Today the word "fake" was brought to my attention, I have heard folk on this site mention "fake books" fake sheets and "faking it"

But, I never knew what this meant, whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, so I felt left out of the loop through lack of knowledge.

maybe its a language thing, But in the UK, "fake" or "faking it" is normally meant as not a good thing, like a forgery say.

But some folk say its not a bad thing, and yet others say they wish it wasn't called that at all.

So in the interests of pure knowledge, can we explore folks interpretation of what it means and what they feel about it?

I went and read up on Wiki, but the prognosis was not favourable, wiki talks about many mistakes in fake books, the history and why.

And also, it talks about (ahem) avoiding royalties due to musicians....

This is such a big subject and appears a really interesting topic for discussion?

Thoughts?

In a nutshell, playing from a "fakebook" is like giving a speech using several talking points to guide you through it.

The score in a fakebook generally just gives you the root note in the left hand to work from as well as a simplified right hand melody and notation. You must make up the rest.

This is why they call it a "fakebook" because it may seem like you are playing from some glorious score when in essence you are making up most of it using some basic musical 'talking points'. It can be seen as *faking* it. Faking the sightreading portion that is.

I have never used a fakebook before because my spontanious play by ear abilities were not good enough in the past but I would love to give them another try at some point as I think they can be a great tool to help develop your creative and spontanious play by ear abilities.

In reality, you have to be a fairly accomplished improviser to be able to play from a fakebook correctly. It is a skill many of us would like to have.

Did you forget to take your medication?

Being a performer now primarily using these "fakebooks", I will confuse you now because among ourselves (musicians), we tend to call of them "REALBOOKS" (in keeping with the brand name of the most popular of the fakebooks).

So is it FAKE or is it REAL?

I think it's REAL

I think this is what happens. When you're practicing as an amateur at home, you have to call it Fake. Then when you start playing professionally, you have to call it Real...

The popular format here in USA at present seems to be the commercially published "Real Book" series that basically took the format of the informal (i.e. not respecting of copyright) fake books that were being passed around and purchased the proper reproduction rights to all the songs. So the "Real Book" is not free or even particularly cheap but it is well printed, pretty well error-checked and totally in keeping with copyright regulations.



An example of the "Real Book" entry for one of my favorite tunes.

rnaple, one day we will have to have a medication taking competition, I will bet my wife that I will win.
However,
Wiki, states that many "fake books" are innacurate, so if that is true ( I.dont know i have never seen one, but am awaiting a pm from someone who is sending me a sheet to look at) if that is true, and that Historically they were indeed just sheets passed between musicians, then surely that could lead to problems?

I am curious as to how others percieve these things, as I live in the UK and have never heard anyone mention "fake books" here. Unless they are calling them by a different name maybe?

What wiki says is interesting, but is wiki reliable in this subject?

And is that a good thing or a bad thing? LOL!

AHA, thanks Brent H // sorry for the simultaneous post>>>

So, wiki speaks historically about the "fake" books, ( and innacuracies) but the "real fakes" you pay for and they are good in terms of being correct..?

This is even more complex than I thought!

After Brent's 850 pix wide post
you now have to scroll horiz.
nine miles to read the other
posts on this page.


Tip: temporarily set your preferences
to 1 post per page, and only the one
post will be screwed up

And if "fake" makes you uncomfortable, the sheet for an individual piece is sometimes called a "lead sheet" or just a "chart".

These forms of abbreviated notation are standard performance tools in many musical genres. As with fully notated scores, the copyright status of a particular sheet is a separate matter.

The term "faking it" came from the days when it was considered not real if you were not playing music that was written out. There was a snobbish air to how non-classical musicians were viewed. Playing by ear was not considered real musicianship by those formally schooled to sight read.

Fake books, being lead sheets (I.e. melody line with the chords notated above) were not considered real in that they were not fully scored as would be used by formally schooled musicians.

The Real Book was a play on words. The original Real Books came out of place such as Berklee school of music. These were ear training/transcribing assignments done by students, hence, the number of well known errors in them. There were no copyrights acknowledged and no royalties paid. Some of the people involved did jail time.

Later, Hal Leonard came out with a series called the Real Books, with corrected chord changes and all of it copyright acknowledged and legit.

For a long time, the original Real Books were all musicians had to work with for the tunes they contained. We used them a lot in the working trio I worked in during the late 70s.

Tony

control and the minus symbol should sort that out Joe.
I am now wondering just why these "lead sheets" are not taught simultaneously with conventional learning, it seems illogical to miss out an entire way of seeing things.

I just realized that most of what we were taught from in my "Music For Elementary Teachers" course was "fake". They looked just like what Brent posted, except all the songs were only 2 lines long! I assumed the teacher was just writing the chords above because he wanted us to learn how to make a chord and to save space on the paper. Boy am I having a "DUH!" moment.

That's the million dollar question and also one of the big selling points of DIY piano courses. David Sudnow used to say that you should not have to train for a concert classical career if all you want to do is have fun playing your favorite songs from lead sheets. I have known formally trained piano players who were frustrated that unless it was all written out for them, they couldn't play it. I used to jam with another guy (both on guitar) whose wife had won several state classical competitions, yet could not play with us unless I wrote out a part for her. It is a real problem.

Tony

This is exactly the sort of thing that is helpfull, Little Blue Engine.
There are for example many folk who used to play guitar ( or still do) and are used to seeing chords above the stave written in this manner.
For those folk they are more instantly recognisable than the same chord written in notation in the bass clef.
When you look at music that has both, quite often the bass clef notes are identical to the chord written above.

