Comment by gooseyard | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gooseyard | Hacker News Reader

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I play a lot of sub gigs, often on short notice, usually I get a set list in advance, but often I don't. I've been doing that for, maybe 25-30 years. In the event I get a set list, I've found that what works best for me is to start listening to them about 24-48 hours in advance, and not to play through them more than maybe 2-4 times. Obviously, this is popular short form music, and so I'm mostly getting a picture in my head of the form and the sound of the changes in my ear.

The gigs where I get no set list are interesting- after playing for a long time, I just know a lot of songs, or have heard a popular song enough that I know the form and the changes already, and if I can hear the changes in my head, playing them is not a problem. The really interesting bit though is if its a song I've never heard at all. Then, its a game of asking a few questions (what's the key, what's the feel), maybe someone will say it starts on scale degree IV, so you know there's going to be an intro and into the first verse, and you know thats scale degree I probably. Then, you just have to kind of guess your way through the first verse, but you're memorizing the verse at the same time, and usually the second one there's no guessing. And so on. There's also a great deal of watching peoples hands and bodies because there are tells when something is about to happen, and you just get a sense of what they mean.

So there's obviously rote knowledge of music, but there's also this subtext of guessing and watching and listening and mimicry that are a huge part of what is actually going on. The older I get, the more I enjoy thinking about that aspect of making live music.

I'm also a bassist that does a lot of improvisation on stage. I often play with a singer that knows literally thousands of songs, and he often pulls one on me that I've never heard.

What matters a lot is genre conventions. This particular singer mostly plays rock, blues, country and reggae. I know the basic mechanics of those four genres, and can often guess where the song is going, even if I've never heard it. Even if I hit a wrong note, it's usually in the chord that's being played (e.g. the 5), and sounds reasonable.

I do the same thing when I get a setlist and just listen to the songs multiple times in the days previous so that I can hear the songs in my head. If often say, "If I can sing the melody, I can play it."

Per the topic at hand, what's also interesting is that I can think that I don't remember a song, but often even years later, if someone starts playing it, I know immediately where to go. Once I find the key, which rarely takes me more than a note or two, I'm good.

But I've also got friends that play traditional Irish music. I can't sit in with them (I've tried) since the chord changes fall at places I don't expect them, and are often different chords than I'd guess. Having a feel for the style of music makes a ginormous difference.

Bassist?

I get a fair amount of that kind of work too, on bass. Mostly jazz, where the repertoire of "standards" is finite. I also go to fiddle jams, where the fiddlers themselves often have no idea what the harmony should be, or how to express that information.

Of course a trick that a layperson might not notice, is that the notes are nowhere close to random.

But I love the challenge of that kind of work if it's with good players.

Yep! yeah man playing jazz is I think the ultimate challenge for a musician. I made the mistake of trying to lean on fake books for a long time, I think because I didn't believe that it was realistic to memorize enough of the tunes for it to make a difference. Eventually I wound up with a teacher who insisted I do exactly that. I think it should have been obvious to me, but as I'm sure you know, once you have memorized maybe a hundred tunes or so, you develop this mental model that the bulk of all standards fall into on the basis of form, changes, feel etc. Then, even when its an unusual tune, maybe you have to struggle through the first A and B, some kind soul might take pity on you and shout out the changes, and that little bit of extra information is enough combined with all that other stuff you know to get you through the tune.

I guess all that memorization is like the conditioning and training that an athlete might do to prepare for an event, and then at the event you're mostly responding conditions.

As an odd coincidence, I ditched the fake books, almost 2 decades ago. It was kind of by accident. I had been hoarding more and more books, and got to the point of hauling a huge pile of books to every gig. One time, I got a last minute call, and couldn't remember where I had stashed the books, so I rushed out of the house without them.

And it went OK! In addition to the mental model that you describe, I've also learned that most tunes are more forgiving of changes than one might guess by all of the chord symbols notated so precisely.

I've revived my fake books for another use: To practice treble clef sight reading, which I neglected when I was younger. Also, I think learning melodies helps a lot in terms of mentally organizing and navigating the standards.

There are players who are a lot better than me, and are still attached to the books.

And then every once in a while you get a song breaks all the assumptions and changes: https://youtu.be/ZnRxTW8GxT8 :)

Beato is a great teacher and has a wide if not complete comprehension of music. But he approaches this piece from his understanding of Jazz, and, cautiously, I would say the only rational way to fully map and chart this song is using the tools of Jazz, but I doubt it couldn't also be approached using Classical forms, it just makes more sense, is simpler, using Jazz. Because they are both individually comprehensive to notes and sounds and changes any instrument can produce, every musical piece in any musical genre can be understood and interpreted as either Jazz or Classical or both.

Yeah, I guess (from a very limited understanding of music) is that the main confusion comes from approaching (and hearing) this piece as a simple catchy pop song.

And then you're suddenly hit with all this complexity

Right? But in the history rock 'n roll, in the history of music, in the history of warm-blooded vertebrates, I don't know of hardly anyone that was ever a Beatle.

No more than a dozen or so. John, Paul, George, Ringo, Pete, George, Billy, Neil, Mal, Eric...

It's like wondering why anyone is even aware of St. Andrew. He was an Apostle. We need not look any further than that.

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