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I make mistakes in my playing, but I'm still learning to get out of those mistakes. I do it in such a way that no one noticed that there was any mistake.
It's great in jazz music.
I think Miles Davis said about it, ...;
Miles ... “If you hit the wrong note, it's the next note that determines if it's good or bad."
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05-24-2026 07:56 AM
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If I was going to make backing tracks, I would 100% use real book changes, mistakes be dammed. It’s about reaching the most people with your product.
There’s a reason MrSunnyBass starts every video with his iReal chart.
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That’s pretty much the deal with Quartet. It’s fine. And that’s to be expected. You kind of have to know those changes because those are what people play often. (There’s some errors in it BTW - it’s inevitable.)
Originally Posted by AllanAllen
And if you learn them you can quietly and smugly judge them as you play the tune. Which is a bonus. Or vibe people at jams. The choices for douchebaggery and gate keeping are endless.
But seriously, your preferred changes are things you can suggest in a non douchey way on gigs and write into your own charts. And sometimes you can play the original changes with the RB style changes and it works fine. (Provided you are the only chord player.) the BFA changes are like this. They are just less congested, but work fine with the other chords.
The situation not quite a bad as the Dark Ages of the Real Book 5th edition where you had to learn the wrong changes to Four and things like that. Or be prepared to drop four bars in the middle section of Desifinado.
The new edition sorts these out
Which is funny because all these errors were corrected in the errata - but how many people wrote these into their copies? I don’t think I ever met anyone who did.
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This morning I listened to Blues For Alice performed by various brilliant artists.
I ask gently...
Does anyone here hear otherwise?
I played with these versions in unison on the guitar using Transcribe!.
This is consistent with what I learned earlier from Parker's recording.
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There's still typos, Cherokee has a D-75 chord in 6th edition. Should we start a thread arguing b5 vs #5? Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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I'll argue perfect 5th to keep the dice rolling on that Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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Always take the 5th
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Thanks again for posting this Paul! I'm looking back over it now, and have a couple of questions, if that's okay. First, though, the line you've transcribed over the Bb-7 is slightly different to the one I learnt previously. That version had, after the Db note, a chromatic approach of Bb B back up to the C. I kind of like the sound of it, so will stick with it. At least until I clash with a horn player Originally Posted by PMB
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Some of the chords, as well as the one we all discussed at length, are a little different to what I see in the Quartet app. I see you have an F7#5 in bar 4. I normally simplify that sort of Cm->F7 to just the F7, but if I do that here the C# is going to clash. Would you recommend including both the natural and sharpened five, or actually considering the two chords separately? Then I see a little later you use an F6, where Quartet has Am7 D7. Am I right in thinking that F6 does not include the major 7th? We already discussed the turnaround, but I'm curious, did the original recording(s) have a D-7 here or a D7? Quartet has a D7 fwiw.
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Hi Cliff, that chromatic B natural is taken by the trumpet but most people play it due to the Aebersold Omnibook. As you can see from all the audio and written sources I provided, it's a G in the original sax part. However, I'd play whatever suits you. The B works well enough as a chromatic passing note.
As for bar 4, I only indicated a C#/Db there to highlight that it's prominent in the melody. To be honest, I didn't transcribe the chords exactly when I wrote this out years ago as they probably change for each chorus (maybe that's something I should go back and revise).
I suppose you'd have to ask that if Bird can play a Db and the piano hits an F7 and it still works, is that ok? Yes, it is because as Coleman Hawkins once stated, there's no such thing as chords, just lines in motion. We have to use our ears and imagination and not just 'colour between the lines' but also outside and around them. A strong melodic statement, no matter how harmonically tense or oblique in nature will always work if it has purpose, interesting rhythmic contour and motivic strength.
Note that Bird plays that Db on an offbeat ('and' of 2) and it's part of a wider descending chromatic phrase: the D-Db that completes the first phrase is resolved to C on the first beat of bar 5. This is something that the greats all possess: a wider sense of melodic resolution that can almost circumvent the chord of the moment. The late Sonny Rollins was a master of this. When asked what he was thinking about while he performed, he replied it was the next chorus not beat or bar that held his attention.
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By the way, here's yet another source for Blues For Alice that was written in 1979 (a year after the Omnibook was released) and confirms the accuracy of my transcription as far as the pitches are concerned.
The author, Fred Parcells was a trombonist who wrote out a ton of Parker heads (no solos) without any access to slow down software or original charts, just his own ears. I came across this years ago online and on finding it again was amazed at the overall reliability of these transcriptions. I'll write a longer post about these and the whole history of the Omnibook later today but for now, here's his take on Blues For Alice:
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Many thanks! Originally Posted by PMB
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