The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    Quote Originally Posted by grahambop
    Some tunes I've learned are:
    Lost (Wayne Shorter) ...
    Just watched some more of the Mike Moreno thing where he says this was one of the Wayne Shorter tunes he learned too!

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  3. #27

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    I've read a couple of interviews of John 5 in GP. He always seems to have something worthwhile to say.

    In one of them he talked about how to audition for a gig with a working group.

    1. Learn the tunes from recent concert recordings. Not the album version, but they way they currently play the tunes.

    2. Show up dressed like they dress.

    The idea is to have them feel like you're already a member of the band.

    I know at least one singer/pianist/composer who does only her own stuff, although I've heard her sit in on percussion (and play it great). Artist. My son, who wrote and recorded an album, is like that. He hears music in his mind and does whatever he needs to do to play it and no more than that. No interest in learning a new guitar technique - that doesn't cross his mind. But, if he hears an idea in his mind, he will spend hours working on how to play it on guitar or piano. No interest in being a pro musician, but, to me, the approach of an artist.

    I know another singer/guitarist/composer who does mostly his own stuff but can play literally anything. The entire package. Artist and Craftsman.

    I know other players who are terrific jazz sidemen, but who don't do original material much (everybody seems to have at least a few originals). Arguably, more craftsman than artist, but maybe that's not fair. There's a lot of artistry in playing a great rendition of even the simplest standard.

    I went a jam on Sunday at a local trendy restaurant (judging from the size, prices and crowd). Hosted by a terrific sax player (who I believe has a Grammy) named Tony Peebles. The venue has a B3 there and there is usually a guy kicking bass on it,rather than a bassist. Solid drummers. The whole thing is really energetic and the musicians who show up to sit in include some very capable players. Mostly standards, brisk tempos, high energy players. Everything right in the pocket. It seems to hold a young audience because the music kicks ass. To me, being able to do that is worth all the work it takes to prepare for it. That's love for a situation more than for a tune.

    Side issue: Tony was very kind and very professional in the way he handled the jam. He explained the protocol ("talk to me, and I'll call you up"). Two tunes per guest (there were several guitarists waiting). He asked me to pick the ones I wanted to play. Made everything clear on the bandstand. No surprises. Raw fun. Another guitarist offered to let me use his amp and even plugged it in for me. Couldn't have been nicer.

  4. #28

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    PMJ is of course based on a (probably bad) idea that's hard to do well, done fantastically well IMO. They deserve their success in my book.... But I see your point... We've gone from the Beatles to ..... this?

    Unfortunately for the rest of us, its now an expectation and a MASSIVE troll because it remains a concept that is hard (or at least, work intensive) to do well.

    If someone else MD's the gig and does it well with good charts, I'm all for it... IF.
    PMJ started is a goof. It is a goof, and they themselves wouldn't argue with that. A bunch of jazz guys and a singer got together and made a first video to amuse themselves. It got viral, who knew!

    What gets me, ok, it is funny and cute, obviously talented musicians took a well known pop tune and turned it into old jazz. Great, ha-ha, I had a good laugh, well done, now moving on. But how in the world people take it so seriously so they buy tickets many times to see the whole show live, of what is basically a goofy cover band?

    I'm telling you, the guys in the band were as surprised as I'm. But it is what it is, it's million dollar making machine, and it keeps on going.

    Unfortunately the co-leader of the band I have, a sax player who was with them from the beginning, he has to go on tours with them to make a good buck. Not as often as before, but it still f..ks up my gigs too. We write an original music, and I depend on him to a point.

    And you'd think since he has many fans from the PMJ fame we would have at least some of them turn up at our gigs... Not at all, no one gives a s..t unless it's another stylized cover of a famous hit everyone knows.

    So that's my beef, it's damn personal!

  5. #29

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    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    I've read a couple of interviews of John 5 in GP. He always seems to have something worthwhile to say.

    In one of them he talked about how to audition for a gig with a working group.

