Beats having a singer who insists on playing in a certain key. That drives me nvts
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Should singers who front a band know chord progressions?
- Thread starter Pork_Chop
- Start date
When I was young I played clarinet in school bands for years, knew a far amount of music theory, and never, ever knew what chord we were playing at any given moment. Today I sing in a church choir and the only reason I ever know what chords are being used is that as one of the church bassists who have to play those songs too on alternate months I pay some attention to the chord notations written in the music, when it is written in the music. Some songs we sing against the piano alone and those often have no chord notations written in. Of course as a bass singer I realize that we are often singing the root and if I tried I could make a good stab at picking out whether we are singing a major, minor, or some other chord. If I wanted to study the piano part I could probably manage to pick out the chords from that too but it would take some work since they are often inverted or otherwise mangled and I ain't no pianist so I would have to learn to recognize chords written in alternate forms and scattered across two hands worth of notes. The thing is that relatively few people here on TB read music and those who do generally are not in the habit of working from written out bass parts since they are fairly rare. If the vast majority of bass guitar players were trained to read music and played from written out music all the time then relatively few of us would be able to tell what chords we were playing either. The singer in this band probably learns her music by ear and while the human voice is an instrument it provides no feedback to the singer's brain to tell her what pitch she is singing (you only need good relative pitch, not perfect pitch, to sing well) or what chord that might be part of since her notes may or may not be chord tones. By now you probably all know what note you are playing when you put your finger on this fret and string and that gives you a big advantage over a singer when you play the name this note game. Unless you down tune and in that case you may call all the notes by the names they had before you down tuned and that can cause havoc with a substitute bassist too....
So, don't blame the singer, blame whoever it is in the band who is supposed to give you the information you need to succeed. Clearly that is not the singer and it sounds like the guitarist may be the only one in the band other than the missing bassist who can help you. Does the band have a manager you could ask?
So, don't blame the singer, blame whoever it is in the band who is supposed to give you the information you need to succeed. Clearly that is not the singer and it sounds like the guitarist may be the only one in the band other than the missing bassist who can help you. Does the band have a manager you could ask?
Here is the deal: Singers who don't know music who front a band better have a talent for landing the band good-paying gigs, because players have a limited tolerance for that mess otherwise.
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Paul actually never did learn to read music, and when he wrote his symphonic works, he had to dictate to a composer. He does know the notes, just not the dots. John said he thought the phrase "aeolian cadence" sounded like a flower, but make no mistake...he knew where all the notes were and he knew every chord in the book.
It's a bit arrogant to say it's such a 'sad thing', when so many responses indicate just the opposite. Singers may (and should) know when they're out of key and probably what notes they're singing, but not necessarily what chords those notes are in. Dame Kiri might think, "Okay, this is in 'E' and I go up to the third here, and down a fourth here, etc.". But she's not analyzing the whole score to catch those submediant shifts between verses. Why should she care?
Nobody is arguing that the more you know, the better. But I'll bet Frank wasn't that bothered about the chords. He might have said something like "Hey Nelson; what's that minor chord when I'm singing the second 'scooby'? It sounds off to me..."
I was surprised to hear Ella Fitzgerald confess in an interview that she knew nothing about music and simply relied on her ear. It would be interesting to know which of the jazz greats were trained musicians and which were simply relying on their ears. I would think that without a trained ear it would be tough to correctly pitch the melody to Midnight Sun.
I obviously come from a different place than you and many player out here. It is just a big let down to know that many things are considered OK when it just shows the lack of knowledge, lack of care. I've learn music in a formal setting where if you sing the wrong note, you sang the wrong note no matter if it sounded good or not, same with playing. Everyone had to know and understand music theory, even people who played drums/percussion. Otherwise how can you be efficient how can you communicate music ideas if no one cared.
I guess my standart is higher and I seriously don't care if it is arrongant or not.
Why should the singer know the chord progression? How would knowing the progression help them do their job any better? (In this case she could've helped you do your job but then again if the sound man or bus driver knew the progression they could've helped as well.) Singers sing a line, a melody. I'm not talking about singers who are composing songs. I'm also not arguing against anyone upping their game, but how would knowing the progression help the singer? As long as the singer can sing the line on pitch does the progression really matter?
