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The Real Book

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Re: The Real Book

#111

Post by bsder »

analog31 wrote: post #109

I'm a bassist. I got my Real Book in 1982. I was already playing in the high school jazz band, but as a suburban kid, I had zero exposure to things like jam sessions and live jazz performances. Nobody had taught me how to learn harmonies from recordings, so I was kind of lost. The Real Book gave me a way to follow recorded tunes and grasp what the players were doing. Later on, being able to play from "lead sheets" en…

> Today, those tunes are hopelessly overplayed

Which is, in fact, the point.

You can't "jam" over a tune that everybody doesn't know forwards, backwards, and sideways.

I do agree that it would be nice if musicians added something from the latter half of the 20th century to "standards".

Re: The Real Book

#112

Post by analog31 »

aphextron wrote: post #74
p_j_w wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're not familiar with what those old philosophers said and how their arguments work, you're liable to make yourself look like a fool when you tread old ground not realizing it's old. Similarly with Jazz, if you wanna be avant garde, you should have some idea of the body of work that's come before you. A lot of the best musical rule breakers were classically trained and knew their shit.

>A lot of the best musical rule breakers were classically trained and knew their shit. Classical training is a different story. Musical theory is endlessly useful to know. But jazz has been stuck in a certain kind of sound for the last 40 years since those people who actually made it gave way to those who simply play it . And now there's just this idea of what jazz is and ought to be, rather than treating it as what…

Even in jazz, there has always been an interplay between old and new. During the jazz era, jazz was the sound of popular music, meaning that a lot of work for jazz musicians consisted of playing in dance bands that were as locked into a sound as some jazz performances are today. The jazz era didn't end with a bang, but had a very long tail, resulting in me getting hired for the same kind of work within my own lifetime. Everybody recognizes it for what it is, artistically, but on the other hand there's something to be said for making an audience happy.

Today, people approach jazz for different reasons, and of course at different levels of proficiency. Jazz is old enough to have a history and a canon, and the enjoyment of exploring and preserving that history is a good reason for some bands (hopefully not all of them) to exist. Given my stature in the local music scene (not a first-call player), a lot of my work is of that ilk. I approach it respectfully but not with utter obedience. As a bassist, the instrument that I play has undergone steady evolution, even post jazz era, so that what I play on a "traditional" gig is informed by the present as well as the past.

Re: The Real Book

#113

Post by JoeyJoJoJr »

matthewh806 wrote: post #29
JoeyJoJoJr wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! I am surprised there isn’t a definitive source for common sequencer beats and grooves.

There are some older books like: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Machine-Patterns-Leonard-Publishing... which is just tabulating lots of common rhythm patterns from a wide number of genres. and some more modern ones like: https://op-forums.com/t/pocket-operations-a-portable-book-of... Neither of these are online though and would be well suited to it I agree. A quick search also came up with: http://808.pixll.de/ which has d…

I already have the Pocket Operations book - it’s great. Thanks for those other links.

Re: The Real Book

#114

Post by gooseyard »

analog31 wrote: post #109

I'm a bassist. I got my Real Book in 1982. I was already playing in the high school jazz band, but as a suburban kid, I had zero exposure to things like jam sessions and live jazz performances. Nobody had taught me how to learn harmonies from recordings, so I was kind of lost. The Real Book gave me a way to follow recorded tunes and grasp what the players were doing. Later on, being able to play from "lead sheets" en…

hah I had the same problem, finally about two years ago I decided it was time to ween myself off the book. A guy in my area has a small school which is largely focused on getting players off-book with the top couple hundred standards. It's definitely a slow process at first, but what I think is remarkable is how (even setting aside the blues or rhythm changes tunes) how much faster memorizing new tunes goes once you've done 50 or 60.

I think that I had assumed, perhaps partly because of the existence of the book, that while memorizing pop or rock songs is relatively easy, permanently memorizing standards with a lot of changes was not a realistic thing, but now I know that its really more that the problem space is just larger for standards, and its just a matter of exploring that space for a while that you get familiar enough that you can listen and guess your way through tunes you're shaky on. Now, the book seems like more trouble than its worth on gigs because it takes a lot of my limited cycles to stare at it. But boy did it take a while to get to that point!

