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An interesting sub conversation popped up in this thread: Polka Dots and Moonbeans.
I thought to continue it here, as to not distract from Cesar's lovely playing (so click that link and check it out too)
Should you know the words to a tune?
In my opinion, yes. Or at least, the spirit of the words, if the song has words. But it's also important to understand how the melody works with those words too, what words are given emphasis. Even songs that are not in a language I speak, I think it's worthy of some research...also to compare versions that may have been translated (like the way the Potrugese lyrics of TGFI bounce over the harmony more than the English)
And of course, they can also be helpful in keeping your place in the form, for sure...
Thoughts?
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03-15-2024 09:25 AM
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If you don't know the words to the song, you don't know the song.
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I think knowing the lyrics is important. There are some songs on which I don't know all the lyrics exactly, or on which I get some reversed, or don't know all the verses in the correct order, but I try. I sometimes forget some of the lyrics of a tune I haven't played in a long time, but they usually come back after playing, as the notes may do. I'm not one who knows hundreds of songs cold, I just haven't put in the necessary time, although I probably couldn't approach the level of someone like Howard Alden even if I practiced 10 hours per day. But I do find that knowing the lyrics helps with remembering the notes, and the phrasing, and with helping keep track of the form when improvising.
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For me one of the songs where harmony makes the most sense in relation to the lyrics is "But beautiful".
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Definitely agree with that one!
Originally Posted by cesarguit
Sometimes, just knowing the sentiment of the lyrics is enough...take Polka Dots and Moon Beams...kind of cringe-worthy in spots...but a read through and you get the idea..this is the joy of newfound love, right in the moment...definitely affects how I hear that melody, and play it.
A lot of tunes are love songs, right? But there's different kinds...this is why I get (occasionally) bothered by uptempo versions of Autumn Leaves. I mean, the song is literally THE DEAD LEAVES.
Whereas a tune like "All the Things You Are" that's a shouting out loud to anyone who can hear how wonderful this girl/guy is...even though they're not yours...yet. But go ahead and play that one up.
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Knowing the words can be a life saver if you're trying to (or expected to) play an exact original melody and get the phrasing that went with it. I have screen memories of the lyrics and original melodies to hundreds and hundreds of tunes, many of which I haven't played in years. When trying to play (and - worse - sing) them, if turns out that more than a few have been blended, crossed etc in my memory. This is one good reason to use lead sheets with chords and lyrics rather than just chord charts for cold playing and sight reading.
On my solo and trio gigs, I like to play around with melody, phrasing, harmonies and even meter. So it's not such a big deal. But when hired as a sideman, especially to back a singer on tunes you don't know well, having a lyric sheet is essential.
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See also my pet peeve with the way people play All the Things You Are. ?(The harmonic rhythm of bar 6-7 is NOT THE SAME AS BAR 14-15) Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
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I know the words to a lot of the older tunes. And, I don't know the words to others.
I don't really find that it makes that much difference.
It may help me remember the tune -- hard to get bridges mixed up, for example, when you know the words.
As far as playing the melody accurately, there are at least two schools of thought. One is to respect the composer and play it exactly as written. This works nicely because standards are standards partly because of great melodies.
The other suggests that you can take liberties. Did Sinatra, for example, not interpret melody? I recall seeing Robert Glasper live a few years ago -- he played a barely recognizable version of Stella. It was great.
My heart is more in the "interpret" camp. But, I have to be careful, because getting too far out can confuse the rest of the band and screw up the time.
The words can give you an idea of the emotional tone of the song, but some players will choose to go in a different direction anyway.
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Most of your thoughts parallel mine on this. But you have to separate gigs on which you're the leader from gigs on which you're just the hired help. If you're hired to accompany a singer, there's only one school of thought: you play what they pay you to play the way they want it played. You have to know how he or she will do every tune, so you can complement it properly. There are many variations among common versions of many tunes. All may be fine ways to do the song, but all will not sound good over the exact same backing. Our job is to make whomever we work for sound great in their own style. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
This isn't limited to vocalists. I've played for many leaders who are very specific about what they want, from comping to solos to rhythm style to tone. There are others who love to wing it, which works fine as long as everybody in the band is good and they all listen to each other. The worst thing you can do when a bandmate is playing a line or chord that differs from what you think it should be is to loudly play what you think is right, hoping he or she will change. That never works, and it sounds terrible. When I'm leading a band that's backing a vocalist, I make sure everybody has a lead sheet with lyrics and the chords I want us to play, so we're all on the same page. I send these to the vocalists days before a gig, to make sure they're OK with my concept and get their approval. Many return a different sheet or make edits to mine.
OTOH, when it's your gig you can call the shots. My trio plays every Thursday night at a local club, and we'd go nuts if we had to play every song the same exact way every time we did it. Last night, we played Wave as a straight swing tune, Dindi as a lilting 6/4 waltz, and Song For My Father as a ballad (which worked surprisingly well). I rarely play a straight melody as the composer wrote it for more than one run through, and we often start right in with improvisation around the line.
I also find myself singing the lyrics to a tune in my head when transposing it on the fly, whether I'm out front or supporting someone else. I can play a tune in any key if I know it. But when it's sketchy in my mind, hearing it in my head as I play it really helps me.
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Or in the less poetic words of my jazz teacher Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
"Learn the damn song, then you can fuck around with it."
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When I start a new tune I first listen to vocal versions. Sinatra especially tends to sing the melody precisely as written (and Billie Holiday doesn't!). That gives a feel for the song, and it can absolutely guide one's playing and interpretation.
But then I listen to various instrumental versions by jazzers. That changes things because they do all sorts of things with it. They can take a tune and completely change its original feel. In fact they usually do.