So, if I got this correct, Historically speaking, the classical folk looked down on what they called "fake" because for them there was not enough info written down.

But for the folk it was intended for say jazz musicians or the like, they would say " we only need that much info because we KNOW the song allready" ???

have I got that bit right?

They are also called lead sheets. Most will start out playing chords in the left hand and melody in the right. This can sound choppy and blocky. People who sing advocate chords in the right hand and a baseline in the left.

I like to play some ballads off of these. Many sound good with with broken 5ths, octaves and tenths 1-5-8-5-10 and variations 7ths, 9ths, etc. mixed in with them on the left hand and the melody as the top note and some other chord notes lower than the melody on the right. Though generally all pop songs end up sounding like new age variations of Pachelbel's Canon in D. (youtube pachelbel rant)

To be very good requires some knowledge of the circle of fifths and chord structures, baseline structure, and good separate hand control.

I played for years like this, before deciding everything sounded mediocre and similar, which is why I started real piano lessons 3 years ago. I find myself leaning towards classical repitoire now primarily, but when I do go back to lead sheets, the classical training has improved my faking dramatically, though I would still classify my faking abilities as only a better mediocre unless I really concentrate on a piece and steal ideas from others on Youtube etc.

Thats really interesting Alpha terminus, would you suggest then, that maybe folk can only go so far with lead sheets? Even if folk should be able to read and recognise them for playing, that ultimately they may be limiting?

I think it has more to do with performance practices in various genres. In jazz and pop, new arrangements and improvisations around a standard melody and harmonic structure are considered valid artistic interpretations. In art music, the parameters of valid interpretation are generally thought to be more limited, and the composer needs to provide a more complete roadmap to what the performer is expected to play.

Using Brent H's posted example, almost any rendition of that general melodic line and harmonic sequence could be a valid realization of that old standard, "Bewitched", even if the tempo, rhythm, and harmonies take considerable liberties with the lead sheet (although if you're playing in an ensemble, you have to be careful about branching off in a whole new harmonic direction when you're improvising around your part). But most classically trained musicians would not consider an improvisation around the tune and general harmonic expression of an art work to be a valid "performance" of that work by that composer. They might consider it a new arrangement with its own charms, but it wouldn't be considered the composer's "real" work.

Packa, thats even more intriguing, I take it you mean classical when you say "art" or classically orientated?

Many classical composers seemed to have great difficulty in nailing down a "definitive" version of a certain piece or pieces.
We can see this in the sheer amount of variations some composers had of their works.
How many workings and reworkings they did.
In some cases it looks like they were haunted by trying to compose the "perfect" variation of what they had in their minds eye.
maybe to put these works out for "interpretation" or "improvisation" would have had rewards?

I for one am finding this a most interesting subject..

I am off to bed though for tonight.
later.

I don't think of fakebook renditions being limited, except by the individual's skill I can oom-pah along with the best of them on folk dance music (whether we call them lead sheets or fake books), but I'm just getting into doing other kinds of arrangements. But the folks in the jazz threads here in the ABF and the non-classical are a whole 'nother ball game. I don't think there's anything limited about what they're doing .

So what *are* they called in the UK, if not fake books?!? There's your mission, Rostowsky - go to a jazz club and find out what they're called and report back.

Cathy

Rossy, for a little historical reference, some years back (many many years - before the official Real Books came out), you had to go to a music store and had to subtley indicate that you needed the Real Books. Now this was illegal so you can imagine the conversations regarding the distribution of these books which actually have "official names" to jazz musicians. It would be akin to buying moonshine...(now you do know what moonshine is right? That is a uniquely American term I'm sure).

Coming to the Jazz world a little late, I had a glimpse of this world when I had a glimpse of these Real Books in PDF format. There's quite a few of these books and not all have the name "Real Book". Some where in fact called Fake books.

Now I will not admit to you that I possess such illegal documents. But I did manage to peruse them for a bit

It's just a guess mind you, but it's quite possible that some professional musicians are still passing these around...In fact, it is quite possible as well that these PDF's can be found in people's Ipads so they can flip through them easily at a gig.

What's interesting about these Real Books is that on occasion, many tunes will have alternate chord changes. Since the people who compiled these leadsheets did not do them officially (they were transcribed by ear), then there could be disagreement on how to interpret some voicings from particular players. So it is in fact useful to compare current versions (Real Books Sixth Edition -- official from Hal Leonard for example), with the old ones. Usually these differences may not affect how they get played much since you're just modifying 'voicings'. But it could change the analysis of the tunes which could then affect how you approach it.

I've seen variations on this dichotomy in numerous postings on the forum and I don't quite understand the assumptions contained in it...

In what way does having a piano teacher imply that you are on a concert classical career?

Or conversely, why does this statement imply that learning to play anything other than written out sheet music of classical repertoire requires a person to "self teach"?

For my part, no music teacher I've ever met has refused to teach with sheet music, without sheet music, classical or non-classical or any combination thereof. Including my current piano teacher. We spent a few minutes in the first lesson going over my background and goals and then starting working on what I wanted to work on...which happened to be written out arrangements of decidedly non-classical popular songs.

