System for learning 300 tunes?

[JazzIsGood]

I played a gig yesterday with an established pro sax player who plays at some of the top jazz clubs in the USA and other countries as well. I was a bit nervous the day before, but when the day of the gig came, I felt great and the gig went perfectly. I played pretty well I think, and the 4 of us sounded like polished professionals. After the gig I asked the sax player to give me a few pointers, as I have only been gigging jazz stuff for about 2 years now. He basically said that I sound plenty good enough to play anywhere but I need to learn more tunes. I think that's great advice and I am going to follow that advice without questioning it. I was expecting he might say I'm playing too many chords or not enough chords...or....(insert guitar player over-analyzed thoughts here)....

I've accepted at this point that improvising will always be a work in progress and everyone is at different levels. My improvisation is sufficient (maybe better than sufficient?) and I'm sure it will continue to improve and evolve over the years. My timing is doing fine, my note choices are working, my comp chords are decent. I'm listening to the other players and interacting. The major boxes are all checked. I'm having a good time and the crowd always loves my playing. What's not sufficient is that I know about 80-100 tunes right now. That's plenty of tunes to play my own gigs where I call the tunes, but not enough to walk into all manner of gigs where people are calling all manner of tunes.

I've have listened to a lot of jazz. Most of the tunes people play I have heard before. I don't always know the name of the tune and have a whole encyclopedia entry in my head about who wrote it, in what year, and then who re-did a bebop version of it that I need to know all about.

I play with a few different singers and they are always handing me a big batch of new songs in oddball keys that horn players would never play them in. I do fine with that. I have charts, I know the tunes well enough to play them with a chart. I don't know the heads on those. I have a 80% working knowledge of the chord progressions. I could probably play some of these with no chart but it would be a bit risky.

I know a piano player that has a jillion tunes memorized, he told me "I've just been doing this for such a long time." Seems like he never really sat down and had to learn a lot of them at once, they just came to him slowly over a long career. I think that is happening for me too but in order to move my career forward I should try to speed things up. I've gone from 40 tunes to 90 in about 2 years.

I've heard of people learning 2 standards a week in music school. Is that the typical way people do this? Would take me about 2 years to get to the goal but that's not too bad. I've heard of mnemonic systems where people are able to memorize certain things really quickly, I wonder if there's a way to do that for jazz standards?

In order to have a practical way of playing gigs, I have divided my songs into a few categories.

1- Songs I know well, can play melody, I can even play a full chord melody with no accompaniment. This is about 25 songs.
2- Songs I know well, can play melody, I don't have a fully arranged chord melody. This is about 50-60 songs.
3- Songs I know the chords well, I can solo over, I have a pretty good idea of the melody and I can sound it out on gigs and play it convincingly with a few improvisations that sound fine. This is another 20 songs.

Those are my 80-100 tunes. These next ones I don't consider "fully learned."

4- Songs I know chords on and can solo over. I don't know the head, horn players and singers will play the head, not me. This is a lot of songs, at least 50 more.
5- Songs I have heard before and can play with a chart. This is a few hundred tunes. I can throw on a YouTube shuffle playlist of backing tracks and play almost all of them with charts (chords and solo, no melody).
6- Songs I only have a vague idea of or no idea, but if the chart is easy and it's a bunch of 2-5-1s I can sound just fine, like bass player who shows up with IRP and plays the charts and let's everyone make the magic happen.

Then there's songs where I really can't hang.
- Super modern Herbie Hancock, Coltrane, and Wayne Shorter type tunes with counterintuitive chord progressions. I have played these at jam sessions, I sound OK as long as the rest of the band is good and it's not me carrying things. Part of the reason I can't carry these is I don't really like them that much so I haven't focused on that sound.
- Ultra fast stuff where the band leader is wanting to set you on fire and see what happens. I can play Cherokee up to about 320. If you want to go faster than that you better call Pasquale cause I'm going home. I think 320 is sufficient enough for most situations so I am not concerned with speed. If you're doing I'll Remember April at 340 I will gladly lay out.


Clearly it's time for my little "practical system" to be replaced by me knowing 300+ standards really solidly, where I know the head and I'm even ready to transpose. The sax player I just played with walked in with no charts and he knew every head I called in multiple keys. Seems like a big part of it was ear training in this case. He would listen to my intro, ask me the key once in a while, and would just start playing the tune with no problems. I kept forgetting to tell him the key, since I'm doing everything in the most standard and typical keys.

