On Mar 19, 2005, at 12:45 PM, Darcy James Argue wrote:
On 19 Mar 2005, at 12:19 PM, Christopher Smith wrote:
Your point about the New Real Book not having measure numbers illustrates my point even better than it does yours.
How, exactly? My point is that proper layout and use of rehearsal letters and double bars is *waaaayyyyy* more important to musicians keeping their place in the form than measure numbers.
So much so that even when there are no measure numbers, it's perfectly easy to keep your place.
I wasn't arguing against that at all. But calling bars out on a lead sheet, that's another story.
in a rehearsal. Say to the musicians, "I would like the rhythm section to break in bar 3." Which bar are they going to break on, the 3rd bar of the form, or the 3rd full bar (which is the 2nd bar of the form)?
If the chart had been properly copied (according to the standards of the New Real Book), there would be no eighth rest in the pickup measure, and there would be a boxed rehearsal letter [A] in the first full measure. So you could say, "There's a break in the 3rd bar of [A]" -- or, even, "There's a break in bar 3" -- without any confusion at all.
You would have to say "There's a break in bar FOUR" if the measure HAD the eighth rest, which is what I was arguing against. Or if it had an 8-eighth note pickup instead of a 7 note pickup, which is not all that different from what is there already. I'm not sure musicians are aware enough of the rule about only numbering complete measures to make the distinction between the bar numbers with a 7 note pickup and an 8 note pickup. It's all the same to them (and to me too, pretty much, anyway.) Remember, most jazz musicians don't know that repeats are not supposed to occur on DSs, or that accidentals only apply in the same octave as they first appear in the measure, and they even have trouble keeping track of accidentals that have already appeared in the measure at times! A detail about the pickup bar being numbered if it is complete escapes them completely, I'm sure.
Speaking of which, let's go back to the New Real Book. Open it up to "Airegin." Are you going to tell the band "The bass breaks on beat 4 of bar 2" or "The bass breaks on beat 4 of the second bar of [A]"?
That lead sheet has a full written intro, in which case we seem to be in agreement. Let's keep the discussion to pickups, especially those of 1 measure more or less.
In fact, Finale-copied lead sheets that HAVE bar numbers sometimes serve to confuse the issue. In the case of Daahoud, if I referred to bar 3, they might ask back, "Bar NUMBER 3, or the 3rd bar of the form?"
That's an argument for *more* consistency, then, not less.
I AM arguing for consistency. I expect NO pickup measures to be numbered, no matter whether they are complete or not.
Christopher
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