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Re: Dixieland arrangements?

Author: ned
Date: 2017-02-04 05:16

**Steve Becraft wrote: ‘’…The friend who asked is an occasional saxophonist just for fun, and I expect his bandmates could be the same ("We are putting together a band for a fund raiser")…’’

An admirable project I suspect, ‘’and just for fun’’ is OK, but you can’t expect the jazz fraternity to take it seriously. I’m a jazz player (only), I wouldn’t expect the classical fraternity to take ME seriously if I were to attempt even the simplest of classical pieces. I doubt that a classical player can do the reverse simply by swapping to a ‘’jazz’’ mouthpiece, a harder reed and some notes printed on a page and expect to sound authentic. By all means go ahead with the project, but, it’s not real jazz.
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**Matt 74 wrote: ‘’…It's not very helpful to tell everyone to play everything by ear all at once. If it were possible for them to do this with reasonable effort, they wouldn't ask. They may simply want to play for some particular occasion. There is nothing wrong with that….’’

See my remarks in response to Steve Becraft

**‘’…Every musician I have ever known uses charts, fakebooks, and transcriptions…’’

Hardly anyone I know uses these, but I don’t decry their use in getting the melody right.

**‘’…When you tell someone that the only way to learn jazz is exclusively by ear, you are just being snobby. …’’

‘’Snobby’’(ouch!)wow getting a trifle personal I think. I’m not sure that learning only by ear exclusively is what is being proposed. There heaps of other threads regarding the playing of ‘’dixieland’’ you could go to, for more opinions.

**‘’…Ellington and the rest of the big band composers wrote out their arrangements,…’’

This is correct, although I believe that Basie relied more on head arrangements, rather than dots. That notwithstanding, these big band arrangements had many spaces (written?) in to enable real improvisation (jazz).

**‘’…It shows humility in asking for help, and a desire to learn….’’

Yep sure does, and frank and fearless advice is what should be offered, not some placid deferral in order to just ‘’be nice’’ . Check out the advice offered by some the classical players who post here, if you want to see frank and fearless advice.

**‘’…"Practice broken arpeggios over the chords." or "Listen to this tune about 1,000 times when you get the chance."…’’’’

Yep these things would work but I assume this would be obvious to any player who knows how to competently operate his instrument. I don't know that the ''1,000 times'' would be necessary.
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Eric wrote: ‘’…If that's not encouraging enough for you, think of someone asking for simplified Brahms arrangements, because they can't handle the real thing…’’

I agree, and see my first comment.

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Dixieland arrangements? new

Steve Becraft

2017-02-03 08:06