Has anyone learned this stuff really fast? I was thinking I might try to learn 5 per day and see what happens. I might start a little notebook where I have shortcuts so I don't mix up the titles. I could try notes like "same chords as How High the Moon" or "Blues in F" or "Rhythm Changes upbeat." People who know a lot of tunes seem to have notes like this in their head.

Does anyone have tips on this?

[rpjazzguitar]

I think the players who know a zillion tunes do it this way.

They know the melody the same way your grandparent knows a melody. Most people can hum the melody of songs they know.

And, in a way, they also know the chords, that is, by sound. If you play a Beatles song that somebody knows (a non-musician) they will know if you played the wrong chords.

So, you know the sound of the tune, melody and harmony.

The challenge is, can you make those things (melody and harmony) come out of the guitar?

For melody, the skill is to be able to think of a line and play it. Once you have that skill you can play any melody you know in any key. How do you get there? Mostly time on the instrument, but try to make a point of imitating everything you hear. So, if you're noodling in front of the TV, copy the background music.

Harmony, for some, is more elusive. I think it may help to play songs you know using IRealPro backing, moving through 12 keys by 5ths. Start simple and slow and keep at it. If you can't do something, slow it down until you can. This is ear training -- because once your ear is well trained you can probably play all the tunes you know that don't have bizarre chord progressions.

One other tip is to include some single note stuff in your comping. If you can find one correct note of a chord and, from there, hear another, you can fake your way through the tune. By the time you get 3 or 4 notes, you actually know the tune.

To summarize: in this view, the most efficient way to learn hundreds of tunes is via having a well trained ear.

[Bop Head]

[...] To summarize: in this view, the most efficient way to learn hundreds of tunes is via having a well trained ear.

I would say it is the only way.

[grahambop]

Remembering melodies by ear is not so hard, the hard bit is recalling the chord progressions. Bruce Forman says he does this by recognising the sounds of the common progressions that are used in a lot of standards, that way he can just recall from the melody alone, what the correct chords are. Also means he can transpose them because he does not actually memorise the chords. He says there are 3 basic moves in most standards:

The ‘cycle’ (anything that starts from the 1 and works its way round to get back to 1 - there are only so many ways to do this) - he includes the ‘backdoor’ progression in this;

The move to the relative minor;

The move to the IV chord (typically when you hear a minor chord on the 5th, that’s where it’s going).

Most standards are basically built of permutations or chunks using some or all of these. So if you recognise them and mentally link them to the melody, in theory you don’t need to memorise strings of chords for each tune.

Of course some tunes have a couple of unusual changes so Forman says he just learns those ‘exceptions’ as well as the melody.

He says if he didn’t use this method he would be unable to remember hundreds of tunes (which he can!)

He has done a great ‘my music masterclass’ video on this topic which I can highly recommend, really opened my eyes (and ears!) to this approach.

[equenda]

.......
I can play Cherokee up to about 320.......

If you really can play Cherokee at 320BPM......don't waste your time on a Jazz Guitar Forum.

....the same if you can really play 100 tunes.
You are a professional Musician and you don't need to worry about too much. Play, have fun and try to make a living with your Music.
End of the story.

Ettore

P.S.: Personally I don't believe those who say they can play at 320BPM....try putting the metronome at 320BPM, start playing....and then you will be able to tell me what happens after 30 seconds....

[Christian Miller]

Learn the melodies so you can sing them

[JazzIsGood]

Thanks for this post it makes a lot of sense. Also the post about how Bruce Foreman learns chords was super useful. I'm gonna see if I can find that lesson from him.

I had a feeling there had to be some shortcuts. I have learned a lot of these by rote and repetition, especially when I was new.

I'm originally from New York. There's some freaks out there who can recite the entire chord progression along with a wikipedia article about the tune, who wrote it, and what they had for breakfast the day they wrote the tune. So that threw me off a bit.

I think the players who know a zillion tunes do it this way.

They know the melody the same way your grandparent knows a melody. Most people can hum the melody of songs they know.

And, in a way, they also know the chords, that is, by sound. If you play a Beatles song that somebody knows (a non-musician) they will know if you played the wrong chords.

So, you know the sound of the tune, melody and harmony.

The challenge is, can you make those things (melody and harmony) come out of the guitar?