Are there really a great number of piano teachers who refuse to teach non-classical music? Or who force every student onto the same curriculum as used by a child who aspires to become a concert artist one day? Because I've never met them. Same goes for violin, viola, guitar and mandolin teachers. Actually I did meet one mandolin teacher who only teaches bluegrass music but I took that as an aberration.

I'm not trying to pick a fight over teaching preferences (wouldn't be equipped for such a fight if it happened, anyway). I just don't understand where the idea arises that if you take piano lessons you will only be able to play with sheet music in front of you. From the very beginning my teacher wants to pursue playing by ear in parallel with playing from sheet music. I thought that would be the norm among teachers.

Great discussion. Sadly Brent I believe that answer is yes. I've even heard other piano teachers say that any good pop/rock/jazz piano player would have to have years of classical training to be good. I find that funny since most classical players often have trouble reading a chord chart. Both styles have their merit in my book, and I believe what you say to be best, teach whatever the student wants to learn. There is technique in all of it. When you start to see how the chords and the notes are related, then the true magic happens.


I believe you're on the right track. Basically anything without a specific written piano part could be called a fake book, real book, chart, etc. But you don't have to even know the song to read one. Just need the tempo and the style. I play a lot of shows where I'm sight reading a chart. Drummer counts off the tune and off you go. It's more about creating the music together, improvising most of it. To make matters even more confusing, some charts use numbers instead of letters so you can change the key on the spot.

Classical players may believe this to be an inferior style of playing, but in reality it's just a different set of skills, equally as challenging to master. I believe it should be taught more, and not as a the word "fake" implies, but as a real understanding of music more than just "play that note, ok, now that one"

Oh how true!!!! I am one of those classically trained whatevers. I used to be able to play by ear before starting lessons! Now - as you well stated - I can't play crap unless I have the score. It is the single most frustrating part of re-learning to play.

There's so much fun to be had when playing music with no rules. With a leadsheet, everyone has the general form and harmonic shape. Then it's up to everyone to play it in some new way, rhythmically, harmonically, melodically but still have some common thread to keep it together.

Some interesting things happen.

In my band, we don't rehearse. Some tunes we've never played before. Decisions on intro, outro, tempo, style (swing, bossa, funk, etc.), and so on are made often based on the mood and the moment so when repeated multiple times, the tunes never sound the same.

Jazz musicians in particular will not take the leadsheet literally. Often we will look at the chords and ignore it anyway and substitute something else. Sometimes we'll play 'outside' (out of the harmony) for some extra tension (bad when overdone). But all make the music unexpected and fresh. And it's done live.

This is the kind of stuff that is hard to teach in a classroom. It's a different experience playing with other musicians.

And that's the true value of leadsheets.

I can confirm that I have had a total of FOUR piano teachers who absolutely did not allow me to play anything other than classical music. Where I grew up you played Bach, Beethoven Mozart, Brahms, Grieg, Clementi, Schubert, Chopin, etc. etc. but anything besides classical music was considered frivolous, unworthy of the teacher's (and the student's) time. The second my mother signed me up for piano lessons the piano fun was *** O V E R ***. Yes, that was over 50 years ago, but I'm living proof of it.

I wouldn't really argue with this. Another way of approaching the distinction is saying that the notation conventions within a musical genre set the boundaries for acceptable performance among the community of musicians who practice that genre. So, the jazz or pop player doesn't just say "I know this song" so much as "This lead sheet establishes some musical boundaries within which I am expected to play here and now." Classical players often expect much stricter interpretive boundaries, and this is reflected in the kinds of notation they use.

In my opinion, the questions about interpretive boundaries are constructed and answered by performance communities and, in many cases, have more to do with contemporary community practice than with the original composer. In many cases, the boundaries are fuzzy, and performers are often pushing at the edges.

The boundaries change over time, perhaps not suddenly but inexorably. In the Baroque and Classical eras, art music performers were expected to improvise much more than today. Just check out "figured bass" or "cadenza" in a good music encyclopedia for discussions of the evolving place of improvisation in classical performance.

On the other hand, I think a lot of university music programs today deliberately incorporate jazz and various ethnic music traditions along with classical music. So the faculty and students are likely to accept and develop interpretive practices that might have been much rarer in the conservatory atmosphere of 50 or even 25 years ago.

I always play from fake books/lead sheets now, never from a written sheet music arrangement. I think it's a lot more fun to be creative and make up your own arrangements.

Here's a free lead sheet site:

www.wikifonia.org

You can transpose and download each song. They're not all great chord-wise, but I've gotten a lot of good ones here.

It's funny that people talk about the lack of improvisation in classical music because I took a music history course where our prof. actually improvised around Baroque Figured Bass symbols for us on the piano that was in the lecture theatre. My previous piano instructor (who was taught piano in eastern Europe and is as prototypically classical as they come) could also (after much coaxing) improvise around figured bass but had absolutely no understanding of, what she referred to as, "North American Chord Notation." To be sure, improvisation is by no means the main mode of performing in classical music, but (and this is apropos of nothing anyone here has said) given its history with figured bass and improvisation in general, I think the sort of prevailing notion one often hears that it is somehow intolerant of things like lead sheets is really just a false assumption or stereotype.

However, if there is any distaste of classical musicians to the kind of improvisation that lead sheets require (but I really don't think there is, at least not any I have seen), I think it might just come from the fact that a lead sheet would not be of much help to a pianist trying to play a fugue, or an orchestra trying to perform a symphony, for example. These types of pieces really require the kind of structural detail that only a full composition can give. I suppose, theoretically, a pianist or an orchestra could work off lead sheets alone to produce a symphony or fugue. But could this improvisation be pulled off with the same structural brilliance as a Bach Fugue or a Mahler Symphony?

