REALLY Learning a tune

[Ed Fuqua]

Well, it's a LOT simpler using closed position 4 parts than open position, but that may be what's on down the line as soon as get past where I am currently. I know that's where we are in ear training.
But I'd recommend sticking with closed position, it gets the base sound of the chord in your ear much better, using inversions gets you into the voice leading space a little more "aurally". Don't worry so much about "voice leading" as voicing proximity.

[251]

Ed,
That is the best lesson on practicing I have ever seen. It looks like about an hour per day for 4 tunes once you get it rolling. That is do-able.
Thank you very much

[hdiddy]

Wow, I just started fiddling with this method last night and it was alot of fun while wielding some benefit. I took something I already knew well just to experiment with with soloing/melody mixing. I didn't stick with just 3 bars, but something similar. I just played one phrase of the melody, then one phrase soloed but still sticking loosely to the half-note/eight-note/triplet thing. I tried to keep it as musical as possible, and never got to the triplets. Still, it really forces you to learn and know the melody phrase cold and to be able to pull it out at any point in the tune.

After messing with it for about 30 minutes, going back to plain soloing was alot easier. There was so much more to fuel the solos with and create new motifs. If you ran out of ideas, you just go back to the melody and that just fuels the next cycle of ideas. Very very cool! Now I gotta try it full on and just do the first 3 bars. Anyways, thanks Ed!

[Ed Fuqua]

That's the problem with doing this stuff over the web.

HADDIE - it's not really a "throw everything in at once" exercise. You don't move to quarters until you have halves down, you don't move to eighths until you have quarters etc. Like I said, I started this about 10 years ago and I've only hit accent three triplets with moving melodies now.

Like Joe says, do what you want , but if you want the house to stand for a hundred years, you better make sure the foundation is solid.

[hdiddy]

Originally Posted by Ed Fuqua

HADDIE - it's not really a "throw everything in at once" exercise. You don't move to quarters until you have halves down, you don't move to eighths until you have quarters etc. Like I said, I started this about 10 years ago and I've only hit accent three triplets with moving melodies now.

Well yeah I know it's not an overnight thing. I have been doing similar types of practicing but one element at a time, but never combining everything together until now. I've been working on Tricotism off and on for the past year and a half so I dont' think I'm moving too quickly through it.

I went on to quarters once I started feeling comfortable with halves, but I only dabbled with it anyway. Halves aren't mastered yet, so I'll have to come back to it. I didn't get to the accent parts either but can see how valuable that can be. Still, I'll slow down and take it bit by bit from now on tho.

[Andy Allen]

Thanks for that Ed, the details are getting clearer every time.

I’ve been doing something similar, but working melodies, scales and arpeggios over a random standard picked from my repertoire. The purpose of this has not been to learn individual tunes, but to retain familiarity with many songs, and develop a method for dealing with the variety of tunes that I may come across.

This achieves what it sets out to do, but I’ve recently come to one of those “where do I go from here” moments in my practicing, and would no doubt get some benefit from starting something like you suggest...going for depth in a few songs rather than breadth over many.

The first step is to choose the songs, and I’m stuck already. This is an important choice, as I imagine they need to be representative of many standards to be truly effective, and they need to be something that one can live with for 10+ years...not unlike choosing for marriage. I already had to kiss a lot of frogs in that department before I found my princess. Then you have to resist the temptation to try out other attractive tunes and stick with your choice...richer or poorer, in good times or bad.

I already use "Stella by Starlight" as a minor ii-v-i test-bed, so that’s probably a good choice for me. "All The Things You Are" is beautifully constructed and it moves through interesting key-centers, so that’s a possibility. I could chose from any number of tunes that I regularly play the head to, as that would cut down on learning a new melody. Songs such as Alone Together, How High The Moon, Lullaby of the Leaves, Dear Old Stockholm, You’re My Everything, Little Waltz, Third Floor Richard, Solar, Someday My Prince Will Come, a whole bunch of bebop heads...basically if I want to call a tune around here I need to be prepared to play the head, and usually end up doing so. “How High the Moon” would be fun, as it would allow “Ornithology" to be drafted into the exercise somehow, and a waltz like “Someday My Prince Will Come” might keep things interesting.

So Ed, how did you go about picking your tunes? Anyone else want to weigh in on the songs they have chosen or might choose?

Andy

[Michael Case]

So far I have chosen Stella by Starlight, although I have "memorized" it I don't really know it. The second tune I'm using is Speak Low, I really enjoy this tune and it's ii-V land so I think it will be a good one to study. Other then those two I'm not so sure, maybe All The Things You Are and Invitation.

Thanks again Ed for explaining and re-explaining this for us.

[Ed Fuqua]

Originally Posted by Andy Allen

So Ed, how did you go about picking your tunes? Andy

They were things that I had already been playing in some capacity. STELLA was probably the first tune I ever played regularly when I started stopping being a rock/fusion player.
It's going to be easier if you use tunes that have pretty "standard" resolutions, regular harmonic movement, etc. Things that are predicated on a lot of dominant chords, blues tunes, tunes with somewhat static harmonic movement are going to be a LOT harder to "hear".

So I'd recommend:
Standard (or American Popular Song)
a majority of the harmonic rhythm being the half note (two chords per bar)
32 bar tune

[hdiddy]

I just went with 3 I knew somewhat well. Mainly cuz I like them but I want to also start focusing on building my speed.

1. Tricotism - I figure all jazz bassists should know this well and the stepwise chord progressions make for good motif playing.
2. Anthropology - I can play the head but want to have Rhythm Changes down cold.
3. Cherokee - very simple melody should make for some nice fill-type playing when doing the 3bar/5bar "trading" thing.

