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I've done this. What is the most esoteric scale and how will I blow people away with my "jazz" knowledge. Then I played a gig with a seasoned piano player. And didn't know the tunes. Oh, I was "yeah" i think I know that one. And got my ass handed to me. My last teacher was Larry Coryell. One of his last e-mails to me was "don't analyze, utilize". I asked Larry what tunes should I know and he replied "All of them".
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03-18-2018 03:04 PM
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Listen to Larry.
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It's fine to be informed. Nothing to be ashamed of. Being proud of what you can play, and the rush you get from interacting with another person in the realm of music, that can't be matched! The two are not mutually exclusive, just remember to keep in mind that balance takes time and getting good takes practice. Remember that all the times you have a computer keypad in your hands and not a guitar!
Good luck
David
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We should learn tunes first, develop our ears to hear chord progressions... then learn theory. I did most of that backwards and my playing is- 37 years into this- not what it ought to be by now.
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What did he mean by that? Utilize?
Originally Posted by jaco
Also, "all of them"? That's a pretty high bar. I think other teachers would refer you to a list of commonly played tunes. Or, tell you to go to local jams and make your own list of what gets called.
As far as overanalyzing ...
The issue here isn't exactly knowing the tunes. It would be okay not to know the tune when you're playing with a pianist. What is not okay is to fail to figure it out by the third chorus. If you can't do that, there's work to be done on ear training.
I think it's possible to convince yourself that you're making progress by focusing on theoretical material while actually giving short shrift to the skills you need to cover a gig. I'm not arguing against theory, but I am arguing for balance.
I can't do it as well as musicians who get called for gigs all the time. When I do get a call, I have to be careful to make sure that it's a gig I can cover successfully. If the gig is, no reading, somebody else calls the tunes (and key) and I'm the only chord instrument, I have to turn it down. And, I do know most of the tunes you might see on a top 50 jazz standards list. But, people call other tunes, or unfamiliar keys and I don't want to be the guy screwing up.
Rant: I was at a jam last year where one guy assumed leadership (to be fair, he was the only famous musician there). He announced, "no books, no books!" and then called all the tunes. My thought is, if you're the guy saying no books, let somebody else call the tunes.
He just started playing. A lot of people didn't know the tunes. He whispered the changes to the bassist (a top local pro with big ears) and he didn't care about whether anybody else could keep up. Some of the tunes had weird forms. He didn't pick tunes with really tricky changes, but it took a lot of people more than a few choruses to figure it out. Goddam unpleasant. Next time, my guitar stays in the case unless I feel like the struggle will somehow be helpful in the longer run.
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Maybe it depends on the situation. When I was in Philly, the old cats always set the tone of the jams. If you made an effort, they'd be really supportive. Yeah they'd call tunes, but in all honesty, they were tunes that were accepted as unquestionable standards, you know the list... If you had to read out of a book though, they wouldn't be insulting about it, but all the guys up there, youngsters, seasoned veterans, all accepted that reading from a book changed the level of listening and interaction, and you could feel it, they didn't encourage the book. If you were up there for a couple of numbers with a book, people might decide to sit out when you came up. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
One time though, they called a tune, one I didn't know. I smiled and thanked them and turned to sit that one out but they said "No, you know this one, really you do, just listen." and I was nervous but each chorus I felt the tune more definitively and I marked in my mind the passages that I needed to figure out. By the time my turn came, I was good for most of it, and it came to the bridge, I was tentative, found the key, made a note and before I knew, it was back to the A section. Next chorus, I knew what to modulate to and then it was fun.
I learned a LOT in that one experience and I felt I was a different musician after that tune. Every time I pick up the instrument, I learn something. I learned a lot that day.
David
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What's a good recording of 'All of Them?'
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Here's a devil's advocate position. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
Learning isn't always pleasant.
(Or he might have just been a bit of a douche.)
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Or both... Originally Posted by christianm77
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David, I appreciate the story and I'm glad to hear it was a good experience. Originally Posted by TruthHertz
I think you're right, that doing it under a little pressure can be a good thing, especially if you're able to master it.
I have learned to fear "don't worry, you'll hear it". It has become something of a joke among some of the musicians I play with. Somebody calls a tune with impossible harmony, without enough copies of the chart, and we say to the chartless players, "don't worry, you'll hear it", and snicker. But, when you do hear it, it's great.
The guy I was talking about was both teaching and being a bit of a dick. Several of the musicians complained quietly later. I think they felt this way ... they knew a lot of tunes, and there was a book, and they wanted to have fun. They didn't want to spend the entire time struggling to figure out changes. Sure, good practice, but they didn't show up thinking it was a woodshed.
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The above quote about "no books" applies to the piano guy I worked with. I asked if it was cool to bring up a fake book and got the same "no books "thing. I told this story to Coryell and his reply was "that's bullshit, everybody uses charts". What I did learn on this gig was, if I didn't know the tune, I quit playing. The guy was messing with me, ("you know this one? answer no, good it's in Eb one, two, three, four,) and I finally said to myself, F. this. But there still was a lesson to know the tune before making a fool out of yourself.
