 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Johnny Galaga
Date: 2012-03-11 01:54
Okay, this is crazy. The way jazz sheet music is written is so inexact its ridiculous. You can pick just about any song in a real book and look at it while you listen to a recording, and what you hear sounds NOTHING like what is actually written on the sheet music!! So what's the deal with these real books?
How do you get the complete score with the REAL sheet music that has the exact notes and rhythms that they actually play?
Everytime I see quarter note triplets, they never playem exactly even. And they always add all these extra grace notes. Sometimes there's an intro that's not even written on the page. So how do they know what notes and rhythms to play on the intro, and how do you know when to come in?
And how come so many of the parts are handwritten? That makes it 10X as hard to read and follow. And almost every song, the sheet music ends but they keep playing more stuff that's not written anywhere. How do they know what to play and when to stop together???????
This is NUTS......
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2012-03-11 02:15
There are transcriptions of Jazz works which have many/most of the notes that are played.
Real books don't really at all.
As well, theres the jazz articulations, which often aren't written, so it will read like it's all articulated, when in fact it's not much at all, or there's another pattern (jazz articulation) used.
Listen, and learn
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
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Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2012-03-11 03:11
David, as usual is pretty much on track all of the time. This is no exception. The rhythms are not exact, but when you play in a group something happens and everyone sounds the same even though the notes have different rhythms. Another thing thats really fun with jazz is you might see just one note written on the measure, or several measures so you as a player get to pretty much play any notes as you want as long as you don't get too far out of that scale. It's pretty much like playing a cadenza, without any notes in the cadenza, you are simply on your own and you can really go crazy if you wish.
Two things come to mind. The Mozart Concerto has a cadenza in the 2nd movement. Most players copy his notes from his Quintet. Others make up their own break.
The other is the Copland Concerto. The notes are there but you can change the rhythm and change the tempo. I don't think it's a published fact, but I heard that Copland wanted Benny Goodman to play the cadenza with more freedom. If you have heard Benny play this he changes tempos throughout. Not to put down Coplands wishes I think Bennys recording is very well done.
Another thing that often happens is there are no markings such as to slur or articulate. You play it with what you feel at the moment.
With Rhapsody in Blue the opening clarinet solo can be played in all sorts of tempos. The longest I've heard was Dave Shrifin with Cleveland. It must have been around 30 seconds. Most on the time it's played around 10 seconds or so.
Hope this helps you kind of understand the notes and rhythms. If you can, pick up that recording of Dave.
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Author: A Brady
Date: 2012-03-11 03:46
The Real Books are great resources for the Great American Songbook. They are not literal transcriptions of any specific performer's version of a tune, but "blueprints" of the song, melody and chord changes, which the improvising musician will use as a guide to create their own interpretation of the song. The Hal Leonard Company publishes an outstanding CD playalong of many of the songs in the Real Book 1 & 2, which is a great resource to learn these classic tunes.
BTW, the original Real Book was strictly bootleg (I bought my first copies from a tenor player selling them out of his car trunk for $25.) The current versions are legal, have correct melodies and changes from the composer's original lead sheets, and are indispensible for any working jazz player.
AB
Post Edited (2012-03-11 04:06)
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Author: Bill G
Date: 2012-03-11 05:12
Jazz is freedom music, and ti jazz musicians it isn't jazz if you tie it down to specific notes and specific rhythmic values. Think it as spontaneous composition around an established chord progression, but otherwise primarily what you "feel." The Real Book, or any fake book, is to a jazz musician at least as important for the chord progressions as for the loose statements of melodies which might be played within a given harmonic sequence. And, most of all, the specific note values are only suggested possibilities. One must not think of jazz as only specific tunes played in specific ways dictated by a composer.
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Author: Merlin_Williams
Date: 2012-03-11 14:38
To the OP:
The Real Book is a source book for improvisers. It's not meant as a collection of transcriptions.
It's meant to give a basic outline of the melody, standard harmonies (common use, not necessarily original) and form.
If you're a slave to the page - the Real Book and other collections of tunes meant for improvisation may not be a good choice for you.
Jazz is learned primarily by listening and imitating. Written charts or lead sheets are shorthand, not the Authorized Version.
Jupiter Canada Artist/Clinician
Stratford Shakespeare Festival musician
Woodwind Doubling Channel Creator on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/c/WoodwindDoubling
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Author: Johnny Galaga
Date: 2012-03-11 18:04
So I guess these real/fake books are just excerpts and not the whole song? There's still too many things that are confusing though. If you're looking at a song while listening to a recording and you get to the last note on the sheet music but the players keep playing more stuff for another 3 minutes, HOW DID THEY KNOW WHAT TO PLAY???
And how come the repeat symbols look so different? I can barely even follow their first and second endings cos they loo0k confusing. Some of these songs have an intro, but the intro isn't anywhere in the part, so again, HOW DO they know what to play and when to come in?