For melody, the skill is to be able to think of a line and play it. Once you have that skill you can play any melody you know in any key. How do you get there? Mostly time on the instrument, but try to make a point of imitating everything you hear. So, if you're noodling in front of the TV, copy the background music.

Harmony, for some, is more elusive. I think it may help to play songs you know using IRealPro backing, moving through 12 keys by 5ths. Start simple and slow and keep at it. If you can't do something, slow it down until you can. This is ear training -- because once your ear is well trained you can probably play all the tunes you know that don't have bizarre chord progressions.

One other tip is to include some single note stuff in your comping. If you can find one correct note of a chord and, from there, hear another, you can fake your way through the tune. By the time you get 3 or 4 notes, you actually know the tune.

To summarize: in this view, the most efficient way to learn hundreds of tunes is via having a well trained ear.

[JazzIsGood]

Yeah who would believe this??

I play it at around 280-290 most days during my warm up. I play it at 320 occasionally with the MrSunnyBass backup track. He has two versions, the fast one is at 320 and the other one is somewhere around 280-290. I have only played Cherokee 3 times at a gig or jam. I have called it a few more times and most of the time people don't want to do it. So I am not sure how useful it really is. I do think it's a great chord progression and it's a tune I enjoy playing. Here's something interesting- most of the time the rhythm section absolutely can not hack it, even at 290. Trying to play guitar over a sloppy rhythm section at that speed is no fun. I guess this is why people usually say no.

It's not as difficult as what you're probably picturing. I don't play constant eighth notes like some people do, I mix in quarter notes and half notes and rests to try to get a good melody. I rarely play constant eighth notes in any tune unless it's for a building tension effect. Once in a while I will play an entire chorus all eighth notes with a 3 against 4 kind of feel, but not very often. Stuff like that is once or twice in a 3 hour gig just to keep the crowd on their toes.

I'd consider myself semi-professional because I do plenty of paid gigs but I'm nowhere near making a living. I also have a few bad stray notes here and there and I have just gotten used to pushing through that without worrying too much about it. Not knowing every tune is another factor that I think separates a professional. The number of tunes I know well would be considered sub par for a professional jazz guitarist.

If you really can play Cherokee at 320BPM......don't waste your time on a Jazz Guitar Forum.

....the same if you can really play 100 tunes.
You are a professional Musician and you don't need to worry about too much. Play, have fun and try to make a living with your Music.
End of the story.

Ettore

P.S.: Personally I don't believe those who say they can play at 320BPM....try putting the metronome at 320BPM, start playing....and then you will be able to tell me what happens after 30 seconds....

[emanresu]

I learned about that cool trick where you transpose the tunes into C. or a - the mystery dissolves and it becomes very easy to remember.
Seems to be a help when needing to learn bunch of them fast. Of course, have to know how to play in any other key to transpose them when needed very quickly.
The only trouble is, they still modulate to uncomfortable keys often.

The other thing to do that seemed to work was to learn the melody by ear, try your best to add the proper harmony yourself, then check the good sources to fix or fill the gaps.

I'm not expert and in no place to teach this at all but those two things kinda pushed me forward a bit. To remember better and navigate the harmony.

[grahambop]

Thanks for this post it makes a lot of sense. Also the post about how Bruce Foreman learns chords was super useful. I'm gonna see if I can find that lesson from him.

I had a feeling there had to be some shortcuts. I have learned a lot of these by rote and repetition, especially when I was new.

I'm originally from New York. There's some freaks out there who can recite the entire chord progression along with a wikipedia article about the tune, who wrote it, and what they had for breakfast the day they wrote the tune. So that threw me off a bit.

Here’s the trailer for the Bruce Forman lesson:

[rpjazzguitar]

Here’s the trailer for the Bruce Forman lesson:

He's right, of course, but it's not something that comes equally easily to everybody.

Here's a test: if you're listening to a band play the first chorus of a tune -- and you know the key, do you know the changes you're hearing?

If it's a blues, most players do know. If it's Anybody Seen My Gal (straight cycle of fifths), probably most players can do it. Same, say, for Satin Doll or Lucky Southern.

What about Stella in F instead of the usual Bb?

The better your ear is, the better you'll be at this. But training your ear to do this is difficult (don't ask me how I know).

And, if you do get your ear to that point, you'll also know what those strange changes the pianist is doing on the tune you're playing right now -- and be able to respond.

