Studying My Own Music Charts & Keys
Creating a band leader's living setlist for 2023 and forward
These aren’t actual music charts, they’re ‘Real Book’ chord changes created in the app iReal Pro. I also leave a chord wheel in the key and the corresponding scales/arpeggios of the change centers of the song.
By documenting my own music as a post mortem after writing and recording the song, it helps me ease into taking the song to the stage. Most people with think this is a completely overkill approach to music, but when I have musicians sit in with us, being able to easily provide charts has proven to be gold.
Anyone who's ever made an arrangement for a song, understands the value of a chart. I didn't need to go fully ‘Billy Strayhorn’ on my arrangements providing note for note big band guidance, I just needed to provide the yellow lines and the white dashed lines of a super highway.
Aren’t You Supposed To Be Writing New Songs?
A band leader’s job isn’t just writing new material, it also involves performing live at a level today’s audiences expect and demand. Beginning in August 2023, I got a bid sidetracked (fully sideways to be honest) from songwriting to document song charts, their keys, and corresponding guitar shapes, scales, etc. It’s now a habit that I started when I first saw my buddy (Abel) on bass scribbling down chord changes to my originals on a napkin during one of our early practices. We’ve all done it. Now that I think of it, I’ve forgotten more about music than what I’ve committed to paper or recorded over the years. Reminds me of an aside a friend told me when I asked him why he stopped drinking, he said “I’ve spilled more beer than most people drink in a lifetime”.
Musicians are often forgetful, as am I, and no-one is at fault for that. Let’s just call it the nature of the beast. Garcia once explained the twofold reasons of why he’s never played the same song or solo the same way twice: firstly to keep things interesting with the band, and lastly because he can’t do it, meaning his memory makes it physically impossible.
Why Bother? It’s a Boatload of Work
So what started as a way to help friends in learning the basics of my catalog, has become a profound way for me to internalize both the lyrics and the harmonic/melodic centers of each song. It’s the first step I take once I’ve recorded a demo and have decided to add the song to my ongoing setlist. Some may find it hard to believe, but often after recording a song/demo in the studio an artist has to learn how to play the song live. There are songs that still to this day have not made it to the set due to this conundrum.
Studio tracking and playing live are two completely different tasks which compliment each other, just because you were able to track it, it doesn’t mean you can reproduce it in a performance. One essential songwriting trick, is to always document via camera phone. I try to record a video of the fingerboard for reference while tracking so as not to forget it in the future. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone back through my phone to find new songs from video sketches. Every time I pick up a guitar I connect to the river’s source, its up to me to document the experience.
Why Add the Keys, Arpeggios, and Scales?
I can respond with why would anyone go on a roadtrip without a map or smartphone GPS? Without those basic tools you’re sure to get lost. One gig after about a 4 month hiatus, I found myself in front an audience, looking at the neck of a guitar, lost, not knowing where to go. My hands knew where to go during the song, but when I went to trade 4s with the band, I had zero access to my arsenal. Never again, is what I swore to myself, but what the F actually happened up there?
At the end of the day, there’s no need to beat yourself up over a brain fart. Years back, maybe 2012, late night at one of the biggest parties I’ve ever been at in New Orleans, I was asked to get up on the stage and perform ‘Roadhouse Blues’, a song I’ve listened to since I was a kid. I’ve sung along with those lyrics thousands of times, but for the life of me I couldn’t come up with the first verse of the song. Bourbon Street is full on stimulation overload, beautiful chaos, mixed with jubilation, add in a bit of everything else. The band kicked in the opening, and I had to nonchalantly grab one of my buddies and ask him for the first line. Acting like I was trying to get the audience going, I was actually completely lost.
Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel
Once I had the first line, I was good to go. I had full access to the lyric archives in my brain. But for that moment, that felt like 1,000 years, all I had was a blank slate. I think the best answer to the gig mentioned above was that I was distracted a bit, I had amp, PA, and audience issues that were taking my mind away from the music. My amp went offline, I had to switch to a backup, and there was an old stripper in front of the stage giving lap dances. I had to look at a palm tree to keep from laughing. The rest of the bands, my wife, all of my friends were loosing their shit. I’m falling off my chair laughing just thinking about it.
As you can tell, my approach to music is anything but academic. I may be fascinated by theory, by music tech, and by all sorts of different tools to make music today. At the end of the day, new music creation needs to be at the forefront. I think you can honor the artists who’ve come before us, but not have to be over cerebral in the approach to music analysis. This work, for me is a way to jump right back into performance after spending 2 weeks snowboarding in the mountains, not touching a guitar the whole time. Surf trips are the same way, if there’s a guitar I’ll play but my focus is on surfing, little else. If I take the time to make guides, I’ll never get lost in my own music. I don’t memorize entire solos, I don’t see the point, it takes away the entire fun of performance and improvisation. Most of my guitar solos are not scale based, they follow the chord progressions and they pivot off chordal arpeggios. The song maps were made so that I’ll never get lost when learning, or relearning a song from the archives.
Here are a few examples of my living set lists:
Traditional Living Set List on TheRam.io
Interactive Chart Grid, Created Years Back
Thanks for letting me bend your ear. Enjoy the rest of your day!