Re: My Realbook: Should I throw it in the trash, or just hide it really good? Thoughts?

This is slightly OT but I think that it relates. I used to play with an alto
player who was one of the best bop players that I ever heard in my life so I
asked him how he got it all together. He told me that when he first started
playing in Chicago, at the time that bop was new, there were people in the
audiences who knew the heads ands solos to Bird's tunes and could sing them
note for note. If he played a tune wrong they would wait outside the club
for him and take him back in an alley and make him play the tunes until he
got them right, singing the phrases to him that he was shakey on. He said it
was the best music training that he ever had.
Charlie

"ken" <kuboken1@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1152495557.281079.63980@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Keith Freeman wrote:

But with a good system you can train your ear much more efficiently.
Without a system you're lost in millions of chords.

No you're not. There's only three basic chords that you have to be
able to hear initially; major, minor and dominant.

This is not that difficult. Myles has a good grasp of the fundamentals
and basics of music. He just needs to work on his ear.

I've been to many workshops, traded ideas with a lot of musicians who
have studied with many of the greats and I've never heard anyone tell a
student to go out and get a book to work on their ear.

The suggestion of what to do is usually very, very simple and
effective, but a lot of people just don't bother to do it (because a
lot of people don't want to do anything like sing stuff because it has
nothing to do with scales, licks and chops).

For example, Tristano (and his descendants) had students sing Bird
solos and won't let the student touch their instrument until they can
sing it exactly note for note. And then, and only then are they
allowed to try to play it on their instrument (and then they can't go
back to the recording once they touch their instrument!).

How many people do you play with that can even sing a solo (any) note
for note? (of course pros can sing 'em all!)

You need a great ear to be able to do that. And if your ear is not
that good, it will become very good in the process of learning to do
that.

It doesn't matter if it's Tristano or Osby; you're going to get the
same kind of suggestion on developing the ear and none of them will
involve getting another book or buying some ear training software...

What I find a little silly sometimes is that some people learn all
their tunes out of books, learn all their solos from transcriptions,
get all their licks out of lick books and then suddenly go "gee, my ear
sucks. I can't hear a damn thing!"... and then they go out and buy an
ear training software program!

It's like, why?!

This is some really simple stuff.

Like I said before, I've come across people (novices) who can play
licks and sort of get through tunes, but can't sing the arpeggios to
the chords of a tune they claim to know well (even just using simple
triads).

You don't need a book or software program to learn to do stuff like
that (and eventually more and more difficult things).

And for me, I think that's the heart of being able to hear stuff. If
you can't sing it, you're not hearing it. And if you're not hearing it
forget everything else...

Anyway, again, I'm not knocking the Cork book.

And I know Keith, you are just trying to help. That's great. I'm just
sort of trying to help too. :)

Ken



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