I've been creating lead sheets that don't use sheet music notation or tab. I simply write out the chords in Roman numerals and the melody notes based on their scale number. For example, for a song in D every D chord is the I chord, every Eminor chord is the ii- chord, etc. An F# note would be the number 3, an A note the number 5. "Accidentals" and chords outside of the 7 chords from the scale are no problem. An A# note in D would be a 5# note. An F7 chord in D would be a III7 chord (capital letters because it's not minor).
This type of numbering system makes all keys universal. With this approach you can play any song in any key that you know the scale of and the chords for. For songs that change keys, just choose the major scale that fits the best.
I've created a table containing boxes representing measures/bars to use as a template for writing out songs this way. For songs where the melody comes straight from the vocal melody, I also write down the lyrics and apply a note number to each sung syllable.
Here's an example lead sheet for the song I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now. I encourage others to try this. It's also good ear training because it's less visual and less tied to a certain key or fingering. It makes it easier to practice a song in all 12 keys and in various ways, which is good for building an aural connection.
I was listening to the first hour of the public radio show Performance Today on July 15 when I heard some really cool sounding music that turned out to be "Brazilian Fantasy: Bach in Brazil" by Ney Rosauro. It was an in-studio live recording of the Seattle Marimba Quartet performing this nine minute piece. I loved the melodies and rhythms and it immediately occurred to me that I could maybe adapt parts of this for tenor banjo.
I learned that Ney Rosauro is a Brazilian composer, percussionist and vibes/marimba player. His Brazilian Fantasy is a duet for two marimbas that mixes original music, traditional Brazilian folk tunes, Bach melodies/chord structures, and melodies by Brazilian composer Carlos Gomes.
Further research on Ney Rosauro uncovered a project he did about twenty years ago called "Seven Brazilian Children's Songs for solo marimba". These are kind of like études he wrote based on melodies and rhythms from Brazilian folklore, for the purposes of developing basic four-mallet (marimba) technique and increasing the musicality of the person practicing them. Despite (or because of) this, they sound like the kind of melodies I like to play.
These Children's Songs are numbered 1 through 7 (there are seven of them) and you can buy the sheet music from Lone Star Percussion. Upon listening, my instant favorites are No. 3 Pirulito que Bate Bate and No. 6 A Moda da tal Anquinha. The music for Pirulito que Bate Bate is available for free download on Ney Rosauro's website. Here are some YouTube videos of a young woman playing these songs very well.
A Moda da tal Anquinha
Pirulito que Bate Bate
Although these pieces were written for marimba, for the most part they can be played as tunes on tenor banjo or any chromatic instrument. Sometimes what I hear as the melody is actually written as the bass-line, but to me it still serves as the melody whenever there isn't a simultaneous treble clef sound happening. This is especially true for A Moda da tal Anquinha.
For Pirulito que Bate Bate there is a sequence of double stops at the end of one section that doesn't quite translate in an interesting way when played on the tenor banjo. I've been experimenting with playing a little melodic run in its place. At least part of this melodic run is based on a transposition of something that is happening elsewhere in the piece, so that may be why it seems to fit.
Eventually I would like to learn more of these Brazilian Children's Songs, or go back to the Brazilian Fantasy: Bach in Brazil piece that sparked this interest in the first place. For now I'm enjoying making two-part fiddle tunes out of Pirulito and Anquinha. Here are my takes on them as of this morning.
My Little Suede Shoes is a Charlie Parker tune with a Latin flavor and samba groove, although Parker didn't actually write it. According to Brian Priestly, author of Chasin' the Bird, My Little Suede shoes is a French Caribbean tune called "Mes Souliers De Daim" that Bird picked up in Paris. Parker explored Latin, Mexican and Caribbean Afro-Cuban rhythms during the early 1950's. My Little Suede Shoes has an extremely catchy rumba beat that would have fit right in on Guadeloupe or Martinique.
My Little Suede Shoes
St. Thomas is a tune said to have been "composed" by Sonny Rollins. His mother was from the island of St. Thomas in the Caribbean and Rollins remembered hearing his mother signing a calypso song when he was a child. The Rollins composition St. Thomas is based on the song his mother would sing, perhaps originally known as "The Carnival" from the West Indies and/or the song "Fire Down There" from Jamaica. So, Rollins' version is more of an interpretation of these earlier traditional melodies than a full-on composition. St. Thomas remains the most popular and well known of Rollins' calypso themed tunes.
The online Music Theory class that I’ve been taking has
placed a lot of emphasis on reading and comprehending sheet music. I’ve learned a lot as a result, but I’ve also
realized that in today’s world, with audio recordings so readily available, a
more practical understanding of music theory is less about reading and writing
music and more about developing a vocabulary so that you can apply meaning and
understanding to the sounds you are hearing.
