I get it, it makes perfect sense intellectually and I do not play so I wouldn’t even be able to ask for an example. Do you mostly play gigs where you are reading (or have rehearsed) charts, or do you play a long known and well rehearsed set-list, or do you sit down at the bench and someone says: “let’s do Route 66 next, but in E” and then you are off to the races?
Is how you play a piece of music up to you? Is there sheet music or lead sheets as an incomplete structure, or a chart you must follow? At the level my kid plays, an inversion is on the part of the composer/song writer; might a time come where he can improvise a portion of the music?
The closest he has come to that is a worship band he rehearsed with occasionally. He would be given a lyric sheet with chord changes typed above the words. He would just play the chords until he got home and watched a video of someone playing the song, or sometimes he would ask me to buy him the sheet music. Would that be common for a professional gig?
EDIT: I did have him play the exercise you suggested. At first they sounded very different, but frankly I may not be musical enough to pick a ‘better’ or ‘stronger’ version. After a few minutes of listening to it one way— then the other they both sounded okay to me. It seemed to me it made a bigger difference if you played it in a different octave- whichever inversion of the V chord he played.
As long as WordMan **** has wondered by, I will post my original reply which boils down to: if it is not too personal to ask, how do I get my kid from where he is to where you guys are? What is it like to be a pro (or even semi-pro) musician? Where should I focus his studies?
It makes perfect sense intellectually. I usually like examples to prove to myself my theory will work in real life. You have proven it to yourself and that is as good as it can get, I do not have enough knowledge or experience to apply it as I don’t play.
That leads me to a question to which you must have stated an answer in numerous threads. Knowing you started your music studies in the traditional classics, and now play popular music like jazz, do you have charts for all or most of what you play? WordMan often speaks of noodling around and sort of inventing his part I assume during a rehearsal. Unless you play solo and provide your own charts and arrangements, are you provided a set list or some sheet music? My nephew very briefly played with a big band and the guy who owned the charts owned the band. There were about 400 tunes broken into parts: 1st trumpet, 2nd trumpet, 1st trombone, 1st alto sax, 2nd alto sax, 1st tenor sax, etc. Every week they were given a list of about twenty of the numbers and they sight read each piece (most of the guys had been playing those same songs since they were popular after the war). Do you ever get a gig where you just noodle around and play background chords? An old guy we go to church with plays these beautiful, pastoral chords and can play for an hour without ever breaking into a song. It is pleasant enough for a few minutes – but for me it gets old fast. Apparently he can play a few songs only, and those only with his right hand.
I am trying to get a sense of what it takes to be a musician who can play paying gigs. At the rate my nephew is learning, not only will I not end up in a nice old folk’s home—I am likely to be living under a freeway overpass. His goal is to replace Bobby Freeman as the Diamondbacks organ player, but I want to steer him into a successful musical career if plan A falls through.
Sure, they do both resolve fine, but, at least to me, the second version is “tighter” sounding with each voice making no more of a leap than a full step, whereas in the root position version, you have the outer voices jumping a fourth and a fifth. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that. Maybe “stronger” wasn’t the best word. “Tighter”? At any rate, it sounds different to me, especially as in the inverted version you have a major second (the F rubbing up against the G right next to it there) which, to me, makes it feel just a bit more “tense” and the resolution down to E and G somewhat more satisfying.
But this doesn’t mean I would always play a V7 to I with those voicings, at all. It’s more an example to show how a little bit different they sound, and that resolving cluster in the middle there is what makes it sound different to me.
It totally depends on his goals and styles of music. I make my living as a musician in the world of musical theatre (Broadway, etc.), and 99% of that music is written out for you. Occasionally you’ll come across a lead sheet where you need to read and improvise off the chords, so it’s important to know those, too. Transposing on sight, though, is very rarely needed. A jazz cat would probably be more adept at that, since, as you say, someone will usually call out the next tune and the key they want it in.
Sight-reading is my strength; sometimes I play piano for auditions and will sit there for 8 hours while each actor comes in one by one and tries to impress the creative team. I have about 7-10 seconds to look at their music before I have to play it, which sometimes involves reading a combination of the printed music and the chords. But the actors saying “I sing this in a different key” is not encouraged, so my transposing skills are lacking unless I have time to write in the new chords, which I usually don’t.
I guess all that is to say, there’s no one way to become a professional musician. But I fear we’re steering away from the original thread now…
My playing out days are long behind me, and DooWahDiddy is far more qualified to answer this question, as he is a full-time professional musician. When I was gigging and touring with a band, it was rock music and we mostly had our parts figured out through rehearsals. There’d still be some improvising, but it was all original music and we knew our parts. When I did solo piano stuff (jazz standards) back in high school and a little college, it was often just reading off a lead sheet with chords and melody line notated, and then you just comp it however you like.You learn all sorts of ways to accompany the music you play (walking bass, closed voicings, stride, open voicings, drop 2, various Latin rhythmic patterns, etc., and often you mix these within your performance.)