I guess I don't understand when people post something like "real books have saved me on so many gigs" when the sheet music in these books isn't even complete much less legible.
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Author: alto gether
Date: 2012-03-11 18:43
How did they know what to play? Well, they got to the end and decided to play it again. Since they'd already played it one way, they played it another way. They did it well because they have done it enough that they're good at it.
Look, suppose somebody asked you how to play a piece of Mozart, and you pulled out the music and they said, "what are all those dots for?" You would have a bit of trouble taking them seriously. Jazz is like that the other way around. Being able to improvise is as important in jazz as being able to sight-read is to classical.
So here's how I approach it. I'm not a good jazz musician, and all my improv chops came from playing bluegrass mandolin. If I don't know the piece, I watch the chord letters go by and play the roots, transposing because they are written in concert and I play alto or contra alto in Eb. When it comes around again, I have some notion of the tune, but probably I just play roots and fifths. By the time the leader hands me a break, if it happens at all, I can remember enough of the tune to play something vaguely like it that fits the chords. Usually there are some horrible clams in it. But that's me, an amateur who doesn't know the piece learning it live at a dance.
Now, make me ten times as good and put me in an organized band making a recording. I know the piece cold and I've jammed and improvised until I have a collection of licks and ideas that work well with it. If we get a really good cut, some day some poor schmuck will listen to it over and over and try to write down what we did.
But right now, I hear the trumpet player improvise a really good break to a tune he's never heard and ask him, "How did you DO that?". He explains that he's been doing it seriously for a long time. It's a skill, a little bit different from all other skills, just like all skills are. Beginning to jam is HARD if you have been paper-trained harshly not to play anything except what that particular transcriber thought the composer meant. I'd seriously suggest singing along before trying to play along, and avoid the really complex jazz until you have a feel for I-vi-ii-V tunes like, say, the first part of Blue Moon. Until it stops bothering you that it isn't laid out on paper exactly the way it's played, you are on a nude beach looking for the swimsuits.
Post Edited (2012-03-11 18:46)
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Author: Merlin_Williams
Date: 2012-03-11 18:53
Johnny Galaga wrote:
> So I guess these real/fake books are just excerpts and not the
> whole song? There's still too many things that are confusing
> though. If you're looking at a song while listening to a
> recording and you get to the last note on the sheet music but
> the players keep playing more stuff for another 3 minutes, HOW
> DID THEY KNOW WHAT TO PLAY???
Fake books generally contain the whole song. Notable exceptions are the verses to some Tin Pan Alley/Broadway tunes which are generally not played as part of an improvised performance.
After the head (melody) is played, improvisations are played based on the form and chord changes of the tune. This is improvised. They know what to play based on years of study, practice and experience.
> And how come the repeat symbols look so different? I can
> barely even follow their first and second endings cos they
> loo0k confusing. Some of these songs have an intro, but the
> intro isn't anywhere in the part, so again, HOW DO they know
> what to play and when to come in?
>
> I guess I don't understand when people post something like
> "real books have saved me on so many gigs" when the sheet music
> in these books isn't even complete much less legible.
The repeat symbols look different. So what? My handwriting looks different from yours. The notational conventions used in fake books is derived from years of hand written practice.
Intros and endings are often improvised, but many tunes have intro or ending material that is considered to be standardized and expected as common knowledge by jazz players. Depends on the tune, style, application, whim of the leader, etc.
For example, the Jobim tune Wave is often played with a Dm7 to G7 vamp. There is a pickup of three eighth notes into the head. Quite often, the vamp will be played until the soloist plays the pickup. The accompanying musicians are cued by this pickup to proceed into the form of the tune.
There is a similar procedure with endings. If one is on a jazz gig and isn't sure, it's a good idea to ask what the intro and ending will be. Many tunes lend themselves to a tag ending, where the last phrase of the tune is played three times, and then the tune lands on a final chord. There are other endings frequently employed - Duke ending, Basie ending, #4 descending, vamps, arranged endings and phrase extensions. Again, these are part of the jazz musician's vocabulary.
Just as a classical musician is expected to know that a trill in Baroque music starts on the upper auxiliary, a jazz musician is expected to know, or anticipate different endings or intros.
Having a decent fake book, or even just iRealb on my iPhone HAS saved my butt on gigs. I've been able to play tunes with other musicians that I've never played before. Even just having the chord changes without the melody has meant the difference between a successful performance and total disaster.
Fake books are a tool. Like other tools, they require knowledge on the part of the user to operate them properly. Think of them as being something more akin to a recipe book.
Jupiter Canada Artist/Clinician
Stratford Shakespeare Festival musician
Woodwind Doubling Channel Creator on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/c/WoodwindDoubling
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Author: Johnny Galaga
Date: 2012-03-11 19:01
But the sheet music doesn't even tell you something like improvise for 16 measures or 32 measures and then rest and then when to come back in again. I mean, there's just not enough information to figure out WHAT TO DO AND WHEN. Are these bands randomly figuring all that out on their own and then rehearsing it however they want? It's just confusing looking at incomplete sheet music with inaccurate rhythms and then hearing a recording where they all somehow KNEW to play extra stuff that isn't even written or referenced anywhere on the part.