In the UK it's pretty common -- but it's not really a matter of refusal, but a matter of experience. It's hard to teach something you yourself have little experience, and most piano teachers in the UK are folks who seem piano music in terms of the ABRSM curriculum. If you want to learn how to follow a lead sheet, or play by ear, or improvise, you'll probably have to find a specialist teacher. Most likely that person who have little or know exposure to the classical curriculum (there are, of course, notable exceptions).

I don't want to fight either, so let's do this with mutual respect. We seemed to have gotten on the verge of butting heads a couple of times already, and I really don't understand why. There are those for whom piano (or any musical endeavor is their living, and those of us for whom it is a hobby: FUN). For me, I made a conscious choice to not continue making a living at it as a guitar player and instead to enjoy music as a hobby. i don't care to fight about it and I post here conversationally. If I say something that rankles somebody, I will profusely apologize to that person and try to either say it another way that is more to that person's liking (or at least maybe we arrive at a better understanding) or just stay silent.

In this case, I will try to word it differently and maybe head off a fight, which I won't participate in anyway. There are things to fight about (i.e. how people in various parts of the world are treated, hunger, etc), and playing piano is (in my opinion) not one of them.

I did not intend to imply that "live" teachers can't or won't teach playing from lead sheets, but instead that (based on the things I have read in these forums - even in this thread), it is more difficult to find them than to find those who teach according to a classical curriculum. Most of the DIY courses that I have seen seem to teach playing from a lead sheet in one form or another.

I can't speak to teachers of other instruments, but I can say that the guitar does seem to be treated quite differently in that the general orientation (outside the strict classical realm that a curriculum at a college or university that has a classical guitar performance degree) is toward playing popular styles and the theory that goes with it.

The general tone of your responses to me seem to indicate that you interpret my posts as pitting a "live" teacher against DIY courses somehow. That is not my intention and I apologize if that is how I am coming across.

I believe that using a DIY course is a perfectly valid means of learning to play certain styles on piano. I see no reason why that should have anything to do with whether a "live" teacher is anything less than the ideal situation for those who can make the schedule commitment and/or can afford it.

It is not my intention to argue over whether a DIY course is "better" than a live teacher. I posted in another thread about how self-teaching could still cover the basics that one would normally get from a live teacher. It was not my intention in that thread to say that a live teacher was somehow inferior or that there was anything wrong with going with a live teacher. Instead, I wanted to say that there are DIY courses that can give the self teaching student many of the details that one would expect from a live teacher, that many DIY courses tend to skip over. If there is any assumption in that, in my opinion as the writer of those posts, a live teacher is the "gold standard" against one might want to compare the subject matter of a self teaching approach and at least try to get some of that detail in his or her self teaching curriculum.

The usual route that followups to this post might take would be quotes from other posts of mine saying "yeah, but you said..." and me responding with "but I meant...", until one or the other of us gets tired of the exchange. Can we please accept that I am not trying to disparage live teaching and instead accept that I see that route as the "gold standard" that I believe us DIYers could aspire to in selecting what we intend to learn?

I hope that makes more sense.

Thanks,

Tony

I find it somewhat sad that realbooks have become the norm, especially among jazz players.
When folks meet for jams, it's someone more fun to play random tunes from "the book" than to play good music.

To me fake books simply allow you to fake knowing a tune. Might be great if you're out on a gig, someone says "Hey, my wife name's Jeanine, could you play that tune, it's her birthday.". "Sure". And we all pull out the book. Then we can fake knowing it. There won't be much creativity about it thought. Just playing the changes.

Just last night, I played with this cornet player who plays real great. He's up for anything, and so that's what we do, play "anything". And he plays good. Then someone says "Girl from Ipanema". That's one of those tunes that everyone knows. No one needs the book for that (unless you're new). Man, I wish I had recorded that guy's solo. In fact, I think I will call that tune again next week and record it. See, that's the difference between faking and knowing. Good music vs great.

IMHO, no one should aspire to be a "Fake book" player. Instead, you should learn everything from records.
You should know how to play from a fake book, but if you know how to play from records, that skill comes for free.

Hey, Tony. I'm totally cool with everything you said. No worries.

In fact, from some of the other responses it seems there are in fact teachers who aren't interested in working with students on anything other than a rather inflexible curriculum that's classical music based. Remarkable.

What I was hearing in your remark was that you (or someone in general) might have tried talking to or working with one or more teachers but because you didn't want to sit through a concert classical pianist type education you had to give up on lessons and go learn on your own. I thought that was a preposterous idea...but now I see that it's entirely possible to get that response from some teachers.

Sorry I picked your posting as a jumping-off point for bringing this up. I've seen plenty of other people say or imply similar things here which I why I finally asked "What's up with that?". No wonder there's so often adult beginners (especially true beginners not coming from another instrument) who express such frustration with the teaching they encounter. Apparently, some teachers can be just that blood-minded and inflexible. Guess I've been unusually lucky.

Thanks for all the brilliant responses folks, I knew this was a multi faceted complex subject!

