Learning chord changes by ear or fake book?

[gnr2391]

So how do you sick jazz cats learn chord changes for a tune, by the books or try to figure them out yourself? Learning a head by ear is easy, but chord changes can be mad tough unless it's a blues or rhythm changes. I was thinking that with the fake book I could learn changes real quickly and in a large number so I would never have to be told "since you don't know this tune, you should probably sit out." Having said that, the drummer at this jam session I go to, was like "learning tunes, head and chord changes, by ear for just one measure will give you more than learning a whole tune by looking at the real book, because trying to figure out the chord changes yourself trains your ear, which makes you a musician...knowing some tune just from looking at a book doesn't". So what do you guys think, is it more productive to look at the real book, check if it sounds right, and then really work with it till it's internalized? Or, should I try to learn tunes by ear, even though it will take much longer.

 

Thanks a ton guys. I think I'm going to start with easy tunes for learning by ear like "Four" or "Ornithology since I both know that those are based on How High the Moon. I will also do so for HoneySuckle Rose since it's supposed to be the inspiration for "Scrapple from the Apple Chord Changes". Thanks and best of luck to all you musicians!

[JonR]

Both. If I can't do it one way, I'll do it the other (if I can). I like to do it by ear if I can, but I'll consult a book if I need to (if I can find one). Books are not always correct, but the New Real Books are pretty trustworthy.

 

But that drummer is exactly right - I could have given you the same advice word for word! Being a musician - especially a jazz musician! - is about hearing things. When improvising, you make choices by ear all the time. So that's what you need to train. Music is nothing but sound after all; it's not dots or symbols on a page. The dots - while valuable - are just information. And quite limited information at that.

 

It's just one of those things that's tough when you start, but gets easier the more you do it.

It can be hard getting jazz changes, because jazz chord players don't tend to hammer out full chords all the time the way they do in rock: they'll often just punctuate with little stabs. My tip is to listen for the bass, which (99% of the time) has the chord root on beat 1, and then walks around the chord tones for the rest of the bar (usually root and 5th at least). The notes of the melody (as well as the root sequence, will give you the key) may then be all you need to guess whether the chord is major, minor or diminished, and what kind of 7th it has.

Of course, any little chord stab you hear should be very significant, because a chord player will generally go for the important notes in the chord, 3rd and 7th minimum, which are enough to identify it. (BTW, don't expect every jazz tune to start with the key chord - as is usually the case in rock - but do expect it to end with the key chord.)

 

I strongly recommend getting Transcribe software (which is free for a month), which will let you raise the octave to hear the bass more clearly. And it will of course also slow down without changing pitch if and when you need that. (In the old days, people struggled with dropping and lifting a nieedle on to vinyl, or slowing things with tape recorders.)

http://www.seventhstring.com/

 

As another tip, there are just six options for any chord in jazz (excluding additional extensions or alterations) -at least in the kind of jazz you're talking about: two different kinds of 7th on each of three different triads:

 

maj7 or 7 (dom7)

min7 or - quite rarely - min(maj7)

min7b5 (half-dim) or dim7

 

Those types are all you need to identify. Naturally some alterations are worth being aware of, such as on dom7s in bebop (and later).

In vintage jazz, tonics (major or minor) are quite likely to be 6ths rather than maj7s, but the function is the same.

And you'll soon get to recognise the sound of the common harmonic devices, the ii-V-Is etc.

[jonfinn]

 

So how do you sick jazz cats learn chord changes for a tune, by the books or try to figure them out yourself? Learning a head by ear is easy, but chord changes can be mad tough unless it's a blues or rhythm changes. I was thinking that with the fake book I could learn changes real quickly and in a large number so I would never have to be told "since you don't know this tune, you should probably sit out." Having said that, the drummer at this jam session I go to, was like "learning tunes, head and chord changes, by ear for just one measure will give you more than learning a whole tune by looking at the real book, because trying to figure out the chord changes yourself trains your ear, which makes you a musician...knowing some tune just from looking at a book doesn't". So what do you guys think, is it more productive to look at the real book, check if it sounds right, and then really work with it till it's internalized? Or, should I try to learn tunes by ear, even though it will take much longer. Thanks a ton guys. I think I'm going to start with easy tunes for learning by ear like "Four" or "Ornithology since I both know that those are based on How High the Moon. I will also do so for HoneySuckle Rose since it's supposed to be the inspiration for "Scrapple from the Apple Chord Changes". Thanks and best of luck to all you musicians!