    1. Learn the tunes from recent concert recordings. Not the album version, but they way they currently play the tunes.

    2. Show up dressed like they dress.

    The idea is to have them feel like you're already a member of the band.

    I know at least one singer/pianist/composer who does only her own stuff, although I've heard her sit in on percussion (and play it great). Artist. My son, who wrote and recorded an album, is like that. He hears music in his mind and does whatever he needs to do to play it and no more than that. No interest in learning a new guitar technique - that doesn't cross his mind. But, if he hears an idea in his mind, he will spend hours working on how to play it on guitar or piano. No interest in being a pro musician, but, to me, the approach of an artist.

    I know another singer/guitarist/composer who does mostly his own stuff but can play literally anything. The entire package. Artist and Craftsman.

    I know other players who are terrific jazz sidemen, but who don't do original material much (everybody seems to have at least a few originals). Arguably, more craftsman than artist, but maybe that's not fair. There's a lot of artistry in playing a great rendition of even the simplest standard.

    I went a jam on Sunday at a local trendy restaurant (judging from the size, prices and crowd). Hosted by a terrific sax player (who I believe has a Grammy) named Tony Peebles. The venue has a B3 there and there is usually a guy kicking bass on it,rather than a bassist. Solid drummers. The whole thing is really energetic and the musicians who show up to sit in include some very capable players. Mostly standards, brisk tempos, high energy players. Everything right in the pocket. It seems to hold a young audience because the music kicks ass. To me, being able to do that is worth all the work it takes to prepare for it. That's love for a situation more than for a tune.

    Side issue: Tony was very kind and very professional in the way he handled the jam. He explained the protocol ("talk to me, and I'll call you up"). Two tunes per guest (there were several guitarists waiting). He asked me to pick the ones I wanted to play. Made everything clear on the bandstand. No surprises. Raw fun. Another guitarist offered to let me use his amp and even plugged it in for me. Couldn't have been nicer.
    John 5 is a very smart guy, and a terrific player! I'd highly recommend anyone who didn't hear him play to check him out. Jazz guitarists can learn from him too, especially all things rhythm and groove.

  6. #30

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    Thanks for the Moreno link, Christian. I like that he doesn't pull any doesn't pull any punches. It's a strange state of affairs where so much is freely available online yet it's simply overwhelming to neophytes. A kind of level playing field where everything is accorded equal relevance. The more insightful of my own students are well aware of the situation and are looking for ways out.

    Your post touches on wider issues of how to choose a practical path through the maze and the example Matt gave seems pretty apposite. Film directors and actors often use the phrase, "One for them, one for me" as a way of addressing issues of financial and artistic survival. The trick for most is to find where the two can be successfully intertwined. There's a nice Charlie Christian story where he was playing on a street one day with a young Barney Kessel. A sax player passed by, took out his horn and started jamming. Charlie put his guitar away in its case soon after, offering some excuse about being late for an appointment. The sax player moved on and once he was around the corner, Charlie took his instrument out again. "Don't you have to leave?" asked Barney. Charlie's reply? "I only play music for three reasons - to make money, learn something or have fun - and that was none of those".

  7. #31

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    Regarding your comments about learning the songbook, for what it's worth I adopted a two-pronged approach some years ago that really helped. Rather than tackle tunes via some arbitrary method such as an alphabetical list, I firstly decided to concentrate on a single composer for a period. Whether that be Porter or Shorter, I gained lots of melodic, harmonic and rhythmic insights. Secondly, I decided to search for common defining features; for instance, tunes that move immediately to the II dominant such as A Train, Watch What Happens, Desafinado etc. and learnt those as a group. Eventually, you'll get around to knowing a few hundred standards including all the core repertoire but in a much less passive and more musically meaningful way. I also made a vow not to use lead sheets/iPhones on any standards gigs (I've played three in the last week). That was initially scary and can feel like one step forward two steps back for a while but it's an invaluable experience. Sure, you'll occasionally miss some thorny chords in a bridge but you'll know what needs addressing in the next day's practice session!