I do have another question.

when I was a kid, in an old church piano stool, I found a folded piece of cardboard.
When unfolded, it sat behind the piano keys at the back, and it was called a "Vamping chart"
As a kid, I studied this and was intrigued. It was very old.
The vicar said I could have it, and i took it home and kept it in a music bag.
Many years later after I had left home, I asked my mam about the music bag, but unfortunately she had thrown it during a clean out.

Does anyone here have any knowledge or recollection of just what this "vamping chart was?"

Probably a chart of common chord progressions in different keys.

When I was a kid, 'vamping' meant improvising an accompaniment, typically for a singer. There were charts designed to help with this, by showing the common chords in each key and their typical progressions.

These days, 'vamping' seems to be used more to mean 'repetition'. To 'vamp' something is to play the same chord or progression over and over again, sort of like ostinato in proper music

I gess what used to be called 'vamping' is now more often called 'comping', although the terms aren't exactly equivalent.

a vamp would be as an example..the "take five" intro..

Bob,

I'd call the Take Five intro an example of a Most Excellent Vamp!

On electric guitar, one might consider Hubert Sumlin's one-chord accompaniment line for Smokestack Lightnin' to be a Most Excellent Vamp.

There must have been millions of these "vamping charts" made in the twenties and thirties, I wonder if any are still in existance , somewhere in someones piano stool/music bag?

Anyone? I would love to see one again, so as an adult I can see what fascinated me so much as a child.

If I can jump into your chat, it appears to me that fake books have that name because they skirted around copyright laws. It wasn't "Bewitched" on the sheet, but a fake. I don't believe that it had anything to do with the idea of "faking it", and contains no condemnation whatsoever of improvisation or of jazz music or of what-have-you.

I always thought vamping was a simple chord progression that is played as a "holding pattern" before the main melody begins. It is typically used while the singer is adjusting the mike, giving a talking intro (..."I wrote this song after my 3rd wife left..." etc.) Kind of a stalling technique to keep avoid dead air and get the song started.

The item that i had as a child was called a "vamping chart" I remember it being very old and it was thick carboard. It folded out and sat at the back of the keys.
I remember little except that it showed chords available in a key.
Then I believe you could move the chart higher or lower up the piano and it would show you the chords available in other keys, in fact any key.

It totally fascinated me , and as an adult I often wondered why it would have been found, like I found it, in a piano stool in a church, and that the piano stool was only used by the choir master.

Untill the vicar let me noodle about on the piano that is.

I wondered if anyone else had seen such an item or even if anyone else possesed such an item?

Going back to "Take five" intro being an example of "vamping" would that mean that Eric saties ( excuse me probably spelling this wrong) Gymnopodie would also be an example of the same thing as it uses similar chords, just a lot slower?

Brent:

Thank you! I appreciate your response. Unfortunately, I have not had the experience of taking lessons from a "live" teacher. I have taught myself to play guitar successfully and figure I could do so with the piano. in my personal observation, the materials for self-teaching for the piano seem to generally be better (in terms of getting a decent music foundation) than those for guitar, so my hopes are up for the experience.

I did discuss my learning needs with a couple of teachers with intent of getting lessons. One said she did not teach adults (did not really give a reason so I can't offer an explanation). Another said that she felt I was already knowledgeable enough to make a go of it on my own. she quickly tested me for reading and identifying notes on the piano, a bit about building chords, etc. To me, when you have learned one instrument (at least one polyphonic instrument such as guitar or piano), there is a transference of that knowledge about music in general to another. I can build chords on the piano and am getting familiar with the bass clef (since I only had to read treble clef for the guitar).

Anyway, my experiences with teachers were not enough to provide a personal judgment, but I have read with reasonable consistency comments on these forums (not just the beginners forum) that many teachers do follow a standard format with certain series of books. I can't say that is a bad thing, and I am sure that there is a lot of information provided in person at the lessons, much as Duane Shinn does in the 52 week course. He says right away that much of the information he has to offer is on the DVDs, rather than in the books he uses to teach with. He is a "live" piano teacher and the 52 week course is his attempt at providing that experience as much as possible "long distance". That is why I talked about it in my other thread.

For those who can work with a live teacher, I say - go for it! But for those whose schedules, budget, geographical location, or whatever doesn't allow for that, there are DIY courses to get you going. Furthermore, some of these courses will attempt to provide the kinds of details that a live teacher would normally provide. Does that make them better than a live teacher? No. But it does mean that the rest of us can enjoy playing piano too.

Tony

"Vamping" is usually considered to be playing a set of chords or riff behind somebody or some instrument for a while. For example, if somebody is MC'ing an event, the band might play some riffy chord progression behind the person while s/he is talking. Another example would be when the band leader goes off the bandstand to punch somebody out, and the rest of the band just keeps riffing on a chord progression until he gets back (true story, by the way). It is essentially a kind of "place holder" until the band kicks in again with the rest of whatever they are to be doing.

Tony

Here's the definition of vamping from the Oxford Dictionary of Music:



And a slightly longer treatment from Grove Music Online:



Here's a vamping chart for sale on ebay.co.uk:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VINTAGE-1950s-...=item20c1a84c5a

One issue I have with many "Fake Books" is this situation: A singer/songwriter, let's say John Lennon, plays a guitar chord that sounds sweet maybe, fretting only 1 or 2 strings. He didn't read or write music. OK, so whomever writes the "fake/lead sheet" figures it out to be a "Bb9/Eb sus4" or some such derivative chord. Oh, thats easy.

