All's Well That Ends Well

I don't get it: why do so many "musicians" assume a fermata on a long final note when there is none? Why do they stop counting when they reach that last note? It amazes me how this phenomenon affects the entire band, as if everyone is waiting for someone else to stop first. This seems counterintuitive to me; I would think that being the first to cut off would be much less risky than being the one holding on when everyone else has cut off.

A whole note tied to a dotted half gets 7 beats no matter where it occurs - but especially at the end of the song when there's not a birdseye in sight. Count, listen, and have some confidence in your own performance.

The Tied Eighth Note & "Getting Off"

In jazz, an eighth note tied to the end of a longer note is interpreted differently than it would be in "legit", or classical, playing. This figure is often encountered in ballads but is sometimes seen in straight-ahead charts as well.

Figure 1 shows an example of two measures that might appear in a slow ballad. The second measure contains a rhythmic pattern that is often misinterpreted. In this case, there is an eighth note on beat 3 tied to the preceding half note. Ask any classical musician what the duration of this figure is and he will probably answer, "two and a half beats." While that is correct for classical music, it is incorrect in a jazz context! In jazz, this note sounds for exactly two beats: the tied eighth note is an indication to stop the note on beat three.

Figure 1

As a verbal direction, we say "off on three" and may notate the reminder in our chart (in pencil!) with "-3" as shown in figure 2. Some published charts may print this performance direction as a courtesy.

Figure 2

Similar situations may also appear in straight-ahead swing charts. Also, the "off on ..." notation (e.g. -4) may appear on notes that are not tied to an eighth, typically at the end of a song, an example of which is shown in figure 3.

Figure 3

These conventions are not arbitrary. A composor or arranger uses these notations when he wants an immediate and definite stop to the sound on a specific beat. For example, it may be that the band is crescendo-ing to a climax with a dramatic cut to a delicate solo line - to be effective, the climax can not "hold over" else it "step on" the solo. The collective agreement on where, exactly, to stop a note makes for a "tight" performance. In the case of figure 3, it is often the case, especially in older big band music, that the final beat will be a bass/drum "bump".

Sight-Reading: The Wrap-up

DYNAMICS AND LISTENING (WHO HAS THE LEAD?):
One element of music that is often overlooked (at least the first or second reading) is dynamics. It is easy to see (or hear) how playing the wrong notes or rhythms can quickly lead to chaos but blaring away at an inappropriate volume can just as quickly destroy the music. Many novice sight-readers concentrate so fully on attempting to get the right notes and rhythms they do not even realize how loud they are playing. The extreme volume may be an attempt to hear one’s self above the din of the rest of the band but this egocentric strategy simply does not work. The result is like trying to paint the Mona Lisa with a twelve-inch roller.

When sight-reading in the context of an ensemble (of any size), the dynamics are just as important as the notes and rhythms. Play at or below the written dynamic level. If you do not have the lead (the melody, or tune), play softer.

While you are no doubt focusing intently on playing the written notes and rhythms, it is just as important to listen to how your part fits in with the whole. Listen for the lead and play beneath it. Even if you have the lead, chances are good that you are not playing it alone – the mere fact that multiple voices are playing the lead together lends to its volume and therefore eliminates the need to exaggerate your own volume. Careful listening may also reveal that you are playing a unison passage that is not the lead, in which case you should play with even less volume.

Chances are also good that if you are reading a second, third, or forth part and you are not playing the lead. Take your dynamic cues from your section leader (e.g. first alto, first trumpet, etc.). The written dynamic level is only a guide indicating the general volume. Different circumstances, such as the phrasing of a line, dictate subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) fluctuations in volume. Again, listen to and follow the lead.

LISTEN TO JAZZ
Earlier, I compared the reading of music to the reading of letters and words. In learning to read, an implicit knowledge of the language is critical. It would be impossible for a child raised in an English-speaking family to learn to read French – the words and sounds would be completely unfamiliar and incomprehensible. Likewise, to become a competent reader of any particular genre of music, you must be familiar with its “language”. The best way to become familiar with the language of jazz is to listen to a lot of jazz. Immerse yourself in the sound. Learn the many “dialects” of the language by listening to different styles (from traditional “Dixieland” to the “Big Band” music of the 1930’s and ‘40’s to more contemporary Latin jazz, funk, and fusion).

LEARN LOTS OF TUNES
The more tunes you know, the fewer surprises you will encounter when confronted with a new piece of music. Phrases from well-known tunes are often “quoted” in other tunes and arrangements. The “Real Book” and other fake books are excellent sources for the melody lines of jazz standards.

