Keys and how to use notes

[BERFAB]

accidentals happen all the time but mostly hit and run

FWIW, I wouldn't let anyone dissuade you from learning theory. You're clearly not pursuing it in a vacuum as you are also playing and practicing as well.

My personal view is that music theory is like studying any science. It provides an understanding of what is (i.e. why certain chords sound 'right' together, or why certain notes don't). I don't see theory as a set of rules that need to be followed (i.e. it's quite ok to color outside the lines - some of the best music ever written dares to go beyond the conventions of theory).

I was trained old school, with a balance of instrument lessons and classroom theory. And in all the years that have followed my formal training, I have definitely grown as a musician and composer. However, I've forgotten much of the actual theory even though it is the basis of my overall understanding of performance and composition. I could never attempt to give an explanation like JJFlash's excellent circle of 5ths post above. But I do thoroughly understand it.

Cheers
-B

[robogone]

Being an oldie myself, I find that a useful way to learn the theory behind something is to buy an old fashioned real paper book. It's easy to sit down and read anywhere and you can also put it next to you when you play for reference.

I don't have any recommendations for specific books, but it might be worth considering as it helped me with some instruments to have a reference book.

[Nystul]

However you go about it, make sure you secure basic reading ability for both treble and bass clef and put them to use reading full (beginner level) piano arrangements. By all means learn your theory and modern chord methods. But also read actual arrangements and try to analyze things on the page based on what you've learned and listen to what it sounds like in context.

[robogone]

However you go about it, make sure you secure basic reading ability for both treble and bass clef and put them to use reading full (beginner level) piano arrangements.

True dat. I wish I could read better and it would open up whole new avenues of music to play for me. I really need to get a teacher and learn to read much better (and practice reading too!)

[Pokeyoats]

I find that I am rather weak when it comes to reading music. In piano4all there are examples to listen to, he tells you how to play the chords and then I can play along, mimicking what he does. Is this bad?

And as I mentioned, I also play rock band 3 using pro keys to get dexterity and also doing all of their training. I find, that it really hels me to have something like that to beat general frustration. I've never been so hungry for knowledge or skill before and I wish I could learn faster, I really do.

I value everyone's opinion so much, thank you. Still studying!

[BERFAB]

However you go about it, make sure you secure basic reading ability for both treble and bass clef and put them to use reading full (beginner level) piano arrangements.

True dat. I wish I could read better and it would open up whole new avenues of music to play for me. I really need to get a teacher and learn to read much better (and practice reading too!)

Well, actually, this is where theory plays a roll as well. I cut my teeth in the age of Fake Books. Not the legit published encyclopedias that you have now, I'm talking about Xeroxed copies of hand written arrangements in a spiral notebook that got passed around at GB Gigs (back when live bands used to play weddings and bar mitzvahs).

The actual arrangement for an entire tune usually fit on less than half of a sheet of paper, and consisted entirely of a melody etched on one or two staves, lyrics, and a letter representation of the chords (maybe with a tab to show chord fingering if you were lucky). No bass lines, no mezzo forte/allegro/allegro non tropo/pianissimo instructions. You were basically given a clothes hanger to dress up. And your knowledge of theory would, most times, get you there.

I also studied classical piano, but my sight reading is terrible, and it's been years since I've even done it. But throw me a cocktail napkin with a half dozen numbers written on it for changes, and I'm off to the races.

Don't get me wrong, I would encourage anyone who can, to learn to read as well as possible. I can't (or won't) and I have nothing but respect for those that do.

Cheers
-B

[robogone]

However you go about it, make sure you secure basic reading ability for both treble and bass clef and put them to use reading full (beginner level) piano arrangements.

True dat. I wish I could read better and it would open up whole new avenues of music to play for me. I really need to get a teacher and learn to read much better (and practice reading too!)

Well, actually, this is where theory plays a roll as well.

Yes, I think theory is important in the way that learning your ABC will get you nowhere if you don't learn the meanings of the words that you can now pronounce.

Theory will also answer a lot of questions about why things work and other things don't, and it's a huge help when you try to arrange pieces.

[tapper mike]

Well, actually, this is where theory plays a roll as well. I cut my teeth in the age of Fake Books.
Cheers
-B

Yeah that was my experience as well. I still have several editions of "The Real Book" As well as others.

It was/is a mixed blessing. I hate reading notation I'm slow as molasses especially when I hit a chord even though most of my playing back then was rhythm guitar of which I was very good at.