The problem, if you want to call it that, reliance on a lead sheet, still creates a "crutch" no different than standard sheet music,in that a sheet is still required! I'm trying to move away from that entirely and play by "ear" for with me I'm only using the chords..as I know the tune already from hearing the recording,and don't need the melody line I've been using these.. www.theguitarguy.com even in this I'm still relying on knowing the chords, or it this case "memorizing" them.. I'm trying to wean myself off this and going by "ear"

I think there's a lot of us would love to be able to play our favorite music by ear. Unfortunately, there's a long way between the wanting and the doing. In my case I'd conservatively estimate one million hours, give or take.

For most melodies, if I can hum it easily from memory then I can play it after maybe a bit of initial fumbling about. But I can not hear a chord progression to save my life. After paying close attention to harmony for several years I can usually catch on to your basic ii-V-I or I-IV-V type thing or simple stepwise sequences but get beyond that (or make the voicings really unique and "interesting") and I'm totally lost at sea.

It'll come eventually but I can't say when...

Packa! Thanks for that, I will have a bid at that !! And its located just a few miles from where I was born and brought up!! (Its meant for me!!)
Now after all these years of wondering what my childhodd eyes saw, I can find out.
(IF i win, please dont bid against me!! )
There is almost a week of tension and anxiety to suffer now.
magic.
Thanks so very much.

Oddly enough, the only place I ever saw vamping charts was in churches.

The one on eBay referred to above is exactly as I remember them.

oooh how odd is that Kevin? I would have thought that they would have appeared everywhere but!!! traditionally the churches being the keepers of the music secrets and all that!!!

(we cant allow non perfect 4/4 out , because the heathens will dance to it!!)

That is an incredibly interesting fact you just brought up, thats two of us now that have seen one of these charts and both of us have seen them in a church!!!

I actually still have a couple of the old original 'fake books' that I bought from a friends Dad who was a sax player in a band. I can barely read them any more with my 69 year old eyes because mine are printed in a tiny font.

When I took lessons as a teenager it was understood that it would be classical. When I was about 18 I started discussing the possibility or her teaching other kinds of music. After several discussions about it she told me she wished me luck in the future but she would no longer teach me.

I still dearly love to play classical and from fake books which I, in no way, find limiting. To the contrary, I am constantly changing the way I play the same old songs. I have several fake books which make up thousands of songs and I can play any of them at any time with very little practice. I love it.

However, I will often put the 'fake book' down (I don't care why they're called that) and pick up a Henle edition of Chopin Nocturnes or something and love playing that or vice versa.

I can't play 'by ear' or from records (I have a brother-in-law who does that with guitar) but they are equally valid.

It's all good and great fun and makes me smile.

This my experience too. I am also getting a better understanding of theory from DIY piano than I've ever had.

Sheet music very often contains errors - a wrong chord written here or there. You still need to use your ears to make corrections.

I think there are misconceptions about playing by ear. IMHO it does not mean sitting down and playing something without effort - somehow magically.

In regard to contemporary/pop/rock music, it means taking your existing knowledge of chords, chord patterns/progressions, melody and applying it. In really simple terms it means listening to a few bars and copying (also comparing ie. "What was the last chord? What will the next one be? How does what I just played compare with what I just heard") and repeating until you build the whole song. It does require that you can aurally distinguish between major, minor, seventh chords and so on and can 'pick out a tune'.

I can "pick out a tune" with minimal fumbling. Can't hear the difference between a Cmaj7 and a Amin7 in the usual inversions, in context of a progression. Like I say, I'd love to be able to hear and hope one day I can but it's been a while and still not getting much closer.

That's looks like a good site/resource. I don't understand, though, what you mean by differentiating between 'memorising' and 'playing by ear'?

Those of us that use this method are always learning to hear better. Lately, when I'm struggling to hear/find the chord I'll try a major seventh just to 'check'. It is especially difficult to hear/identify slash chords with a 'something else in the bass'.

captkawai, wow, we have the same thing, I posted a while ago, that sometimes I cant immediately identify a chord in a piece, quite often it turned out it was a seventh. After this had happened a few times, I got to feeling ARGGGG and could have kicked myself. Now, like you say, i will go straight there just to "check" and now ( more often than not) it is the seventh.

which means that I have "taught" myself to hear it by virtue of knowing it is the one I find hard to hear.
This makes it be heard easier, and its good for me to know that others have had to work on this issue.

excellent, I am not alone!!! lol.

Yes, Rossy. Playing by ear is really always checking "Did I hear that right?" I suppose.

The common progressions in contemporary music make it easier too.

Funnily, major sevenths are easier to hear in guitar parts - must be the voicing.

I was just at the piano exploring and thinking about this. My suggestion, if it's a contemporary song listen to the bass guitar part it will most likely be playing the root note of the chord and should give you a hint. Also check the melody notes against the chord. If there's an A in there it might also be a hint. I hope that helps.

Captain: You'd need to know the chords of the song to play it?
take Autumn Leaves..on that sheet he has..there's no way in heck I can remember that,
I probably if i fooled around with it I can figure out some chords I know that its
a sad song so that tells me its a minor chord so I'd fudge around and figured it out,
but if I knew about chord progressions, and was able to use my ear more..ah then! but until ..I have to rely on the "sheet"

Autumn Leaves

Em, Em9, Am7, D7, GM7, G6, Am6, B7, Em
Bridge: B+, Em, B7, Em, Em7, Em, D7, D, G
Cdim(iv) Cdim(I) B7, Em, Em9, Em
A, Am7, B7, Em, Am7, Am6, Em9

I have been peeking at this thread for a couple of days, and somehow it has morphed from fake books or lead sheets into "playing by ear". So be it.

