Bilbo's Transcription Archive

[Bilbo]

i have bit more space now, Dave, so I will try and make sense of it for you. A head refers to the tune's melody. If you take something like the Wynton Marsalis tune on the website called 'Play The Blues And Go', the head is the first 44 bars. In reality, it is and 8-bar intro followed by 3x12 bar heads repeated (first piano only, second and third with horns). After that it is just a band playing fairly conventional 12-bar blues. A head chart would just have the 12 bar tune with something like 'solo over a C blues'. A 'chorus', in this case, is 12 bars i.e. once around the chord sequence. Sounds complicated written down like that but it's simple enough once you understand the principle. It then translates to any tune however simple or complicated. Many of the tunes on the website are of this type; round and round the same chord sequence with someone soloing over the songs changes. 

  

 

[Bilbo]

I am working on a long complicated Branford Marsalis tune and needed some respite so I have put together this transcription of the Adalberto Cevasco bass part for the tune 'Milonga Del Angel' from the 2010 Astor Piazzolla release 'Piazzolla En Suite'. An easy read but a lovely piece. You can't have enough Piazzolla.

 

https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/milonga-del-angel-astor-piazzolla/

[dmccombe7]

On 30/06/2025 at 21:00, Bilbo said:

i have bit more space now, Dave, so I will try and make sense of it for you. A head refers to the tune's melody. If you take something like the Wynton Marsalis tune on the website called 'Play The Blues And Go', the head is the first 44 bars. In reality, it is and 8-bar intro followed by 3x12 bar heads repeated (first piano only, second and third with horns). After that it is just a band playing fairly conventional 12-bar blues. A head chart would just have the 12 bar tune with something like 'solo over a C blues'. A 'chorus', in this case, is 12 bars i.e. once around the chord sequence. Sounds complicated written down like that but it's simple enough once you understand the principle. It then translates to any tune however simple or complicated. Many of the tunes on the website are of this type; round and round the same chord sequence with someone soloing over the songs changes. 

  

 

Thanks Rob. This level is beyond what i did at lessons back in 70's and some of the terminology i've either not heard before or wasn't sure what it meant.

Dave