From gabru@comsec.net Sat Nov 24 11:12:49 2012
Subject:RE: CHEAT SHEETS, Music STands and BIG TIME ROCK STARS !

Bobby,

I know some great piano players who can play wonderfully until you take their music “book” away and they just sit there
not knowing what to do. You might as well get a player piano! My sister got piano lessons when we were young and I got
Tennis lessons. I wound up playing keyboards and she became Tennis pro…go figure. Anyhow we sat down to the piano
and I told her the chords to a song. She said that never learned “chords”, she learned how to play the stacked notes on sheet music.
She had no clue how to improvise. I started out by buying a Vox Jaguar from Heathkit. I built it and then proceeded to learn
songs by ear. I did take music theory in school which was very helpful. I also learned to read music when I played clarinet.
The only time I used sheet music was to learn a part that I was having trouble with but I never used music on stage. So there
you have it. I am just a hack who jammed my way through decades of playing in bands!

I also play guitar and most guitarists don’t appreciate how easy it is to play in any key as opposed to playing keyboards
where you have to deal with a completely different combination of black and white keys.

Cheers,

Gary

From: CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com [mailto:CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Bobby Simons
Sent: Saturday, November 24, 2012 10:52 AM
To: CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [CWSG] CHEAT SHEETS, Music STands and BIG TIME ROCK STARS !

I think the key to memorization is being able to visualize the structures of the tune, the first being the chord progression (in numerical terms) and the second being the 'abacab' of the tune. I'm long resigned to guitarists not knowing what key they're in at any given moment, or not being able to tell them that the progression is I, iii, IV, ii, V, etc. but there's really no excuse for the guy on keys. I recently stood behind the keyboardist in an Eagles tribute band that we split a night with who had a music stand and a sheet for every tune, some of them copies right out of a book. Gimme a break with that, you've heard these songs a million times. He was a competent player, too. Took a couple of nice solos, used sensible, logical voicings on his chords, presented good patches. But you'd think he'd never heard the tunes before. It tells me there's something broken somewhere when you sit down to play a tune you've heard your whole life and don't already know the changes.

On Nov 24, 2012, at 1:31 PM, Gary Brumm wrote:

> Hey David!