Brent brings up a very good point, about which I see little written here on the forum - an exercise we used to call EAR TRAINING. If anyone is already covering this topic here, please forgive the redundancy.

EAR TRAINING is a very similar exercise, or dicipline, to sight reading. Most successful efforts start off with dictation of very simple melodies (for melodic dictation), and very simple chord progressions (for harmonic dictation).

As simple melodies (and chord progressions) are mastered, they form the building blocks for more complex melodies and progressions, in the self-same way that accomplishing any other musical discipline is additive.

With an effective program and consistent effort (and a decent ear), one no longer needs to "guess" at the melody, OR the harmony. One simply learns to recognize BOTH as one listens to the piece in question.

There are many creative ways to accomplish ear training, and I shall be pleased to elaborate if anyone is interested.

Ed

I think it sort of morphed naturally as these things are inherently connected, and also because the terms used mean different things to different folks.
I for one would love you to elaborate on ear training, and I feel confident others will too.
Thanks.

Ear training typically starts with the aural identification of diatonic intervals. Someone else says, "we are in the key of C major, and the starting note is C." He/she then plays DO - MI, and you respond "C - E" (or solfeggio is fine, too) .

I'll be back for more abuse after dinner.

Ed

Lo presti, I totally dont understand what you mean, who abused you?
Everything you was saying made sense till you said that, did I miss something?

The trick is to listen to the bass note, or the most bottom note if it's just a piano piece. Most likely that is the root of the chord. Then, it's a matter of figuring out if the basic chord is altered to include 7ths and such. With one main exception noted below.


Usually this is done to create smooth bass motion. If you hear a note in the bass but it's not the root, it's most likely either the third or the fifth of a chord. So for an E bass note, if it's not an E chord, check a C chord and an A chord. Not foolproof, but knowing what is typical at least gets you down the right path.

Bob Newbie, I'm not quite sure what you are asking, but, yes, you need to know the chords of a song to play it. Working out the chords can be a challenge. (I also enjoy it). There is nothing wrong with using chord charts or sheets. Who can memorise the chord sequence for every song? One thing I am, thankfully, blessed with, is the ability to quickly learn and to remember melodies. But my repertoire book is a collection of sheets with lyrics and the chords written above them (old guitar player style).

Becoming familiar with common chords patterns makes the task of working out the chords easier. Internet searches are good for a starting point but, like a lot of sheet music, are not always accurate and you need to put in some effort to improve them. I'm not saying I am always right when it comes to the chords I work out but I have been doing it for a long time and feel comfortable with it.

I hope that helps.

Regarding playing by ear, don't forget about the Circle of Fifths:

http://www.angelfire.com/fl4/moneychords/circle.html

http://www.angelfire.com/fl4/moneychords/circleprogressions.html

I'm aware of the circle but have not learnt it/internalised it or worked out how to use it in my playing. But the chord sequences at

http://www.angelfire.com/fl4/moneychords/circleprogressions.html

look very interesting.

Circle of Fifths: http://www.angelfire.com/fl4/moneychords/circleprogressions.html


B-E-A-D-G-C Cycle


This cycle travels counterclockwise from “B” to “C.” The “B7-E7-A7-D7-G7-C” and “Bm-E7-Am-Dm-G7-C” progressions are two common types of this cycle. The first type is called a cycle of dominant seventh chords. An example of this type of cycle that uses secondary dominant sevenths is the verse progression to the Chordettes’ 1954 hit Mister Sandman shown below. A secondary dominant is a chord that serves as the “V” of another. For example, in the “B7-E7-A7-D7-G7-C” progression the “B7” is the “V” of the “E7” chord and the “E7” is the “V” of the “A7” chord. Similarly, the “A7” is the “V” of the “D7” chord and the “D7” is the “V” of the “G7” chord.


C / / / B7 / / / E7 / / / A7 / / /
D7 / / / G7 / / / C / / / Ab7 / G7 /



An example of the second cycle type that uses both primary and secondary chords is the A section to the 1965 standard The Shadow Of Your Smile shown below.


Bm7 / / / E7b9 / / / Am7 / / / / / / /
Dm7 / / / G7 / / / Cmaj7 / / / / / / /

No abuse so far - it's simply a phrase.

So, where were we?
EAR TRAINING

It requires two people - perhaps a teacher and a student. It can eventually be recorded media, and the student. Here, because many do not have formal teachers, let us use the terms PLAYER and LISTENER. It is very important to start out SIMPLE. So the PLAYER does not need to be terribly skilled - he/she simply needs to know the names of notes on an instrument, and be accurate.

An excellent way to start is for the LISTENER to simply name (or write down) the notes in various diatonic, two-note, arpeggiated intervals being sounded by the PLAYER. The LISTENER may chose to do this using numbered degrees of the scale, or the actual names of the notes, or even solfeggio.

EXAMPLE: (Let’s work with C major for ease of reference.) The PLAYER sits at the piano (or picks up his kazu), and establishes C major as the tone center by playing a C major triad or a C major scale, or both.. Next, the PLAYER plays and sustains a C that is somewhere in the middle section of the keyboard, saying, “This is C”. The PLAYER then plays and sustains a second (higher) note in the C major scale octave (let us use F for our example), and asks, “What note is this?”