Sight Reading: Don't Stop

When sight-reading, force yourself to keep going. It is more important to “keep your place” than to play a perfect phrase. When reading by yourself, use a metronome or a drum track (e.g. Band-in-a Box) to help you stay on track. Take your initial reading at a slower tempo than indicated. Look through the music you are about to read and set the tempo at a pace that will give you half a chance at playing the most difficult passage without stumbling.

Sight Reading: Rhythms & Rests

PRACTICE RHYTHMS
Jazz is a very rhythmic music and many rhythmic figures appear repeatedly in published charts. Many jazz “conception” etude books focus on the basic rhythms found in jazz and these are a good source for building a vocabulary of rhythms.

Whereas notes (musical pitches) are associated with vibrations at frequencies in the aural range (approximately 50 Hz to 20 kHz), rhythms deal with “vibrations” in the range of physical (mechanical) perception – i.e. you feel rhythms in your body. This is why tapping a foot to the beat helps you stay aligned with the metric pulse. Practicing rhythms by involving the body in physical motion (hand clapping or foot stomping) can help embed a rhythmic vocabulary in your memory. I suggest tapping a foot (or both feet), while simultaneously clapping and speaking the rhythmic figure being practiced. Use of a metronome is also indispensable here.

COUNT THE RESTS
Music, like fine art and effective graphic design, is composed of positive and negative space: sound and silence. The boundary between the positive and negative space defines contours and gives shape to the image (visual or aural).
Larry Liberson, Assistant Principle Clarinetist of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, once told me the number one mistake made by candidates auditioning for a position with this world-class orchestra is a failure to count the rests. While practicing or playing a piece of music unaccompanied, the general rule is to count out all rests with a duration of two measures or less. If the measures are “short” (e.g. cut time) or if a fast tempo is indicated, count rests up to four measures in length. When playing in an ensemble, especially when sight-reading, count all multi-measure rests carefully – do not assume that your next entrance will occur at a “predictable” place or that the conductor will cue you.

The meaning of a musical rest is not “relax”, but rather “be silent”. Give as much attention to playing the rests as you do to playing the notes. Most people are not naturally comfortable with silence – we instinctively want to fill the empty space with sound. John Cage took this idea to an extreme with his composition 4’33”.

John Cage’s 4’33”

I

TACET

II

TACET

III

TACET

Another Installment on Sight-Reading

You can apply the following tips for improving your sight-reading equally to any genre of music but I have endeavored to address some of the challenges specific to jazz.

PRACTICE READING

The best way to gain a skill is to practice it. Make sight-reading a regular part of your practice routine. Collect music of all kinds as sources for your sight-reading practice – especially if it looks too difficult for your current skill level. Good sources of music for sight-reading (and practice in general) are the many jazz etude books that are now available.

Be on the lookout for alternate sources of music for sight-reading. When I began playing the baritone saxophone, I discovered that the instrument’s range is identical to that of the cello. Since E-flat transposing instruments can read concert-pitch bass clef as treble clef with a modification of the key signature, the whole repertoire of unaccompanied cello solos became available to me for sight-reading.

SCALES, PATTERNS, AND IDIOMS

The easiest music to read by sight is music you already know. Most music, and especially jazz, is constructed from fundamental building blocks of scales and patterns. Learn to play and, most importantly, to recognize these scales and patterns, and you already “know” a significant amount of music. Sight-reading then becomes an exercise in recognizing and executing larger chunks of music instead of reacting to a string of individual notes. This is analogous to how we learn to read words. When a child first learns to read, he sees the individual letters and “sounds out” each new word. After developing a vocabulary of recognized patterns of letters (words), reading becomes more spontaneous and fluid. When you begin seeing musical patterns that are part of your musical vocabulary, your mental effort is redirected away from merely playing the notes and toward a deeper musical comprehension.

Learn as many scales as you can. Start with the 12 major and 12 (melodic) minor scales but do not stop there. Learn the harmonic minors, natural and other modal minors, augmented (whole-tone) scales, diminished, pentatonic, blues – the list is endless! Also, learn the “chord” for each scale – the arpeggiation of the chord tones. It is
important not only to learn to play the scales and chords but to recognize them when they appear within a piece of music.

Patterns, idioms, or riffs, are the clichés of music. Some of these clichés are instrument-specific and involve the use of special techniques. Many patterns are formulaic rearrangements of the
notes that make up a scale or chord. There are many books on the market that focus on patterns of various types. Learning to recognize and play these patterns is “expanding your vocabulary”. The more patterns you know, the less often your brain has to stop during sight-reading to “look up” an unfamiliar pattern.

Sight Reading

The following is an excerpt from an article I am writing about the importance of learing to read music by sight.

