The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #101

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    Quote Originally Posted by pauln
    Thanks, very kind of you to say. Yes; the folks here haven't figured out how to run me off.
    Thanks for all your great posts. S-T went downhill after you left.

    I just got here.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #102

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    Quote Originally Posted by paulkogut
    For old timey big band charts, reading well can mean knowing when to ignore an overwritten chart from an arranger with little concept of how to write for guitar, and crafting a simplified part that blends with the band in period-correct style

    PK
    Thanks for bring that issue up. Although many big band charts for guitar are pretty much chord symbols and "slash" rhythms - if they exist at all and are not a copy of the bass or piano part - you come across charts that have specific written lines for the guitar.

    Now, these are great fun when the arranger has a good idea of what's "guitaristic" and how to use the guitar as chordal instrument, solo instrument, and a voice in the ensemble.

    Unfortunately, some arrangers well-meaningly decide to add the guitar to the ensemble but pretty much writes the guitar part as if it was another sax part.

    This can be OK as guitar can blend well with a sax section, but it can also mean a guitar part with awkward leap, jumps, and other things somewhat easy to do on sax but not so typical of most guitar playing.

    As for "crafting a simplified part", I used to semi-jokingly refer to that as reading what the arranger meant to write for guitar.

  4. #103

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    A friend got the guitar charts for an evening show at about noon. He's a great player and a good reader, but couldn't read a lot of the charts. I didn't see them and I don't know what the difficulty was.

    So, he spent part of the afternoon crossing stuff out. I was in the audience and couldn't hear any guitar a lot of the time. I wasn't sure anything was wrong. Maybe the arranger gave him long rests.

    Better than playing clams.

    I've played a lot of Buddy Rich big band charts. They're interesting. There is almost never anything physically difficult to play. There are sometimes tricky rhythms to read. A lot of stuff in 6/8, which can be divided into quarters, dotted quarters and eighths, maybe in the same bar. There are also challenges with parts of the guitar chart going in and out of bass clef, and the charts are old enough that the bass clef symbol looks a lot like scratch marks or some other visual noise.

    Another thing that reading books in the practice room won't help is counting really long rests on a tune you've never heard.

    Yet another thing that wasn't apparent until I started doing it in horn bands is that you really have to trust yourself and the chart. In a jazz combo there's a way to lay back if you aren't sure of something. But if you're reading a chart in a big band, there's no room for any kind of dilatory tactic. Your note has to start exactly when the horns start, if you're voiced with them -- and stop with them too. So, you have to be careful about note duration, which isn't a big issue in a combo. You also have to read the articulation marks, another thing that combo musicians don't do as much.

    As for the leaps and jumps, I've had a horn player complain about one of my tunes, muttering, "no horn player wrote this".
    .

  5. #104
    DaShigsta Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by Marinero
    I think someone who considers themselves a musician should learn one of the important elements of their craft/art: reading music. . . and notes are notes . . .Thus Spake Zarathrustra
    Play live . . . Marinero
    Thank you ! Being a musician calls for much more than just playing ‚jazz guitar‘...

  6. #105

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    Quote Originally Posted by Marinero
    Reading IS reading irrespective of genre. Does Jazz sheet music read differently than Classical? Are the notes, dynamic markings, time values, key signatures, staff, etc., different? No.
    Straight eighths and swing eighths: not written differently, but played differently.

  7. #106

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    Do you actually know a classical sight reader on any instrument who is so good at sight reading that you can just put Donna Lee in front of them and they can play it at tempo even though they've never even heard of the tune? Most people wouldn't be able to do it from the technical standpoint alone without working on the challenging parts.
    I know some that would probably be able to do it... but it is not the point imho.

    The most important thigs for good sight-reading
    1) knowledge of particular musical language
    2) technical skills on the instrument

    When you know the langugae you can forsee things more or less, you get used to common textures, voiceleadings, turnarounds and their realizations on the instrument... so you recognize the things faster, you regonizae them even by the general outline.

    That makes it easier for you read a bit ahead of playing.

    But if you can sight-read Bach or Schumann easily that does not mean you will easily sight-read Xenakis.

    Also we should remember: our notation system was developed in particular context: diatonic mentality, natural chromaticism (like Bb and later Eb) developed into flats and sharps, then later on functional tonality and so on and on.

    For modern classical or modern jazz this system often seems awkward... the things that it described very efficiently in classical tradition are useless... and it becomes just a bunch of symbols one has to decipher before playing.



    Another important point - you mention speed... but there is not such thing as speed per se in music... yes there is bpm if you use it as an objective reference but it is different thing imho.

    What is fast for one can be slow for another one... and in music this gap can be huge... becaus ethe more you ar einto music, the more experience you get the more individual and independent your time feel gets (it is quite the opposite to our daily time feel that we always try to relate to some convetional models, forcing our natural time feel into some frames).

    When I listen to music I can somehow slow it down... I can hear symphonic music as if it is a painting - in painting it can be different too (some paintings - like Rothko for example - have time flow for me, they ar elike music, they have some particular time in them as with music when you begin and you end to percieve it) but in general in painting you are not restricted with time frames - you estimate it yourself... it is possible to some degeree to do it with music too.
    Usually you begin to hear more and more with years... I guess you know that.

