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For the last 7 years, I have been trying, off and on, to learn to improvise. Recently I backed off and started playing more Blues and Rock, learning songs I had been itching to play for years.
Anyway, I just noticed one of our member playing a song and he had a chart or music diagrams in front of him. I also notice that a lot of people, including pros in major performances, have a chart or music diagram!
My Achilles heal is that I can make progress with charts in front of me, but for years, I have played without using charts other than when I am first trying to learn a song. It seems I have been pulling the charts away unnecessarily.
It seems it is common practice to have a chart in front of you, even when you are supposed to have "learned" the song. When I memorize a composition, I don't need the transcription for very long, but improvising is a different animal!
So is a chart a crutch? Is it a tool? Is it an accepted common practice these days? Should I be able to play without it, even at my low level of expertise?
Having the chart makes it so easy to keep up with the changes and choose shapes/notes to use. I should have been keeping those darn charts in front of me the whole time, like everyone else seems to do.
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12-10-2017 02:16 PM
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To me (and factor in that I'm a beginner/hack so what do I know?) a chart / lead sheet is there to trigger your memory of a tune that you have learned inside out before in the woodshed. If you haven't memorized the cahnges and have to read them from a chart there's hardly a chance to improvise comfortably...
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It's hard to say what's 'best' for another person, especially anonymously over the internet. Current playing situations, future goals and ambitions, time and priorities all factor in to what a given individual might want to pursue.
That said, in my years of experience, I have observed a big difference between having music 'memorized' and having music 'internalized" . I can play hundreds of standard tunes without a chart, and the process by which I do that today is much different from how I 'memorized' those first few dozen tunes 30 years ago. What's a blues/rock tune that you're comfortable soloing on? Let's say "Crossroads" My guess is you aren't counting "1 bar of A, two bars of A three bars of A, four bars of A, and now it switches to......D" You've most likely internalized the form, have a feel for when the chords change, and have a vocabulary of melodies (licks) that fit the progression. But there probably was a time where you had to 'memorize' the 12 bar pattern , and work at counting out the bars to make each chord change. It's possible to play "Another You", "Wine and Roses" etc, as naturally and comfortably as a 12 bar blues, but it takes time and patience, and learning to trust your ear and intuition over a chart or your rote 'memory'
It's hard to comment on the 'pros using charts' thing without specific examples. Is it an original project with next to no budget for rehearsals? An academic setting? Most folks I run across still have a solid body of standard tunes that can be played without charts, in various keys, as needed. I don't really frequent the jam session scene these days, but I think the whole iPhone Real Book has been a detriment to the tradition.You learn a lot having to figure out a progression by ear listening to the folks before you play, knowing you will need to solo next...
PK
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I like to lose the chart as soon as possible, from experience I know I can only play and improvise well on a tune when this point has been reached.
One thing that helps is to recognise by ear certain common progressions such as ii V I and be able to tackle them in any key. These account for a large part of most standards so if you can nail them by ear, half the job is already done.
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Lately, I've been getting calls for casuals with some long term pros. I warn the leader that I'm not one of those guys who knows every tune that might be called and can play them in any key.
What I have found is that on most of these gigs the players are reading. Is knowing a zillion tunes no longer expected as much as it was years ago?
Reading does not hurt my ability to play over changes. In fact, I find it helpful to be able to see the changes, especially if I don't know the tune really well.
Where I think reading hurts is in trying to interact with the other musicians during a tune. With everybody's face in a book, it's harder to get everybody on the same page to do something more than intro head, solo solo head outro.
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Lee Sklar legendary bass player was called to do the Toto tour at the last minute with Mike Porcaro became ill and later passed. So Lee had to learn the entire show in a few days. The guys from Toto gave Lee copies of all the albums, set list, and told him we have charts if you want them. Lee said if I need to memorize these tunes don't give me the charts. Lee said charts are like herion for me, if you give them to me I never get off of them.
I see it as how much and when do I have to know this chart. In other work is this for a TV show or a few performances and most likely will never play it again. Then charts or the various shorthand cheat sheets that can be put on the stage floor to look like you memorized the show are legit uses for charts.
For songs that are going to be part of the repertoire that your want or anticipate playing for years to come the goal should be to memorize the songs. That trains your ear and your memory as well as build your repertoire, because the more tunes you learn the easier it is to learn more tunes or go on gigs and just listen and follow on tunes you don't know. I've spent time around some of these bass and piano player that are said to know 1000's of tunes, my old bass teacher is rumoured to know 5000 tunes. You hang around these guys to me its they have the ears and knowledge of typical chord changes and can anticipate changes. I wish I had learned this when I was younger your memory get better when you force yourself to memories things.
So I say make your goal to memorize tunes and the process of doing so will pay off in ear training, common changes in tunes, and improve your memory by exercising it. Don't forget what Lee said.... if you give me charts you'll never get me off of them.