One last point. A lot of tunes adhere to some pattern or other, that is, until they don't -- and most tunes do have some kind of curve ball embedded or they'd all sound the same. You can try to memorize that as internal language ("bridge is in the key of the major 3rd for Song Is You") but it's better if you can just hear it.

[JazzIsGood]

Great advice here inthis thread, and I went ahead and bought the Bruce video as well. He really lays it out nicely and it's now totally de-mistified for me now. I was usually learning tunes by learning the chords first, then melody, then arranging a chord melody. That works, but you will not know enough tunes to function in high level situations. The big A HA moment for me today is to learn the melody first and go from there. My ear is pretty good so this should work out for me. I haven't had a ton of formal ear training, but I did some sight reading and sight singing when I was younger and have over 10,000 hours on the guitar so my ear has been generally doing OK for me.

[JazzIsGood]

OK this is working, I just played Besame Mucho in 3 different keys, both chords and melody. Slightly sloppy but pretty close. I could have this tune fully learned and ready for any key in like 30 minutes.

[omphalopsychos]

I don’t have 300 but I’ve been working on a similar goal for some time. Some things I do that help. I have a “standards” playlist. I just keep adding songs that I want to exist in my repertoire to that. I put it on all the time when I’m able to have music going. When I go run, when I cook and eat, when I drive, when I do errands etc. While you’re listening you will automatically pick up the head. Try to pick out the harmony as you listen too.


So the other thing I do is every time I learn a tune I write out my own chord chart in Roman numeral notation. This helps in a lot of ways. First it helps get a conceptual grasp of the harmony so you’re not trying to memorize chord symbols in a vacuum. Doing it this way helps you memorize because you see how many commonalities there are in standard repertoire chord movement. This lets you see things like “scrapple from the Apple is rhythm changes with honeysuckle bridge” pretty easily.

The other thing that’s important to me is I get rid of the paper as soon as possible. I know some horn players that rehearse with a piece of paper in front of them even though they’ve played the tune 10-15 times. My goal is to memorize it after the first 2-3 times and then never rely on the chart again. So far this has worked for me.


Another important thing that you might already be doing is keep a catalogue of the tunes you know and cycle through them in your practice time. This helps make sure you actually recall things longer than a month.

[emanresu]

Oh, someone suggested here to think the dominants first - those would be the most important things in the tune to remember.
Like when the chords go I III II V, remember the key and the last chord there. The first part gets so much color anyway but the thing to remember
would be the dominat's um... tension.
I think it was Christan but can't remember atm.
It did help and from my own experience, when doing some ear training, the dominants also should come first to tackle.. when going to details.

[pcjazz]

This lets you see things like “scrapple from the Apple is rhythm changes with honeysuckle bridge” .

Honeysuckle changes w/rhythm bridge iirc.

[pamosmusic]

The other thing that’s important to me is I get rid of the paper as soon as possible. I know some horn players that rehearse with a piece of paper in front of them even though they’ve played the tune 10-15 times. My goal is to memorize it after the first 2-3 times and then never rely on the chart again. So far this has worked for me.

I usually try to never have the page in front of me when I practice. I keep it kind of nearby and try to memorize immediately. Benefit being that I end up only practicing chunks that are small enough to memorize, which is often as small as four measures.

Thats another point. I think people treat jazz tunes like they’re less challenging than other things. When I worked on classical pieces I’d work on measures 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, etc (or actually sometimes that but in reverse order from the end of the piece, but that’s another story). Then 1-3, 2-4, etc. 1-4, etc. whole sections. Just transitions. With jazz tunes it seems like we read it down, then read it down again, then scribble some stuff, then do it again, and hope in the course of things it sticks. Autumn Leaves is obviously not as hard as a Bach suite, but I think if we pretended it was, we’d memorize things a lot quicker.

[rpjazzguitar]

I don’t have 300 but I’ve been working on a there are in standard repertoire chord movement. This lets you see things like “scrapple from the Apple is rhythm changes with honeysuckle bridge” pretty easily.

.

This illustrates one of the potential problems with using language rather than sound (although, whatever works for an individual is great). Scrapple has the Honeysuckle A section with a rhythm changes bridge.

[pauln]

He's right, of course, but it's not something that comes equally easily to everybody.

Here's a test: if you're listening to a band play the first chorus of a tune -- and you know the key, do you know the changes you're hearing?

If it's a blues, most players do know. If it's Anybody Seen My Gal (straight cycle of fifths), probably most players can do it. Same, say, for Satin Doll or Lucky Southern.