    I think it affects sight-reading too... you throw a look at the picture and see lots of details, landscapes, plots, figures, lots of information immidiately... and the guy unfaniliar with cultural context just needs much much more time to get the same information (if he ever gets it at all).

    And technique of course - you cannot sight read what you cannot play.

  8. #107

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    By the way when I play lute repertoire - though i am relatively good sightreader )enough to sight-read in concert context) - I prefer to play by heart where possible because I notice that visual structure of text implies some relations and choices that are not always msucally convinicing for me.
    When I play byt heart I do not see values of notes and bar lines etc. and it is possible to open up general artistic breath of meaning of music quicker and more easily.

  9. #108

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    Quote Originally Posted by Litterick
    Straight eighths and swing eighths: not written differently, but played differently.

    Hi, L,
    The notes are the same. However, genre dictates the reading: Classical, Neo-Classical, Romantic, Jazz, R@B, etc.
    Play live . . . Marinero

  10. #109

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    I'd like to pay a complement to our European brothers/sisters: namely, their concept of "Level" playing is excellent and should be used here in the States. In order to move from one level to the next, you have to perform. There is no doubt about your skills/abilities. Makes sense to me. Play live . . . Marinero

  11. #110

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    My wife who regards herself a better sight reader than she is a cellist put it this way - some people can read the notes mechanically. Other people know how it goes.

    In terms of an orchestra section, she often had a technically better desk partner but felt she got the calls because she could interpret the music from the page.

    She used to sight sing church services a voice to a part every Sunday, so that’s where that comes from...

  12. #111

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jonah
    By the way when I play lute repertoire - though i am relatively good sightreader )enough to sight-read in concert context) - I prefer to play by heart where possible because I notice that visual structure of text implies some relations and choices that are not always msucally convinicing for me.
    When I play byt heart I do not see values of notes and bar lines etc. and it is possible to open up general artistic breath of meaning of music quicker and more easily.
    Are you reading your lute music in the original tablature?

  13. #112
    Classical soloist and pianist study the composes, periods and styles of their music for years under masters so they can interpret the pieces they play well. I don't know why having to know the style is a controversial topic in this thread.

    Without an understanding of the stylistic nuances, the sight reader is just a mindless vessel of someone else's music, a human midi player. These things are not part of the music notation.

  14. #113

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    Classical soloist and pianist study the composes, periods and styles of their music for years under masters so they can interpret the pieces they play well. I don't know why having to know the style is a controversial topic in this thread.

    Without an understanding of the stylistic nuances, the sight reader is just a mindless vessel of someone else's music, a human midi player. These things are not part of the music notation.
    You make a good point - and by extension, jazz players need to interpret music in terms of the stylistic periods in jazz history too.

    It's all a part of performance practices.

  15. #114

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    "My wife who regards herself a better sight reader than she is a cellist put it this way - some people can read the notes mechanically. Other people know how it goes." Christianm77


    And, then, C, there are some who can do both. They are usually performing artists.
    Play live . . . Marinero

    P.S. I have always believed the cello is the most expressive instrument in Music. Rostropovich and Casals were among my favorites.
    M

    ?


    ***Casals also wrote one of the great primers for ANY serious musician "The Art of Interpretation."

  16. #115

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    Quote Originally Posted by DavidKOS
    Are you reading your lute music in the original tablature?

    Yes, sure. And preferably facsimile when it is available and readable.


    I also sightread traditional notation in renaissance tuning but not as fluently as on guitar
    Lute tabs really spoil you.

  17. #116

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jonah
    Yes, sure. And preferably facsimile when it is available and readable.


    I also sightread traditional notation in renaissance tuning but not as fluently as on guitar
    Lute tabs really spoil you.
    They do show the exact fingerings. I appreciate that you often use the urtext scores too.

    My limited experience with lute is the only time I ever had to learn TAB.

  18. #117

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    Quote Originally Posted by Marinero
    "My wife who regards herself a better sight reader than she is a cellist put it this way - some people can read the notes mechanically. Other people know how it goes." Christianm77


    And, then, C, there are some who can do both. They are usually performing artists.
    Play live . . . Marinero

    P.S. I have always believed the cello is the most expressive instrument in Music. Rostropovich and Casals were among my favorites.
    M

    ?


    ***Casals also wrote one of the great primers for ANY serious musician "The Art of Interpretation."
    Well obviously if you are reading expressively your are no longer reading mechanically; but mechanical sight readers can be very useful. Musical sight readers clean up....

  19. #118

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    Quote Originally Posted by DavidKOS
    They do show the exact fingerings. I appreciate that you often use the urtext scores too.

    My limited experience with lute is the only time I ever had to learn TAB.
    Actually I came to the point that you alter fingering even with tabs.

    Those days they did not have scores and they used tabs for a score and sometimes they put it on one line to separate the voice clearly ... tab does not show voices clearly... when play renaissance polyphony I sometimes write out the score to estimate voices clearly for performance. And it is not always easy to define...

    Today I can play from lute tabs on piano) it's direct connection with pitch for me now)

  20. #119
    DaShigsta Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by DavidKOS
    Are you reading your lute music in the original tablature?
    I used to back in the day...

    Renaissance lute music: French, Italian AND German tablature, which is a b#5§h...