Golgi Apparatus
Being fluent in sheet music can be helpful, for example, in
a situation when you need to immediately start playing a piece without having
first acclimated yourself to it or knowing how it sounds. But with sound recordings to supplement the
written score, there is a less of a need to convey all the complexities of the music in the written form when a lot of
it can be explained intuitively upon hearing the piece.
Tommaso Zillio of the site musictheoryforguitar.com has this
to say on a similar topic:
Learning
music theory and training your ear go hand in hand. Trying to do only one is like trying to ride
a bicycle without one wheel: useless, overly difficult, and a guarantee that
you will hurt yourself. In fact I do
take the radical position that ear training and music theory are in fact the
same thing.
If you
think about it, all music theory concepts can be explained as "If you do
X, that's how it sounds,” "if you play a cadence, it sounds this
way," "if you play the notes of the chord while improvising it sounds
this way," etc. As you can see
though, if you don't know what "this way" is for every single concept
you learn, then you are not really learning much!
This is
why there are a lot of people who say that music theory is useless: they didn't
connect the formal aspects of music theory with the actual reality of
music. After all, a map of your city is
useful only if you know the relationship between the funny lines on the paper
and the actual streets. Luckily, there
is a very simple solution for that: every time you learn something new in
theory, PLAY it. Make sure you have at
least 3-4 examples for each concept you learn (you can compose them yourself in
case).
Last week I happened upon a site I had never noticed before: Tater Joe’s Old-Time Musical Mercantile,
described as A Collection of Transcriptions and
Recordings From Workshops, Lessons, and Personal Efforts.
Tater Joe’s site primarily consists of over 200 clawhammer
banjo tabs by Ken Torke and almost 150 fiddle transcriptions by Mark Wardenburg.The fiddle tune pdf’s also contain chords, making them especially helpful to mandolin, guitar and bass players. Torke and Wardenburg both play in the Pig’s Foot String Band, and I believe Ken Torke is the one who maintains the Tater Joe's site.
Some of these tunes are ones I haven't seen the notes for anywhere else, and it
looks as though new transcriptions are being added all the time – with a few as
recently as this month. The site also
features recordings and
transcriptions from mandolin player Caleb Klauder’s (Foghorn Stringband) Walker
Creek Music Camp Old-Time Mandolin Workshop from October 2013. Very cool!
Tater Joe’s is a site worth checking out and checking back
in on often.
The last tune I'll post today is 250 To Vigo by the Scottish band Shooglenifty. It was written by their fiddler Angus R. Grant and appears on the Shooglenifty album Venus In Tweeds. However, this recording is taken from the album Hangin' at the Crossroads by The Ceili Bandits. I came across The Ceili Bandits (Yvonne Casey, Eoin O'Neill and Quentin Cooper) during my first visit to Ireland in 2004 where I saw them play in Doolin. They were also my first exposure to Irish trad music.
Shooglenifty can be a bit experimental, but The Ceili Bandits' take on this tune is fairly straightforward, which is why it's a great source to learn from. At one point Shooglenifty shared the sheet music to 250 To Vigo on their website, which is where my mandolin tab arrangement comes from, but I can no longer find that original notation. I did find some pdf notation here: http://www.scottishfiddlers.com/Canberra/pdfs/250_to_Vigo.pdf
The Ceili Bandits don't play it real fast to begin with, but I've slowed down their version of 250 To Vigo to 80% of full speed, in case that helps with learning by ear. 250 To Vigo is not really a session tune- yet - but it would be a fun one to play with others.
One of my favorite Irish music CDs is a 2010 live recording by Kevin Griffin, Eoin O'Neill and Quentin Cooper called Live at the Burren Centre, Kilfenora. It is available from Custy's and Ossian USA. Kevin Griffin is one of the best Irish tenor banjo players and this recording is pretty much a clinic in that style. Problem is, he plays VERY FAST so it's not always easy to pick up on what he's doing.
A tune that caught my ear off this CD is the jig Apples in Winter. To help with learning, I've been playing along with this tune at 70% speed. I uploaded that same recording at the slowed-down speed onto YouTube and am sharing here so that others can know about this cool 6/8 tune. The above notation comes form the Dusty Banjos presents Ten Years of Tunes tunebook. It's not exactly what Kevin Griffin is playing, by any means, but it may help get you started.
An oldtime tune that I've been liking recently is called Old Aunt Jenny with Her Nightcap On. It's in the key of G. The tune is attributed to fiddler Estill Bingham, from Pineville, Bell County Kentucky. It's a bit crooked and tricky.
A transcription of Estill Bingham's playing of Old Aunt Jenny is included in the book Old-Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes by Jeff Todd Titon. The band Notorious also recorded an uptempo version of this tune on their CD Elkins. The transcription in the book is lacking suggested chords, but I found additional notation online that is based on Notorious' interpretation (essentially the same tune) with chords, which I have included here.
Using the Amazing Slow Downer app I slowed down the Notorious recording to 70% of full speed. See below for audio. Hopefully the combination of sheet music and a "play along" recording will help more people learn this great tune.
