No matter what genre you play in, it is important to learn (memorize) tunes. As a jazz or R&B musician, for example, it’s hard for you or the audience to really get into your playing if your nose is glued to the stand reading music. Sometimes it’s necessary to read music, but it’s far better and is more professional to memorize the tunes. You’d also be surprised that after you’ve got a few under your belt, others come much easier.

It is far better to learn tunes by listening to a good recording, and learning the melody via ear rather than reading it from a real book. And it makes sense; music is an aural activity so it seems logical that learning aurally would be better than learning from reading a chart. Real books and charts are a great reference for gigs, and for understanding the chord changes, but are not the best way to learn the melodies.

What to Practice

You should start by picking some tunes you want to learn. Then, similar to the method I described for transcribing (listen, sing, play, write), you should learn the melodies. Try to precisely match the rhythm, intonation, and sound on the original recording. Also listen closely for any embellishments used, and try to match those. This can take quite a while, but will pay huge dividends if you put in the effort. You can’t get this quality of learning from just trying to learn tunes from reading charts in the Real Books.

Once you’ve learned the melody of a tune, you can start to improvise around the “changes” (chord sequence). For beginning improvisers, use the melody line as a starting point. Next, learn the changes (a chart will be necessary now) to the tune. Then practice playing chord tones (3rds and 7ths work well as “guide” tones) over the changes, perhaps mixed with snippets of the melody. Next, you might try adding in some of the patterns you are learning in your Technique practice sessions. Finally, see where some of the phrases or licks from your transcribing will fit in. Using all these techniques, you should have some great ideas for how to improvise now!

An important thing to do is to hum the tune in your head while your improvising. Humming the tune while you (or others) are improvising is the easiest way to keep from getting lost in the tune. Humming in your head can be difficult to do at first, but once you practice it, it will start to become second nature.

Another neat thing to do once you’ve learned a tune, is to get or build a backing track for that tune. The Jamey Aebersold or Hal Leonard CDs are great sources for quality backing tracks. Then you can use these backing tracks to simulate a live rhythm section, and you can work on both playing the melody and improvising over the changes. I like to group eight to ten or more of these backing tracks and then play through them sequentially as if it were a full set at a live gig. It’s a great workout, and fun too.

Another thing you can do is to go to a jam session, if you can find one (they’re harder and harder to find). You might even start your own. I’m a firm believer that you progress at least ten times faster (per hour spent) when you play at gigs or jam sessions verses practicing alone at home. It’s something about playing out in a group that really ingrains the tunes in your subconscious.

A final suggestion, which I also mentioned above under some of the other core components, is the importance of recording. After you’ve learned a tune, record yourself. Listen to see if your rhythm, sound, and intonation

References

• See Jamey Aebersold’s free jazz pamphlet for a listing of jazz standards to learn.

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