The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #51

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    Quote Originally Posted by greveost
    Oh yes, the comping is awful, lol. I just turn it off completely.
    How is that done? I have iReal Pro on my phone but all I know how to do is change keys and the tempo. I think I would use it more if I could just hear the bass and drums.

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  3. #52

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    Quote Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
    How is that done? I have iReal Pro on my phone but all I know how to do is change keys and the tempo. I think I would use it more if I could just hear the bass and drums.
    select the ‘mixer’ icon (4th one from the left at the bottom of the screen), then slide the piano level to zero.

    also you can touch ‘piano’ in this mixer screen, and select other sounds e.g. vibes, Rhodes etc. Some of these might sound a bit better than the piano.

    You can also swap the bass for a tuba, I haven’t tried that yet.

  4. #53

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    Quote Originally Posted by grahambop
    select the ‘mixer’ icon (4th one from the left at the bottom of the screen), then slide the piano level to zero.
    Yep, I fire the piano player every time I open the app. Bassist ain't bad. Drummer's a bit boring, but serviceable. I actually really like practicing with only the bass.

  5. #54

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    You can replace the drummer with a click, hadn’t noticed that before.

  6. #55

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    also check out the ‘teacher’s hat’ (mortarboard), you can make it auto-change key or tempo at each chorus.

  7. #56

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    Quote Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
    How is that done? I have iReal Pro on my phone but all I know how to do is change keys and the tempo. I think I would use it more if I could just hear the bass and drums.
    Just pull the volume down all the way, as I think I mention in the video as well

    Edit: oops, someone already mentioned it.

  8. #57

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    In the shows I go to in the SF Bay Area and in NYC, I often see the musicians reading.

    If they weren't reading, they'd have to play songs they all knew, which is limiting.

    A more personal point -- I know about 100, maybe 125 tunes, which is nowhere near enough. My ears aren't good enough to transpose all of them to any key on the fly without making mistakes. I work on that, but I'll never get it to the level of the NYC wedding musicians of my youth. Should I give up music? I'd rather rely on IRealPro for the tunes I should know, but don't, and continue playing.

  9. #58

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    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    In the shows I go to in the SF Bay Area and in NYC, I often see the musicians reading.

    If they weren't reading, they'd have to play songs they all knew, which is limiting.

    A more personal point -- I know about 100, maybe 125 tunes, which is nowhere near enough. My ears aren't good enough to transpose all of them to any key on the fly without making mistakes. I work on that, but I'll never get it to the level of the NYC wedding musicians of my youth. Should I give up music? I'd rather rely on IRealPro for the tunes I should know, but don't, and continue playing.
    I think people sometimes use charts out of fear. Fear of fucking up, looking a fool in front of your peers, fear under the spotlight. Fear of failure.

    Mistakes are not the worst thing. Really. It’s worse to play without feel for instance. A background gig is not going to fall apart because you played the wrong chord. The world won’t stop turning. It’s fine. Try and get it on the next pass. Maybe the bass or piano will help you out.

    I respect honest mistakes a lot more than someone insulating themselves from risk. Mistakes are important because it means you are learning. Failure is the most important teacher. If you never allow yourself to fail, you can’t grow.

    It helps to have the supportive environment - people who don’t get pissed off with you etc. And I hope I am supportive myself in that situation.... this learning experience doesn’t need to be Whiplash like. A chilled background gig with players who are open to a little risk.... well I think it livens up a routine gig.

    Look if you are playing a standard, a sentence or two about the form and the bridge can be all you need - ‘it’s AABA F major, starts on ii and goes to Ab in the bridge.’

    Imo the reason why we learn a zillion tunes is not because we want to learn a zillion tunes, but because we want to practice learning a tune by ear a zillion times. And lessons learned under pressure stick.

    It’s the same as transcription. The licks don’t matter. What matters is the speed and fluency of the process.

    Transposing is a good one too. Singer gigs are always good for that...

    Also when you learn a tune, try teaching it someone else without a chart....

    Again these things are more common in the trad and mainstream worlds where the repertoire is based around a narrow set of harmonic movements. But I do think they do this in NYC too.
    Last edited by christianm77; 11-21-2019 at 03:51 PM.

  10. #59

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    I think people sometimes use charts out of fear. Fear of fucking up, looking a fool in front of your peers, fear under the spotlight. Fear of failure. .
    One long term, well known pro whose name you might know, told me that he likes having a chart, even for tunes he knows, saying "it frees me up". This is a guy who could easily function as a NYC wedding musician who knows every tune and doesn't care what key he plays them in.

    Most players won't admit liking to have a chart, but he does.

  11. #60

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    Please bear in mind is not how *I* do it in my wokring life... Mostly, I do it the way most people here do it, a mix of tunes I've learned, and stuff I'm reading. I have been in circles where everything is primarily aural, but like I said more on the dixieland side of things, maybe some standards stuff... it requires musos who are on the same page.
    Last edited by christianm77; 11-21-2019 at 05:27 PM.

