Double Bass The Real Book

[Jeremy Allen]

Surely it all depends - so in the famous Ashley Kahn book on the making of Kind of Blue, you have many pictures of the sessions where there are music stands with charts in front of Cannonball and Coltrane!

Of course--the tunes had just been written that morning. They were playing new compositions.

To echo John Goldsby, most recording sessions I do involve reading music. This is a different thing than needing to pull out your Real Book to play Autumn Leaves when you've played it a hundred times already.

 

[Jeremy Allen]

One of the best "jazz" gigs I saw was Konitz, Matt Brewer and Joe LaBarbera. No music stands. It was as good as anything I have ever seen.
If straight ahead jazz is your thing, you need to know tunes and how to get through the ones you don't know by ear.

An interesting thing about that band--according to his dad (I hope it's not inappropriate that I post this), Matt didn't necessarily know all of the tunes Lee knew, but if Lee mentioned in an offhand way during the day "oh, let's play 'Loved Walked In' tonight," Matt would go learn it right away and play it that night (without a sheet, of course).

I find myself doing this with older guys all of the time. There's no way I'm going to know all of the standards common to however many different generations of musicians. But if I know so-and-so always plays "I Want To Talk About You," I'll make sure I know it. (Of course, that's an easy one--same changes as another tune everybody knows anyway.)

 

[Huy Nguyen]

@Sam: Thanks. I'm finally getting this!!!!

@John: I would hope those students memorized their own material at the least. I've been a fan of Jazzadvice.com. I dig it.

Truth be told, I challenged myself in the past 6-8 motnhs with the stipulation I would have all gig material memorized (standards or not). So long as the material can be rehearsed, I had to memorized it. Forcing myself to memorize everything improved my ears in dramatic ways that the act of learning charts sped up to the point where I could do it in a few choruses. That has never ever happened before. And because it was such a hugely positive experience, I can't recommend it enough. This is why it's my #1 priorty - it feeds so much into all the other areas of musicianship and more than just being able to walk around toting charts with me. That is a secondary benefit.

Not that I would necessarily do it, but I can see myself now doing what Jeremy or Chris are doing for a living. The act of playing very very well from a chart is now within reach. Still not quite there yet. The ability to hear changes flowing as they happen and be able to play along with them has improved. I came home from a gig last night and transcribed the chart for a Bud Powell tune last night - took me just about an hour mostly trying to figure out the harmony. Before this, it would've taken me hours to get it done.

I really wish I had started this memorization thing sooner. I'm not stating anything new, just saying yeah, what everybody else has been saying all along is very very right (for me).

YMMV.

Funny thing... as soon as I discovered this, I went to sub for the bass player in one of my teachers classes. It's a standards class where the other students were just beginning to get their playing together. They had learned to play Without A Song the week before and were running through the chart once again. In the middle class, my teach warned them about it and as they were playing another round of the tune, he walks around the room and slowly turned everybody's charts over so they couldn't see it. And they did well! And I'm kicking myself because I really wished he had done that to me when I was taking that very class years ago. I think he did them a huge favor.

 

[damonsmith]

It is just like a lot the situations around playing music. You need both skills, if you can't work from a chart or can't work without one, you are going to run into trouble as even semi-professional bassist.
Keeping your skills up on both is the best plan. In some case, there may be situations where certainly do not want to internalize the music! Once it is in there, it is in there.

 

[damonsmith]

I think we all agree that charts for common standards in a high level jazz context is pretty lame.
Still, in your own practice you should go toward your weekness: if you are great at learning songs by ear, spend some serious time working from charts. There is a lot of information that even the best ears can skip over. If you are not great at picking things up by ear, work on that.
The subtext of so many of these threads tends be about making excuses to not work on one thing or another.

 

[Bruce Lindfield]

Bruce: Do you ever run into Dave & John Horler in Brighton?

I'm sure I have seen John Horler playing piano at Brighton Jazz Club - but not recently and I never really talked to him. I usually target the bass players for a chat when I can - usually buying them a drink!

 

[Bruce Lindfield]

Not everyone plays standards, and a lot of younger cats mainly want to play their own music/the music of their friends and musical partners.

I saw "Snarky Puppy" at a festival in Sussex in July and they are categorised as Jazz, but are so far away from improvising around standards, as you can get - but I still felt they had the spirit and the skills of Jazz musicians...?

But clearly their "scene" doesn't involve standards - although they did seem to have memorised complex arrangements - no charts!

 

[Huy Nguyen]

The subtext of so many of these threads tends be about making excuses to not work on one thing or another.

The inconvenient truth. I think it goes beyond just jazz.