 

 

I'm not a sick jazz cat. But my take is that "all roads lead to Rome." It's true that I never aspired to be an amazing jazz player, but I keep finding myself in situations where I gotta play some jazz. I don't worry much about how others do it. Rather, I try to focus on what I want the end result to be; keep working until I can do that.

 

Some of the things I've done along the way:

 

-Spend time listening to jazz players. Find players you like and learn as much as you can.

 

-Learn tunes. Learn the melody, learn the chords, be able to improvise over it.

 

-Transcribe and analyze solos from players you like.

 

-Keep showing up at jazz jams and ask for feedback from players you respect.

 

-When listening to the advice of others, take in to account your opinion of that person's ability. If they suck and you take their advice... well...

[gennation]

I do both.

 

You have to remember, the Realbook used to be called the Fakebook. The earlier name fit it best as a good portion of the tunes are sketches and flattened out versions of the real tunes. I'm not dogging the book as its been a amazing resource for musicians and bands over the decades.

 

What you'll find though is many tunes are summations, or even jazzations or tunes. What this means a lot of tunes are stripped down to straight blues or II-V-I progressions.

 

What I do when there's a tune I want to pursue is, I source out as many versions of a particular tune as I can find and learn the MANY ways people approach it.

 

Some samples of these summations and jazzations are:

 

Night and Day - the verse is broke into a IIm7b5-V7-I progression. The original, and most used/recorded by real jazzers as I'll explain in a bit, is actually a bVImaj7-V7-Imaj7. I have listened to/learned about 20 different recorded versions of this song and of those only about 2 of them use the IIm7b5 instead of the bVImaj7. Even though it can be considered as being derived the same diatonically, the bVImaj7 straightens out the melody. The verse in the book is a jazzation of whats going on in the song.

 

Footprints - The turnaround is played quite differently on recordings than it is in the Realbook. What's going on in the book is a summation of the harmonic depth of how the pro's play it.

 

There are many other examples once you start listening.

 

By listening to a tune and learning how the greats approach it I find more things that will last me the rest of my life than pulling it out of the Realbook and calling it good. I can't tell how many tunes I've played for years out of the book (I think the first time I used it on stage was 1979 or so) and realized they are not really the song once I started learning them for myself.

 

It's still a great resource but there is more out there by working through the recordings of the tunes.

[gnr2391]

Thanks a bunch y'all. I will take all this into account!

[stomias]

I use the fake ear book.................................................................................

[fabfour]

After 20 years of playing i still can't identify ANYTHING by ear...i've decided i'm tone deaf or near enough to it if i don't fit the actual medical definition.

Hence, i don't play much anymore,i now loathe playing from dots on a page.

[jeremy_green]

 

After 20 years of playing i still can't identify ANYTHING by ear...i've decided i'm tone deaf or near enough to it if i don't fit the actual medical definition. Hence, i don't play much anymore,i now loathe playing from dots on a page.

 

 

Before you jump to that conclusion, I suspect it is that you are picking songs that are too hard. Read this blog entry

 

http://sixstringobsession.blogspot.com/2010/11/how-to-learn-to-play-by-ear-great.html

 

Get a copy of Transcribe! (slow-downer software) and try to lift some of the songs I listed.

Pick a song, try it, and if you are stuck ask here and we can help guide you through it.

 

This process doesn't come easy. It is hard, very hard in the beginning. But it gets easier with each song you do.

[fabfour]

Thanks for the reply, i've purchased a copy of transcribe and read the blog, i'll give it a try and see how it goes.

Might even report back on progress as long as i'm not annoying people....

[jeremy_green]

 

Thanks for the reply, i've purchased a copy of transcribe and read the blog, i'll give it a try and see how it goes. Might even report back on progress as long as i'm not annoying people....

 

 

No man, it would be great to hear how you progress. We talk a lot about learning by ear and it could be really helpful for others to hear your pitfalls and the advice give to address those. If you do, I think you should start a new thread. Could be a nice thread. Good on ya for giving it a go.

[EightString]

However you learn these songs, book or by ear, one thing you should notice is that once you have enough of these more "interesting" jazz standards under your belt, you will probably start hearing the commonality of certain musical patterns across almost ALL of these songs. A great example was the ii-V-I given in other posts in this thread.