I learned the importance of developing excellent sight reading skills very early in my musical education. When I was a sophomore in high school, I auditioned for a position in the Oakland Youth Symphony. In addition to performing a prepared solo and being able to play any of the twelve major and twelve melodic minor scales on command, I was expected to read at sight a piece of music with which I was completely unfamiliar. This was to be my first real test of my sight-reading skills and I was terrified. (And, as I recall, I was all the more nervous knowing that the sole judge of my audition was the Symphony’s director, Irv Monroe – principle flutist of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra).

The page put before me was the opening theme of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, consisting of a syncopated rhythmic figure in 6/8 time. Is it in six or in two? How fast? And how does that rhythm go, anyway? I thought I performed terribly and was prepared to be humiliated by rejection. I was surprised to learn that not only was I accepted but I was awarded the position of principle clarinet, a chair usually reserved for a senior.

Figure 1 – Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5, Clarinet I

My tutors had often touted the importance of reading by sight and they often had me sight-read a portion of the next week’s lesson. It was this first nerve-racking experience that convinced me they were right and provided the motivation for me to develop and hone the skill. The payoff was the confidence to play anything put before me, whether as an unaccompanied soloist or as a member of a large ensemble.

Close Enough for Jazz

I play in two community jazz bands, each of them composed primarily of non-career musicians (I dislike the term "amateur" for its implication of lack of skill). Many of the members also participate in other community bands and orchestras which rehearse and perform music of a more "legit" nature. The caliber of these musical organizations is quite high; whereas many community bands perform at a high school level, these groups rate alongside some of the best college bands and orchestras.

Why is it, then, that musicians who are otherwise quite capable and talented fail to perform jazz with the same attention they give to other (legit) music? I have a pet peeve about the lazy attitude with which jazz seems to be treated. I mean, there's no difference between the notes in a given key signature in jazz verses a classical work. It's true that swung eighth notes in jazz are not strictly timed, but that's no excuse for ignoring written rhythms - the basic divisions of the beat still apply in jazz as in classical. Jazz does employ some idiomatic rhythmic nomenclature, but a half note still has a definite length (and it's not longer than two beats, assuming a quarter-note-based meter). In the absence of written articulations in a swung jazz phrase, the convention is to play long (legato) eighths and short quarters but when articulations are given, they mean the same as they do everywhere else: a dot means "short", a line means "long", a slur means "connected".

Let's abolish the aphorism, "close enough for jazz."

Old Folks At Home

The title might lead you to think this is about the Stephen Foster standard also known as (Way Down Upon the) Swanee River. If you're disappointed that it's not, you can read all about it at Wikipedia, here.

Last night, the community jazz band with which I play performed its obligatory annual concert at a local assisted living facility. We played in the dining room to a crowd of about 25 seniors, with a few visiting family members mixed in. We were prepared to play a couple sets but was told on arrival that only 45 minutes of music would be required. After that, many of the attendees would simply wander off, presumably from boredom or drowsiness. I thought it was ironic that one of the musicians warned the folks that they might want to move to the back of the room because we can get quite loud; the irony being that most of them probably lost their hearing long ago. Then the director instructed us to keep the volume down. The drummer was playing so softly that we almost couldn't hear him and, as a consequence, the tempo became a little vague at times; the trombones dragged and the saxes rushed and a few bars would go by before the mess was straightened out. But I'm sure our audience never knew the difference.

Trash Talk

Last night I burned a CD with three versions of Freedom Jazz Dance and some other selected sax features for a colleage. The three versions of Freedom Jazz Dance are:

1. Eddie Harris on " Eddie Harris: The Last Concert" with the WDR Big Band
2. James Carter on "Live at Baker's Keyboard Lounge"
3. "Jazz Times Superband" with Bob Berg, Joey DeFrancesco, et. al. (for some reason, I thought Michael Brecker played on this album but it's his brother, Randy, who appears)

As I was listening to the CD this morning, I was reminded again of the pure cacophony that James Carter is capable of producing. After an unaccompanied intro and one sloppy chorus of the head, James launches into his "solo" material with a completely atonal (nearly nontonal) multiphonic belched at full volume. He persists through endless ear-splitting choruses with various squeaks and squawks disguised as altissimo performance as well as chaotic sequences of seemingly random notes played too fast to be distinguised as anything but white noise. The overall effect is not unlike the static, sweeping chirps, and random bursts of noise heard while trying to dial in a faint signal on an old radio. Defenders of Carter's raucous style might call this "free improvisation", a style suggested by the tune's title. A better, and musical(!), example of free impovisation is demonstrated in the Jazz Times Superband performance. Bob Berg also employs multiphonics, ventures into the saxophone's altissimo range, and executes rapid improvisational passages but sparingly and tastefully.