The Day I Put My Real Books Away (Aimee Nolte)

[MarkRhodes]

She was in college and John Clayton said something at a clinic that changed her approach to music.

[Addendum: Aimee thanked me for drawing more attention to this video than it otherwise may have received. I want to think Philco and mr. beaumont--Jeff Matz-- for letting me know about some of Aimee's other videos. This thread now contains several of Aimee's videos, including ones on soloing over rhythm changes, scat singing, sight singing, how to "freaking swing", and others. Enjoy!]

[mr. beaumont]

Aimee's super cool, and a great talent.

I always maintain, there's nothing wrong with a real book, if you know how to use it.

[morroben]

I saw this when she posted it. I would agree that I don't memorize things as well when I'm staring at a Real Book. But I still need one most of the time. My ears aren't that great.

I dig Aimee's videos. They're not too advanced to understand, and she explains things well. Plus, I don't just end up copying someone's guitar fingerings note-for-note, since her stuff is piano based. I went to her youtube page this morning to see if she had a Billie's Bounce lesson, but no dice.

[KirkP]

The video is too chatty for me to listen to much of, but I get the idea.

I feel my speed of learning tunes, my ear, and my confidence on the bandstand started improving at a much faster rate after I changed my approach.

My primary sources now are actual recordings (playing along), followed by chord charts (iReal), which I edit if I don't like them (often editing a copy if I want to keep the original for reference). I use several fake books as secondary sources, sometimes comparing them to each other and my favorite recordings. It was slow going at first (especially listening to all those recordings), but it keeps getting easier. Now when I go to jams I just bring an iPad with iReal, or sometimes just use my iPhone (with really strong reading glasses!). But I have some Fake Books on my iPad too, just in case.

[Philco]

She was in college and John Clayton said something at a clinic that changed her approach to music.

She has a cool vid on R Changes. She is SO good at singing lines.
Very generous with her talent.

[grahambop]

Is it legal to make jazz instruction videos while driving a car?

[ragman1]

Is it legal to make jazz instruction videos while driving a car?

Dicey, but at least she edited out the r-e-a-l-l-y chatty bits... and when she flipped that other driver... and when she realised she'd gone the wrong way...

Just teasin' :-)

[mwcarr]

There's a lot of truth to what she's saying here. I play a lot of jazz standards but always as primarily a singer. I can read music and will look at written transcriptions but only as suggestions, in the end I tend to harmonize the tunes to my voice and I remember the tunes quite well that way. I also play the violin and tend to just plow through tune books. I realized that what I was getting good at was reading the music, not remembering the tunes. I've moved away from that approach with my fiddle playing and find that committing a tune to memory is much more efficient with an ear approach.

[ragman1]

I tend to remember pretty easily tunes that mean something to me. I want to do them and they stay with me without much effort. Probably playing in a band helps through sheer force of necessity and repetition. Otherwise it all seems a bit of an effort.

[Alter]

peter bernstein mentions in his seminars that he knows every tune available, in every key. Judging from how melodic and essential his playing is, i believe him So besides of course learning tunes by ear, when i tried learning to play tunes i already knew in all keys, which meant playing by ear and seriously improving on recognizing intervals and chord movements, it was a breakthrough! And after a while easier than i expected. So of course, learn all music by ear, and play everything in all keys also !

that's an unbelievably irresponsible thing to do by the way, driving and recording videos. I hope some cop sees her and throws her ass in jail before she kills some unsuspected kid or someone else.

[MarkRhodes]

She has a cool vid on R Changes. She is SO good at singing lines.
Very generous with her talent.

I've heard someone else here (on another thread) mention that rhythm changes video of Aimee's. Definitely have to check that out.

[MarkRhodes]

that's an unbelievably irresponsible thing to do by the way, driving and recording videos. I hope some cop sees her and throws her ass in jail before she kills some unsuspected kid or someone else.

