"Lighting up" the fretboard

[FatJeff]

OK, I think I finally figured out why my guitar fretboard is not lighting up. I am using the wrong guitar!!! Check this out:

[mr. beaumont]

I don't know how I missed this thread, as I know the "lights up" thing is something I type here a lot.

To go all the way back to the beginning, it's something that comes with familiarity. When I see a brand new song, some things will "light up" right away because there are so many commonalities between the way songs "move."

So an early look at a tune for me might be to divide things mentally into "stuff that rings a bell" and "oddball" stuff. Usually helps me through until I gain true familiarity.

The thing I've been watching out for now is becoming too familiar with a song in one key. I want to make sure it's the harmonic movement that triggers the lights and not just the "chord." Does that make sense?

[Solo Flight]

When I see a brand new song, some things will "light up" right away because there are so many commonalities between the way songs "move."

This actually is right on point with a book I’m reading for the second time now because it’s so fascinating, called “This is Your Brain on Music” by Daniel Levitin. It’s a very readable discussion on how our brain processes music, and how, thanks to advanced MRI technology, we have a much more nuanced understanding of the parts of the brain that “light up” when we hear or play music rather than the simplistic left brain – right brain model that many people assume. It makes you realize how amazing our brains are. The author points out, for example, that while it’s relatively easy for a program to identify a copy of a particular recording, it’s impossible (for now anyway) to write a program for a computer to identify different versions of the same tune. Yet, our brains do it instantaneously and effortlessly. And the same function is probably at work when we recognize similar chord progressions in different tunes.

The sea of books and other written jazz guitar materials on the market made it hard for me to realize that learning the jazz vocabulary, etc. is first and foremost an auditory function. That is, I’m never going to get my brain to “light up” with the associations of notes, scales, chord progressions, etc. without hearing them. It will never come from a book or from any amount of memorization as to what scale goes with what chord. This may be obvious to many but it was tremendously counterintuitive for someone like me who is accustomed to learning things by reading about them. So now I realize that playing (or even learning) a tune from a Real Book, for example, while it may allow you to play a new tune quickly, it actually inhibits the formation of the kind of neural connections in the brain that really allow you to make that vocabulary a part of you. Not that being able to read music isn’t essential for many music careers, but I think that it does inhibit the brain associations necessary for playing an improvisation based music like jazz.

[FatJeff]

So now I realize that playing (or even learning) a tune from a Real Book, for example, while it may allow you to play a new tune quickly, it actually inhibits the formation of the kind of neural connections in the brain that really allow you to make that vocabulary a part of you. Not that being able to read music isn’t essential for many music careers, but I think that it does inhibit the brain associations necessary for playing an improvisation based music like jazz.

YES THANK YOU. I've been touting the "throw your Realbook away" philosophy for some time now. If it weren't for the fact that I have to play tunes that I have not learned yet on the spot, I would never lug that damned thing around with me at all, and instead would learn new songs by transcribing them myself. I still do this for a majority of songs I play.

Fvcking Realbook. I love you and I hate you.

[mr. beaumont]

Explain this a bit more jeff, this "throw away your real book"

It's a great starting point, and it allows players with no connection to play a song together right away. And solo flight, I'm also failing to see how a RB inhibits the connections--analysis is part of looking at any new piece. Visually, your eye can recognize things like ii V I and I vi ii V just as your ear can recognize it...in fact, I like the backup for my ears with the visual reference...

Any working group I've played with has had their own "book," no real players are taking the real book changes as "law," just as a starting point...

[FatJeff]

My point is that - for me at least - learning a tune is much more effective when I listen to it, assimilate it aurally, and transcribe it myself from the recording(s), than when I try to learn it from a lead sheet. So my method is to basically take a song that I am trying to learn, get a few "definitive" renditions, and listen to those for several days or a week. Then, after I'm somewhat familiar with the tune, I sit down and do a harmonic analysis of the song (in roman numerals) myself. I also transcribe the melody and put it on paper. At this point I feel ready to try to play along with the recording (and many times it's not until then I even know what key the song is in). It is also at this point that I might compare my harmonic analysis with something out of the Realbook, or some other fake book.

All I know is this. Songs like Mean To Me, Secret Love, Cherokee, What Is This Thing Called Love, Body & Soul...all of those and more I've transcribed by myself, only later looking at lead sheets. And even though I haven't played some of them in months, I bet I could play them cold without referencing anything but my own memory, and I bet I would also be fairly successful in playing them in any key. On the other hand, songs I learned first off lead sheets, like All The Things You Are, Laura, I Can't Get Started, and (your fave) Darn That Dream...those I have a hard time remembering (and one of them I even played on a gig last night - having to look at a lead sheet).

Granted, fake books are great for playing tunes I don't know on the spot ... and yes, I can recognize ii-Vs visually as well ... but I have never really learned a tune solely from a fake book. I only really know a tune after I really get inside it myself, and the best way for me to do that is through the medium in which music is propagated - sound.

[Solo Flight]

And solo flight, I'm also failing to see how a RB inhibits the connections--analysis is part of looking at any new piece. Visually, your eye can recognize things like ii V I and I vi ii V just as your ear can recognize it...in fact, I like the backup for my ears with the visual reference...

I think it's because different areas of the brain are involved in learning/knowing a tune aurally from memory and learning/knowing the tune by memorizing the letters of the chord changes. It's probably what makes it easier to play a tune in a different key when your brain knows the relationships between the chord changes and not just the fact that a tune starts on F minor then goes to Bb minor, etc. I'm just a layperson when it comes to these matters, but I think something similar happens when trying to learn a foreign language - you really don't get fluent until you start thinking in that language instead of continuing to think in English and then figuring out the translation in your head. So I think when you learn a tune out from a lead sheet, you're essentially using a part of your brain from which you then have to "translate" it in order to play it or to know how it sounds when you hear it. If you can skip that step -- i.e. learning it from a recording rather than the Real Book -- I think you end up being more "fluent."

Unfortunately, one of the unintended side effects of the whole jazz education movement has been to replace what had been the more effective aural learning method (hanging out with jazz masters) with an intellectual, classroom-based approach, which, while necessary for jazz programs to be accredited, ultimately doesn't work as well in getting our brains around this music.