What about Stella in F instead of the usual Bb?

The better your ear is, the better you'll be at this. But training your ear to do this is difficult (don't ask me how I know).

And, if you do get your ear to that point, you'll also know what those strange changes the pianist is doing on the tune you're playing right now -- and be able to respond.

One last point. A lot of tunes adhere to some pattern or other, that is, until they don't -- and most tunes do have some kind of curve ball embedded or they'd all sound the same. You can try to memorize that as internal language ("bridge is in the key of the major 3rd for Song Is You") but it's better if you can just hear it.

Music is highly redundant at the level of form (repeating sections), at the level of the sections (repeating cycles), and at the level of changes (repeating motif changes). With experience, one comes to expect and anticipate how tunes go, and even with a new song one predicts the high probability changes.

The effect is that what you need to know is not a continuous stream throughout the tune but particular strategic inflection points scattered throughout the tune. That is, once you know a lot of tunes you don't need to "know it all", you just need to know where they deviate from "normal" or most likely - that is a lot less to know about each tune, but requires an accumulated broad experience of many tunes.

Even when playing a tune you don't know, a good ear will allow you to predict the most probable change(s) and play something that will be good over any of the various possibilities (or lag your beat width to drop back in order to hear the change). It only takes a beat to discern which way the change goes and the rest of what you play can lead out of the less specific couple of notes or small chord (or fat beat width stall) you did until certainty.

[omphalopsychos]

Honeysuckle changes w/rhythm bridge iirc.

yes my error. Typographical only though since those As are impossible to mix up by sound.

[JazzIsGood]

I'm shoring up the main tunes I know, making sure I can play them all with no charts. Turns out there's only 85! Well dang I thought I had more but OK. I got a playlist in IRP with all of them so I can double check them and keep adding new ones.

Today I was shoring up Night In Tunisia. I was about to start new keys, then it occured to me WHO IN THE HELL WOULD PLAY THAT IN ANY KEY but D MINOR. Right? Has anyone ever seen it done?

I also have been trying to say the interval out loud as I'm playing the tune and that seems to be helping. Ompha was saying he was writing them down, so I figure saying them out loud as I'm playing has a similar effect.

[AllanAllen]

Going around the circle is more for training my ear than prepping for oddball calls. Learning how to transpose quickly Vs how to play a specific song in all keys.

[pamosmusic]

Going around the circle is more for training my ear than prepping for oddball calls. Learning how to transpose quickly Vs how to play a specific song in all keys.

+1

Nice to be able to do. But I don’t go through the whole circle. I just do it until it seems like it’s sinking in.

[Alter]

I kind of know that many tunes, maybe forget some parts of melodies here and there. Used to remember a lot more when i was playing more standards gigs. First you have to be a serious listener, and listen to a lot of music, standards, american songbook with singers, etc. Go through a few tunes from famous composers and players, etc. Keep listening and playing through the tunes so you don't forget them. Learn say a few Monk tunes, then it is easy to play more from him. Same with Parker tunes, Wes, Mingus etc..

A few things that helped me a lot: Learn the melodies, then play them with guide tone only voicings with and without the bass. Transpose in different keys, so you learn movements instead of chord names in a certain tonality. This way you work towards being able to here and harmonize any melody you know on the guitar. Listen to a lot of singers, because melodies are carried stronger with voice and are easier to memorize (plus you learn the lyrics which helps). For me listening to the music has been equally important to practicing the guitar, and these days you can do it without having to buy the actual music. Peter Bernstein says on his clinics that he knows every tune and can play them in any key, and then demonstrates it on requests! And just look at how a melodic and essential player he is!! Spending 30 minutes on playing and on the spot arranging song heads is the best jazz practice i can thing of, together with transposing, much better than just improvising on the tune.

Then cycle through the tunes you know as a standard part of daily practice. I have a list on the phone with tune names and go through them, always looking for what i start to forget. I think learning the music is a key thing that takes a lot of effort (joyful as it may be) and time. Entire genres of music are locked out of performing professionally unless you know hundreds of tunes, so you have to work on it a lot.

[AllanAllen]

+1

Nice to be able to do. But I don’t go through the whole circle. I just do it until it seems like it’s sinking in.

Usually I'm around B or E when I get sick of it, then it's just a few more to complete the circle. I read here Ted Greene would always do one more key after he was over something, and I try to have a similar attitude. He seemed to know a little bit about guitar LOL