Even with complex material, I still question the necessity of the chart. It's a normal thing in the classical world imo. At 18, I could remember 8 pages of a Mozart Sonata and I'm not the only one, many other pianists can do that. I'm not very good and it took me a month to learn it. This is material for both hands. Or 4 pages of a Scott Joplin rag - stride left hand and all. At my peak I think I had 3 Joplin Rags memorized.

OTOH, Most jazz standards are 1 page with a single staff. No chords, mostly single melody. The only diff is the chord symbol at the top.

My thoughts wander to guys like Glenn Gould, Yoyo, or Edgar Meyer. Would his Bach Cello Suites be just as good if he needed the chart?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV-65UMPMMA

What I like about that particular video is that he talks about finding pleasure in playing the piece. I think the same pleasure can be found in playing any head to a tune, after all, it's just music. I feel like the essence of the music is often be overlooked by mediocre musicians (like myself) in the quest to be able to get gigs and get out there and play with others.

Anways, I'm just questioning - not saying that anyone is a lesser musician because they can't do it. Obviously there are practical constraints that keep one from really learning something deeply. Like the lack of time and the need to put food on the table. Those are important considerations that would make memorization prohibitive. I would think that if one had enough time, regardless of the skill level, we would always aspire to memorize everything possible. And things like time are often a luxury.

 

[Bruce Lindfield]

Obviously there are practical constraints that keep one from really learning something deeply. Like the lack of time and the need to put food on the table.

The idea came up at Jazz Summerschool, that some of us had to "buy time" for music, through earning a living elsewhere..?

 

[Huy Nguyen]

We all have our constraints, obligations, and/or the need for material security. And some of us don't have the talent or are simply not brave enough to make a life out of music - slings and arrows and all. Myself included. Having a day gig also affords many other benefits, but we have to make our own decisions/compromises.

 

[Zojo]

Huy--You are creating an argument based on loaded language:

• "You either know the tune or you don't. You're either faking or you're not."
• "I see this as a manner of "settling for less" and am curious why it's justified."
• You know your **** or you don't.

Essentially, you are saying, "I have no rational argument." ...Maybe you do, but you aren't making it.

You have admitted that you cannot tell the difference by listening, so you should just come out and say "I think this is important, because I think this is important, and I want everyone to agree with me."

Damonsmith--You said "The subtext of so many of these threads tends be about, making excuses to not work on one thing or another."

The subtext of your comment is that people should not debate the best use of their time, and do what you tell them. However, time is precious and limited, and we should be careful in selecting what we are going to spend it on. Effective practice is about making good choices.

The thing about the relationship between memorization and performance is that there is a diminishing return. The closer you get to 100% memorization, the smaller the improvement in your performance. Perhaps 90% memorization and then spending some time on new techniques will make for better music.

There are many reasons not to waste precious practice time memorizing the RB, one of them being that those tunes are getting a little stale, and jazz audiences will continue to shrink as we continue to flog the RB over and over.

Finally, FWIW, a master teacher at a jazz violin class told my son not to waste his time memorizing music. So, even among the big boys there are differences of opinion on this.

Sometimes a gig may require memorization, but the music does not.

 

[Huy Nguyen]

I had to think about the listening thing. Sometimes it's possible to tell. Like I said, I can tell in my own recordings and that of my peers. But that's only because I'm familiar with their playing before and after memorization.

When I say you can't tell from a recording... you can't make a determination either way. Would it be better without the chart? Possibly. Possibly not. By no means was I agreeing with you that it doesn't matter. It may, or it may not. The only way to tell correctly is to have a person perform a piece twice with and without memorization and judge it based on the number of mistakes and subjective judging on fluidity, phrasing, etc. But I think PDub's point still stands: I cannot imagine bebop being invented by Diz and Bird with charts in their faces, and to ignore that charts are generally not part of that tradition is a big indicator - at least in the jazz realm.

In terms of numbers, I'm pretty sure that the number of good musicians out there will weigh heavily to the side where memorization is important than those where it's not. It's far more likely that a memorized piece is an advantage for someone who has done it over someone that hasn't.

My point still stands pretty plainly.
Can good music be made from needing a chart? Absolutely.
Can the same person say that they have that work completely internalized and know it inside out? Not so much.

I don't see how you can argue against that. Take the chart away and they won't be able to play through it well or they might stumble through a section.

To borrow one of our respected posters phrases and to paraphrase it, it's possible to "fake it" at a very high level. I've done it, everybody does it. We might remember 95% of a work, but forget that one little passage and need help from a piece of paper to correctly go through it.

