Tricks to get off the page:

[lanark]

I'm finding it really hard to play without music. I'd love to be able to get off the page, so I'm not having to worry about gales or music stands falling over and so that I can generally move around and look up with I'm playing.

So .... hints and tips for memorizing tunes, please. A lots of this involves definite notes in the right place too, not just riffing off a chord sequence.

I know ... practice, practice, practice ... and more practice.

(I'm just about to start a regime of practising along with recordings of the tunes, because by practicing what's on the page without accompaniment I'm kind of ensuring that I never leave the sheet music behind - I need to instil in myself where the changes are and how the bass part interacts with what everyone else is doing).

So how do you all learn your parts?

[Bilbo]

You learn by repetition. The best way to 'learn' tunes to play them without charts is to just play them without the music and to not rely too much on the chart (Bill Evans told Marc Johnson this). Put the charts away and just do it. It will sound crap at first but you will soon develop that ear.

[Doddy]

I play in a couple of bands that have everything written out and so my first few gigs with them I was sight reading the
charts (no rehearsals were involved). After a few gigs I started to move away from the charts but put them off to the
side of me so that if there were any hairy moments I could just glance over to them.Then,a few gigs later I felt comfortable
enough to not use the charts at all. It's all a matter of repetition and feeling confident enough to be able to go without them.
It's the same on jazz gigs... rather than follow the charts every time,on some gigs I just decided to not set up my music stand
and it's surprising how much you remember when you have to.

[Chris2112]

Yes, I think it's good to step back and regard music once again as an aural art rather than being about sheets of paper! If you must, just keep chord charts for reference that you can glance at. Start playing on your own without sheet music and you'll take a huge leap forward in your playing. You'll develop your brain and ears and give your eyes a rest!

[Joe Hubbard Bass]

This is really an involved topic where there are several layers to take note. For starters, the bottom-line is having an understanding of harmony and composition form. Always remember to chunk things down and then string those ideas together. Something that on the surface seems complicated is nothing but a few simple things strung together. Make sure that part of your practice is spent learning tunes. Learn the chord changes, learn the bass lines, learn the melody and acquire the skill of playing these in different keys and vary the positions you play them in.

When reading a note-for-note line, get used to re-writing the part on the fly while adding your own personal stamp to it. This is a subtle skill, but make no mistake about it- very few people want you to stick to an exact written part; it does happen but it is rare. The best players get hired to contribute their vibe to the part without losing the original essence while at the same time not attracting undue attention to yourself.

Peace

Joe

Edited September 14, 2010 by Joe Hubbard Bass

[DanOwens]

Also, what music is it? I've had charts for all different types of music and for some not having them is easier than others (obvious really).

I wholeheartedly agree with the trial-by-fire approach. Force yourself to play along front-to-back with a backing track or CD. Every time you drop it, prepare to come in asap. We all make mistakes but how we recover is what makes us great or poor.

My favourite metaphor is a drummer dropping a stick. It happens, but you need to not panic and do everything you can so the audience can't hear that you've dropped a stick whilst replacing it. Joe's mention of theory is a good point. Theory and ear training can give you a third arm so even if you do drop a stick, no-one will ever know (too much drummer metaphor? )

Also, you are already really good at this but you just haven't realised it yet. Confidence is everything.

Dan

[Mike]

I've recently bought a book by a guy called John Eliot called "Insights in Jazz" ([url="http://dropback.co.uk/"]website[/url]) which covers this exact topic. It's extremely thorough (I'm still new to it) but it discusses breaking songs down into "bricks" and learning them that way, with "joins" - meaning you learn the tune simply, inside out and can play it in any key! (Darned vocalists, am I right?)

I highly recommend it - I'm only just starting out but he's mapped out something like 200 jazz standards showing how simple it is to learn!

[Faithless]

But the book is based on method of 'lego bricks'.. Do you dig that method?

[Mike]

I'm not too familiar with it. I'm under the impression it's a beginner's guide to jazz. Do you know it? This system seems pretty good!

[Dubs]

The way I tend to remember stuff is a bit weird. I kind of remember the 'journey' that my fingers take around the fretboard and the shapes they make, kind of like dot to dot but not just blocks of frets - I visualise geometric shapes on the fretboard that I follow from fret to fret for specific riffs and for passing/flowing lines I just remember the 'journey' that my fingers take. Each part of the song has a different shape or journey. It's weird, I know, but it works for me.

