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> If you're trying to limit this discussion to vocal jazz, that's fine, just say so Well, the post I was originally replying to WAS mentioning vocalists specif

> If you're trying to limit this discussion to vocal jazz, that's fine, just say so Well, the post I was originally replying to WAS mentioning vocalists specifically. > The whole "learn your standards in all 12 keys" is such a commonly-held value that at this point it's a trope. It's such a trope that I can't even think of a programming trope [...] that is on par with it. I'd compare it with "Any programmer worth their salt should have read The Art of Computer Programming and done all the exercises". It's not that it's bad advice per se, but that it's mostly honored in the breach. It can also lead students to trade off breadth for depth. Depth certainly is appropriate for some phases of musical development, but it can lead to musicians with a fairly narrow repertoire (and, from a vocalist's perspective, often a dated section of the vocal repertoire). Being limited in selection of songs is not necessarily better than being limited in selection of keys. > Again, this difference in experience might be due to the fact that you're a vocalist Sure. To us, singing a tune (as long as it's in range) in a different key is no real challenge. The challenge, then, is to pick SENSIBLE keys and stick to them.

TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
Vocalists always have an ideal range surrounded by a strained range surrounded by 'I can't sing that high/low." The reason you need to be able to play in any key is because a vocalist's ideal range may be in any key. It's defined by their physiology. They can improve their range with training, but only so far. They may be able to sing in any key, but the best and most expressive sound has a much more limited range. So if a vocalist's ideal key is Ab, you'd better be able to transpose to Ab. Solo piano needs to be able to play in any key to fully use the range of the instrument. If you write changes that modulate somewhere weird, the band should be able to follow you. If you your weird changes have to shift key to accommodate a vocalist, the band should still be able to follow you. It's not an unreasonable thing to expect of a performing musician. It's not the same as being able to recall any problem from The Art of Computer Programming. It's not "hardcore". It's just a requirement of basic competence. I think computers and software have made too many people assume that the arts should be easy, open, and trivially challenging - like those posts by someone who hacked together a few tens of lines of JS or Python and has persuaded themselves they've made interesting art, or who runs a few thousand MIDI files through an RNN and calls the output music. In reality doing art at a professional level is at least as hard as cience to a professional level, and takes at least as long to learn. No one is going to let a professional scientist get away without knowing calculus, and music and the visual arts have equivalent requirements. You may get a pass on rudiments in the arts if your creativity and originality are genius-level and off the scale. But if not - then no.

TheOtherHobbes 8y ago

Vocalists always have an ideal range surrounded by a strained range surrounded by 'I can't sing that high/low." The reason you need to be able to play in any key is because a vocalist's ideal range may be in any key. It's defined by their physiology. They can improve their range with training, but only so far. They may be able to sing in any key, but the best and most expressive sound has a much more limited range. So if a vocalist's ideal key is Ab, you'd better be able to transpose to Ab. Solo piano needs to be able to play in any key to fully use the range of the instrument. If you write changes that modulate somewhere weird, the band should be able to follow you. If you your weird changes have to shift key to accommodate a vocalist, the band should still be able to follow you. It's not an unreasonable thing to expect of a performing musician. It's not the same as being able to recall any problem from The Art of Computer Programming. It's not "hardcore". It's just a requirement of basic competence. I think computers and software have made too many people assume that the arts should be easy, open, and trivially challenging - like those posts by someone who hacked together a few tens of lines of JS or Python and has persuaded themselves they've made interesting art, or who runs a few thousand MIDI files through an RNN and calls the output music. In reality doing art at a professional level is at least as hard as cience to a professional level, and takes at least as long to learn. No one is going to let a professional scientist get away without knowing calculus, and music and the visual arts have equivalent requirements. You may get a pass on rudiments in the arts if your creativity and originality are genius-level and off the scale. But if not - then no.