My first jazz teacher, Bob Keller, just published The Joy of Fakebooks, a little guide on navigating the various features of all the different jazz fake books available today. (I wrote about Bob Keller's Jazz Page a couple years ago. He maintains a popular, growing list of organized links to helpful jazz resources.)

One of the most important lessons I've learned since studying jazz was to learn tunes. Building repertoire is great for knowledge and marketability, but all the most important musical lessons come from real music. Studying tunes is the best way to study theory. Since dedicating myself to studying tunes, I've accumulated several fake books, including Hal Leonard's Real Book Series and Chuck Sher's New Real Book Series. That's a lot of paper between those six books. There are digital options, but until you have a computer screen as large and portable as two opposing pages of a fake book thrown open on a music stand, I recommend investing in the physical realm.

By far, the most useful of the fake books I've owned has been Hal Leonard's Real Book (Sixth Edition). Every jazz jam I've attended has had at least one copy of this book (sometimes the pre-2004 illegal fifth edition) floating around. It's rare to see any other book, but there are other reasons to own one. In his article, Bob outlines several considerations like readability, self-study, and accuracy. He includes a spreadsheet of over 100 fake books with their various properties. (Given all my spreadsheeting habits, I can definitely nerd out on this.)

Once you've acquired a fake book or five, Bob and I highly recommend Seventh String's Fake Book Index. You can search any subset of fake books and play-alongs for different versions of the tune you want to study. Also check out the Rankings Indexes I created for the Real Book series.

During my recent month in Italy sans guitar, I took on a couple spreadsheet projects to keep my ears in shape and compile some useful musical data. My first project was a spreadsheet of Songs for Interval Recognition. My next was inspired by a street musician in Florence playing U2's "With or Without You". From a distance, I could hear the chord progression long before I recognized the song. During that time, I heard about 10 other songs simultaneously in my head over the same chords.

Linking Songs

It so happens that "With or Without You" and the several other songs I was hearing all use the "Axis of Awesome" progression: I V vi IV.

I've always been into thinking of other tunes with same progression when I'm writing or listening to four-chord-style pop music. Especially when I'm writing, I like to know what else is out there so I can consciously avoid it or take inspiration from it. Few things suck more than completing an original song before discovering that you subconsciously borrowed from existing music. (See the Coldplay-Satriani debacle.)

Compiling Data

So I started wondering, how many of these signature progressions are out there? In addition to the Axis of Awesome progression above, I hear a lot of I-vi-IV-V (the doo-wop progression), i-bVII-bVI-V (the Andalusian cadence), and I-bVII-IV-I. Just as with songs for recognizing intervals, the more real examples I can relate to each other, the easier it will be to hear them (and slight variations) again and again.

I began entering songs and chords into a spreadsheet with a column for each of the four chords. (This allows for two- and three-chord progressions as well.) I started with a handful of my old favorite songs from all the Albums in My Blood. I added everything I wrote, co-wrote, or covered in a performance. Of course I had to add everything from the Axis of Awesome video. I also used Heartwood Guitar's Songs Rob Knows and Rolling Stone's Top 500 Songs of All Time for more ideas. (Many of these songs still sit idly in my spreadsheet as I've yet to investigate all their chords.)

I limited the progressions I included to 4-part repeating progressions. This excludes 8-part progressions like Pachelbel's Canon or "Hotel California". And I exclude progressions that don't at least almost repeat.

Here's the live spreadsheet.

If you have your own Google account, you can hit "File -> Make a copy..." and you'll have access to the entire thing to customize, improve, deface, etc. If not, you can hit "File -> Download as" and have your own offline version.

You'll notice several different worksheet tabs along the bottom: "Progressions" is where I enter all the raw data. I can sort it by any column. There are a few hidden columns doing extra work like allowing the chords to be sorted properly (not by alphabetical roman numeral). "Sorted" is a copy of the "Progressions" worksheet, automatically sorted by progression. "Popular" shows the most popular progressions with their tallies. "ProfileSorted" sorts all progressions by the chords included in each, independent of chord order. (The different progressions I-vi-IV-V and I-V-vi-IV have the same profile of I-IV-V-vi.) "ProfilePopular" shows the most popular chord profiles with their tallies. Poke around for a while, and leave a comment below if you have trouble making sense of it all.

The Spreadsheet

Here's a sample of the spreadsheet as it currently stands, sorted by progression.

Suggestions?

Check the live spreadsheet, and you'll see I have hundreds more songs ready for my prying ears. Some will have progressions that fit the mold, some won't. What are some of your favorites that you don't see here? Leave a comment below, and thanks for checking it out!

I mentioned last week that I'm spending a month in Italy without a guitar. My substitute obsession has been learning the Italian language, but I've made time for some spreadsheeting wildness as well. (See Counting Tunes at Jam Sessions for a taste of my ridiculous fascination.)

