Those Vocal real books.

[Daniel Holden]

https://www.amazon.com/Real-Vocal-Book- ... 0813&psc=1

Seems interesting from a lap steel standpoint, if you want to do some slow jazz. They give you the chord, and since it's jazz, you don't need to read the melody, just improvise it within the chord. Do some chord melody and such. I'm considering buying one.

Has anyone else ever tried these kinds of books and applied them to lap steel, or does any of you have a recommendation for a book?

[Lloyd Graves]

My wife has one lying around from her time in college. With guidance from his piano teacher, my 15yo son is doing what you've mentioned. Using the chord charts, he creates shel voicings, then adds "color."

Those are the words they use, anyhow. And it sounds pretty.

I play high bass A, so I don't have all the pretty voicings built in to try it myself. Maybe C#minor or B11 is in my future.

[Paul Seager]

Has anyone else ever tried these kinds of books and applied them to lap steel, or does any of you have a recommendation for a book?

I play jazz and swing, just-for-fun, on both bass and steel and I have a collection of Real and New Real books, (as well as the iRealPro app, which is generally what I take to sessions these days).
The songs in the Vocal book are probably the easier melodies to work with and a good choice for tip toeing into the jazz world.
It is worth reading and learning melodies just to give one more colour when playing solos. A listener will love the melody to "Fly Me To The Moon" and it's a useful skill to throw in snippets of the melody into a solo (maybe even on another song!)

Maybe C#minor or B11 is in my future.

B11 is a good choice for swing. You have the A6 intervals on top, great for melodies and solos and the B11 gives you a ii-V in every position, useful for a lot of vocal swing numbers. Somewhere on the Forum, Doug Beaumier published a simple chord chart showing the relationship between A6 and B11. It's a great starter!

[Douglas Schuch]

Many of the REAL BOOKS, including at least one of the VOCAL REAL BOOKS can be downloaded as PDF's for free if you search for them online.

[Michael Kiese]

https://www.amazon.com/Real-Vocal-Book- ... 0813&psc=1

Seems interesting from a lap steel standpoint, if you want to do some slow jazz. They give you the chord, and since it's jazz, you don't need to read the melody, just improvise it within the chord. Do some chord melody and such. I'm considering buying one.

Has anyone else ever tried these kinds of books and applied them to lap steel, or does any of you have a recommendation for a book?

Aloha Dan!

All the NEW REAL Books and the Hal Leonard REAL Books are licensed and fairly accurate. I'd say go for it, and buy a real copy for yourself.

I'd caution you to not cheat yourself out of your own growth, MELODY IS KING. You DO need to know the melody of the song. It's often the most recognizable part of the song, and the thing listeners will remember. Melody is also one of the best ways to navigate the chord progression of a song. Whether you sing or play an instrumental, you NEED TO KNOW THE MELODY.

That said...

The old school bootleg versions that are available online for free...much of the time are scanned copies from the early days of the unlicensed "Back room of the music store" real/fake books...those are riddled with inaccuracies and sometimes flat out wrong chords and melodies. You'll save money, but bad charts will confuse you and make you learn things wrong. Then you have to unlearn them down the road. Don't do that to yourself.

Many times, what happened with the original bootleg fake books is that the person who wrote the chart would either just get it wrong, or they would take too many liberties reharmonizing the chords to where the song is completely unrecognizable from the original recording, or is very impractical to play.

The NEW REAL Book series is GREAT, as it offers the best format because all the songs are visually laid out well, easy to read, have the melody AND the lyrics for most songs.

The only Hal Leonard Real Book series that have the lyrics is the Real Vocal Book. Knowing lyrics is important, and singing is VERY advantageous for performing music. I always thought that it was a business choice for Hal Leonard to not include the lyrics in their regular REAL book series, they want you to buy more books. Playing nothing but instrumentals on a live gig is a great way to lose an audience, unless you're playing a dinner gig or a society gig where the purpose of the music is to be providing background ambiance. All of a sudden, you sing the lyrics to a great jazz tune and people start paying attention.

So the tradeoff is getting the pirated stuff online is free, but you don't know what you're gonna get....VS....Buying a licensed Real Book or New Real Book, and the versions are easy to read and accurate, and the composers (or their families) of the music we love and play get compensated for their work.

Ultimately Real Books serve a utilitarian and pragmatic purpose. They can be used as a crutch, which is a frustration for old jazz musicians who memorized all their tunes. That said, I truly believe that the Real Books kept Jazz from completely dying out, and they make jazz approachable for beginners.

It's always best to learn a song by ear and internalize it, and memorize it. But honestly, I only do that with songs I personally REALLY LOVE. I don't bother to keep 3 hours of Jazz repertoire in my head so I can play dinner music in a restaurant for $150. lol.

Buy the Hal Leonard Vocal Real Book, and/or a NEW REAL Book. Look up the songs they have in them, and the keys of the songs before you purchase.

Enjoy!

[Daniel Holden]

Yeah, i understand melody, my plan is it listen to the song and go from there, I've got a decent ear that way. In general, I just want to mimic as best I can the vocals with chord tones.

[Michael Kiese]

They give you the chord, and since it's jazz, you don't need to read the melody, just improvise it within the chord.

Aloha Daniel,

Understood. I was referring to the comment above.

In any music including Jazz, know the melody. Improvising the melody is a result of not knowing the melody.

The tradition of Jazz is to play the melody through the song form, then improvise solos, and then go back the melody to end the song.

The more you make it about improvisation, the more you make it about you, and not the song or the music. When musicians do that, they tend to lose the audience.

Writing a great Melody is HARD. We do a disservice to ourselves and the songwriters when we don't give melody it's proper due care and respect.

We all owe a great debt to the great songwriters and composers of the past. Without them, we'd have no music to perform.

Just my 2¢, take it with a grain of salt. If it helps, it helps, if it doesn't, that's ok too.

Main thing is that you enjoy yourself.

Enjoy!

[Mike Neer]

I have a ton of old fake books, and the best ones are the old books of standards. I used to buy them under the counter at a local music store, Sweetest Sounds. My uncle recently gave me some of my grandfather’s fake books from the 1950s and 60s, one of which is an older version of my favorite book of standards. The old one even has a half dozen or so Hawaiian tunes. This is the copy I’ve had for 40+ years. As a vocalist, I also own the original Real Vocal Book and the Real Book Solos, both of which I bought back in the 80s. I wonder how the new version compares?

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Re melody, when I improvise at my best I am creating new melodies. Yes, I love playing all kinds of stuff like Coltrane and trying to stretch the harmony as far as possible, etc., but when I am at my best I am creating melody. It’s kind of like writing—you really can’t write a good book if you don’t read the classics. I think of melody the same way. And I think of improvisation that way now, too. Miles Davis was a pretty significant factor in that regard.

Regardless of what you choose to do, furthering your knowledge and repertoire on the instrument is always a good thing, and I salute that.