gold saxophone

Go ahead and use a fakebook

ByBret Pimentel

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, at no cost to you.

I felt a lot of stress and pressure during my years in college and graduate school, about jazz and Learning Tunes. Nobody who is anybody uses a fakebook! You have to Learn the Tunes! Do you know All the Tunes? Why don’t you know More Tunes?

My teachers told me I would never make it as a jazz player unless I knew hundreds of tunes by heart. Melodies, chord progressions, and “standard” intros and outros. And since I’m a reed player, I would need to know them in at least a couple of keys. I tried, but I found it pretty daunting. My teachers seemed to think that meant I was doing it wrong, in some way they could not specify.

And besides, fakebooks are bad! They have mistakes, unlike other kinds of sheet music! Plus, the fakebook version of that tune might not be the true and authentic secret original version, but merely a common and tasteful reworking! And if you’re looking at a fakebook, you’re trapped within the confines of the printed page, literally unable to play anything creative!

My university degrees are in “classical” performance, and in multiple instruments, so jazz has never been my sole concentration. If I had done more focused and advanced study of jazz, I suppose I would have had to Learn All the Tunes, or flunk out and fail to make it in the business.

But it was never my goal to be the next big name in jazz. I love to play jazz music, but I’m quite content to do my best impressions of my favorite players, take modest solos, and yes, use a fakebook. Of the musicians in the world who play jazz at some level, very few are recording on Blue Note or headlining at the Village Vanguard.

For hobbyist or part-time jazz players, a fakebook can be very useful. Using a fakebook on a gig means I can just play the tunes the group wants to play, rather than slinking away in shame at my failure to Know them All. It means we’re all on the same page, so to speak, about keys, chord changes, forms, intros, and endings. The practicality of low stress and high versatility wins out over the ideal of never looking at a music stand. I can Learn Tunes by playing them frequently in a relaxed atmosphere. And if I forget a chord or a melody note, I can fall back on my musical skill of reading notation.

Is learning tunes by heart preferable? Probably, ideally. If you’re in a jazz studies degree program, or trying to break into the top-level jazz scene in a major market, you may indeed find it necessary to memorize a whole lot of tunes as quickly as you can. But for the rest of us, there’s no shame in using a fakebook.

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    ByBret Pimentel

    Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, at no cost to you.

    Stylistically-appropriate articulation has long been under-taught in jazz education. (Or waved away with a “ya gotta listen”) . But that is changing , with some recent guides and method books starting to find some consensus about best practices. Concepts like which notes to accent, or how long to sustain certain notes, apply to all jazz instrumentalists. But wind-instrument players have the extra complication of which notes to tongue or slur. This distinction is critical to good jazz style.

    In classical music, wind players usually perform articulation markings with accuracy. But printed jazz music can take varied approaches to articulation markings.

    Some charts for experienced players have sparing articulation markings or none at all. The composer, arranger, and/or editor trust the performers to apply appropriate style:

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    Others, particularly more recent ones, use markings that reflect the crystallizing best practices:

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    But may otherwise well-written charts, bafflingly, use markings that are not stylistically appropriate:

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    Some red flags include long slurs and staccato markings. Experienced jazz players instinctively ignore these bad markings and use better articulation practices. (Long slurs can in some cases be explained away as “phrase” markings. But since they are visually indistinguishable from slurs, it’s better to omit them.)

    Occasionally a good jazz composer or arranger will use an articulation marking in a surprising or unusual context. It’s up to the performers to determine whether this is an intentional break from typical jazz style, or an editing error.

    In some cases, a composer/arranger might even choose a particularly anti-swing articulation as a kind of joke. This is usually followed by a figure that should be played with exaggerated, correct swing and articulation. This heightens the contrast between “good” and “joke” style:

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    Jazz players and educators are responsible to know and apply correct articulation, using their best musical judgment to override the written parts when appropriate.

  • Priorities and patience

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    Student: I really just want to improve my sound.