  8. #32

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    Quote Originally Posted by PMB
    Regarding your comments about learning the songbook, for what it's worth I adopted a two-pronged approach some years ago that really helped. Rather than tackle tunes via some arbitrary method such as an alphabetical list, I firstly decided to concentrate on a single composer for a period. Whether that be Porter or Shorter, I gained lots of melodic, harmonic and rhythmic insights. Secondly, I decided to search for common defining features; for instance, tunes that move immediately to the II dominant such as A Train, Watch What Happens, Desafinado etc. and learnt those as a group. Eventually, you'll get around to knowing a few hundred standards including all the core repertoire but in a much less passive and more musically meaningful way. I also made a vow not to use lead sheets/iPhones on any standards gigs (I've played three in the last week). That was initially scary and can feel like one step forward two steps back for a while but it's an invaluable experience. Sure, you'll occasionally miss some thorny chords in a bridge but you'll know what needs addressing in the next day's practice session!
    Interesting... Do you ever play any duo gigs, like with a singer? Would you still keep to that rule, and how do you recover if you do? I mean if there's a standard you're not particularly sure about.

  9. #33

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    Two of those gigs last week were duos with different singers. If I don't really know it, we'll choose something else and I'll maybe learn it later that evening while it's fresh in my mind as I work with both women fairly regularly. On Sunday's gig, the singer presented chord charts for two originals so obviously I followed those (nice tunes incidentally) but even there, I prefer to scan the page and shut the book whenever possible. On the other gig (bari sax/flute, guitar, bass) there was one tune where I sat out and the sax and bass played it as a duo. No set so anything could be called by any one of us.

  10. #34

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    Quote Originally Posted by PMB
    Two of those gigs last week were duos with different singers. If I don't really know it, we'll choose something else and I'll maybe learn it later that evening while it's fresh in my mind as I work with both women fairly regularly. On Sunday's gig, the singer presented chord charts for two originals so obviously I followed those (nice tunes incidentally) but even there, I prefer to scan the page and shut the book whenever possible. On the other gig (bari sax/flute, guitar, bass) there was one tune where I sat out and the sax and bass played it as a duo. No set so anything could be called by any one of us.
    Nice!

    I don't shy away from the ireal pro personally, because I don't feel my performance would suffer if I read a standard, and in a lot of cases i only need it for a chorus or two anyway, and then I'm good. But on the jams where I know someone can back me up I go with just ears, no charts.

    Btw, anyone ever uses set lists? Like if you play with the same folks regularly, do you ever come up with one before a gig? In my regular trio we started doing it, it helps with the flow of the show. And you really don't need charts then! But I don't see it with others much?

  11. #35

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    Maybe another post about set lists, Hep? It's a good topic but I don't want to derail the thread.

    As far as charts are concerned, I don't like them on the bandstand unless it's an originals reading gig. It looks crap, shoehorns people into one set of changes and puts a barrier between musicians. By the way, I have a very strong visual memory and see standard musical notation and chord charts in concert key. One of the reasons I chose to play with female singers was to force me to transpose on the spot and really internalise changes for tunes. Of course, it can also be great fun and does wonders for your guitar playing! I see it as one aspect of what Moreno's talking about - putting yourself in initially uncomfortable or at least challenging situations to get closer to where you want to be.

  12. #36

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    Quote Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
    PMJ started is a goof. It is a goof, and they themselves wouldn't argue with that. A bunch of jazz guys and a singer got together and made a first video to amuse themselves. It got viral, who knew!

    What gets me, ok, it is funny and cute, obviously talented musicians took a well known pop tune and turned it into old jazz. Great, ha-ha, I had a good laugh, well done, now moving on. But how in the world people take it so seriously so they buy tickets many times to see the whole show live, of what is basically a goofy cover band?

    I'm telling you, the guys in the band were as surprised as I'm. But it is what it is, it's million dollar making machine, and it keeps on going.

