You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Should You Use Chord Charts? (And How to Use Them If You Do) - #60

Episode Date: November 16, 2018

Today on You'll Hear It, Adam and Peter answer a listener's SpeakPipe question on the use of chord charts. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Adam. What's up? Nothing. You really got me with that one. I'm Adamannis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast for some reason. Daily Jazz advice coming at you.

No, we don't, I mean, it doesn't have to be like, you know, a big intro every time. Sometimes we're just chilling, man. I was just seeing what's up. No, I mean, for our listeners, there was a long setup to that intro. And that's why I lost a little bit. So today we are going to take a question. Should we just listen to it? I think it's self-explan.

from one of our listeners. Go for it. Hey, guys. This is Zoom from Vancouver. I'd love to hear you guys talk about the use of core charts and lead sheets. Should you use them? Do you use them? Is there a right way to use them? Is there a wrong way to use them? Or should they not be used at all? And if you do use them, maybe talk a little bit about which ones you like from,

for example, the Share Real Book series or Hal Leonard or Ireal Pro. or you write your own core charts by ear. So I'd love to hear you guys talk about that kind of stuff. Thanks. Bye. Well, thank you, Zoom, for yet another voicemail question. You've always got great questions, man. Great questions.

That's how he gets on the show. That's how he gets on the show. I don't know how we get on this show. It's our show. Yeah, that's a great question. And this is something that actually, I was going to say we've talked about a lot, you and I, but maybe we've never talked about it, but we've talked about it with students from Open Studio. and I think we do kind of have a philosophy on this

in terms of lead sheets, chord sheets. Like, I'm several of those, I'm actually not familiar with. They may be kind of newer. When I was coming up, all there was was was The Real Book, which was like the illegal fake book, and you had to literally go to a music store.

Did you do this? I went to, and I think it's out of business, so. I think you're getting scared already. You're like, the one in New City, that's out of business, right? Yeah, they're out of business. Yeah, baton music. Yeah, now we're confident in it.

Baton music. And you used to have to go up to the guy and be like, hey, buddy. Yeah. It was a total, it was a drug deal. I didn't the real book. And he's like, well, we don't sell those. Yeah, that's weird because Peter Martin told me that you did. And get in the back, never drop a naming.

And then they, yeah, no, but you'd go into the back room and the owner would, you know, give you the real book. For like, way too much money. Yeah, way too much. See, I was like photographed by some Berkeley guys at Kinko's in Boston. Way too much money, especially for how wrong most. those changes were too. So that's my main problem with it. It's not like, I think it's great to have a collection of charts.

And we're kind of amassing a nice little collection here because we do most of our own charts for like the lessons at Open Studio and stuff. And we take a lot of pride in as much as we can. I mean, we're not super dogmatic about it because we also believe probably first and foremost, more than anything, that we want to encourage students and players really to learn as much as you can by ear. Not because we're purists, but because we, recognize the benefits

to ear training and we really believe it's such a core part of our principle that this is a built-in way not only to memorize tunes quickly but to develop your ears very quickly and to internalize forms and tunes and all these things. That statement can't be overstated because I think

you know when you get dogmatic about like you need to learn the tunes from the recordings people think that you're just being like some kind of old school head with this kind of stuff but no the reason why we suggest that is because do you want to be good? Exactly.

Like, if you want to be good, you learn from the recordings because it helps train your ears. It helps you learn some real changes that the real folks were playing. And you don't have to rely on written sheet music as much, which oftentimes in these cases is not exactly right.

Right. And it's kind of a shortcut. It feels like it's not at first, but because that you're getting the ear training, because otherwise you have to do other things for the ear training part. You have to probably, you know, to your point that if,

If the chart is wrong, you've got to unlearn that or relearn or go almost just as much time to just go straight to the recording and get it. And the more you do it, the faster you get at it. That's the thing. People don't realize. If you're doing it all the time for every tune you learn, after five to ten of these things, you kind of become a little wizard at this, and you understand cadences better, you understand harmony better, you understand melody better.

It gets a lot easier. And then there's some other benefits that you get that you may not even realize in addition to the ear training. And I can't actually remember them right now. Well, you get the arrangement. You get the arrangement. You get counter melodies. You get introductions.