With a fake book one has no excuses of not having something to play. And with a fake book it's figurative not literal which means you are't spending your time over analyzing everything. It allows the improviser in the musician to develop.

But also with a fake book you are less likely to memorize a song. Because the book is right there. A funny thing about piano jazz, for some reason pianists can get away with taking a fake book along to a gig while the rest of us aren't allowed to hide our face in a book while performing. I've seen old old old dudes in thier 80's who still have to use the fake book to play a song even though they've been playing the song for 60 years or more.

[jancivil]

that occurred to me, that pianists can have that music in front of them and get away with that look.

the only training I have on my primary instrument, guitar was a year and a half to be a solo performer, classical. no way do you do that and not memorize everything. that would go for any instrument. my friend never learned how to sight read at all, you just take as much time as you need to memorize. I was the reader so [Clare] made me lead the c.g. ensemble. made us go on tour and promote the school. it was a job! Took some conducting courses, you have to truly have your shit together there but I still look at a couple of the clefs and have to adjust consciously, it's like a language you know but don't think in.

for an adult learning theory reading is de rigeur. there are natural musicians that never read a note but if you're that you were doing it as a child.

[Pokeyoats]

May I ask, what is the fake book?

I am still practising and reading. I feel that there is not enough time, and that I don't learn fast enough...

I wish I was one of those just do it talented people, but I am not.

And after years of Sys Admin I'm supposed to be doing Network stuff and getting a CCNA too.. sigh.

But enough of my complaining, I value everyone's advice so much!!

[jancivil]

'fake books', a collection of 'lead sheets'. they're used by jazzers as shorthand, by people that have some knowledge, as a sketchy guideline for the tunes, while they supply the 'real' by their own hand, instead of literally aping the official idea or whatever of a tune. particulary by reharmonizing it, so whatever chords are in the thing don't have to be much, or even be right.

'The Real Book' is an ostensibly more reliable or elaborate fake book.

[Pokeyoats]

Ahhhhh, thank you so much for explaining that to me.

[BERFAB]

'fake books', a collection of 'lead sheets'. they're used by jazzers as shorthand, by people that have some knowledge, as a sketchy guideline for the tunes, while they supply the 'real' by their own hand, instead of literally aping the official idea or whatever of a tune. particulary by reharmonizing it, so whatever chords are in the thing don't have to be much, or even be right.

'The Real Book' is an ostensibly more reliable or elaborate fake book.

Kinda sorta...

Used extensively in jazz, yes, but GB bands ('general business' gigs, such as weddings) have fake books in all genres. Pop music is just as prevalent for fake books as jazz. In fact, the pop books need to be updated constantly as the top 40 keeps changing. The jazz books usually contain old standards and don't need continuous overhauls.

I don't really know if 'The Real Book' is a more reliable fake book. I do know that there is no one official 'Real Book.' I've seen dozens of collections, in all genres, all called 'The Real Book.' I always assumed that it was just an in joke among musicians that stuck.

I haven't seen any of these fake books in a number of years. Currently on my shelf is an official Hal Leonard publication called "The Ultimate Pop Rock Fake Book." It is spiral bound with a glossy cover, and contains what is, essentially, the official transcriptions of 600 pop songs from 1955 to 2000, minus the bass parts. Quite a selection, and everybody gets paid.

But I'm sure the actual fake books of today are comprised of downloaded unofficial tabs of popular favorites.

Cheers
-B

[tapper mike]

The reason why you see more then one "Real Book" today is that it is now "legal"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Book

So you had all these songs that were transcribed by college students and working musicians. These working musicians were not paid to transcribe they did it as a labor of love into a book that shouldn't have been published because the printing shop didn't have publishing rights. Usually some guy in a van or a station wagon would drive around with them hidden and show up at musical instrument stores. They didn't dare get caught trying to pawn it off at a B.Dalton or other such chain of book stores. The guy in the unmarked van would walk into the music store and then work a deal with the owner. It was all under the counter. Many of the music stores wouldn't even sell if they thought a buyer might be suspicious. "Hey do you have the real book?" If the owner didn't know the buyer the answer was an automatic no.