You're right that in some instances people are lazy and it causes problems. However, the arrogant part is that you're "higher standard" ignores how most people in the world learns music, in a way similar to a mother singing to a child and the child singing back. It also happens in a community setting. Western music education is the exception. Some without a formal educations music is not nessisarily of a lower standard.
I've studied music formally and informally. There's great and terrible music/musicians in both settings.
I'm not trying start anything fights, I'm just representing a point of view and maybe helping you understand why so many people are at oppositiaon to your point of view on this matter.
They don't know the language of their craft. I didn't intend for them to be equal, I intended for them to be analogous.
Fair enough. Science vs art, though. One probably can't be a good astronomer or nuclear physicist without being able to do math since those sciences probably rely on calculations (just guessing, but pick any science that definitely does require math/geometry as a fundamental requisite to the science). The language is necessary.
Music? It requires mere ("mere" not to be taken lightly) physical skill to produce THE language/creation at hand, the music produced is the language itself, as opposed to the descriptive language ABOUT the music (that language being theory, chord names, etc.). There are two, distinct languages. Some successful people know either, some know both. In science, the language is necessary to describe the entities that ALREADY EXIST so knowing the descriptive language is necessary; there is no creative language to know, nothing is being created (please no devolving into big bang/creationism stuff here). It's late but I think anyone can figure out whats being said, as if my" ....does not compute... " reply wasn't clear and chocked full of logic in the eyes of most people..... yet another thread unwatched.
I see your point. In my current band, all four of us sing, and all of us understand chord structure so when we discuss who's singing what part, we can say "OK, you take the D I'll take the F and he can take the high A." If we're in a hurry we can say, "I'll take the III, you can take the V and let him take the root" (nyuk nyuk nyuk). It makes life a lot easier when people know what you're talking about.
Wow. I'm glad music in a real world setting isn't subject to such bizarre rules.
I referred to that--although I don't encounter it all the time--and sometimes the new key works--but sometimes it is the worst possible key.
I just think of it this way. I still don't know the chord progression to "Happy Birthday." I'm sure I can figure it out on guitar, that's next to me, in about 30 seconds. I just never felt the need to learn it. Everyone knows the melody. I can sing the harmonies to the song too and still not know the chord progressions. I'm not even sure what Key it's supposed to be in. C major? I guess.
That and the American National Anthem. I'll sing it every Sports game. Ask me the chord progression... beats me.
Every song I do in my cover band, yeah... I know the chord progressions for the most part. Some songs I just know the basslines by rote without even considering the chords.
That and the American National Anthem. I'll sing it every Sports game. Ask me the chord progression... beats me.
Every song I do in my cover band, yeah... I know the chord progressions for the most part. Some songs I just know the basslines by rote without even considering the chords.
Oh, yeh, but it's the band leader (singer's husband) that says "This song is in her key." Drives me crazy; he doesn't realize that it depends upon the range of the melody written by the composer that determines whether it's in her vocal range or not.
they learn like we learn to speak, by reproducing what we hear, fumbling and not making complete phrases for a while. The we start to learn to read/write and th rules of the language and poof we can have discussion of a higher caliber all of a sudden. It is pretty much how I see it in music. But that's ok thanks for your effort.
Classical music is real world music too ya know and there is a lot of picky enthousiast in the assistance whom can't sing but can tell if you didn't hit the right note. I don't get why nailling the music for a cover band isn't the top priority but hey.
You keep conflating "hitting the right note" with "knowing the chords." Those are two separate things. A singer does not need to be aware of the harmony at any given moment of the piece to be able to hit the right notes or to be able to communicate with other musicians about what notes to sing. As I mentioned in my prior post in this thread as an example, vocal books for Broadway shows generally contain lyrics and vocal lines, but not chords. Separate piano/vocal and/or conductor's scores may contain the full harmony, but the parts provided to the performers do not, because the performers generally do not need that information for what they are called upon to do.
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To suggest that someone singing jazz standards or pop covers should and needs to refer sheet music shows that you are firmly planted inside your ivory tower and completely disconnected from how music works outside and below that tower.