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In May, my wife and I were holidaying in Bristol, England. One night we went to Colston Hall to see the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra under Yuri Simonov with pianist Freddy Kempf guesting on piano. An hour before the show, Kempf gave a meet and greet. At the end he answered audience questions. One question was how he prepared for the pieces he would be playing that evening. He seemed a little puzzled by the question and explained that, since he'd played these pieces in the past (sometime years in the past), he didn't see any point in doing any preparation or practice since he already knew them well. That evening he played flawlessly......with no sheet music; entirely from memory !!!
BTW, the evenings pieces were:
Shostakovich Festival Overture
Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 3
Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition
Me, I like charts.
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I actually disagree with it. From personal experience charts don't limit my improvisation at all, unless it's some real wacky tune with non standard changes. But most of them have the same ii v i movements, and I can internalize a tune after one chorus.
Originally Posted by TOMMO
The only thing reading charts are limiting is your presentation and showmanship. Basically you sacrifice all of it by burying your face in the charts. But the musical performance may not be affected at all.
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It really depends on how you use charts...I actually use writing my own charts as a way of helping me memorize a tune...
Also, being able to see a chart and still improvise freely/communicate is an artform in and of itself...
In the real world of playing music, not everything gets rehearsed. You have to be able to deal with different situations to get by...
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Notated arrangements are fine - but I don't approve of chord charts on gigs, the sight of which brings to mind the spectacle of a chimpanzees' tea party:
I memorise form and changes by preparing grids like the one below. I'm going to start making colour-coded annotations after seeing a great example in another thread.
(I have no right to complain about others' habits, but - for me - the vibes aren't right if these simple sequences don't get memorised by all the players.)
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Yes, I like those grids! Gypsy jazz guys call them "grilles."
When I learn a tune, I write out the chords like that...then, when I write the melody, I don't use notation or note names, I reduce the melody and write what it is in relationship to the harmony in the box...so you might see
A-7 and 9-5 written underneath...make sense?
To me, the easiest way to internalize a tune is to look at melody and harmony together, not as separate entities.
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If it's a pickup jazz band playing in the background should be totally fine. All the singers I worked with always bring their books to the gig and you're welcome to read if you not sure about a tune. Nobody's gonna look down on you. I mean, if you need a chart for All Of Me, maybe.... hahaha. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
If it's ok in NYC, it's ok, really.
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I was at a jam recently which seemed to have a leader (not sure how that evolved).
He announced, "no books! no books!" and then called all the tunes. On some of them he whispered the changes to the bassist. The rest of us were on our own.
Two things. If you're the guy who says "no book", somebody else should call the tunes.
The other thing was that, in a way, he was right. The tunes he called were mostly (not entirely) not that difficult and it was a good learning experience -- not that my learning path was his decision.
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Great idea - thanks! Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
Last edited by destinytot; 12-10-2017 at 06:58 PM.
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I think that's fair enough. But then only tunes that everyone knows should be played. Sometimes it takes a while to decide on one, and people get frustrated, but that's the only fair way. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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It's a sign of the times.
Reading charts while performing has been around forever but it's become a norm in the digital era. My generation had terrible meter. there were residencies to cure that. Now people can read charts and transcribe like nobody's business but they're terrible performers.
Just read the charts and do the gig. Stop complaining about things that aren't going to change. It's a digital world now.
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Bill Hicks + New Kids on the Block... Originally Posted by Stevebol
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I'm glad to see a session like that is still happening somewhere. I've been 'getting out on the scene' since the mid-80's, so I was around early enough to play regularly with people that played with Basie, Ellington, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus, etc. Apprenticing to that tradition means that you have to contend with other, more experienced folk making decisions about your learning path. It was uncomfortable when an old bebop piano player threw my Real Book across the stage, saying "never on the Bandstand!", but I learned I could get through a night of standard tunes using my ear. (Thanks, Jack Hubble!)
PK
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"Look, ma - no charts...":
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Jack's cable access show was my introduction to jazz! Originally Posted by paulkogut
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The guitarist's discreet - but his glances give the game away Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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Yeah, it's wonderful when you have a gig with old bebop piano player and can stand next to him and listen chorus upon a chorus of him playing the changes, and then finally when it's your turn your ears done the job and you are good to go. Sure, no charts! Originally Posted by paulkogut
OTOH, when you don't have old bebop piano player on the gig, and it's pretty much you and the bass player and the soloist/singer, or sometimes not even a bass player, just two of you, well, ok, good luck with your ears, is all I gotta say
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Yes that makes sense to me and is how I learn a melody also. By learning what the melody is doing in the harmony gives it context and makes it easily transposed also. Just doing this is enough to " memorize " the changes for me. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
Without really knowing the changes and how they're used with the melody, I wouldn't be able to solo in any fashion that wouldn't sound more like an exercise ( at least to me! ), certainly no significant relationship to the overall tune.
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That's Jack''s son Brad...damn good player, still playing here in Chi-Town. Originally Posted by destinytot
The guitarist's discreet - but his glances give the game away:
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Golden. iRealPro on my phone ain't goin' anywhere either Originally Posted by Stevebol
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