That’s the point, I have mixed feelings about people who can improvise over Countdown in 7/8, but who can’t memorize After You’ve Gone in one shot. These are guys who are teaching in prestigious musical institutions, who are among the most respected musicians in town, and I’ll admit it, as improvisers, can play circles around me. Yet, I’ve found myself in situations with the local big names asking for charts to songs like After You’ve Gone and not being able to memorize the melody. There is really no excuse for not being able to memorize Pennies from Heaven in one listen and one chorus (two tops). Nonetheless, reading anything should never come at the expense of the ability to memorize simple 32 bar standards on the spot. I have nothing against sheet music, and I can understand the importance of it for music that is heavily arranged or complex. While many professional musicians have the former down, the latter is often neglected due to the frequent use of sheet music. We’re talking about two separate but equally important skills here: the ability to hear, and the ability to memorize. There’s something very, very wrong with this picture. I remind you, these are professional musicians. We’re talking chord progressions like Gm Cm D7 the most basic of chord progressions out there. All too often, the musicians just don’t hear it, or have a hard time figuring it out. Some of the chords are wrong in these charts, and instead of telling the musicians, I would try to make it clear in my playing by emphasizing the correct chord. I have played gigs with professional musicians relying on charts for these songs. I cannot find any good reason to use charts. In the style of music that I play, the chord progressions to most songs tend to be quite simple and straightforward. The problem is that I see too many young professional musicians relying on the iRealBook, and I see the negative consequences all too often. If you’re a hobbyist, sure OK, do whatever you need to do to make yourself happy, but understand that your true potential as a musician will only go as far as your ability to learn things by ear AND memorize them. The ability to learn and memorize a simple 32 bar standard is an essential skill for any serious improvising musician. I have never used it, and I refuse to use it for most situations. I’ll be direct: I think the iRealBook is among the worst/dangerous musical “innovations” out there. I may have to draw on certain personal experiences to illustrate certain points, but again, the focus is not on specific individuals but on the phenomenon itself. I am not necessarily targeting anyone specific as I have seen this phenomenon all around the world in various situations. This article is not so easy to write, because certain musicians may feel offended. This didn’t start with the iPad the Real Book has been widely available for a few decades, but I feel that with the iRealBook and the use of iPads on the bandstand, we are on a very slippery slope. For anyone who is serious about music, certain essential skills should not be sacrificed for the sake of convenience. While all this technology appears to be great, I feel that this technology needs to be used with caution. This is exactly what I want to talk about in this article. Want to learn B7? Just ask Siri on your iPhone! You have a gig tonight and need to play All The Things You are in Db? No problem, the iRealBook will transpose the song for you, you can just read it off your iPad! How convenient! Today, the amount of information at our fingertips is just on a completely different and unprecedented scale. Bach had to walk miles to different towns just to learn certain things! We learned it, got back on the bus, went home to our mates ”. In his own words “ we got on the bus, trouped across Liverpool, changed a couple of buses, found this fellow, and he showed us B7. There’s a famous story from Paul McCartney (who rose to superstardom thanks to the efforts of Kanye West) who talked about learning the B7 chord by traveling far just to find someone who knew how to play it. The one before that would say “I kept wearing down my records from repeated use”. The previous generation would say: “In my day, there were no CDs, I was learning from cassette tapes”. For instance, a 35 year old musician today would tell a 20 year old: “when I was learning music, there was no YouTube, I had to learn from CDs”. I can only wonder what further innovations await us!Įvery previous generation of musician uses the same line with the latest generation: “back in my day, we had to do X to learn to do Y”. All this, thanks to various technological advancements. We live in an incredible era for musicians, where we have instant access to an incredible wealth of information that wasn’t available just 15 years ago.
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