    Beautiful tone is a nice goal, but it’s subjective, and it’s inextricable from less-sexy pursuits like consistent tone, solid intonation, and reliable response. Let’s expand your focus to your overall tone production and make sure you do lots of listening to the great players. Then you’ll be equipped to play beautiful ideas, not just beautiful notes. Read More “Priorities and patience”

  • Which instrument should I learn next?

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    • Low reeds. In a jazz big band, this means primarily baritone saxophone with some bass clarinet (and occasionally B-flat clarinet and/or flute). For theater, a more “classical” show will likely be bassoon-heavy, with bass clarinet and baritone saxophone doubles; a jazzy show will lean toward baritone saxophone and bass clarinet with less (or no) bassoon. Bass saxophone and contrabass clarinets occasionally appear as well; most smart arrangers will provide ossia lines to enable covering these on more standard instruments.
    • Oboe specialist. This surprising combination shows up in many musicals: oboe, sometimes with English horn, plus B-flat clarinet and tenor saxophone. Generally the oboe and English horn parts call for a soloist-level player, with little more than inner harmonies on the single reed instruments.

  • Slowing down

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    I can’t tell you how often I have had this happen in lessons, especially with my younger students:

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    Me: Wait—

    Student: [Begins again at breakneck speed, makes a different mistake, stops.]

    Me: Wait. Please slow down and play accurately.

    Student: [Begins again at same speed as before, makes a different mistake, stops.]

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  • Interpreting wind articulation markings

    ByBret Pimentel

    It’s easy to think of articulation markings as being black and white (and not just literally). But sometimes the instructions aren’t completely clear.

    For example, I think most people would see this marking…

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    But how about this? (I ran into this marking in a piece I am working on this week, by an experienced composer.)

    The slur seems to preclude any space between the notes, so how does the tenuto work? You can’t reduce the space if it’s already zero, right?

    I think most experienced musicians would say that in this case the tenuto gets some other kind of stress, like a little extra volume, or a slight stretching of the beat, or maybe more intensity in the vibrato. But those are substantially different from the first interpretation. And if I do interpret the tenuto as some kind of stress, how is it different from, say, this:

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    And sometimes the markings are bad. There might simply be mistakes, or maybe the composer or editor isn’t entirely familiar with how wind players interpret articulations. How about this one?

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    • Do similar markings appear elsewhere in the piece, or even in the composer’s other works? Does that shed any light? For example, if the composer uses both tenuto marks under slurs and accents under slurs, the composer probably wants them to sound different from each other.
    • Is there a tradition surrounding this piece? Sometimes frequently-performed pieces begin to develop a sort of standard practice for how certain markings are interpreted. Sometimes these are reasonably reliable, such as if a recording was made with the composer’s input, but sometimes they are just popular guesses. If you have a better guess, you can use it, but it would be wise at least to know what the tradition suggests.

    We are used to thinking of music itself as an expressive thing, that hopefully causes our audience to respond in some way. But the art of music notation is also expressive—the composer/editor/copyist is trying to get some kind of response from the musician. (Which in turn gets the response from the audience.)

    If you have been reading articulations like a robot—or ignoring them—return to the score again and listen to what the composer is telling you.

  • Jazz opportunities for woodwind players: learn the saxophone

    ByBret Pimentel
    Jazz clarinetist (and saxophonist!) Eddie Daniels. Photo, Professor Bop

    I’ve been having a great time directing the university jazz band this year (alas, a temporary assignment). The group performed recently for some talented high school musicians from around the state, the kind of students I would like to recruit. After the performance, I was approached by no less than three of them, each expressing an interest in playing in the group in the future. None of them play instruments typical of jazz big band arrangements.

    I’ve had this happen with private students, too. I once met with a very young and enthusiastic clarinetist and her mother. They explained to me that the young clarinetist was being excluded from her middle school jazz band because she didn’t play a “jazz” instrument. Their plan was for her to study clarinet with me, and to get so good that the jazz band director would “just have to” accept her into the group.

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One Comment

  1. This is true to an increased extend for us multi woddwind players, who would have to memorise tunes in C, Bb, Eb and perhaps G if you bring your alto flute for some Bossas.
    I enjoy that the monthly jazz jam in my town is open for all kinds of levels and bring my ipad without any shame.

    Reply

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