Regardless it became the defacto book for jazz Because most all the standards were in one place and in the agreed upon key. Back in the 70's when I first picked up a guitar. Everyone learned beatles songs from fake books. If you really wanted to learn rock you studied the beatles. Well Three guys would have three different books all with the same beatles song and the song would be entirely different in each. If it was an easy piano book they might transpose a song to C or something familiar etc. If everyone is working from the same book then everyone is working off the same sheet.

I didn't play jazz in the 70's I was a straight ahead rock/pop guitarist. But I knew a lot of jazz cats and I was invited to various jams at blind pigs, coffee houses, and other gatherings. One thing became abundantly clear. They all worked from the realbook. Everyone would have a copy in their gig bag.

Much much later I wanted to expand my musical horizons. So I began to study jazz. I had various books on chords and scales but not to many jazz books. So I started lessons to learn jazz and more importantly how to improvise and write like jazz players. The very first song I learned when studying was directly from the real book. My teacher xerox'd me a copy of the song. We went through a harmonic analysis of the piece. He explained the rules of subsitution. About how to work with scale tones, chord tones, neighboring and passing tones, tonal centers and much much more. He'd point to a passage and say something like ...Here do you see this, then he'd make me play it and I am really bad with sight reading but I'd work my way through it. Then he'd say. This is an example of...whatever, Now play these bars but don't use the melody show me how you would work out lines to re enforce the harmonic structure...etc, etc.


We'd always work through the real book even though he had no shortage of fake books or other books on jazz studies. As I finally got my abilites and confidence up playing jazz I'd look for quiet jazz places to show off my chops. Mind you this was the 80's that I finally really started doing jazz. Still in every bar that would have a jazz jam night and at informal jazz jams at colleges they'd be working off of the real book. I did a lot of traveling in the 80's trying to make a name for myself in rock. And when I wasn't gigging with the band I'd be out tracking down live jazz jams. West to Denver, East to Myrtle Beach, north to Madison Wisconson and south to Miami. Everywhere I went and even my hometown of Detroit the real book was the defacto standard.

Since then the real book has changed. Like I said earlier the real book used to be illegal.

The value of the real book and fake books like it is that you the performer are elevated to the status of improviser and that it gives you the improviser an opporitunity to explore musical journeys of writing in ways that wouldn't be attainable else wise. The real book is figurative where it needs to be and literal where it has to be.

As a student of music be it guitar, bass, keyboard or other instrument. We experience covers in a monkey read, monkey do manner. That's great if your only goal is to "play it like it is" But while we are learning all these things along the way like how to arpeggiate, and inversions and subsitutions we are also seeking "self expression" If you listen to ....lets say a standard by Nat King Cole where he's not singing just playing the piano. And then you listen to that same exact song by another pianist say.....Bill Evans. You'll notice that the same song is treated differently but essentially the same. So to are many jazz and blues tunes. Each person puts their own stamp on a piece because they start with a figurative outline rather then trying to recreate what already has been done exactly as it has been done before.

In the old days of covering rock tunes you could get away with a little bit of interpertation. Time moved foreward bars wanted "the real deal"
Listeners have an expectation that the song should sound exactly as the record. Which is sad to me. When listening to a song we should do so with open ears and open minds. The reason why mashups have become so popular is that they bring a fresh perspective to an existing piece. If the recent Star Trek movie was nothing more then a remake of a star trek tos episode where everyone said the same lines with the same inflection why would anyone bother to see it?

I listen to a lot of covers on youtube. The ones I like the most are the ones where someone has made a concious decision to interpert rather then regergitate the original performance. Yes the melody should be preserved however there are many parts of a song that aren't the melody. Like the solo or the harmonic/rhythmic structure or the bassline.

[jancivil]

covers are interesting to me in jazz out of what you said, 'figurative', underlying things, make a tune fit a rhythmic thing that maybe isn't expected.

I never had any aspiration to play weddings or cruise ships, it seems like a horrible and draining existence, I may as well work for a living and have my own thoughts free from the corrupting influences of professional fellatio en masse. I rode a bicycle in the streets of san francisco, as Woody Allen said, if he had to earn a lving outside of film, a messenger has to worry about point A to point B, he could manage that.

I have had two bands that did NOTHING BUT covers but we paid attention to what we needed. often abusing the shit of a song. sometimes playing it straight as a springboard to make the outrage even worse.

we were interested in creating a composition in real time out of anything or nothing. I played classical music to get a sense of melody and studied Indian music later. Pop music has some gems though, albeit less and less so as the world grinds down into darkness.