  12. #61

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    I don't completely understand the problem with iRealPro not swinging. Have you never played with anyone who didn't swing? I don't actually use the accompaniment much, but I don't expect it to swing when I do. If you have the proper feel, you can swing by yourself, whether the rest of the band swings or not. iReal won't teach you to swing, but that's not its purpose. It won't make you a ham sandwich, either, not even if you say 'sudo'.


    The last sentence is a Linux joke. If you don't use Linux, and few of you do, just ignore it and get on with your life.

  13. #62

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    This thread triggered some stray thoughts.


    A couple of friends of mine are playing in a band where the leader wrote and arranged all the tunes. Not simple stuff. Lots of hits and some of the tunes have unusual time changes.

    They're now trying to play a night's worth of music without charts. Two of them can do it and two of them can't. Oddly enough, the composer is having trouble remembering his own tunes. My guess is that composition and memorization are different skills.

    At the other extreme, I play in a horn band where one of the other guys arranged one of my tunes. I have to play it from memory. I find the chart very confusing -- even though I wrote the tune. Partly, that's because the chart has odd numbers of bars per line and starts motifs in the middle of a line. I mention this only because it also suggests an odd relationship between reading a tune and knowing it from memory.

  14. #63

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    I always thought, the better the player the better (s)he can handle even bad comping.

    That said iRealPro should really work for a fine player. And IMO it could really be improved if there would be a mode where it accidentally drops or inserts beats, plays wrong cords, rushs or drags, or gets completely lost etc.....

  15. #64

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    christian, let's not make the perfect the enemy of the good. I am a full-time, lifelong gigging musician, not a jamming or casual one. I need to be able to play what the leader or buyer wants, period. iRealpro is a great tool for professional musicians who know how to wield tools. Whether is swings or not is irrelevant, since no fake book chart swings, that's dependent on the players. The real world is where I like to live, not inside my perfect imagination. I always prefer to play with great players who know the tunes I call, but that is not reality most of the time.

  16. #65

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    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    Oddly enough, the composer is having trouble remembering his own tunes. My guess is that composition and memorization are different skills.
    Yes, if you compose a very complicated piece, for example with the help of a sequencer, and then seldom listens or play it, someone who playes the piece repeatidly, and makes an effort to remember the piece will most likely remember it better than the composer.
    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    the other extreme, I play in a horn band where one of the other guys arranged one of my tunes. I have to play it from memory. I find the chart very confusing -- even though I wrote the tune. Partly, that's because the chart has odd numbers of bars per line and starts motifs in the middle of a line. I mention this only because it also suggests an odd relationship between reading a tune and knowing it from memory.
    Yeah, not the same thing.

  17. #66

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    I think people sometimes use charts out of fear. Fear of fucking up, looking a fool in front of your peers, fear under the spotlight. Fear of failure.
    Yes, there is a sense of security having a chart in front of you.

  18. #67

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    Quote Originally Posted by ronjazz
    christian, let's not make the perfect the enemy of the good. I am a full-time, lifelong gigging musician, not a jamming or casual one. I need to be able to play what the leader or buyer wants, period. iRealpro is a great tool for professional musicians who know how to wield tools. Whether is swings or not is irrelevant, since no fake book chart swings, that's dependent on the players. The real world is where I like to live, not inside my perfect imagination. I always prefer to play with great players who know the tunes I call, but that is not reality most of the time.
    Well there are some traditions, some circles of musicians that operate this way. It’s not idealised in that sense. Dance bands for instance. Some bands I have played with have no time between tunes and expect you to transpose at the drop of a hat. That’s proper training that is. You just have to listen out and have a go. I might not know all the tunes, but I can lughole them....

    But of course it’s also great to learn to read charts too.

    iReal is pernicious because it nudges the needle further in that direction. It becomes normalised. People have to use it because it is expected.

    You nor I nor anyone here is to blame for that.

    And I expect I will be using it tonight for a couple of tunes. At least I can glance at the changes for a few seconds and memorise the changes. That’s better I suppose. I still feel cheap tho haha.

  19. #68

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    Quote Originally Posted by greveost
    Yes, there is a sense of security having a chart in front of you.
    Nice and comfortable. Safe. Easy.

  20. #69

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    Some of you may not know this: it's waaayyy harder to learn a new tune at 65 than it was at 25. Charts and iReal deff come in handy.

    I do get what Christian is talking about. There's some truth there, but he kinda sounds like somebody my age. So... OK Boomer! :-)

    I'll do a public service and let other N.Americans know that 'lugholing it' would be playing by ear.