I do it naturally and didn't realise I was doing it until I was having a conversation with another musician about remembering music and really thinking about how I remembered stuff.

An unrelated method - having a good ear and understanding of the fretboard is also key as you can hear where you're next note is in your head before you place your finger on the fret.

[EdwardHimself]

I'm like completely the opposite because I almost always learn things by ear and hardly ever use any tabs or sheet music at all. The problem being that i actually have to know what something sounds like before playing it, even if it's just playing through very slowly from the music. I just have to know what it sounds like before i can play it with confidence! so i guess it's good to be able to do both really

Edited September 14, 2010 by EdwardHimself

[xgsjx]

I can only reiterate what's been said, don't set up the music stand & play by ear. If you lose where you are then look at another band member for what chord/note they're playing (stop looking at the drummer for help ). Learning how to utilise ghost/dead notes, harmonics & slides (and sometimes rests) can become useful in those situations where you go "Oh no, what comes next".

The only time I use score is to learn a song to start with & only ever use a chord chart live when playing guitar (but I try not to if I know the song).

Go & have some fun, it's better than standing reading at a gig.

[TPJ]

Transcribing the tunes yourself can help too. You hear it that much by the time you've finished writing it out it's stuck in your head and no need for the dots.

[Gareth Hughes]

I have no sure fire method to offer only that I've found that for me, if I'm working on something new (and unknown like original music) that if I write out a chord chart I find it tough to move away from that and always need that damn piece of paper at hand. Now I just learn it by ear and the only notes I make are on a setlist - Track one in C, mid8 in Bb. And that's about it. Any more info and I become a slave to it.

The other thing I found that I do is that if I'm sight-reading all the time then my memory shuts down completely. I did ten weeks of 'RENT', seven shows a week. I honestly could not play one song now start to finish without the music in front of me. Yet when I have the music in front of my I barely look at it. It's like a safety net - don't look down!!!!

This also echoes something mentioned before - you don't have to play everything note for note as it's written on paper. For me that's something I'm always working to overcome, and in doing that I know I'll get away from the page a lot quicker. Hope that helps!!

[jaelliott]

[quote name='Gareth Hughes' post='956934' date='Sep 15 2010, 09:49 AM']The other thing I found that I do is that if I'm sight-reading all the time then my memory shuts down completely. I did ten weeks of 'RENT', seven shows a week. I honestly could not play one song now start to finish without the music in front of me. Yet when I have the music in front of my I barely look at it. It's like a safety net - don't look down!!!![/quote]

Yeah. sight reading is a great skill for jobs and playing in big bands, but sucks for real jazz where you cannot play meaningful improvisation unless you know where you are going. And you can only sound authentic if you learn tunes from (recording of) real jazz players, rather than books.

I am new to this forum, I am the author of the book mentioned above by Mike above which is all about knowing the most common moves in jazz standard harmony so that you are best prepared when it comes to live gigs. You know the usual stuff, a song you don't know the changes to, or a song you thought you knew, but in a singer key!

As has also been said in this thread, the sooner you stop using music, the better.

The traditional way to learn this stuff is to learn hundreds of songs by playing in jam sessions several times a week. But most of us just don't have that opportunity these days. So a statistical approach makes sense. In my book, I show the most common moves and where they occur across 230+ songs. There is a clear roadmap for each song. And you can electronically search across the songs to maximise your payback each time you learn something.

There's lots of free stuff if anyone is interested in getting a flavour of the approach:
[list]
[*]Sample pages, table of contents and index; audio tracks of the bricks of chords [url="http://www.dropback.co.uk/contents.html"]http://www.dropback.co.uk/contents.html[/url]
[*]regular podcasts about the method [url="http://www.dropback.co.uk/Podcasts.html"]http://www.dropback.co.uk/Podcasts.html[/url]
[*]a Google Group where the method is discussed and material freely exchanged [url="http://www.dropback.co.uk/overview.html"]http://www.dropback.co.uk/overview.html[/url]
[/list]

If there are any questions about this approach, I'd be happy to answer them.

Best

John Elliott

www.dropback.co.uk