Songs for Intervals

The spreadsheet I have for you today is a chart of songs for interval recognition. The seed for this project came from the sirens running around the streets of Florence. Ambulances use a major 6th melodic interval, and the Carabinieri use a perfect 4th melodic interval. (And the echoing Doppler effect as they pass my apartment window is totally wicked!) I still remember my first guitar teacher showing me how to memorize the sound of an interval by superimposing the first two notes of "My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean" over a major 6th. That's what I heard in my head during my first Florentine ambulance siren experience, but another one popped in there at the same time: "Take the 'A' Train". As I mulled over this new connection, I also heard the NBC theme and "All Blues", and I realized they all use the same scale degrees to form that interval: 5 up to 3. And I thought, wouldn't it be nice to distinguish between the different pairs of scale degrees that can create an interval? Yes. More on that below.

Chart Weaknesses

Search for interval recognition songs, and you'll find a parade of charts that offer a handful of well-known songs for each kind of interval, ascending and descending. The obvious drawback is that you're not familiar with all the named songs. Large intervals starting a melody are particularly hard to find, and I invariably see a lot of unfamiliar titles for anything larger than a perfect 5th. This chart by EarMaster helps out by allowing you to select a single song of your preference for each interval and create a custom chart for your own ears. They even link to YouTube clips of every song.

But even when I make my own chart, there's still something missing. I never see any mention of the scale degrees outlining the interval. For any given interval, I hear it differently depending on the context. For example, a descending minor 3rd occurs between the first two notes of "Oleo" on scale degrees 1 and 6, "Girl from Ipanema" on 2 and 7, "Frosty the Snowman" on 5 and 3, "Peter Gunn Theme" on b3 and 1, and "What Is This Thing Called Love?" on b7 and 5. They're all minor 3rds, but they come from different directions. A new one might trip you up if you're unfamiliar with its place in the key.

The Spreadsheet

So I started my own spreadsheet to keep track of only melodies I know and all the scale degrees they use. With no instruments at my disposal, I've identified intervals to 135 tunes so far. A few of the scale degrees are missing either for lack of a tonal center or because I couldn't figure it out by humming. And a few intervals don't have example tunes yet, as I haven't discovered any without an instrument. Like all my crazy spreadsheets, it's a work in progress.

View the complete live spreadsheet on Google Docs. The columns, in order, are the first scale degree of the interval, the second scale degree, direction, number of semitones, interval name, and song title. (The number of semitones is necessary for sorting everything, thereby grouping identical intervals together.) Along the bottom, you'll see three tabs: Master, Sorted, and Encode. Master is where I input all the data. Sorted is a copy of Master, sorted by interval size. Encode converts semitones to interval name.

My collection of songs will do you no good. Make your own copy of that spreadsheet. You can download it or copy to your own Google Docs account. Delete every song you don't recognize and add more that you do.

Below is a sample of the spreadsheet in its current state. Songs are grouped by interval size and direction, displaying starting scale degree, ending scale degree, and song title. Any suggestions? Hit the comments!

I grew up near Seattle. In 2001, I moved to Southern California to attend college, and I've been down here ever since. I've lived in Claremont, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and currently San Diego. I've had a yearning to move back to the Northwest for a long time, but various endeavors (work, music, school) have kept me in the sunshine. I found out last week, thanks to my awesome wife, that we'll be moving to Seattle in May.

We knew when I started music school that I'd finish at the same time she'd finish medical school. But the problem with finishing med school is that you don't know where you're headed next until right before you graduate. So our fate was to be revealed on March 17, and we could have been assigned to Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, San Diego, Denver, Chicago, or Boston. Up to that day, we were in limbo, waiting to make any long term plans. The results came in for Seattle, and we were thrilled. We've been dancing and celebrating every day. Said awesome wife also grew up near Seattle. We even attended the same high school. So both of us will have plenty of family and old friends around.

Guitar Lessons

My first professional goal after arriving in Seattle will be to set up a teaching business. I've been teaching a few students here and there since I've been in San Diego, but I couldn't pursue it full time on top of school. For the near future, I see private lessons as my primary musical income source. I recently finished Making Money Teaching Music, a great guide to thriving in the music teaching business, and I've been mindful of the example set by Rob at Heartwood Guitar. Rob maintains a top-notch teaching website, and he's based in Seattle too.

To this end, I've had plans for a while to unveil another website/blog of my own making. Rather than documenting my own development, as I do here at From the Woodshed, the new site will focus on practical advice for guitarists, and it will be the main hub for my teaching business. More on that later.

Seattle's Music Scene

It's peculiar that I never paid attention to Seattle's music scene while I lived nearby. Granted, I was just a kid, and I'd only been a musician myself for a couple years, but the city has consistently fostered a vibrant musical community for many decades. I can't wait to plug myself into the scene, discover all the local talent, and add my own noise to the mix.