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On the subject of knowing the tune ...
I recall a jam at a club, by invitation. I knew almost all the players.
Somebody called Aqui Oh by Toninho Horta. I pretty much knew the tune, which may be the same as saying I didn't know the tune well enough. I knew the version in the Latin Real Book. Harmony is unusual and there are hits. That isn't what stopped me though. I might have scuffled through it.
I looked at the group and realized that there was another guitar player who played entirely by ear. He would know the tune, but not necessarily the same chords or roadmap that I'd heard. He was a good solo player, but not a combo musician at that point. He was probably 18 or so. He'd just play what he knew. (He later became a very good combo musician).
The bassist was a local monster who, I thought, would follow that guitar player without difficulty. I figured there was a good chance that the guitarist would dominate and that I wouldn't be able to follow it on the fly.
I put my guitar down and took a seat in the audience.
As I did that, a bassist friend of mine said he knew the tune and took the place of the monster bassist. Later on, my friend said that he "sort of" knew the tune, which, of course, amounts to not knowing the tune. He thought he'd fake his way through it.
Sure enough, the guitarist leads the group through the tune, playing it differently than I knew it and thoroughly confusing the bassist. I don't recall if there was a kb.
At the end, my friend puts the bass down and heads to the audience, stung by being part of a trainwreck. The monster bassist says to him, "it's okay not to play if you don't know the tune". Ouch.
I don't say that to make myself look good. I screwed that situation up enough times to get the lesson through a very thick head.
There's an etiquette. If a guy thinks he's better than he is, somebody may try to "correct" him. Other players will do whatever they can to make the group sound good -- including taking it easy on a less advanced player. If a guy simply isn't good enough for the scene, the core players (bass and piano, usually) will just play however they usually do and it's sink or swim. To paraphrase Bruce Springsteen, Peace. Love. Justice. And No Mercy". It's on the individual to exercise good judgment about when to play and when to just listen.
The worst thing you can do? Call a tune, and then not know it well.
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Wow, that guy was a major toad. I'm only a amateur but I have played with pros (e.g. jam session at a friend's home), and they were so welcoming and friendly. A few even said they didn't come to the house to put on a show, so that if we didn't play, they wouldn't play. So they would ask us what songs we knew and what key we preferred and we would take it from there. Originally Posted by jaco
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As much as I would hesitate to contradict Coryell i can’t imagine him needing a chart for the common standards rep. Originally Posted by jaco
From my own limited experience, i think it depends who you play with. Different communities have different traditions. I have come across to many variations to draw hard and fast rules, but in general straightahead and swing people would often rather busk something by ear. It’s easier with that rep.
Jazz fusion and contemporary jazz? Not so much.
There’s a chapter in Hal Galper’s Forward Motion which mentions the no books thing. I think it’s definitely a tradition in some areas of the jazz community that are more traditionally minded and emphasise a deep knowledge of standards etc and ear learning.
People are talking about this as if it’s some unreasonable challenge, but it’s part and parcel of the modular approach to standards leaning. You should be able to hear turnarounds, ii v Is, I-IV-I, sears roebuck bridges etc as well as play them. There are exercises to learn them - like singing the roots etc.
Jerry Coker wrote a book about this, as did Conrad cork.
And I don’t hold that this is something strictly for the pros. It’s possibly the most important thing to work on, along with your time.
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It's easy to over analyze because there are so many ways of looking at things. But the more I learn the simpler everything becomes. It's kind of like a theory of everything in physics. Once you have that all these other things fall into line.
It's important to analyze things as much as you can but with the goal of discovering your own way of understanding music and jazz. Part of that is knowing tunes because they lay out harmony in very obvious and repetitive ways. If you don't know the tunes there is no way you can play anything jazz related because it's all built around those tunes and changes.
I could be completely wrong, but just going by your post it sounds like you need to get the basics of playing this stuff on your instrument down. If you can't use a major scale and the triads that form that scale to play competently, learning an esoteric scale will be completely useless.
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At different points in my life I've been both the guy who says, "Play what's in your SOUL, man! You don't need theory!" and the guy who says, "How can you call yourself a musician if you don't know any theory?"
The problem with the former is that you end up with a very limited bag. The problem with the latter is you spend all your time analyzing and none playing. These days I tend to leave my analyzing for when I'm learning a tune, or when I've got down time away from the guitar, and I try to play as much as I can with other people.
I'm not very good at memorizing tunes. But over the past year or so, I've stopped using a book if it's a tune I "kinda know". I used to leave the book up as a security blanket if I blanked on a change, but David was fairly successful with infecting me with the "get off book" virus during the period I was going to his hangouts. Now if I know most of a tune, I'll leave the book shut. If I blow a change, I try to get it on the next chorus. If I can't get it, then I'll make a note and work on it at home.