In both #2 and #3, I feel like it's something I can start out slow and keep adding tempo as I get better, especially Cherokee. I'd like to get out of trying to play 8th notes when a tune is going by too fast for me to play them and I'd like to focus on more melodic soloing despite the speed. Also with Cherokee, it's mostly in Bb, and I wanted to focus on playing in a higher register so hopefully I can work on my intonation at the same time. I'm limiting myself in the area right before TP - I can't think of the Simandl position that is. Hopefully this will help my speed playing as well.

I've been practicing Ed's (or is it Joe Solomon's?) method have gone back to the basics of sticking with just half notes. Already just by forcing myself to play half notes for almost a week now it's yielded some results I didn't expect. I want to say that my walking lines and my broken feel sound alot better as I'm able to include other notes I don't typically play. Also, the contour of my lines is alot more cohesive and not as scattered anymore.

I'll probably choose one more to rotate with. I really want to do a Monk tune, maybe Straight No Chaser - wouldn't hurt to master a blues-type tune. Round Midnight might be a little too ambitious. I'm tempted to do St. Thomas, especially after hearing our own Jason Sypher do a solo version that's just very kick-ass. I get a little inspired listening to that now and then.

[armybass]

Great thread Ed and once again very timely. I have been playing (at) jazz for 15 years or so and play usually 2-3 jazz gigs a month and lame as it sounds.... I still use my fake book for nearly all of the tunes, even ones I have been playing every week. Well I have been so sick of not knowing tunes and having to turn the page to get the changes for Satan Doll that I decided two weeks ago taht I was going to "learn" many of the standards. I started with three that I knew the melody to cold and have followed much of what your post states but I can't wait to incorporate the chord line. That is a great idea. Thanks again for a very well written and insightful post.

Scott

[Greg Clinkingbeard]

Diddy,
Blue Monk is an easy Monk tune; you may already know it. It's basically a chromatic pattern starting on the 3rd of each chord following a blues progression. It's the only Monk I can play without the book. A lot of Monk is rooted in the Blues, but with insane subs, I think.
Scott,
I'm working on All The Things You Are (or could have been if Sigmund Freud's wife was your mother). It got called at a jam session, and ashamed to admit I didn't know it I fought my way through it. Been on that tune for about three weeks and I expect to be on it for quite awhile before it's mastered.
Looking at these tunes, I'm beginning to see patterns such as: that follows the circle of fourths starting on F, or ii V7 I in Bb, then ii V7 I in C etc. I noticed that Cotton Tail and Oleo are the same tune, based on Rhythm Changes.
It doesn't seem to be so hopeless.

[hdiddy]

Originally Posted by clink

Diddy,
Blue Monk is an easy Monk tune; you may already know it. It's basically a chromatic pattern starting on the 3rd of each chord following a blues progression. It's the only Monk I can play without the book. A lot of Monk is rooted in the Blues, but with insane subs, I think.

Yeah I know Blue Monk pretty well too, including the head but I've heard it/played it enough that it would drive me batty if I worked on it for the next coupla years. I need something else. Misterioso might work too, I dunno.

[Steve Clark]

Subscribe. Excellent thread. Thanks Ed and all who added.

Any comments from anyone on the benefit or negative of choosing a Standard that you would have an Aebersold for and playing and signing the melody along with that?

[hdiddy]

My thinking is that although playalongs are helpful (I'm using BInAB myself) in the act of learning the head, I think you're better off weaning yourself from needing to be backed by a piano. I've been only using that stuff just to help myself delineate where I need to stop playing when trading 3/5 bars. I think the key is that you need to hear the chords in your head without accompaniment. If you can carry a tune and still outline the changes while soloing with both the head and without, I think the learning will run deeper.

[Steve Clark]

I agree. Thanks.

[Damon Rondeau]

I'm a fan of jazzstandards.com -- lots of useful information there for people interested in getting deeper into these tunes. Here's a list of the 50 most-covered jazz tunes according to jazzstandards.com -- there are 950 other tunes covered on the remaining 19 pages of the list. There's a reason why these tunes are the most covered, and there's lots of gold in there to mine for the Joe-Ed Method.

[ElMon]

To paraphrase a Delphonics song........
"Didn't Ed blow my mind this time, didn't he...."

Seriously informative. Reminded me what made me fall in love with TB in the first place.

[Howard K]

Copied to word file for home use Many, many thanks.

I find it easier to remember tunes if I a) learn the melody first by listening to a recording or playing the song in a group, then looking at the sheet, and b) reading 4 bars ahead as I play and looking away from the sheet until I can remember the changes, i.e. not burying my nose in the chart start to finish!
But damned sure I can and will learn a lot more thoroughly by the Ed method.

Ditto on learning lyrics, very important.. even if they're not all that good sometimes

[ToR-Tu-Ra]

Originally Posted by Ed Fuqua

Things that are predicated on a lot of dominant chords, blues tunes, tunes with somewhat static harmonic movement are going to be a LOT harder to "hear".

So I'd recommend:
Standard (or American Popular Song)
a majority of the harmonic rhythm being the half note (two chords per bar)
32 bar tune

And you tell me this now?!

I started to work on "Them There Eyes" last week because it seemed like an easy tune: some nice ii V7 I, a few secondary dominant chords, etc. But I had no idea that holding a I6 for like 8 bars would be so darn hard! I was working on half notes and trying to incorporate more than the 1 - 5 and kept slamming my head against the wall; some supposedly "right" notes sounded just awful. I need to dig deeper into the melody for this one. I'm hearing a lot of other stuff happening on those bars than just the I.

Anyways, thanks for the thread. It is exactly what I need to work on to develop a more melodic way of playing. I can build a "functional" line but sometimes it sounds mechanic and not very interesting.

Back to practice now. Great thread!

[Blueszilla]

Way cool! subscribed...