lead sheet

[marine18]

how do you read a lead sheet as a bass player

[bigblondeafro87]

with my eyes

Seriously, please elaborate more on your questions. Are you saying you can't read treble clef? Can you read bass clef? If you can learn bass clef, its not a far leap to learn treble.

[MalcolmAmos]

...how do you read a lead sheet as a bass player?

A lead sheet normally will have the treble clef showing the notes in standard notation, the chords are shown by name and the lyrics are also shown - as a bass player, unless you are doing a melody solo the treble clef is not going to help all that much. You need the bass clef or the chords that are being used. Lead sheet music will not (normally) have the bass clef - but will have the chords being used. So you can rely upon the chord names, aka G, C, D7, etc.

The leadsheet will tell you the key and the time signature from that and the duration of the notes in the treble clef this should give you an idea of the bass riff that will work with this song. But as you do not have a bass clef showing the notes used the actual riff to use is left up to you, i.e. R-5, or R-3-5-3, whatever.

Good luck.

[Bruce Lindfield]

Originally Posted by marine18

how do you read a lead sheet as a bass player

Usually very quickly!!

As they are plonked in front of you, about 5 seconds before the count-in!!

As in : let's play "xxxxxxxxx" and a 1-2,1234 go!

[caeman]

What exactly do YOU mean by "lead sheet"?

[PJSShearer]

A lead sheet consists of the melody - or "lead" line - of a tune, sometimes with the words, with the chords to play written underneath. The basics you need for a Band to play a tune from. You need to concentate on the chords and come up with a bassline to fit the chords and go with what everyone else is doing.

The classic example would be the "Real Book" OR the Jazzer's bible!! and, judging by the other question you've asked on walking bass lines, you've probably just seen it:-).

[251]

- memorize the time signature & the key
- count the # of bars in each section & the # of bars in each chorus - note the 'form'
- look at the chords to decide if the key is the indicated major or relative minor
- scan the chart to find chord changes for which you have bass lines to use
- scan the B section, interlude, chorus, etc., chord changes in case there are surprises
- scan for key changes, moving tone centers, slash chords & unfamiliar chord changes
- look for repeat signs, coda's, section marks, unison or obligato rhythms

If you are just beginning to play jazz, look at;
http://www.aebersold.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc
Buying a book or 2 (actually Volumes 1, 2 & 3 with play-along CDs) will get you started a lot faster than trying to invent it on your own.

Good luck

[MalcolmAmos]

Originally Posted by caeman

What exactly do YOU mean by "lead sheet"?

http://www.wikifonia.org/node/614

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBKcKQHZXks