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Double Bass Why memorizing a tune

bassbuddie

bassbuddie

Jan 8, 2003
229
2
53
Montreal
www.francoisbrisson.com
#1
I had a good music lesson tonight. The female singer I use to play with asked me to play with her on a jam session. She told me the songs she wanted to play, I memorized them. She sang All of me, and because of a confusion, a sax player took her place and I was there on the stage with those really good musicians asking me, do you know this song? no I answered, do you know this song? no, and what about this song, you do not know this song? The pianist finally called a straight blues, and then All Blues. I felt stupid. Guess what I am gonna do in the next weeks.
 
#7
A big part of being a bass player is developing fast ears. Most standard tunes are not that complicated; you get through the first a section and play it again, hack your way through the bridge, and play A again. You'll get the bridge second time around. Tunes like "All of Me", which are 16+16, ya just gotta listen. Watch the piano player's left hand and learn enough about guitar to be able to follow his as well. A good pianist or guitarist can play in a way that leads you through the tune if you can hear it. The chord progressions are generally pretty logical. Probably 75% of the 3000 or so tunes I know I learned on the spot. I much prefer learning to memorizing.
 
#8
salcott said:
A big part of being a bass player is developing fast ears.
Click to expand...
Yup. I think the best thing you can do to learn tunes is not to learn them from reading out of a book, but by listening. Try playing along with recordings of songs you don't know. Figure out the changes (and melody) by ear. This is good practice for learning on the gig. If you are having trouble, maybe check how you did with a fake book, but remember that not everyone plays exactly the same changes. Fake books have their place, but I didn't start really learning tunes until I started leaving the fake books at home.

Learning by ear has many advantages:

1. You are using your ears! Isn't that what we are supposed to be doing when we are playing jazz? Shifting your focus from visual to aural cues helps your jazz playing in just about every way and will constantly improve your ear training.

2. It makes it easier to learn new tunes (eventually). You will start hearing similarities in different tunes making it easier for you to "guess" the changes even on a tune you have never played.

3. You will be able to play in more keys. If you focus not on specific note names, but chord functions (so instead of seeing|Cmaj7|B-7b5|E7|A-7|, for example, you are thinking "root, then 2-5-1 to the relative minor.") it will be much easier to play a tune in any key. This is hard to do when you are staring at specific chords on a piece of paper.

4. You will be better able to adjust when people play alternate changes. I've noticed that musicians reading from fake books are much less likely to be able (or willing) to follow musicians that play the changes somewhat differently. If you are focused on listening and not reading, you will definitely notice when the chord you play doesn't fit in. And with all of your practice in listening, you will be much more likely to be able to figure out on the spot what the other musicians are playing.

I'm sure there is plenty that I am missing in addition to all of this. I also don't want to imply that reading is unimportant, because I think the ability to read music well is also incredibly important. There are many times when we have to sight read music on the gig, so being prepared for this is important. But even here, this experience using ones ears is helpful. If you get lost while sight reading, it is much easier to find your place again if you are listening to the other musicians and can figure out the changes from what they are playing.
 
#9
Another thing you can do with your fakebook(s) is learn the melodies. Even if you never play them, if you have the melody in your head, the changes will follow on their own. Plus, it really irritates horn players when the lowly bass player knows the melody better than they do.
 
#10
I was being sarcastic about the fake books thing - but I do like learning melodies from them at home for practice - so I often find simple melodic ideas that I would never have thought of myself and often when I listen, I tend to over-complicate - whereas a lot of the best ideas are very simple! :)
 
#11
I must agree with using your ears. I've found on many gigs that my Fake Book has different chords than someone else who has another Fake Book or Real Book, or whatever. Over the years there have been many variations of the venerable "Book" and different transcriptions of the same tunes. When you hear that substitution, you gotta go with your ears. You'll know the chords, although different, but your ears will guide you through. And that's some great advice earlier in the thread.
 
#15
Michael Glynn said:
3. You will be able to play in more keys. If you focus not on specific note names, but chord functions (so instead of seeing|Cmaj7|B-7b5|E7|A-7|, for example, you are thinking "root, then 2-5-1 to the relative minor.") it will be much easier to play a tune in any key. This is hard to do when you are staring at specific chords on a piece of paper.
Click to expand...

This is called the nashville number system. Learn it, it could save your life:
http://www.ducksdeluxe.com/nashvillenumbersystem.html
 
#16
First post for me - but a topic near to my heart.

After 25 years of playing the "do you know this tune" game, I've found a solution that works for me. I've found a very low key, local gig for myself and a guitarist. I've selected 100 odd "must know" tunes and divided them into 6 1&1/2 hour sets. We then play these sets in rotation entirely from memory. We also use these sets on any other gigs we get in this combo.

Since we both sing and play, the sets are typically an instrumental followed by a vocal tune each (repeat). I also have 1 or 2 numbers per set where the bass takes the tune - Dolphin Dance last night.

I keep the tune lists on a spreadsheet which lets me allocate tunes to as many different set lists as I like, order them, produce alphabetical lists etc.

Obviously, we add to the tunes from time to time. The Mark Levine Jazz Theory book list was a great start. I then added any tunes that are commonly played locally. Finally, the slightly unusual stuff that we both like. If we ever get bored - well, there are around 1000 tunes on Mark's list alone!

I've certainly found that learning the vocal tune, the lyrics and the chords has given me a much greater ability to focus on the performance.

I've also noticed that it gets easier to learn new tunes as those common patterns start to repeat. So many tunes are along the lines of "F (or whatever) for a long time with a few II Vs thrown in, a few II Vs, turnaround, repeat A, a pretty simple middle 8, repeat A". Having the common patterns of chords under your belt makes hearing the changes a lot easier.

Cheers from downunder.
 
#18
I'd found the practice of getting together with a piano player and running through a bunch of tunes either one of us doesn't know was highly valuable, even if we didn't memorize the tunes. Somehow you guys more used to strange progressions and your ear starts to build a knack for picking out the right chords. After having done so for a while now, I find that memorizing new charts comes pretty quickly, esp if you focus on the melody and are able to hear the walking line underneath it simultaenously.

Right now I'm working breaking heads down into smaller phrases and practicing them "lightly" as if I was learning licks. Then use BinAB and play the song in random keys. Seems to work pretty well for me.
 
#19
Were you at Upstairs? Incase you weren't, you should check that out every Monday night. There's a jam session hosted by (usually) Jim Doxas, I think John Roney and different bass players. Even if you're not going to play, it's $3 for an amazing show (the house band plays the first set).

If you come, I'm the fat guy with a pony tail who plays bass.
 

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