The pianist in my ensemble is even worse. He's an older guy and, despite being fairly youthful in most ways, he's a little set in others. Someone called a blues, and he started reaching for his book. I said, "You don't need a book. It's Bb blues." He said something like, "Yeah, my mind goes blank if I don't have a page in front of me."
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Around here it depends on the level.
There are working players who will read some fairly common standards.
But, I recently went (as an audience member) to a higher level jam and there wasn't a book in sight all night.
And, they did a lot of different tunes. In that particular jam, the leader was playing B3 and kicking bass. I didn't see any discussion. Horn player called a tune, B3 guy played it.
At my semi-pro level, I'm expected to know chestnuts like Blue Bossa, Another You, Morning Sunrise, All of Me, My Romance, the common Jobim bossas, Stella, All the Things, etc.
But, probably nobody would raise an eyebrow if I pulled out my Irealbook on my phone for Dolphin Dance, Ceora, Pensativa, Ana Maria etc. Or, if I just played 5 tunes without a book, that for the sixth I said "I'll need a look at that one".
I play in a horn band. We usually start the gigs with a couple of jam tunes, rhythm section only. Even if the tune is pretty common, whoever calls it will provide charts. Partly it's a courtesy. Mostly, it's insurance against somebody drawing a blank or knowing some alternate harmony that will be difficult for the players to resolve on the fly. It might be that somebody can't figure out what somebody else is playing, or somebody gets headstrong, or each player tries to be accommodating and switches, resulting in the same conflict. None of that would be a problem for experienced pros, but we aren't quite at that level.
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I know "All of You" and "All of Me" but never heard of "All of Them" before? What's that, a love song about giant ants? Originally Posted by jaco
John
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Originally Posted by John A.
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Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
All of ...
John
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I've learned not overthink, just do. Learning is doing.
Over-analyzing is a problem to seriously avoid; learning as much as you can about the instrument, how to navigate it, how to get around it without stuttering and thinking, well, that is never a problem and is always welcomed.
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Reading through this thread gets me thinking about what music is all about. Is it meant to be a challenge? An obstacle to overcome? An opportunity to show that you know more than the guy next to you? A contest?
If I was at a jam session and someone took over by calling tunes that only he/she knew in order to challenge the rest of the people there I would leave. To me a jam session should be fun, an opportunity to play with folks that you normally might not, an opportunity to play a new tune in a friendly environment. Life is too short and music is ultimately intended to be fun to put up with crap or a personality disorder.
If music isn't fun, it isn't worth playing. Just my two cents...
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Yea... we're verbally talking on this forum... and most don't want to post musical examples of their playing...., what else are we going to do...
It's a given.... if you can't cover, can't play your instrument well.... you need to spend more organized time on it working to get your technical skills together... then your performance skills.
Generally playing jazz isn't rehearsing and memorizing what you play... it can help develop skills etc... but you need to actually be able to play, not just blow or solo.... interact with band playing the tune.
I always dig analysis and getting into the BS... I understand music well... and I'm still learning new approaches. Personally over analysis just can happen... when we're verbally talking about the music.... that's how you do it.... and hopefully using musical language. When Your playing... that's what you also do.
So once you get that musicianship together.... you can actually think, talk and play all at the same time. I played a Big band gig last night, new band, 1st gig etc... smokin rhythm section, we could all read, think, talk and play at the same time, we have fun and make it easy for the band to lock and sound great. We all can hear, and from analysis know what to play etc... It's not rocket or quantum science. But we all have our musicianship together, we've put in the organized time.
I would say... if your still working on that musicianship thing. And you have limited time, keep a constant schedule.. but also have some practice sessions where you put in longer amounts of time... At least a few 4 hour sessions. Longer if you can.
There are different results from those longer sessions, you reach higher levels of proficiency on your instrument that take forever with shorter sessions. Longer is obviously a relevant...
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Interesting. I hadn't heard of this. Certainly lots of teachers suggest focus on consistent practice. But the longer sessions mixed in is an interesting take.... Originally Posted by Reg
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Yes. There was a video on youtube (which I can't find now) where a sax player stated that he was the big man on campus in high school and could play his socks off etc. When he went to Berklee he was a 1-hour of practice per day kind of guy. He was a natural, it was all easy to him.
But he also recounted how he noticed that the students in the Berklee practice rooms had not moved an inch after he took a half day break. So he started practicing 3 hours per day and noticed that his playing took a HUGE leap forward. (duh). Anyway, he said that the program was great and the instructors were great, etc., but that the real difference was him - meaning - he had to do it himself.
Jazz and classical pros practice multiple hours per day, maybe 3-6 hours. (we aren't necessarily talking about Bird, Trane, McLaughlin legendary marathon sessions).
Fred Hamilton at UNT stated that you can make good progress with 1-hour per day and significant progress in 2, if you are focused and disciplined. More is better if you can get it. My Saturdays prove that to me. :0
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