 

But then you might start noticing that the ii-V-I pattern is not only used as a common progression in songs, but is also used as a transitional device. For instance, in "The Best is Yet to Come", you might start the song in Ab, but then right before the "B" section in the key of C, you'll find yourself doing a quick Dm7 and G7 turnaround to lead into that key change to C. ii-V-I

 

Without that transition, the move from Ab to C would have sounded arbitrary and disjointed.

 

But that's just ONE example of the sorts of common patterns you'll start to hear as you learn these standards.

 

 

One thing I recommend HIGHLY is that you get about 12 fundamental moveable 7th chords (or "grips") under your belt, 6 with the root on the A string, and 6 with the root on the E string. Personally, I tend to use "drop 3" shapes when the root is on the E string, and "drop 2" shapes when the root is on the A string. This way, I am consistently playing the B, G, and D strings in both circumstances. These are my "bread and butter" shapes, and I can play almost any standards in a jazzy style using those shapes alone. Of course, more advanced players will have all sorts of other chordal options under his or her belt, but by understanding how these few fundamental shapes and chord voicings work together in the context of jazz, you'll have the tools you need to both play convincingly, and to expand your abilities on top of that solid foundation.

 

 

Using these shapes, I can also choose to leave out the root note, and just play triads containing the 3-5-7 notes of the current chord, if there is other instrumentation, such as bass or piano, already "holding down the root".

 

 

Check out these pages regarding those drop-2 and drop-3 shapes:

 

http://www.mattwarnockguitar.com/guitar-resources/chords/drop-2

 

http://www.mattwarnockguitar.com/guitar-resources/chords/drop-3

 

 

JonR already listed the chord types, but the real trick here is that you should learn them in relation to one another on the fretboard. Once you start "walking" up and down the fretboard with, say, Cmaj7, Dm7, Em7, Fmaj7, G7, Am7, Bm7b5 using these moveable shapes, you will quickly start hearing and seeing (on the fretboard) their relationships to one another, especially considering that every chord in the above example uses ONLY the notes found in the C major scale.

 

Tie these fundamentals in with learning a good number of standards, and someday you might find you don't even need the fakebook, and can just "hear" the chord changes as they come, even with songs you haven't actually played before.

 

 

Overall, Matt Warnock's page is a FANTASTIC resource of lessons, both basic and advanced, chording and solos, for playing jazz guitar.

 

http://mattwarnockguitar.com

 

 

I hope some of this helps.

[JonnyPac]

Great posts all y'all. I'm a OCD chord progression freak; meaning that I listen to the harmony of a tune more than anything else. I always think of melody as the frosting on the harmonic cake, or the harmony in melodic form (though others disagree). Leaning generic patterns from all genres of interest is a good plan; there is a finite amount of recycled changes, though the number may seem big at first. If a song has banal changes, I have much less interest in it most of the time, etc. Play all "tunarounds" and such. Play everything fast and slow and with different harmonic rhythm (amount of bars per chord).

 

As far as fake books go, they are usually correct as far as the melodies go, but HORRIBLE on the chords, IMHO. The New Real Book series is the closes to the definitive changes were applicable; but so many tunes have alternate changes it becomes even worse to sort out. You usually have to hear WHY a chord is even there to determine a good chord (or chord-scale if you roll that way). The way I lean a new tune is 1. look at all charts available 2. annotate the heck out of it while listening to my favorite (or the definitive/original recording). It's a feedback learning process and all the pieces usually fall together like a puzzle; as time goes on the process is quicker.

 

On tunes like Footsteps (as Mike brought up), I have some difficulty (and for good reason!). The Fake Book changes are ok (fit the line), but they are inaccurate as far as I can tell. It sounds to me like Ron Carter decided to follow one path and Herbie (ingeniously) filled the gaps between the melody with interesting clusters and 4th sounding things. Without a piano (or the skills), it remains a bit mysterious. It would be so nice to know what Wayne told the guys to play at the sessions... The NRB is probably very close as an approximation.

[JonnyPac]

 

Overall, Matt Warnock's page is a FANTASTIC resource of lessons, both basic and advanced, chording and solos, for playing jazz guitar. http://mattwarnockguitar.com

 

 

He's a cool dude too. He's on another forum I hang at. Sign up for his weekly newsletter.