he is my opinion here.
I discussed putting out "Band in the Box" files with chord changes to
standard tunes with someone that has experience in dealing with the
publishers on this issue and he advised me to not do it.
In particular instances, if it makes sense to me, we can post midi
files but I don't want to build a midi or band in the box library
on the website. BTW, there are other websites where people are doing
that for jazz.
To me, it takes about 5-10 minutes to put a tune into band in the box
so if someone posts chord changes, what's the big deal for people to
have to put the changes into band in the box? Some people might like
"Jammer" instead as another problem.
If people are just given all material digested and ready to go they
won't learn that much anyway from it. They need to participate in the
process in some manner.
I don't want to turn the website into a source for "free" commercial
grade materials.
Frankly, people will learn alot more from taking all the bits and pieces
of conversations here and piecing together their own materials then
if it all is pre-digested. It won't mean anything to them.
John Clayton, the great bass player and arranger, was really instrumental
in alot of my development, even though I have spent very little actual
time talking with him.
He taught me several things. One of those is that you shouldnt expect
to learn jazz from a book (this doesnt mean that you shouldnt read books
about jazz, I certainly have read many). He used to say that you should
write your own harmony book.
Another thing he taught me, which is off this subject, is that almost
all musical problems can be solved by doing more transcribing. If you are
rushing the beat, you havent transcribed enough. If you xyz, then you
havent transcribed enough. His idea is that you wont make whatever mistakes
you are making if you can hear what you are doing.
He also taught me that you have to think like an engineer if you
want to be a successful musician. He didnt use those words but let me
explain.
When you are an engineer, you have to produce a product within a set
time limit, budget, etc.. That means making tradeoffs, decisions, etc.
and also having a workable plan. People who are successful in any walk
of life have learned this in that particular setting. Common sense
will then tell you, for example, that if you need to know a thousand
chord voicings, you'll never succeed. Just try learning a few and doing
the math of incorporating them in your playing and you'll see that even if you
didnt have a day job, you would have to live several lifetimes to
accomplish all that.
My teacher Richard Hindman, who is also a great player though not as
well known as John, has echoed many of the same things. Dick also
taught me this idea that if people don't participate in the process,
whatever materials they get won't help. This is one of the reasons
why buying transcription books does very little for people whereas
doing those same transcriptions yourself does alot. (There are some
exceptions to this, especially some of the Bill Evans chord transcription
books are valuable and some others too. Chords are difficult to accurately
transcribe if you don't have perfect pitch).
Alot of things that I'm posting are things that are part of some
books I'm writing.
In a lot of ways, people that take the material in the scattered fashion
that I present it on the list and assemble it for themselves will get
alot more out of it than people that buy the books when they are written.
Once the books are written, its all pre-digested and for alot of people
the motiviation to really dig in an thoroughly understand it will be gone.
reed