I think you are overreacting. What Aimee is doing is TALKING while driving. There's no law against that. (Nor is there a law against singing while driving, though if you ever heard me do it you might think there should be.)

She's not working a camera. She's talking. She never takes her eyes off the road.

[grahambop]

peter bernstein mentions in his seminars that he knows every tune available, in every key. Judging from how melodic and essential his playing is, i believe him So besides of course learning tunes by ear, when i tried learning to play tunes i already knew in all keys, which meant playing by ear and seriously improving on recognizing intervals and chord movements, it was a breakthrough! And after a while easier than i expected. So of course, learn all music by ear, and play everything in all keys also !

that's an unbelievably irresponsible thing to do by the way, driving and recording videos. I hope some cop sees her and throws her ass in jail before she kills some unsuspected kid or someone else.

You should see the one she did on a skateboard - that can't be easy to do!

[grahambop]

I hadn't heard of her until now. Some of her videos are very cool. I love this one where she dissects Bill Evans' chords on the intro to Blue in Green.

[Alter]

perhaps i am overreacting, but recording videos while driving IS illegal in about 40 states in the US, with consequences varying from a ticket and a fine to license suspension and jail time (without causing an accident that is). Should be common sense though shouldn't it?

[mr. beaumont]

You should see the one she did on a skateboard - that can't be easy to do!

I believe she's an avid surfer.

That Bill Evans video is great.

[grahambop]

I believe she's an avid surfer.

That Bill Evans video is great.

yeah makes me want to go to the piano right now and try it out!

I don't really play but I can figure stuff like chords out (the piano is my wife's, she's got grade 8 piano, a fact which greatly impressed me when we first met!)

[John A.]

As someone who was never fully immersed in jazz and whose jazz playing has mostly been with amateur groups learning tunes from the RB, it took me a while to grok how much of an oral tradition jazz is. The people who really play learn tunes and arranging and performance techniques from each other, much more than from books or recordings.

If you lock yourself into RBs, you risk shutting out that oral tradition and not picking up the language and culture of the music. I think that's even more important than the risk of not memorizing tunes or memorizing the wrong changes that plague the RBs. It's very hard to both read and listen at the same time, and on balance I think it's more important to listen. RBs are a useful resource, and reference tool as a complement but can't replace listening.

Sent from my SM-J700T using Tapatalk

[MarkRhodes]

Aimee says she went to see John Clayton play the other night. After, she went back to shake his hand and talk---he recognized her from the video! Small world, huh?

[goldenwave77]

Just finished watching the Ken Burns series on jazz, and also reading a biography of Louis Armstrong.

Armstrong, like virtually all other black (as opposed to Creole) New Orleans musicians learned to play by ear, and by constant immersion and repetition, learned to figure things out. Later he met Lil Hardin, who became his 2nd wife, who'd had more formal training on piano. They studied classical trumpet parts together, and his reading became much better. He also became a much better musician, as well. Later on, Earl Hines who had a LOT of classical training, and could read very well, replaced Lil Hardin and he was about ten times the piano player she was, and a much stronger improviser to boot.

Learning song structures, whether by reading, or by playing, is a matter of ingraining them in your mind. Just learning arpeggio patterns will help you to learn tunes. Play 1-3-5-6, and then start it from the 5th below the root...that's the 1st phrase of "Indiana".

I agree that walking around with 3 real books, and looking up tunes, is silly. But nobody who knows anything about the history of this music could possibly think this is the way to learn and play it. Gunther Schuller, who is nobody's idea of an unschooled musician, has many,many transcriptions of solos in his Swing Era book, and over and over, he keeps repeating " the actual music...and phrasing....cannot be readily transcribed". That itself is a good reason to go listen to the actual stuff.

My ex-wife took piano lessons for 12 years, and readily admits she wasted her parent's money....didn't learn to play by ear....didn't learn to improvise....the problem is not so much learning by reading, as it is passive learning....that is what is to be avoided.

