ear training

[Paul Warburton]

Originally Posted by Martin Sheridan

Paul,
Why do you say the Real Book will cripple your ears?
I too have done a lot of playing solely be ear and by watching the piano players left hand. Maybe its because I'm getting back into playing a lot after not playing much for the last decade or so, but that's why I'm looking for advice from you guys.
Thanks for the input.

Don't get me wrong Martin. Fake books are fine....but only as a visual, skeletal guide to commit the material to your memory. Problem is, many players become addicted to them and even become insecure without a chart in front of them.
Many of these books have wrong chord changes, wrong melody notes....I got into a little tiff with a kid about the tune "Blue Trane" He insisted that the true title was "Blue Train" because that was the way the title was listed in his Real Book.
Sure, use them, learn the tunes and THEN open up your ears. If you are looking at a piece of music all night long you are not hearing all the stuff that's going on around you in the music. As I told the kid..."Use 'em or lose 'em."
It, for me, is still better to learn the tunes by ear. With Youtube today, there's just no excuse to NOT do that. Hell, just come up with the title, do a UT search and there it is by, usually, the definitive artist with the definitive changes or, at least, correct changes (usually). If you don't care for the changes, this will motivate you to learn some reharms.
And, as Arnold said, we learned this stuff the hard way...by watching and listening to others around us...but it did exercise our big ears, and made them even bigger.
And please don't be askin' if that applies to any more personal male body parts. If I answer, you'll just call me a braggart.

[Martin Sheridan]

Paul and others:
Would you like to expand a little on charts and chords?
Recently I ran off three versions of Hoagy Carmichael's GEORGIA.
That a song I've played many times and it seems like everyone does the bridge a little differently. One was just plain wrong. I think the guy who wrote it out had had one too many or had been at it too long. The chords started out right but were asigned the wrong number of beats. The second and third were nearly identical, but their bridges were different. Upon closer look I realized that both bridges were very similar and some of the chords were just different voicings. I don't have them before me know, but I think one of them had a Dm7b5 going to a G-7 and other had an Abdim before the G.

[Paul Warburton]

Any particular key?
Bottom line.....back to your ears AND your taste. Do they sound good to you? Do they move in a graceful and flowing way to you? To they help or hinder the melody to you? Do they work for you in your improvisations?
Sorry to answer your questions with more questions. If you want to take more time and sketch out a very basic view of the bridge changes that you're talking about, I'll be more than happy to respond with the one's that I've settled on after about 50 years of playing the tune.
The lyrics are cool too. Is "Georgia" a lady or a city down South? I prefer the lady.
Might be easier to leave out the b5's and #9's. I can fancy some of that up if you'd like. Beats are just ////'s.

[Charles A Thomas]

Many old tunes had standard changes, as these tunes became jazz tunes you see more use of the tri-tone. This is basiclly changing a cycle of fifths movement of the bass note into a chromatic movement, it's like you said, after ****yzing the chords they were the same just different voicings

[Tomas Bouda]

i'm working out of a book called 'the ears have walls' which has a LOT to do with recognition, sight singing, memorizing and the like. its actually a required text at humber college (toronto) for their jazz program!