So I don't really see any virtue in sticking rigidly to an original vocal version which, to be honest, may be entirely outdated. I think it would probably imply a lack of musical imagination unless that kind of version was what an audience wanted. And those occasions would probably not occur very often.
So ultimately I generally take the whole picture and end up playing it the way I want to regardless of any other version. Sometimes it's true to the original spirit, sometimes it's not. It all depends on the tune.
None of this involves memorising the words. Simply getting the feel of it is enough for me. And I certainly don't feel I need to phrase it so the rhythms coincide with the lyrics, quite the opposite.
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I doubt if these two give a twopenny hoot about the lyrics!
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"IS THERE A STANDARD YOU WISH YOU HAD WRITTEN? Originally Posted by ragman1
Lots! But it isn’t something that I would have written.
Something that is enjoyable about it now is that they usually come from shows, and they usually have lyrics. I like to know the lyrics, but often times the lyrics are really corny. Yet, in a glorious way that is of a certain time and so gives you a certain feeling 2810.
So I guess it’s hard for me to even imagine myself as a great Tin Pan Alley songwriter.
MY FAVORITE SAX SOLO IS LESTER YOUNG’S “LADY BE GOOD”, BUT ONCE I LEARNED THE LYRICS TO IT, I WAS SO DISAPPOINTED!
Yeah, those aren’t a stand out. Some of them are quite good. I was just listening to “Stardust” and I hadn’t heard those lyrics in awhile. I heard the Nat “King” Cole version, and thought, “Now, THAT’S a song!”
OR “MIDNIGHT SUN” WITH REFERENCES TO “AN ALABASTER PALACE” AND THE “AURORA BOREALIS”
Well, that was Johnny Mercer, so that makes sense"
https://www.jazzweekly.com/2021/05/c...muscle-memory/
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Yes,If you are a singer. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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The good old days the rhythm of the lyrics ruled the melody. The rest came later - interconnected, intertwined, proper style applied.
My experience with the better songs, the initial source was the blurry feeling, then the first a few words appeared.. or a story. Then the rest came to life as notes and sounds etc.
When the notes came first and needed some words, they usually weren't as good or significant.
Yeah, if there are words to the tune, it's absolutely mandatatory to at least take a look what the song is about. It might be special.
Let's imagine.. make "Nothing compares to you" into an istrumental that never had any words.. It's not 'bad" bad, but it's just like a soldier in an endless army of the decent notes.
I picked this one just because as an extreme imaginable case.
When a song has a strong story, it truly helps.
Oh. I'm not good at this philosophical babble. But all I'm saying, the story of a song is important. That's all.
edit: it only takes 2 minutes nowadays.
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What is the Satin Doll song about? don't google!
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Ok, this is one post too many. But..
When an actor needs to act really well in Hollywood to win an Oscar, they go crazy. Live the life of the character.
Be that person.
In music, we don't have this requrement. Maybe we should start doing it?
Oh. Just "oh".
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Personally, I think knowing the lyrics helps with the emphasis and phrasing of the melody.
But then there is 'Misty', which Garner wrote and played without thinking about lyrics. It most likely would not have gotten the popularity it has without Johnny Mathis version with lyrics, even thought the lyrics seems contrived to me.
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I always think of "Misty" in this connection. The tune existed strictly as an instrumental for quite a while and later someone penned words to it, and I always put the words in the "Polka Dots and Moonbeams" category, kinda corny. I've always been pretty happy I didn't memorize those lyrics because they could become an "ear worm" and would drive me slowly insane.
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"What is the Satin Doll song about?"
Flirting, if I remember correctly.
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Yeah. Probably. But maybe the doll has a story! Originally Posted by Mick-7
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As someone who spent half a lifetime in the theatre, I can assure you that this very rarely happens. Originally Posted by emanresu
Also, for a couple of years "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" was "Never No Lament" with no lyrics.
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And "Do Nothing Til You Hear From Me" was originally an instrumental called "Concerto for Cootie", Cootie being Mr. Williams, a fine trumpet player.
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That’s called method acting. It was developed by Lee Strasberg and a few directors who taught acting in New York about 100 years ago. But I don’t think going crazy was an integral tenet. They only went crazy when the characters they were playing went crazy. Originally Posted by emanresu
I don’t see a parallel myself, but maybe there’s some merit to trying to live the life of a musician like whom you want to play. Personally, I doubt that living and behaving like a drug crazed Miles will help anyone become a better trumpeter or musician.
OTOH, I think that learning to sing like Ella or Mel would almost certainly improve one’s playing. And I bet they’d say that knowing the words was essential to phrasing and scatting.
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That is a popularly held but hugely distorted view of "method" acting, which by the way was how a number of Americans and directors teachers like Lee Strasberg interpreted the "system" of the Russian director Konstantin Stanislavski. The Actors Studio, which was founded by Strasberg and some other contemporaries, along with Stella Adler, Herbert Berghof, and other influential teachers in New York City, promulgated various interpretations of this "method." Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
To make a more accurate but still slim description of Stanislavsky's system, it works from the inside out: instead of the actor creating behavior to find a character, one searches for motivations and emotions inside oneself that might be similar to those of the character, as well as drawing on personal experiences.
To be sure, there will always be actors who believe that behavior itself is what defines a character. There is a well-known but possibly apocryphal story that during the filming of Marathon Man, Dustin Hoffman showed up on set one day telling anyone who would listen that he had stayed up all night running in order to be authentic during a scene in which his character is exhausted from running. Laurence Olivier is supposed to have dryly replied, "Dear boy, why didn't you try acting?"
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