If necessary, the LISTENER can sing the scale notes ascending from C until he/she arrives on F, and hopefully, recognizes that he/she has “arrived”. He/she might respond. “C and F” (or 1 and 4, or Do and Fa). Like with anything else musical, practice and repetition brings results. As the LISTENER gains accuracy, the team starts to SLOWLY add complexity:

[1] Intervals BELOW the starting note
{2] Intervals larger than one octave
[3] Minor tonalities
[4] Two successive intervals, then 3, 4, etc.
[5] Introduce non-diatonic notes
[6] Introduce some simple melodies, and have the LISTENER transcribe them.
[7] Sounding both (all 3, all 4) notes of the various intervals simultaneously (This is starting to sound like building chords!)

I believe most can see the “building” process. I shall not belabor all the steps to moving to chord progressions, except to advise that those must also start very SIMPLE. Diatonic, start with two triads in root position:
PLAYER: “ Here is the C major tonality”. “This is the C major triad.” “What is this (second) triad?”

As the LISTENER’S ear continues to build, the complexity can build, following the same general pattern as with intervals.

This is a thumb-nail sketch of ear training.
Ed

Thanks, Elssa, but my problem is (and it's no reflection on you) that my eyes start to glaze over at this point. When I say I have learnt more theory since starting piano (than guitar) I've learnt more in a practical sense (eg. "now what is the major seventh note to add for C? Ah yes, B"). I just need to buckle down and learn it, I know, I know ...

To anyone,
I am primarily a vocalist and I'll be using fake/real books. I know my chords, etc. from years of playing guitar but where can I learn some patterns and strategies to string together arpeggios and the like?

I can just bang the triad wtih the right hand and root note/walk upp/downs with the left but that gets old. I can do 1-5-1(8) in the left and then maybe a 9th(add2) chord or 11th(ad4) in ascending order in the right (for an arpeggio), but is that it? How else can I come up with different arrangement stategies/patterns?

i'm also interested in trying to figure out some left and right hand patterns for boogie woogie/blues types of stuff.

I'm really not asking for particular techniques here (because it would probably take you too much time) although that would be grat.
What I'm looking for is some sort of training manual or study method that will move me beyong just banging "block" chords.
(I can read a bit and play by ear.)

Thanks.

Tuna,

Just like with guitar, much of what happens behind the vocalist depends upon the style in which you want to set the piece, and its tempo. If the style is hard-driving, or up-tempo, or Latin; then the piano will be very busy, harmonically and rhythmically. If the style is "cool" or a ballad, then the piano needs to be sparse, with MELODIC colorations.

In either case, block chords, either punctuated or arpeggiated, are very useful. A common physical technique, in the absence of a bass, is to develop a bass line in your left hand, and punctuate the "most important" chord notes in the right hand.

Do a lot of listening with VERY BIG EARS to recordings of the vocalists you prefer, and let your ear be your guide to recreating that when you play.

That should get you started.

Ed

Just came across this thread so hope its not too late to contribute.

In the UK Fake books were more commonly known as Busking books though I think the American word "Fake " is more commonly used now. Its absolutely the same thing though , a collection of tunes with the melody written out and chord symbols, quiet often the accuracy of the chords is a bit suspect. Busking (in the UK) also means to play without music ("busk it")so having a book is a bit of an anachronism. These books are often used on gigs where you might get asked for a tune you don't have an arrangement for or know. Actually experienced musicians doing this sort of work tend to know every tune ever written!!!
Thirty years ago I worked as a trumpet player doing theatre, clubs and dance gigs and on the dance gigs we used arrangements most of the time but sometimes we would do a waltz or something where everyone would take turns playing a chorus of whatever tune we fancied. The standrad procedure was to hold your fingers up to indicate the key - up for # and down for b - so two fingers held in the air would mean I am going to play a tune in D and the rhythm section would just play a turnaround to D from whatever key they were playing and pick up what ever tune you started to play. The guys I played with seemed to know every tune or could at least busk/fake anything convincingly, no doubt from years of experience.
In the UK the word busking is also used for playing/performing in the street for change.

Thanks, jazztpt - that's interesting to know. We use "busking" to mean playing in the streets for tips here, too. Here in Santa Fe you have to have a busking license to do it :), but I hadn't the term "busking book" before. The bank I'm in will have to try the round-robin waltz trick one of these days. How fun to have played in a dance band.

Cathy

When I played solo (voice and acoustic guitar) in restaurants I used to have a few busking books and I'd circulate them among the patrons to pick a song from, then I'd sit at or near their table and sing it for them. It was a lot of fun. People love it and will sing along and such.

That's interesting about the "busking books". Last week, I played in an open mic/jam session at a local restaurant, sometimes along with a professional singer/guitarist and a ukelele player - great fun! I'd brought along a fake book, and we picked out some songs we all knew and liked. Sometimes we had to change the key, though, because we didn't all like the key of the song in the book, so we all played by ear as well as by lead sheet that evening. Turned out to be a nice variety of music (Duke Ellington, Hoagy Carmichael, Gershwin, etc.) Then, the uke player got up and played/sang some real oldies - Ain't She Sweet, One Meatball, etc., songs not found in your typical fake book.

So, just wondering, what's everybody's favorite fake/busking book? I think mine is "The Ultimate Jazz Fakebook", "C" Edition" (over 625 Standards and Jazz classics).