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Author: Merlin_Williams
Date: 2012-03-11 19:31
But the sheet music doesn't even tell you something like improvise for 16 measures or 32 measures and then rest and then when to come back in again. I mean, there's just not enough information to figure out WHAT TO DO AND WHEN. Are these bands randomly figuring all that out on their own and then rehearsing it however they want? It's just confusing looking at complete sheet music with inaccurate rhythms and then hearing a recording where they all somehow KNEW to play extra stuff that isn't even written or referenced anywhere on the part.
The usual practice is to improvise for at least one complete chorus of the tune. It could be 12 bars, 32 bars, 40 bars, whatever.
It's not the purpose of a fakebook to lay out the exact arrangement of who does what when.
Jazz musicians can work things out in rehearsal, or even on the fly. That's what we do.
The rhythms are not "inaccurate" - they are subject to interpretation.
Re-read all of the posts in reply to your original question. The answers have been given.
Jupiter Canada Artist/Clinician
Stratford Shakespeare Festival musician
Woodwind Doubling Channel Creator on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/c/WoodwindDoubling
Post Edited (2012-03-11 19:36)
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Author: Trevor M
Date: 2012-03-11 20:03
I feel your pain, Johnny, but I think the problem is that your'e asking these books to be more than they are. The idea with modern 'real books' is that they're available in all keys, so theoretically a pick-up band can all turn to page 54 or whatever and have the same changes and instructions to play a recognizable version of a standard, heavily embellished to disguise its skeletal nature. The pick-up band version is *not* going to sound like, say, some really cool Ellington arrangement, where a lot of traditional composition work has gone into creating an arrangement with counterpoint and attention to textures and so forth. But it's more convenient.
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Author: Johnny Galaga
Date: 2012-03-11 23:16
Here's an example of what I mean. This is a song called Rosewood: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6q1Xs1CW2w .
Now if you look at the Real Book volume III pages 250 - 251, you can see they've got that song in there. Now listen to the recording while looking at the sheet music.
There's s short intro at the beginning that ISN'T in the part. In fact, there's NO RESTS at the beginning so you can know when to come in. These players must have had better sheet music. So how do people play gigs with these "real books" when not everything is even there? They can't all possibly improvise the exact same intro at the same spur of the moment.
Another problem. There's no tempo given on the sheet music. The way they're playing it sounds like it should have been written in cut time. How would they know it's supposed to be played that fast? And I don't know what those forward slash marks mean on the fourth line, or what that triangle symbol on the chords means.
As you follow the sheet music (or try to), there's a fermada at the end (at about 1:20 in the video). At that point, the SHEET MUSIC ENDS but the sax player keeps right on going and he's killin' it. Is the sax player completely improvising all that?? There's no way! He had to know in advance what he was gonna play. And how did everyone else know what to play?
But how did he he know he was supposed to play a solo and not the trumpet or piano player? Nothing in the sheet musics tells you because the SHEET MUSIC HAS ALREADY ENDED. They all continue playing for several more minutes even though there's NOTHING LEFT TO PLAY in the real book.
See my frustration here? These guys gotta be using better sheet music than just a real book. And that's why I keep saying these real books are incomplete.
Post Edited (2012-03-11 23:18)
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Author: Bill G
Date: 2012-03-12 04:10
Johnny Galaga expresses a misperception repeatedly displayed on this Board. Assume that a jazz performabce could be notated exactly as played, including all the improvised parts and solos. and that an accomplished "reading" musician could and did recreate that performance, exactly as originally performed, that musician would not have played jazz.
Playing jazz tunes is not the same as playing jazz!
I've played hundreds of improvised gigs when none of the musicians brought a fake book. Many of the musicians probably never even owned one. Compare this to having sex. Who follows an exact script? The participants know how the activity may go, but each reacts to that one's own feelings, and to the "music" the other particpant plays, and the combination depends upon the experience and sensitivity of both participants.
You just have to take the plunge and do it in order to learn how!
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Author: donald
Date: 2012-03-12 08:24
I have a feeling that Johnny Galaga is "having you on" guys.
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Author: Merlin_Williams
Date: 2012-03-12 12:05
donald wrote:
> I have a feeling that Johnny Galaga is "having you on" guys.
I can't decide whether the OP is a troll, or just an idiot. However, I have decided that I've spent enough time answering questions.
Jupiter Canada Artist/Clinician
Stratford Shakespeare Festival musician
Woodwind Doubling Channel Creator on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/c/WoodwindDoubling
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Author: alto gether
Date: 2012-03-12 16:54
Merlin Williams: Whether or not JG is trolling, your response was beautifully clear and detailed.
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Author: sdr
Date: 2012-03-12 17:56
Real books give you the notes, not the music.
-sdr
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