The video is positing a false dichotomy.

[Bluedawg]

I'm all for more learning by ear .... but some of us have day jobs ..... real books and written transcripts sure help with the limited time on our hands

They also help when I spend quality time with the spousal unit watching her detective shows with her while I noodle on the guitar .... I don't think she would appreciate me playing recordings of my latest project tunes out loud while DCI Barnaby is grilling his latest Midsomer Murder suspect

If I was younger and playing full time I would certainly want to move towards more learning by ear

[matt.guitarteacher]

The video is positing a false dichotomy.

I think that so much of what is put out on the inter-webs is competing bits of hyperbole . In fairness, when she "put the real books away", she was already a very competent reader and musician, sounds like. For her and many musicians in that position, the idea of putting them away was a good one.

It's a catchy video title which should probably be understood in CONTEXT and taken a grain of salt. Balance in all things.

[John A.]

Just finished watching the Ken Burns series on jazz, and also reading a biography of Louis Armstrong.

Armstrong, like virtually all other black (as opposed to Creole) New Orleans musicians learned to play by ear, and by constant immersion and repetition, learned to figure things out. Later he met Lil Hardin, who became his 2nd wife, who'd had more formal training on piano. They studied classical trumpet parts together, and his reading became much better. He also became a much better musician, as well. Later on, Earl Hines who had a LOT of classical training, and could read very well, replaced Lil Hardin and he was about ten times the piano player she was, and a much stronger improviser to boot.

Learning song structures, whether by reading, or by playing, is a matter of ingraining them in your mind. Just learning arpeggio patterns will help you to learn tunes. Play 1-3-5-6, and then start it from the 5th below the root...that's the 1st phrase of "Indiana".

I agree that walking around with 3 real books, and looking up tunes, is silly. But nobody who knows anything about the history of this music could possibly think this is the way to learn and play it. Gunther Schuller, who is nobody's idea of an unschooled musician, has many,many transcriptions of solos in his Swing Era book, and over and over, he keeps repeating " the actual music...and phrasing....cannot be readily transcribed". That itself is a good reason to go listen to the actual stuff.

My ex-wife took piano lessons for 12 years, and readily admits she wasted her parent's money....didn't learn to play by ear....didn't learn to improvise....the problem is not so much learning by reading, as it is passive learning....that is what is to be avoided.

The video is positing a false dichotomy.

She maybe somewhat off in her music history and in her belief that the greats learned exclusively by ear, but the bit about people running around with RB's in their bags and and treating it as the bible of jazz repertoire? There are definitely a lot of people who do that. There are also teachers and playing situations that reinforce that. I think eventually most people come to the realization it's not the bible and learn to treat it as one source for material to complement other sources and their ears, but she's commenting on a real phenomenon.

John

[coolvinny]

I think Real Books have their place and can be a lifesaver sometimes.

The way I see it is this: what is your baseline/default/'normal' method for playing and learning jazz? Is it to play from real books? If so, then that's wrong and it will show up in one's lack of development over the years.

But if your baseline method is learning stuff by ear and memorizing tunes, playing them in different keys etc, then it's cool to use a real book sometimes. Just don't make that your default approach.

[MarkRhodes]

The video is positing a false dichotomy.

I heard it as a story from a person's life. Her life. She mentions she grew up in a small town and didn't know anything about jazz culture. It speaks well of her that, without that background, when John Clayton and Jeff Hamilton were giving a clinic at her school, she was picked to play piano for them. She could obviously play. That clinic was her first exposure to "the tradition" and she embraced it. It changed her approach to music. I am a very bookish sort--and older than her---so I may know much more about this tradition than she does, but I don't play as well, and I can't sing lines the way she does. I would love to be able to do that.

By the way, she doesn't tell everyone else to throw their Real Books away. She doesn't say nothing good can come from them. This is the STORY of the day she put hers away. It is not an argument. It's a story.