    Unfortunately the co-leader of the band I have, a sax player who was with them from the beginning, he has to go on tours with them to make a good buck. Not as often as before, but it still f..ks up my gigs too. We write an original music, and I depend on him to a point.

    And you'd think since he has many fans from the PMJ fame we would have at least some of them turn up at our gigs... Not at all, no one gives a s..t unless it's another stylized cover of a famous hit everyone knows.

    So that's my beef, it's damn personal!
    Well it’s all goofy now isn’t it? It’s a goofy world. It is annoying.

  13. #37

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    Quote Originally Posted by PMB
    Thanks for the Moreno link, Christian. I like that he doesn't pull any doesn't pull any punches. It's a strange state of affairs where so much is freely available online yet it's simply overwhelming to neophytes. A kind of level playing field where everything is accorded equal relevance. The more insightful of my own students are well aware of the situation and are looking for ways out.

    Your post touches on wider issues of how to choose a practical path through the maze and the example Matt gave seems pretty apposite. Film directors and actors often use the phrase, "One for them, one for me" as a way of addressing issues of financial and artistic survival. The trick for most is to find where the two can be successfully intertwined. There's a nice Charlie Christian story where he was playing on a street one day with a young Barney Kessel. A sax player passed by, took out his horn and started jamming. Charlie put his guitar away in its case soon after, offering some excuse about being late for an appointment. The sax player moved on and once he was around the corner, Charlie took his instrument out again. "Don't you have to leave?" asked Barney. Charlie's reply? "I only play music for three reasons - to make money, learn something or have fun - and that was none of those".
    I feel his frustration as a teacher! Young students seem often to do things only when their teacher tells them to. OTOH someone with just an iota of passion about something (doesn’t have to be what I’m into) is easy to teach.

  14. #38

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    I feel his frustration as a teacher! Young students seem often to do things only when their teacher tells them to. OTOH someone with just an iota of passion about something (doesn’t have to be what I’m into) is easy to teach.
    Exactly! I just gave a lesson to a very engaged young student who's all over the map. We moved from playing his boogie piano arrangement of the Beach Boys' "California Girls" together to working on polyrhythms between thumb and fingers on the guitar and talking about Wagner's Tristan chord and how it was a half-diminished outside its usual tonal context... It's great. He just brings stuff from everywhere and we throw it at the wall for an hour.

  15. #39

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    I always hear that chord as a French Sixth (i.e. bVI7#11) with a very long apoggiatura lower neighbour on the 3rd. Kind of bluesy.

    Wagner is another musician I am knocked out by now every time I hear his stuff. It's really high level stuff.

    This puts me in a difficult situation as 1) Wagner was the the worst person, 2) The Nazis and 3) modern Wagner fans tend to be distinguished by their beards, sandals, and lack of personal hygiene.

    Come to think of it I'm already there.

  16. #40

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    I always hear that chord as a French Sixth (i.e. bVI7#11) with a very long apoggiatura lower neighbour on the 3rd. Kind of bluesy.
    Nah, minor 6th with the 6th in the bass

  17. #41

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    Quote Originally Posted by PMB
    Nah, minor 6th with the 6th in the bass
    That's Django's chord!

  18. #42

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    Quote Originally Posted by PMB
    Regarding your comments about learning the songbook, for what it's worth I adopted a two-pronged approach some years ago that really helped. Rather than tackle tunes via some arbitrary method such as an alphabetical list, I firstly decided to concentrate on a single composer for a period.
    I do this, too! it's really helpful. I also don't use any charts for standard tunes on gigs or at jam sessions. For gigs, I just ask what tunes and learn them if I don't know them. For jam sessions, I'm pretty comfortable saying "I don't know that one"; I used to feel bad about this, but no one knows everything.

    The other thing I do is make a list of tunes that were played that I don't know (at a jam session or gig), and I learn them.