Arguing whether or not it's practical to do so is beside the point. You either know a work completely or you don't. What's wrong with admitting you need a chart and you can't play it cold?

 

[damonsmith]

The subtext of my comment is that you should work on whatever comes harder to you and be able to manage both ways.

 

[Huy Nguyen]

Personally, if a Master told me that memorization is not important, I'd prob go find a new teach or someone else on the side. It makes me wonder about everything else this master is overlooking. But that's me. I think it's important to embody the music you are playing, or at least attempt to, when possible.

 

[Tom Lane]

I suppose that there's a difference between *memorizing* music and *internalizing* and maybe the conversation thus far has been using the wrong word. Jazzers don't typically want to play the same thing identically twice, do they? Unless it's a special occasion or maybe for a recording.
Regarding the technique/musicianship balance - I have two lists: tunes I want to learn and tunes I learn for others. The tunes I want to learn, improve my playing in some way or I just love them. The tunes I learn for others are because I play with others and need to keep my end up, and those requirements can usually be satisfied by competent basslines - I won't typically have to solo on them or develop unexpected ways of playing them. Even the tunes I learn for others start by playing along with the record and if not transcribing the bassline verbatim, at least getting the feel of the definitive recordings. I like to learn from the greats by copying them. I even stole DURRL's version of How Insensitive from his website.
I've also had some decent success following one of Huy's recommendations to improvise my bassline to tunes that I know well. I find that I substitute chord tones more frequently on beat 1 than I would ordinarily do and the lines sound more natural to my ear. Thanks for the recommendation, Huy.

 

[Zojo]

The subtext of my comment is that you should work on whatever comes harder to you and be able to manage both ways.

Playing left handed is harder for me, but I think I will pass on your advice.

 

[Zojo]

Personally, if a Master told me that memorization is not important, I'd prob go find a new teach or someone else on the side. It makes me wonder about everything else this master is overlooking. But that's me. I think it's important to embody the music you are playing, or at least attempt to, when possible.

Yes--you could dismiss him outright. Or you could ask him to explain his reasoning, and maybe learn something.

He might say memorization is a very low level but time consuming mental process. It is not creative. It is fill in the blank stuff. The math is simple. I can spend a lot of time memorizing one tune, or spend that same time exploring many tunes in many creative ways.

Take a simple example. I have an hour and a tune I want to play at a concert. I can spend the hour memorizing the tune, or spend the hour experimenting with variations on the tune. For me, I know the latter would result in a better performance.

I don't want to get bogged down in trying to "win" this argument. There is nothing wrong with memorizing the RB, or any material you love, if that is what you want to do. Memorizing has benefits, but so do many other things.

I think most of the jazz musicians I know did not set out to memorize the tunes they know. It just happened over time with multiple exposures.

 

[Anonymatt]

Of course sometimes it's appropriate to memorize something, like especially if one of your elders expects you to.

But like Z said, I find memorization to be a symptom of having worked through something properly. The modest stuff I have trouble with is harder to play than it is to remember. By the time I'm three quarters of the way to getting it, I really know the passage pretty good.

 

[Treyzer]

I think we should use the word INTERNALIZE, not memorize. There is quite a difference. When I've internalized a tune, that does not mean I've memorized a bunch of licks or a set way to play through changes and/or maybe some sub changes. It means I know the tune and can play off of what I'm hearing and feeling while on the stand interacting with other musicians. I know the tune well enough to create something on the spot. It also means that the next time the tune is called at some other time and place, the tune will probably be quite different musically in terms of time, feel and so on and so forth (unless I'm hangin with hacks).

What's the big deal? It seems quite logical that it is always better to actually know something than to not know something! Maybe I'm missing some nuance in this discussion.

 

[damonsmith]

Playing left handed is harder for me, but I think I will pass on your advice.

Playing left handed is not an expectation you are going to come up against where playing by ear and playing from a chart are BOTH going to come up in jazz as well as it's adjacent musics - including "free" jazz and "free" improv.
Therefore: if playing by ear comes easy to you, spend some time being able to make good music with both familiar and unfamiliar charts, if the mechanics of music come easier spend some time with Ed's REALLY learning a tune thread.
Either way you need to be prepared for both situations.

it is one aspect that can really help you move forward. However, If you know a bunch of tunes by heart but don't get around the instrument well, you are going to lose gigs to players who plays out of the Real Book but in tune in all keys and tempos - those players are going to lose gigs to those who do all that with no chart.
I don't think this as big a divider anymore as tone, musical ideas & facility are.
Point being is it all matters and the more you have to offer the more audiences and other musicians are going to care about your music.