Scott Henderson Discussion

[Vinchan]

After watching Bruce Forman's mmc video about learning tunes which he extensively talking about importance of learning tunes without a book, and using ears instead, I somewhat start to feel like learning tunes from the real book or charts might be a cheating whether he meant it in that way or not.

Do you personally agree with this viewpoint?

[Kevin Thomas]

I think there is no real answer. It's a question of music culture, and it depends on what you want to achieve.
If you want to play in a band, compose, or be an improviser (or all at the same time), it may be better to work by ear, trying to understand everything you do, and take it to pieces,and add and remove, and change things, and do it your way.
If you just want to play it well, then read it.

I don't think anyone reading Mozart or Chopin thinks he's cheating, and a lot of people do. But you may learn a lot more doing it the hard way.

But you asked for Scott's opinion, not mine. Let's wait and see what The Man thinks about it.

Kevin

[Scott Henderson]

I agree Kevin, I wouldn't memorize a bunch of top 40 tunes for a casual - that's a perfect place for charts. However if you're playing a professional original music gig, charts tell the audience that you don't care enough about your own music to memorize it. In jazz, I can't speak for everyone but I play 10 times better if my face isn't buried in a chart, though I'm a terrible reader. If you're a great reader and can play just as well while reading, I guess that's different, but I still think charts look unprofessional on stage. My 12 year old daughter memorizes difficult Bach pieces before she performs them - so there ya go.

I don't have anything against learning a tune from the Real Book, but anytime you learn a tune by ear, you're doing yourself a favor. Those tunes are easy anyway - try transcribing modern Wayne Shorter tunes. I transcribed Endangered Species - there's like a chord on every quarter note, so that's some challenging ear training, plus a lesson in composition.

[Kevin Thomas]

Scott, the first half of your answer wasn't really about the initial question (but the end is )
It was about learning a tune with the realbook, not about playing on stage with it.

You slightly went off-topic, probably because of your Kinsey trauma. But, hey, wait a minute, it's YOUR forum here!

To come back to the question : imagine an orchestra conductor asking all his musicians to learn from a CD. What a mess it would give!! So I think in some situations it's ok to learn by reading.

[Scott Henderson]

ha ha - you're right, the Kinsey situation makes me want to shoot anyone I see reading a chart on stage.

Thanks for the excuse to rail on Kinsey again, but this always makes me cringe... when I think of him putting together a Joe Zawinul "Legacy" band (by the way, Legacy is supposed to mean with musicians who played with Joe, not guys who never even met him), and then reading Joe's music on stage.... that's just embarrassing and beyond unprofessional. It's OK for him to memorize Joe's musical personality, but I guess too much to ask to memorize his music. Pitiful. HBC didn't claim to be a Legacy band, yet we had enough respect for the man to memorize his music.

Anyway, my answer is that I think it's perfectly fine to learn songs from the Real Book. Learning them by ear is good ear training for students, but that doesn't mean it's not OK to learn them from the page. I know a bunch of standards and I didn't learn them by ear - I've owned a Real Book for 40 years.

[Vinchan]

I should go get a bullet-proof music stand

Thanks for opinions before I burn my fake books

[Kevin Thomas]

The whole TT discussions all summed up in one pic...

[Vinchan]

LMAO at "finally found one"

[Scott Henderson]

First of all, I don't know where one is either - I lost one more often during songs playing with Covington than during Dennis Chamber's drum SOLOS. Second, and I'm afraid I have to get a little personal here, but Kinsey's very nature as a lazy human being, and the fact that he's aware that anyone who knows him shares that opinion of him, would never allow him to think he's doing the right thing by reading on stage. In fact he's embarrassed by it, but just too fucking lazy to fix it. That also shows in his music and catch phrase - "composition is overrated". In his case that translates to "hard work is overrated".

Great shot of the iPad though - what a great invention for lazy musicians. You get all that light without exposing your cheat sheets to the audience with a conventional music stand light. I bet you could throw some loops in there too, and fuck up all the dynamics and interplay.