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Stuff to memorize/study while away from the studio

Discussion in 'The RedBanned Bar & Grill' started by Travis Morgan, Dec 30, 2019.

  1. #1 Travis Morgan, Dec 30, 2019
    Last edited: Dec 31, 2019
    Hey guys -

    So I've been working a day job as a corporate security guard for a little over a month. It's the first job I've ever had where there's a little downtime on the clock, so I've been putting some thought into how to use that time wisely.

    Up to this point, I've been watching Mike's classes on my phone in short breaks, which has been good. But soon I'll be finished with them.

    Do you guys have any suggestions and/or resources on things to memorize or study while you're away from your instruments/template/etc?

    I know the best use for my time is probably just to transcribe, but I can't really do that when cooped up in a security truck. I recently finished the All That Jazz course, and it seems like there's a ton of stuff to memorize before being able to look at a jazz chart in the Real Book and have any clue what's going on. Lots of the theory stuff is still kind of intimidating to me, so I'm definitely open to suggestions on places to start. Been doing an interval/chord ear trainer (almost) daily, which has been helpful, but I still have a long way to go before I have the freedom behind the keyboard that Mike and most of you guys have.

    Any suggestions or resources would be super helpful. Cheers...
     
  2. Maybe try composing melodies in your head and during breaks and write them down in guitar pro on your phone?
     
  3. How's your singing voice? Assuming you can at least listen to music, maybe you could sing what you hear, trying to identify each interval as you do it? If you can reliably reproduce a tune that way, you can always check your work later.
     
    John Eldridge likes this.
  4. If you play guitar bring that and have next to you. No amp of course.

    If noise is a big problem still, you can put a towel or a sock under the strings against the body of the guitar.
    Make zero noise.

    Something getting you experiencing music in "real time". Videos are great supplements, but have some real practice time would be great.
     
    Aaron Olson likes this.
  5. As difficult as it can be to use, getting a piano app on your phone can be helpful. You never know what sort of melodic idea might be conceived in a 15 minute break. Can also be useful for playing with chord voicings and the like. A better option would be to get a very-small keyboard that can fit into i.e. a backpack, then use it with headphones.
     
  6. Thanks for the responses, everyone.

    Bringing an instrument is not an option at this job, sadly. I do actually have a tiny USB keyboard, but while on the clock I'm kinda limited to whatever I can do on my phone.

    Theoretically, if I had a halfway decent sheet music android app, I could transcribe by ear on my phone. It would be quite cumbersome, but better than nothing.

    This is a big one for me - Last year I started doing an interval trainer (and more recently, the chord trainer linked above). I'm wondering how I could potentially learn chords using this method. It would be way slower than via a piano, but if I could look at a jazz chart and then work out the individual intervals of each chord using my voice, maybe that would be a helpful learning experience long-term?

    Again, I'm pretty new to theory stuff, so I'm not sure how practical this is, or if there are any better uses for my time. Just trying to not go crazy working 50+ hrs a week, really...trying to feel like I'm moving in the right direction, even slightly.

    Anyone have any recommendations for specific apps? Piano stuff, note trainers, sheet music, etc...
     
  7. In the past few months I've been carrying around a tuning fork in my pocket (yes, like I'm a weirdo or something... :D ) and I used it a lot every day to challenge my inner ear, even when I'm away from the piano. I would make up exercises and little games to improve my inner relative pitch and to strengthen my pitch visualization (or audiation, or whatever people call it these days). Randomly during the day, when I'm taking a break from work, or whatever, I would start by trying to guess the A out of thin air (which is maybe not very useful skill to develop), then I check it with the tuning fork, and I make up some random "exercises" on the spot.

    It would probably look like something like this:
    let's pretend we're in F major; starting from the A, I'll hum the notes of the chord F (F, A, C - or maybe I'll start from the A and do -> A, F, C, F). Now I have F major in my head; I'll now pretend that we're in D minor: I might hum the scale from the A down to the D, or I might hum the chord tones. Now that I have D minor in mind, I'll try to make it major in my head, and I'll hum a D major chord. Then from any of those notes, I'll jump to the C natural, and I'll pretend to be in C major - then I'll hum a C major chord.
    Being able to hear different tonal centers in your head is harder than it sounds (heh :D ), and I think it helped my ear a lot. Playing intervals on an instrument is easy, but shit gets real when you have no reference point but one note.

    Another fun game I'll try to do is: I'll get the A from the tuning fork, then I hum a C from it. I'll then modulate humming the single notes of the dominant seventh chords -> C7, F7, Bb7, ... until I get tired of it and I get back to an A from anyone of the notes I happened to be landing on. Now, is the A in your mind the same as the A of the tuning fork? When I started doing this, it was rarely the case :D

    You can also use this concept to reinforce the interval training: you start from a note, then you try to jump to different intervals in your head (or singing them), then at some point you land back to an A and you check your tuning fork. The possibilities are endless.

    I was first inspired by this video, a long time ago:
     
    John Eldridge likes this.
  8. John Eldridge likes this.
  9. Doing that would definitely help you understand how each chord is formed from intervals. You could also discover/explore ideas like m7 chords in root position being composed of two superimposed perfect 5ths, etc. I find this knowledge helpful with with chord voicings, voice leading, and other "complete the puzzle" work.

    However, you'll definitely want to complement that work with trying to recognize chords by their raw sound, ideally in block form. This will help you understand how each chord feels and what it's doing there from a dramatic or emotional perspective.

    I'm quite biased about this because it's one of my biggest struggles. If I can hear each individual pitch, I can maybe guess the chord from its intervalic components. But for me, it's too slow and fussy as a general technique; I'd rather be able to identify chords directly from how they feel and work out the details later if I'm not sure.

    Obviously, you want be able to both recognize a chord and understand its construction, but being able to think a chord is not the same as being able to feel it. Jazz tunes are all about the progressions anyway and my hunch is that direct apprehension of a chord is ultimately more useful than any sort of analysis.

    A quick web search yielded an extended chord trainer on teorĂ­a. I haven't used this myself so I can't vouch for it, but I might give it a try. Otherwise, I've personally found that transcribing entire pieces (or trying, at least) to be the most helpful.

    I love this so much!
     
    John Eldridge likes this.
  10. Sounds straightforward yet wickedly challenging. Thanks for sharing this.
     

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