Re: The Real Book

#115

Post by emmanueloga_ »

JoeyJoJoJr wrote: post #20
cousin_it wrote: post #6

Someone should make an online "real book" for electronic music production, with a bunch of popular beats and instructions for how to reproduce them in a DAW. Does such a thing exist?

Yes! I am surprised there isn’t a definitive source for common sequencer beats and grooves.

not a definitive resource but recently learn about the pretty cool https://hiphoptranscriptions.com/

Re: The Real Book

#116

Post by analog31 »

bsder wrote: post #111
analog31 wrote: post #109

I'm a bassist. I got my Real Book in 1982. I was already playing in the high school jazz band, but as a suburban kid, I had zero exposure to things like jam sessions and live jazz performances. Nobody had taught me how to learn harmonies from recordings, so I was kind of lost. The Real Book gave me a way to follow recorded tunes and grasp what the players were doing. Later on, being able to play from "lead sheets" en…

> Today, those tunes are hopelessly overplayed Which is, in fact, the point. You can't "jam" over a tune that everybody doesn't know forwards, backwards, and sideways. I do agree that it would be nice if musicians added something from the latter half of the 20th century to "standards".

Jamming over a tune that you don't know is called "faking." That's a skill unto itself. ;-) But I think it's also a skill worth learning.

Re: The Real Book

#117

Post by analog31 »

gooseyard wrote: post #114
analog31 wrote: post #109

I'm a bassist. I got my Real Book in 1982. I was already playing in the high school jazz band, but as a suburban kid, I had zero exposure to things like jam sessions and live jazz performances. Nobody had taught me how to learn harmonies from recordings, so I was kind of lost. The Real Book gave me a way to follow recorded tunes and grasp what the players were doing. Later on, being able to play from "lead sheets" en…

hah I had the same problem, finally about two years ago I decided it was time to ween myself off the book. A guy in my area has a small school which is largely focused on getting players off-book with the top couple hundred standards. It's definitely a slow process at first, but what I think is remarkable is how (even setting aside the blues or rhythm changes tunes) how much faster memorizing new tunes goes once you'…

I've learned that the changes are actually relatively forgiving. Many of the fake book changes are different from the harmonies that were used when the tunes were show and popular tunes.

Also, even if you're a rhythm player, tunes are a lot easier to memorize if you learn melodies. And that helps in two ways. The first is just having a better grasp of the tune, and the second is that if you're unsure of the changes, you can improvise directly from the melody.

Granted, as a bass player I can get away with not knowing all of those 7ths, 9ths, etc. "I solemnly swear to play the root, the whole root, and nothing but the root, so help me Dusty Hill."

Re: The Real Book

#118

Post by Tiktaalik »

aphextron wrote: post #71

This is the problem with modern jazz. Treating it as some kind of canon is the antithesis of what it was in the first place. It's tantamount to writing down a conversation between two ancient philosophers and repeating it ad nauseum, expecting some new insight. Keith Jarett wasn't concerned with the stuff Art Tatum had done. Miles Davis wasn't trying to build on Louis Armstrong's rendition of Wonderful World . They w…

Regardless of the art form, deeply studying previous works is the way to really understand how the artist created them. With drawing and painting it's learning by literally copying them, and with jazz, it's learning by playing the same song and experiencing it for yourself. When you've internalized what the "masters" have done then you're in a better a position (certainly technically!) to create your own works.

Of course Jazz greats such as Miles Davis etc would regularly play popular show tunes and use these as foundations for radical reinterpretation (eg. John Coltrane playing "My Favourite Things", Miles Davis playing "If I were a Bell"). If these guys had no qualms doing their own riff on something someone else wrote like "some day my prince will come" I dunno why anyone else should feel they're doing anything wrong doing the same.

Re: The Real Book

#120

Post by tkgally »

One of the best purchases I ever made was a two-volume collection of jazz standards published in Japan with the English subtitle “All of the Jazz Standard [sic]” [1, 2, 3]. It includes the melody, chords, and lyrics for over 400 well-selected songs. A bit pricey, but all of the songs seem to have been properly licensed for publication in Japan.

I bought my copy twenty years ago and I’ve been using it ever since. (I play piano.)

[1] https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/%E9%AB%98%E5%B3%B6-%E6%85%B6%E...

[2] https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/%E9%AB%98%E5%B3%B6-%E6%85%B6%E...

[3] https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/g271937333

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