You get outtros. You get things that sometimes aren't on the real-go-part. Verses for standards, you know, things like that. Yeah, yeah. And you get more confidence in playing the tune I find when you learn it from the recording. Because first of all, most people are going to be like, oh, I couldn't do that. It would take me so long. Yes, you can.

Now, you've got to learn the right ones. And we can certainly talk about that, you know, certain types of tunes and stuff. Like, don't, you know, for your very first, you know, things. say I'm going to learn giant steps from the recording by year. That's not your first tune. Learn now's the time by year. Maybe learn some things that are a little bit more digestible. But when you learn something by ear,

I find that like I know it for life in a way that gives me so much confidence because you've internalized it from the beginning. Like yeah, if you learn it from the music and then you memorize you, you'll eventually internalize it. But there'll always be part of you that kind of references back or like, oh, do I need the chart or do I remember it? If you memorized it from the beginning by learning it,

There is no, like, I'm going back to the chart, because you never interact you with it that way. And you learn the little things that happen in the actual recordings. If you're ready to learn giant steps, learn it from the recording, or else you don't understand that the baseline actually goes down in whole steps. You know what I mean? Like, that's how these little things that happen in the arrangement, then you get the confidence to be dogmatic about it on the bandstand later. That's right. That's right. Look, your whole posture got a little dogmatic.

I was like, hello. It's because you can kind of vibe the other musicians who learned it off the real book. That's right. that's right and yeah i mean and then we're not even getting into the whole area or we're starting to get into the area of you know playing tunes you know like in the wrong keys because you learned it off the real book you know in that key guilty no i wasn't pointing fingers i mean guilty's charge i mean guilty's charge no we've all done that and look you know we we're not totally dogmatic even here at open studio we absolutely that's why we make the charge we try to make them accurate and i always say

if you have time at least use this as an eight like i realize most people don't have time to sit around for eight hours a day, you know, geeking out on this stuff, we'd all love to. And so using the music, and look, we have to be able to read music. We're not saying don't learn to read music. Yeah. That's so important. So it's like, and like anything, be moderate about it. Be moderate.

Real books are great for like reference sake. I mean, I have I reel pro on my phone and I use it occasionally. I don't have it. I know you don't because you're dogmatic about it. But it has come in handy in like sticky situations or whatever. You know what I mean? So or even just to like to check against something. you know so it's not like it's all or nothing but exactly really if you really want to improve and you

really want to learn the tunes the right way go to the recordings yeah yeah now having said that i'm just remembering and i don't even know if these are still a bit i mean i'm assuming that they are there was like the new real book remember that yep when that came out like those are much more accurate in my experience like i remember the chart on tell me a bedtime story in there like i had learned that from the recording and then i remember when i saw the chart and I was like, oh, and I'd made my own chart of it and everything. And when I saw that, I was like, wow, that's pretty good. There was even a few places that I think got wrong that I was corrected by looking at that.

I think that's the Hal Leonard ones. And I think they actually took the time to like copyright the arrangements from the recordings on some of those things, which is why they're a little more accurate. Yeah. Yeah, I think they are copyrighted, which is great. And I think that's great too because that kicks some music back, I mean, some money back to the composers as it should when you're buying these charts. You know, because if you learn it yourself, you don't have to send money in. you get it for free from buying the recording or whatever.

But when somebody else does the work to do that, you know, the composer is entitled to something. And I like it when the publishers do that, which they didn't do on the real book, I guess. So I guess the answer, Zune is really like as much as possible, don't use chord charts. You know, use them for reference. You know, use them if you're doing a one-off gig,

I guess, with a bunch of people who maybe don't know the tune. But for your own personal growth and development, try not to use them as a primary source. Yeah, and then try to get the good ones when you do it. And there's a number of sources now. No, no, no, no. I mean, CoreChart. Or even like, I'm thinking more like lead sheets.

I guess that's different than a, because core chart is just, like, I actually never had access to that. Because that's more recent where it just has the changes. Just has a change. Like the I Real Book. Yeah. No, I guess he's talking more about lead sheets. I mean, I'm thinking about like fake book lead sheets. Yeah, yeah.

But like try to get some of the better ones. Like if you search around on the internet and we've done this before, like, I know for me, and researching tunes I've done lessons that I feel like I really know, but I'm like, I want to see other people's opinions on, like to tell me a bedtime story. There's a lot of people that have almost put like scholarly charts and descriptions of,

and there's some good stuff, and there's some crap out there too, but it's fun to kind of go look. But again, if you don't really know the recordings or haven't heard the tune or played a lot, you're not going to know if it's right or wrong and you're going to be totally at their mercy. So it's got to be a little bit of a combination.