In addition to attending all the shows I can afford to, I'd love to play out myself as much as possible, but I have no expectations to become a gigging machine. Gigs can be hard to find when you don't know anyone. I'll probably start by playing at jams and surfing craigslist for people to meet. I'll also see about jamming with a few Seattle musicians I happened to meet down here, namely Jason Parker of One Working Musician, and Cameron Peace, who taught at the National Guitar Workshop last year.

Giant Networking Spreadsheet

I live for giant spreadsheets. (Check out my jazz repertoire list.) I started one a few years ago for Seattle musicians, assuming I'd eventually move there. When it became clear that it was far from a sure thing, I forgot about it. But now that it is a sure thing, that spreadsheet will be indispensable. I have 132 names and counting. I keep track of name, instrument(s), and little notes on where I heard of them or how they're involved in the music scene.

I started adding names from a little Internet research, initially focusing on jazz. The Seattle Jazz Scene, operated by drummer Matt Jorgensen, has been updated daily with concert schedules, interviews, and reviews since 2007. A cursory glance over the site gave me dozens of names for my list. I'll be spending a lot of time on this site. Another easy name-binge came from the Seattle Jazz Guitar Collective and the Seattle Jazz Guitar Society. (I will learn the difference at some point.)

Ever the flag-waiver, Jason Parker (mentioned above) has been running a podcast for several months with trombonist David Marriott, Jr. called Jazz Now Seattle. Each weekly episode features a track from about five locally-grown jazz albums. I confess that until today, while I've been checking out the album recommendations, I hadn't listened to any of the full podcasts. I'm listening to the first two right now, taking notes on every player involved for exponential spreadsheet expansion.

Look Me Up

If you're in Seattle yourself or you have friends in the area, leave a comment; I'd love to meet up.

I've officially played my first blues gigs. Took me long enough. Blues was my main bag since about a year after I picked up the guitar. I was heavy into SRV, Buddy Guy, BB King, Albert King, etc. in high school. I've played plenty of rock and a handful of jazz gigs, but my first experience with a real blues band was not until one of my classmates, Shelle Blue, asked me to sit in with her band at House of Blues last month. I played a couple sets of mostly straight-ahead blues with a few tricky ones in there. I learned a few of the tunes ahead of time, but the rest was by ear with Shelle's main guitarist leading the charge.

I had a blast at the gig, and I was looking forward to learning the rest of her tunes so I could sub, sit in, or work as her second guitarist as the case may be. A few days later, Shelle called and asked me to play a full gig that weekend. I put my spreadsheeting skills to work at full steam (much like I've done with jazz standards), making notes on all 40 tunes I needed to get in my head and fingers. I learned my butt off every night, adding little comments to my growing cheat sheet, and over the following week, I played multi-set shows with Shelle's group at Last Call, Patrick's II, and Vinz Wine Bar.

It's great to be playing the blues again. (I've been focused on jazz and Zeppelin lately.) Even better to get paid to do it. After a long break from the genre, other than Page's blues influence, it still feels like my core strength on the instrument. And I'm playing all kinds of stuff I never would have without the past few years of jazz studying. Can't wait to do it again.

If you're near San Diego, check out Shelle Blue's website for upcoming gigs. She's a hell of a singer.

Here's a list of the songs I've learned (some still pending):

5-10-15 Hours
A Quitter Never Wins
Bags Groove
Big Boss Man
Born Under a Bad Sign
Chain of Fools
Checkin' Up on My Baby
Chitlins Con Carne
Cissy Strut
Cleo's Back
Cold Duck Time
Cold Shot
Cold Sweat
Don't Touch Me
Down Home Blues
Dr. Feelgood
Early in the Morning
Empty Arms
Europa
Every Day I Have the Blues
Framed
Further On up the Road
Got my Mojo Workin'
Greedy Man
Hard to Handle
Hey Bartender
I Got You (I Feel Good)
I'm Tore Down
If You Love Me Like You Say
If You Should Lose Me
It's Your Thing
Just a Little Bit
Kansas City
Killer Joe
Knock on Wood
Lion's Den
Little by Little
Little Wing
Mama He Treats Your Daughter Mean
Matchbox
Mustang Sally
Night Time Is the Right Time
Okie Dokie Stomp
Papa's Got a Brand New Bag
Payin' the Cost to Be the Boss
Playin' with My Friends
Pride and Joy
Reconsider Baby
Shaky Ground
She's into Something
Shotgun
Something You Got
Stole My Heart
T-Bone Shuffle
Take Out Some Insurance
Tell Mama
Tequila
Those Bad Things
W.O.M.A.N.
Walkin' the Dog
Wang Dang Doodle
Watermelon Man
You Don't Love Me