  19. #43

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    In fly fishing, there is a lot of gear available. Very similar to guitar. There are guys who can catch fish with anything and guys who seem more interested in the gear than the fish. Why not? If stamp collecting is a hobby, why not collecting fly rods? Why do you have to fish to make it valid? Everybody has an individual relationship with music. So, if somebody enjoys doing what the teacher says and doesn't have an internal passion-compass, who's to say there's anything wrong with that?

    Unless, of course, your goal is to make it in the NYC jazz scene.

    I can't tell the story here because of privacy concerns, but I have been in the room when a sufficiently accomplished "new kid" was heard for the first time by some old lions in NYC. The new player (not actually that young -- he had an impressive record of accomplishment of which some of the lions were not aware) was welcomed with open arms. Got a recording gig and a playing gig that night, from just being heard play one tune. Has played more with the lions since.

    To do that - to be that guy, which is the dream of a lot of people - means you are better than great.

    In what way? The lions only heard the "new kid" play a common, simple, standard. Now, he is a composer whose stuff has been covered by some very good players, but that's not what got him in this particular door. In fact, he is a brilliantly accomplished player in several ways having nothing to do with jazz standards.

    My thought is that it's all valid, but most paths don't lead to that door in NYC.

  20. #44

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    Yes, fishing lures are for the fisherman, not the fish!

  21. #45

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    Best paying gig I had last year was a 1962 high school class reunion. I learned all those songs when they came out originally and have played them thousands of times since. To me, it was a paying gig; to the audience it brought back memories, so that means I did the job I was hired for. I'm just not an emotional person - I'm not passionate about music - it's just something I do to make $$$. Guitar comes out of the case when someone waves money at me, otherwise I have other things I'd rather do.

  22. #46

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    A jazz gig should be a show, with set lists and at least a few arrangements, including original tunes. The unfortunate tendency to play whatever you like at the moment, without arrangements or leadership, is a pretty good way to have a lot of nights off. The main item most audiences respond positively to is passion, whether you have great chops or take a minimalist approach. For me, it is being an "artist of the guitar", no matter what music you choose to play. I rarely play for money, although I never play for free. I play for those moments of being an artist of the guitar and of having audiences enjoy the passion. Money fuels my lifestyle, modest as it is; passion fuels my music.

  23. #47

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    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar

    To do that - to be that guy, which is the dream of a lot of people - means you are better than great.

    In what way? The lions only heard the "new kid" play a common, simple, standard. Now, he is a composer whose stuff has been covered by some very good players, but that's not what got him in this particular door. In fact, he is a brilliantly accomplished player in several ways having nothing to do with jazz standards.

    My thought is that it's all valid, but most paths don't lead to that door in NYC.
    yeah, I mean you could say the same thing about Mike Moreno. I was at the new school at the same time as Mike, and he was an unbelievable player even then, and by all accounts was playing great in high school. Everyone knew he was a bad MFer pretty much immediately. I think there are probably a lot of things you could look at in retrospect and say, wow, the scene in that high school in houston was a really great incubator for jazz musicians, What Were They Like In High School? Today's Jazz Stars As Teens : A Blog Supreme : NPR, but obviously the kind of musicianship Mike has is a combination of talent and environment and all that.

  24. #48

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    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    In fly fishing, there is a lot of gear available. Very similar to guitar. There are guys who can catch fish with anything and guys who seem more interested in the gear than the fish. Why not? If stamp collecting is a hobby, why not collecting fly rods? Why do you have to fish to make it valid? Everybody has an individual relationship with music. So, if somebody enjoys doing what the teacher says and doesn't have an internal passion-compass, who's to say there's anything wrong with that?

    Unless, of course, your goal is to make it in the NYC jazz scene.

    I can't tell the story here because of privacy concerns, but I have been in the room when a sufficiently accomplished "new kid" was heard for the first time by some old lions in NYC. The new player (not actually that young -- he had an impressive record of accomplishment of which some of the lions were not aware) was welcomed with open arms. Got a recording gig and a playing gig that night, from just being heard play one tune. Has played more with the lions since.

    To do that - to be that guy, which is the dream of a lot of people - means you are better than great.