Unfortunately, there isn't like a one-stop shop, I think. Except Open Studio. Of course. Of course. Do we have any lead sheets on our website? We have a few lead sheets on there. Yeah, we have a few. But the early lessons I never put it, man.

I was dogmatic back. You were like, learn the tune. Yeah, no, I was like, and people were just like, I'm leaving if you know, I don't care. I don't need customers. No, but I mean, I was very much. But then I did realize. I was like.

You realize that spoon feeding is necessary sometimes. Well, yeah, I mean, I try to kind of, you know, we try to straddle the line between. I mean, even I was so, I mean, you know, I did that whole Freddie Freelaw. a transcription, and that took me years to get to that point of people just begging, oh, give me, I'm like, the time you spend begging me for it, you could have learned it. Right.

But then I also realized I was like, wow, there's some good transcriptions over, but I didn't see any great ones. So I was like, I want to do it really as accurate as can be. And then I said, you know what, use it as an aid. Listen, I think people, I know people have done that because they've told me. I mean, you know, dozens of people have been like, man, the transcription's great. And I took your advice and listened and learned as much as I could and used it as an aid. And they've gotten a lot of success and improved their playing.

And so that's what it's about. That's great, man. Yeah. Well, thanks again for the voicemail. You know, if you're listening and you want to leave this voicemail, you can go to Ullhere.com. We strongly encourage you to do so because it's a great way for A, you can get on our show. That's right.

And B. No payment, no payment, by the way. It's a free podcast. Yeah, free podcast. Benefit for us is we don't have to come up with a lesson topic, which is a plus. Exactly. No, but then we're actually like, you know, helping you guys out. That's right.

That's right. Go to Ullhert.com for that. You can get T-shirts. You can leave your question. I don't think you can get these, though. That's a limited edition. I see you have, and this is a you'll hear it sticker for YouTube folks. You can see that.

We'll have to find a way to, hmm, maybe if somebody tweets at us at the right time, their rate, you know, screenshot of their rating and review. Oh, man. A sticker might show up to them via the internet. Is that possible? Or maybe the U.S. mail. We'll see. The post office, but how would they tweet at us?

They would be like at, hey, open studio. Like, hey, open studio. Say it again, at hey open studio? Yeah, hey open studio. All right. You make it sound so awkward. At, hey, open, no, it's all one. You got to let it flow.

Like Eddie Murphy said, they got a little flow. Okay, but I'm confused, bro. So they're tweeting a screenshot of their rating and review? Yeah, tweet us. Like on a bathroom wall. No, no, no, no. Well, you could. That would be more of a screenshot.

I mean, that would be more of a photograph, you know. No, you know, go. Cedar Polaride Photograph. No. No, go to Apple Podcast, Google, Play, wherever you listen to this podcast. and give us a rating review and it doesn't have to be seven stars it doesn't even have to be six stars

you can go five if you hate us no problem or you can go four be honest you know but we just who are you why am I saying that you know that's not true don't even bother no no but lead us a rating seven stars minimum okay minimum seven stars we did have 777

that was impressive overkill or or gratitude accurate yeah accurate exactly yeah so leave us a rating review just take a quick little screenshot out. You can do this all with your phone. Don't do while you're driving. Pull over. And tweet at

Adam and I at Hey Open Studio. And if you ask for it, you might get a little sticker. I guess, no, we will give you a sticker. How about that? I mean, we read the promise in a sticker. Yeah. And look, my sticker game. Show them for YouTube. So I started the

sticker game around the office and I... Are we sure about that? I'm very sure about that. And then you sort of copied me as your note. prone to do that. I am prone to do that. But I mean, yours are, I mean, yours are, it's all about you on your stickers. Let's just notice that. All three of those stickers are like entities that you are an integral part of. So that's cool. See, for me, I branch out. I got random coffee shops. I got an ice cream place. A.C.LU. Big shout out. Boston University, you know. I'm just all about

self-promotion, man. Diamond coffee in Brooklyn. Come on, man. The random, what is that? Gazzle. Is that Billy goat chips? That's the Caldees Gazelle. Oh, man. We're drifting off. All right, yeah, okay. You'll hear it.