  21. #70

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    I find that a lot of players fall between 2 extremes:

    1) Players who think their ears are better than they actually are - “...I don’t need the chart, I’ll hear the changes”. They might hear about 60% of them and dribble around the rest. After the tune is over, they’ll give you a detailed explanation of what they (incorrectly) thought the changes were and why.

    2) Players who take a fakebook chart literally, and play those changes literally, chorus after chorus, regardless of what the melody, bass line, soloist or other players suggest.

    There’s no shame at looking at the changes from ANY source to get the road map of the form, outline of the bridge and anything “unusual” about the tune, and even better, some sense of the melody, even if you’re not going to be playing it. The rest is ears, instinct, inspiration, taste and time in the shed.
    Last edited by unknownguitarplayer; 11-24-2019 at 02:05 PM.

  22. #71

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    Warren Nunes told me that if he heard a song on a jukebox one time, he'd know it for the rest of his life.

    The NYC wedding musicians of my youth were never stumped and could play anything in any key. The leader would signal with fingers up or fingers down (number of sharps or flats) and count it in.

    But, in a story I've recounted here before, I was in a group with two well known guitarists, one a college professor of jazz guitar, when Stella got called in F. Neither one got it on the first chorus. One got it on the second, one (the professor) on the third.

    In my small corner of the music world, I'm rarely in a situation where I'm expected to play random tunes from memory. Even on standards gigs, there are often arrangements which have to be read. Even the leader/arranger is reading.

    There's a pretty high level jam I go to occasionally at a local restaurant. B3 kicking bass. The guys sitting in never use charts, but the B3 player has IRealPro on his phone sitting on the organ. And, depending on who is there, they stick with pretty common standards so that the young horn players have a chance of knowing the tune. For example, when I called I Should Care, they asked me to pick something else. We ended up with Another You. The horn player who runs that jam seems to know every tune that's called -- and he has a jazz Grammy.

    I did a horn/guitar/bass standards gig recently. The leader was on sax and called all the tunes. He played from memory -- which, of course, is easier when you're calling the tunes. I knew a lot of them, but I was glad I didn't need to find out exactly what I meant by "knew". The bassist had a tablet with the RB charts and we both looked at that. Didn't miss a chord all night as a result, which is better than I'd have done without it. Embarrassing? A bit. But, I certainly felt that sense of security another poster talked about. Oh, and having the RB chart rather than the IRealPro chart allowed me to play accurate melody on tunes I didn't know well. I could have stumbled through the melodies without the chart, but there's that added sense of security.

    That horn player, btw, was the same one who has to read his own compositions in the band I mentioned.

  23. #72

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    I have one problem with programs like ireal pro and Band in a Box. When I was learning the basics none of these things existed. I would have to get a 60 minute cassette and play the changes over and over. Naturally all this comping got boring so I would vary the chords and the rhythms.

    By the time I had made my practise tape I knew the sound of the chord progression really well. I knew what part of the progression I was in as I developed an inner sense of time. Take a blues for instance. I would intuitively know if I was in the first 4 the second or the 3rd.

    Not to mention all the chord practise I got. This was invaluable.

    We tend to spend so much time practising our soloing and yet on the job, most guitarists comp for 95% of the time. In my present gig I comp for a saxophonist almost all the time. Those hours laying down chord changes were well spent.

    Now, when the student uses iReal pro or BIAB they miss out on all this valuable practise. Sure, there are other ways to get it but will they do it?

    I have met a lot of young guitarists who can solo quite well but can't comp for nuts.

    I am sure the older players who had to make their own rhythm tracks will understand me even if they may not agree.

    Having said this I should add that I do use these programs. But I think too much technology can be a dangerous tool in the hands of the student who is early in their journey.

  24. #73
    Fake books and their electronic versions have the danger of becoming crutchs that thwart the memory development that is desirable for developing musicians. In a jazz town like Kansas City the better jazz guitarists do not bring fake books with the several organ trio plus guests jam format that was popular when I lived there. They know enough standards by memory to cut most gigs. But with some singers and new people doing some new tunes or different than standard keys its nice for someone to have an electronic fake book. I was going to school in Boston at Berklee when the Real Book was first coming out. Some of the people responsible for it were Berklee teachers at one point in their lives. It was a big deal to some writers that copywrites were not being paid and some I think were just glad that lots of people ere exposed to their writing. Memory development is very important in becoming a well seasoned pro who knows many common standards by heart, but of course its good not to have too many clams and train wrecks on the bandstand too!

  25. #74

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    I live in the SF Bay Area.

    If I wanted to go out to hear a standards gig with nobody reading, I don't know where to find that.

    Now, I'm confident that somebody else will know, and I don't get out all that much -- but if it was a commonplace thing I think I'd know.

    Even when I hear people play standards, there is often an arrangement with some of the players reading it.

  26. #75

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    Turn off the Keys and it is just a good bass/drums track to practice comping with. It is a tool. Nothing more or less. How you use it is your choice.