    In what way? The lions only heard the "new kid" play a common, simple, standard. Now, he is a composer whose stuff has been covered by some very good players, but that's not what got him in this particular door. In fact, he is a brilliantly accomplished player in several ways having nothing to do with jazz standards.

    My thought is that it's all valid, but most paths don't lead to that door in NYC.
    Yeah, I can well believe it 100%. But whatever level you are at, doors open up as you get better. And for your player, the passion is already in place. This is not a person who will have done things by halves.

    And its not linear - it all shows up in the common standards because that is always the lingua franca, of course. And yes, of course you can tell how someone plays from one tune. But if you are on a bandstand and call a beautiful but less common tune with the guys who know the repertoire, they are going to go for that too.

    I'm pretty certain my road will not lead NYC high echelon jazz world - that ship has sailed in my life even if I ever had the early talent (which I definitely did not, I was not a good jazz player even when I was 18 lol) - but I can aim to be a better player within the situation I find myself; it's got me this far. And I think this is a drive that comes from within rather than thinking about what other players have achieved or some external goal.

    It's about YOUR relationship with music, whatever that is. And that's kind of beautiful.

  25. #49

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    -What are your thoughts regarding your relationships with tunes and repertoire?

    Heart and brain, we need both.

    Most titles (from any point in time) found their way into my repertoire because the composition moved me in some direction; energizing, romantic, soothing, exciting etc.

    But then there are tunes that are just fun to play. Honestly more fun to play than to listen to. And let me be the first here to say that, from the perspective of the audience, this is a well known problem for a certain category of musicians, some Jazz musicians included. However, and this must be emphasized, the audience is never homogeneous in this regard. Some would be content just by the fact that the band members appear to have a good time (not kidding). The show is what differentiate live music from recorded music and there's more than one way to set hearts on fire. I personally don't intend to set people's brains on fire, but some artists don't mind.

    A house god of mine said; "never practice things you don't like".

    At first glance it looks trivial, but after a second thought one realizes that this is applicable only to hobbyists and divas. Most performing musicians including session players have to be more pragmatic. The professional approach is to execute the part so that the listener believes the player is passionate. -How many times can you practice a piece before you get tired of it? Then could you play it like you're still in love?

    Maybe the important message is that we shouldn't force ourselves to practice music we are not ready to appreciate. And we should step away from playing stuff we find trivial and boring in order to evolve.

    These days I'm more interested in the actual compositions. I don't listen specifically to "guitar oriented music", whatever that may be. Bass and drums are cool, but are not mandatory, the human voice is just another instrument that can be substituted and so on.

    Like most guitar-players I like harmony and if the changes are boring it's most likely not in my repertoire (unless there is a cool lick, a groovy beat or some other hook).

    Being an electric guitar player growing up in the 70s, I've travelled a long way to free myself from the bonds of Rock (not to mention "R&B"). Chuck Berry, Bill Haley & the Comets, Elvis etc topped the charts before I was born but they completely changed popular music. Since those days Jazz has slowly but surely declined into a niche for the intellectuals. But fortunately the music from past golden eras is not lost. Seek and you shall find a fortune of beautiful music composed by skilled composers as a contrast to 70s "riff-meisters", 21st century beat-looping "DJ"s, rapping Hip-hoppers and strumming singer/song-writers.

    (By the way Bill Haley always said; "we're doing it only for the teenage kids". Problem was that when those kids grew older, they were still listening to the same beat-music. Just like some guys in their 60s are still listening to Kiss, maybe because they were always more interested in the show or maybe because people get programmed for life with whatever they get exposed to as teenagers.)

    ...Why am I writing this novel, the thread is old and you're all teachers, but the topic is sort of interesting...
    Edit: Also chech this out The TRUTH Why Modern Music Is Awful
    Last edited by JCat; 02-20-2019 at 01:11 PM.

  26. #50

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    I don’t think you should aim to be a pragmatic versatile session player unless that’s what you enjoy