degrees of success. I like Charlie's stuff and I will continue to work on his tunes.With that ground work laid, I need some help moving forward. I like older Jazz, 1960's or earlier. So outside of the Christian stuff and the Mickey Baker book, I want to start introducing myself to the classic standards.
I have the sixth edition of The Real Book, but I don't know where or how to begin. I figured I should pick a small selection on tunes. Learn the vanilla changes (chords) and practice my arpeggios over these changes. But I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad approach?
So to summarize, I want to break my practice regime in to three parts. I'm putting off reading for now.
1. Daily work on the Mickey Baker book.
2. Daily work on the Real Book standards, vanilla changes and chords and then arpeggios over the changes.
3. Continue to learn leads from Charlie Christian tunes.
This is my plan and it may be terrible.If I could get a critique of this routine and any other thoughts I would appreciate it.
Cheers!
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12-16-2013 01:30 PM
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Rob MacKillop here - I'm glad to have been a help! Any questions about that stuff, just ask.
Your approach looks good to me. Charlie Christian had a mainly arpeggio approach to soloing, but would spice up the arpeggios with what are referred to as lower and upper auxiliaries. Generally that means a semitone below each note of the chord - using it to slide into (or hammer on) the arpeggio note, and also upper auxiliaries - they are either a semitone or a tone above. So, a thorough grounding in arpeggios, but also how to spice them up, will get you a long way down that CC road. Better add in the Major and Minor blues scales as well.
The major third of the chord is always a good note to approach from below. So make sure you not only know the arpeggios, but know which note is the root, which is the third, etc, etc. A chromatic run from the Major 3rd to the 5th is always fun to play with.
Lots of help on this great forum if you ask for it.
Good luck,
Rob
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How are you approaching jazz standards from a Real Book if you cannot read the melody line? Of course, you may certainly "know" the melody to Stardust or My One and Only Love, but I would start to learn to read standard notation. It is easier than you think and will pay great dividends for the effort.
Years ago I picked up a Hal Leonard publication - The Real Little Book of Jazz in a spiral bound edition. The changes in my book are pretty accurate, lyrics and melody as well. You can get an enormous amount of material from one real book alone.
My approach to learning the jazz standard repertoire is to use that book above or to simply sketch out the changes and lyrics to songs off Youtube and create a transcription myself with a now legacy version of Sibelius G7 ($69 at the time several years ago). I would suggest to anyone to consider learning to use notation software, a tremendous learning tool.
Jay
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I don't know how to approach the Real Book. I figured learning the vanilla changes to say 10 classics and then practice chord substitutions and arpeggios would be a good way to start. If I need to drop everything and learn to read before I work on anything else, then I need to know that, which is why I have laid out what I plan to do to get feedback.
Originally Posted by targuit
If I need to drop everything and learn to read first, then I need some advice on the best way to go about doing so.
Thanks.
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I would recommend getting started on reading as soon as you can... it opens up a lot of doors for you as you go, doors that you would otherwise walk right past.
You've got the real book, so just start picking out simple melodies from that and learning where the notes lie on the neck. Once that gets a bit easier, set a metronome at a slow tempo and have at it!
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mjt, there is a lot of food for thought in the Modern Method for Guitar thread here on the forums.
If I were in your position I'd give serious consideration to using this method.
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Its look like I'm going to have to back to Mel Bay Guitar method book 1.
It would probably do me some good to learn the simple melodies in Mel Bay's method, where timing is easy, if I'm going to learn to read. May as well do it this way I think.Last edited by mjt; 12-16-2013 at 05:07 PM.
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Originally Posted by jckoto3
How approachable is this method for someone learning to read music?
EDIT: I went and had look at this on Amazon and it may do the trick. Plus the resources here help with others going through it.Last edited by mjt; 12-16-2013 at 05:59 PM.
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The mel bay method book sounds like a good idea, but reading tunes out of the real book is also really easy. You can find some really simple melodies to read in the real book, I'd recommend learning a song like All of Me. It's in the key of C and will serve as a good lesson on reading in general. Or tell us what songs you want to learn, and we can tell you the easiest to start with. Autumn Leaves is a good one to start with too. Sounds like you need to learn tunes anyway, so just start with the real book.
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Is there an agreed upon best real book?
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My recommendation would be to start learning to read, and that other stuff, but go ahead and start learning tunes by ear right away. There are some "easy standards" lists on this site, and you can find the tunes on YouTube or Spotify. Once you know the melody and chords, start trying to improvise with whatever fretboard knowledge you have. Make actually improvising a significant portion of your routine now and forever. If you only know one note, play the hell out of it. The IRealB app is a great tool for backing tracks to improvise over. Start with slow tempos and small sections.
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I like the Sher "new real book" the best, but more folks have the hall Leonard "real book sixth edition" so you'll want to be familiar with the tunes in that one too.
You'll eventually want both.
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This is jazz, nobody agrees on anything. I use Realbook 6th edition because it was cheap and easy to find everywhere. Most horn players have it because Bb and Eb volumes are cheap and easy to find. I play with others and want to be on the "same page". Lots of keyboard players and guitarists love the Sher New Realbook, because they find the changes are more accurate.
The first thing to do is put some coffee stains on some Trane and Shorter charts so you look like a legitimate jazz musician.
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I appreciate the input everyone. I'm getting lots of good advice. I think the Leavitt book is where I am going to start, so I can try to tackle reading. I think going through the Real Book melodies will be too slow for me at first. I really wanted to keep working on the Mickey Baker book, but I don't think it's wise to use two method books at once.
Revised practice regime:
Leavitt book 1
Real Book changes (10 tunes) chords and arpeggios
CC solos
I will research the 10 tunes I want to learn and post. Thanks again for all the input, it's all appreciated.
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I think the Leavitt book 1 is a very good choice. I would also pick up David oaks guitar reading book. Real books are good but you need some type of method book to actually learn to read through them.
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Highly recommend the Leavitt method if you want to learn to read, and there's a whole lot more in there too.
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