Several times I said to him "I have the chart right here" and he ignored me. When that happened the bassist pulled them up on his phone, but I was right next to him with an iPad with PDF charts culled from the Chuck Sher New Real books and other vetted sources. There were a lot of the leader's original tunes and ones from other composers he had charts on, but he also called some standards. I was working with a bandleader for the first time and he had a young bassist - a very good player - who I'd only ever played with once before. Here's what happened on my gig last night: The tunes are crowd sourced and you get what you pay for. The collections of tunes in the the iReal are the same but worse there are so many bad changes in those that it's ridiculous, plus you have none of the other useful info like melodies, bass lines, rhythm section hits, and so on. That book was compiled by students at Berklee and that's why there were so many errors they didn't have the skills yet to transcribe the music accurately. I grew up when the Real Book filled this function, but I was warned early on by older musicians not to rely on it too much because of how many errors there were in it. Obviously it's a super handy app to have and there are times when it's a useful tool, but if you're using it as your default way of getting through gigs you're being a slacker. But if you want to produce backing tracks for you to record your own improvisation and if you want to get a good sound rendering, then you should go for Band In A Box.These days it seems like everyone uses the iReal Pro for basic charts on gigs. In short, iRealPro is a very effective tool to work on scales and improvisations. It is true that iRealPro is really cheaper than Band In A Box. This function could be interesting in order to work on the basis of an example. Similarly, unlike BiaB, iRealPro doesn’t show a “soloist” feature (improvisation example broadcasted by the system). Styles are just midi file based (far below the RealTracks you can find on Band In A Box), but they still work very well for a homework session. The software also allows you to mix the volume of each of the backing instruments. Of course, you can adjust the tempo and repeat the grid as much as you want. Generally, it provides several scales (for example X dorian and X bebop minor on a Xm6 chord). On top of the backing track, iRealPro also displays on your screen the on-going chord and the scales you can use to improvise on it. Bare in mind that you will only have access to chord grids, not to melodies (probably protected by copyright). Thanks to the embedded forum, you have an easy access to a lot of jazz, pop and rock standards. IRealPro app is available on every platform (iPhone, iPad, Android, and also Mac and PC) and allows you to write your own grid and to play it using a (limited) choice of styles. Nowadays, numerous apps allow us to work our scales in a very easier way. And, of course, the apprentice had to adapt to the grids, style and tempo chosen by Aebersold. That was very useful, but the backing tracks chord grids were sometimes confusing. For example, there is a book on II-V-I showing different ways to work scales on this pattern and providing backing track on CD, in every key. Each book covers one theme and comes with the associated backing track. In the old days, jazzmen who wanted to work scales whith a backing track had to use the well-known Aebersold books + CDs or even audio cassettes. Software industry clealy brought tools that make music learnig easier. IRealPro : a toolkit for improvisation learning.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |