Donna Lee Theme

**Kojo27** · 07-15-2014, 07:32 PM

Just a simple question I gotta ask here - and I'm asking because I really don't get this thing....

It seems nobody objects much about the "learn it from YouTube" advice. But how is that any different from tab? Tab shows you where to put your fingers -- which string, which finger, and so on. Ditto for some guy on YouTube showing you where to put your fingers - which string, which finger, etc.

So shouldn't we berate the YouTube method, too?

(I'm all for standard notation - please don't take this otherwise. I really just don't see the difference w/tab and YouTube.)

**SamBooka** · 07-15-2014, 08:21 PM

Get a looper pedal and go to town...

**ColinO** · 07-16-2014, 07:43 AM

Originally Posted by Van_jazz

Just a simple question I gotta ask here - and I'm asking because I really don't get this thing....

It seems nobody objects much about the "learn it from YouTube" advice. But how is that any different from tab? Tab shows you where to put your fingers -- which string, which finger, and so on. Ditto for some guy on YouTube showing you where to put your fingers - which string, which finger, etc.

So shouldn't we berate the YouTube method, too?

(I'm all for standard notation - please don't take this otherwise. I really just don't see the difference w/tab and YouTube.)

This video doesn't really show you fingerings one-by-one - it just slows the tune down and breaks it into more manageable chunks. I suppose you could marry yourself to his fingerings but as has been said, you should probably see if there are others that are more manageable for you.

When using this video, I would be reading the music(not tabs) as well and would be listening to the tune being played by other players as well.

I am finding it helpful used in conjunction with other devices. I don't think it's the same as just looking at Tabs and going note-by-note, finger-by-finger. Using a video like this one involves more listening - if you don't want to see what he has done, then turn away from the screen. If you get stuck on a fingering, then he gives you one example of one that works for him.

That being said, if you are able to pick up a recording of Joe Pass playing Donna Lee at light speed and pick it up by ear without any music in front of you and without slowing down the recording and without ever looking to see what position he is playing any of the passages in, then that is probably the best way of learning it. That would take me a year for this particular tune and I'm not that patient. (Of course, it might still take me a year to get it up to speed if ever but that is a different issue

).

**Little Jay** · 07-16-2014, 08:16 AM

To be honest, I don't really mind tabs nor youtube and I use both all the time when I'm in a hurry and need to learn something fast because I got a last minute stand-in job or something.

BUT it seems when I learn a theme or song just by listening to the original and reading the lead sheet - thus figuring out my own fingerings - it tends to stick to me a lot better and I can incorporate it much better my own playing-style, which to me seems like a good thing.

Learning Donna Lee this way, took me about 5 or 6 nights just to be able to play thru the head and it took even longer to be able to play it fluently and up tempo and well enough to gig with. But since then I play it regularly as an exercise and I dissected the head into separate licks that provided me a great bebop-lick-repetoire! (I did that to a lot more Parker tunes, really helpful!).

**Kojo27** · 07-17-2014, 07:37 PM

Originally Posted by Little Jay

To be honest, I don't really mind tabs nor youtube and I use both all the time when I'm in a hurry and need to learn something fast because I got a last minute stand-in job or something.

Yep.

It seems to me that notation, in the long run especially, will benefit a professional player, or any gigging jazz player, better than tab.

However, let's go back to the OP: at this stage of his development (I'm assuming he's an 'younger player' - not meaning chronological age necessarily): what would be more important, 1) that he get Donna Lee under his fingers and in his ears, or 2) that he put in the months and months learning to read a score the likes of Donna Lee, and then learn it that way? (That's one hairy score!)

I think getting tunes in one's ears, and in muscle memory, and in one's bones - I think this is wa-a-a-a-a-a-ay more important, right off the bat, as soon as possible, than learning notation, so that SOME DAY he can read Donna Lee from the Omnibook. Ditto for ALL the tunes in the Real Book, or not in the Real Book, etc.

Pardon me if I'm missing something.

(Btw, Carl Verheyen is my hero! He's a self-taught reader, and he was reading tab, I betcha, before notation; still I see his point.)

Peace,
Loren