At a jam session, sure, somebody might call out “rhythm changes in D” or “blues in E” and you’re off to the races. I never got to the point where I had a huge repertoire of jazz or pop standards under my belt, but, yes, with a much more experienced musician, you should be able to call out a standard and have everyone follow along (perhaps with some clarifying notes about any chord changes/reharmonizations.)
Well, it kind of depends on the type of music you’re playing, but, yes, for popular music it’s absolutely common to reharmonize a lead sheet and make off-the-cuff substitutions based on your experience while playing. (ETA: Well, re-reading that, it also depends on what kind of popular music. If you’re a wedding band doing your typical wedding standards, you probably do not want to stray from the recorded version at all. If you’re a lounge player doing the same in a jazz trio or solo, you would jazz up a lot of those chords.) Now, when you’re playing with other musicians, you kind of have to be on the same page for it not to sound like a wreck, though, so at least you want to follow the chord changes.
I think most people with any musical talent are capable of improvisation. Is your kid learning classical music? What’s daunting, at first, (and this is my background) is when you learn to read and play notes on a page, and think that’s what music is, and then are given some words and some chords and asked to “make up” something on the spot. It’s scary if all you know is exact notes on the page.
Well, sure, it’s absolutely helpful to know what the song is more-or-less supposed to sound like. If I have the chords, I wouldn’t need any additional sheet music, but I certainly would at least listen to a few recordings of it and listen to different folks’ approach to it to get the gist of the song.
ETA: Wow, it took me forever to type up the above, and I see ]DooWahDiddy has already chimed in. Listen to him. But if you want general discussion on the topic, it might be worth opening up another thread for it.
Thanks for the kind words, pulykamell. I’m sure you’re a stronger transposer and more well-versed in the jazz idiom than I am, which seems to be more where Temporary Name is leaning (or where his son is leaning). But yes TN, if you had specific questions and wanted to start a new thread about it, I’d be happy to help with anything I can.
I’m a clueless journeyman who played in bar bands and happened to get in a band with a couple of former pros on the UK scene who’d relocated to the States for their primary jobs. We were the official mid-life crisis band in our town.
I doubt I can provide much insight that’s helpful from a pro readiness standpoint - I’ve never targeted it being a full time gig, can’t read, don’t know theory, etc. I speak more to the stuff that has kept me playing, just in general. Setting up grooves to include techniques I want to learn works for me and can work for others, but that’s about practice approach, not how to show up for a gig with charts.
A later thought on context: I just found and made opportunities to play for fun with some pay. In college there were parties to play and coffee house gigs and open mics. At my job out of college were fellow musicians. I had a band in business school fercrissake. But I wasn’t looking to make living.
With my midlife crisis band it was fun because we were good and drew a crowd, so I could find bars that would let us play earlier hours (9-11:30; in bed by 1am, baby!) and have a few hundred bucks to show for it.
The only place I ever concern myself with inversion is with the bass. That’s the only time where I think it really sounds uniquely different. My right hand will play chords however they fit, but I will play around with walking the bass or jumping the bass and the sounds that produces.
The only exception is open versus closed chord voicing, and what note I put on top of the chord–which tends to follow the melody unless I’m accompanying something else.
I just walked over to a random keyboard and … no prob at all.
Sadly, I don’t know how to play piano, that’s my wife’s department–she is always complaining about composers and their tenths and other large intervals.
Huge hands is one of the reasons why I switched from guitar to bass a few years back–for the first time in my life I was playing a proportionally sized instrument. I met another tall bass player some time back and mentioned this to him, and he shared the same joy of finding a “big and tall” instrument.
My thanks to all of you who answered my questions, all of the answers are appreciated and are helping me to form better questions. I do plan to start a new thread in the next few days and I am mentally trying to get to the heart of what I am trying to ask. Often once I start typing I bog myself down in minutia and never get to the point I am most interested in.
Again, I would like to apologize to the OP for distracting from the question the thread was meant to address. I thought at one time I had an obvious solution- but it turned out I was just misapplying a well known musical technique (what some would call being too clever by half). The really sad thing for me was that I was sort of proud I was the first one to suggest my (faulty) solution and I didn’t even walk over and try it out first, I just assumed it would work. Pride before the fall- right before your very eyes ladies and gents!
Your “cheat” would be a perfectly reasonable solution to someone (like me), who couldn’t span that chord. Yes, it would sound different, but if I had to play that piece, my solution would be your F#-D-F# or D-F#-D since I can’t hit the D-F#-F# the piece requires. Or maybe just the F# octaves. I’m probably most likely to try to keep the F# on top and fill in the notes below. Your instinct is fine.
The other possibility is that if it’s a D major chord, I might fill it in as F#-A-F#. It depends on the context and what is going on around it. The F#-D-F# might have the D a little too close to the F# on top. So I’d try it a number of ways and see which sounds the closest to the written one in context. But all are valid options. Maybe just the bare F# octave would sound the best, for all I know. Listening to all the variations on my keyboard, they all sound quite different, but in context, accomodations can be found for people who can’t span that range.
I’d be curious to see the snippet of sheet music where the passage occurs.
