3 Tools to Learn Tunes
July 2, 2010 in Learning Jazz
There are 3 important resources to help you learn tunes: recordings, fakebooks/chord charts, and play alongs. All three are helpful, if you understand their proper place. The following article deals with the place of each resource when you learn tunes.
by Dimitri Mikitenko from photoxpress.com
Have you ever heard a great jazz musician say that they believe in learning jazz standards from the recordings and not from the fakebook? When I first heard this as a young player, I was a bit mystified. Some great players even advocate throwing away your fakebook. Great. I just spent $40 on a book I’m supposed to throw away.
Later, I realized that this was an overcorrection to a big problem in jazz education. The problem is that Jamey Aebersold, the Real Book, and other fakebooks/charts are used incorrectly by many people. The problem is that these resources are designed to be TOOLS to help you learn a tune, but the primary resource you use should always be great recordings by jazz legends. Some people treat fakebooks and play alongs as the way to learn tunes, and they never even consult a recording. What they fail to realize is that listening is the most important thing a jazz musician can do to improve their music! Recordings are primary; fakebooks, chord charts, and play-a-longs are secondary.
If we make a hierarchy of the 3 tools when learning a jazz standard, we would rank them as such:
1. JAZZ RECORDINGS
2. and 3. (in no particular order) Play alongs, and chord charts/fakebooks
Some well-meaning jazz players address this problem the wrong way, by telling you to get rid of these valuable secondary resources. This leaves a beginning to intermediate player completely mystified in many cases. A better approach would be to encourage musicians to ALWAYS listen to recordings when learning a tune, in addition to consulting fakebooks and playing along with play along recordings. However, when you consult a fakebook, ideally you should consult it, memorize it, and then put it away for the gig.
Learnjazzstandards.com promotes learning tunes with the philosophy that all of the answers are in the recordings themselves. That’s why we always include multiple youtube videos in addition to chord charts and play alongs. When learning tunes, we encourage our users to think of the recordings as the most important part of the learning process. The other resources are helpful, but secondary.
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Great post! I’ve really been enjoying this blog a lot. I’m a beginner to intermediate jazz guitarist, and I think that this is right on the money. As a matter of fact, I was at a Q&A session with the great Christian Mcbride and he said to listen to the tunes, and discouraged the use of any fake book whatsoever. I hope you keep posting entries when you have time, I’ve been learning a lot from the site! Thanks
All three are valid learning tools, but don’t forget the lyrics to these songs. Hearing what the song is about and hearing it sung by different stylist can really change how you approach the melody.