Newbie needing help—chord scales/transposed instrument (Bb)

[pdxdjazz]

I may have misunderstood your question. I thought you meant that G was your concert key (A transposed for your instrument). It appears you meant that G was the transposed for your instrument key. (F concert)
Just follow dflat's helpful explanation. (Thanks)
)BOB

[tjjazz]

Thanks to both dflat and Bob for the information.

While I'm a "re-entry" player I do understand basic music theory, as well as the distinction between the key of my horn, other instruments, and concert.

I've spent several hours with iRP and have tried dflat's suggestions, but I still can't get it to work in a way that is helpful. Unless one of you is personally responsible for iRP's interface you should not take my comments personally. I find the product very hard to use, and in this case, it's getting in the way of me actually practicing. I'm spending way more time just trying how to input chords so that I can play along, than I am actually playing my horn. I can see that the app has great power but I don't think that it's well suited to me at this point.

I realize that there is a lot of complexity in jazz chords and improvisation and that by nature a tool like this is going to be hard to design. It's simply too confusing for me right now. Hopefully as my skill set and knowledge base improve I'll be able to come back to it, but even something as simple as inserting bar lines seems confusing (do I use my mouse to click where I want the bar line? space bar? tab?) I've gotten it to play chords that I've input, but they've not really been useful due to the whole tranpsosition thing.

Thank you again for taking the time to respond, I hope to return some day when I understand all of this better.

Sincerely,
TJ

[dflat]

Hello TJ,
You could tell us exactly what you want to do, with some chords you want to work with in the key of your trumpet (attach a jpg, or type them in here) perhaps 16 bars or something and we can help you more.
Also how you want to practice and what you want the player to do to assist this.

iReal Pro works for many players to learn their material so there would be ways it can help you. Also if we describe it here, others who come across this thread may find it useful.
Thanks.

[tjjazz]

dflat,

Attached is the chart and the changes that I want to practice. What I want to do is to input the chords for the solo (G, E7+9, A7 Ami7/D, G7+9, etc.) and then play along with it. I would like to use the chord scales function so that I can see the notes in each change in the key of my Bb trumpet, and play along with the changes so that I can internalize the notes, chords, and progression.

One thing I find particularly challenging, and this is not endemic only to iRP, is that the language of jazz chords is subject to lots of inconsistencies. (If I type E7 iRP recognizes this but it does not recognize +9, so I'm not sure if I use the #9 notation in this case). Another challenge as I've mentioned, is that it frequently barks at me because I don't construct the measures properly and I don't exactly understand where the chord goes in the measure (I assume right at the beginning) and then how many spaces (if any) go between it and other chord in the same measure. I also don't really understand how to insert the end bar. Again, do I tab, or just click my mouse ahead a bit, or space bar? iRP sometimes tells me that it can't understand my measures. I don't recall the exact language.

I'm far from computer illiterate, and I am semi-proficient at video editing tools such as Premiere Pro and others, so I feel like the application could be easier to use.

Here' the chart, as well as the changes, and then what I've got in iRP. Ignore that the current key sig is set to G. As you'll see it should be in F based on the fact that the first chord is an F (concert) but it's displaying G (transposed to trumpet as dflat instructed. I was noodling around trying to change something and couldn't figure out how to get it back to where it was and I've already created about 5 versions of this chart just trying to practice and I didn't want to delete it another time.

Thanks again,
TJ

[dflat]

TJ, it looks like you are practicing the chart in edit mode.
Your chords are in F, so check the key is also set to F in the floating edit window, and click Set (not Set and transpose as the chords are already in F) (these two need to match).
At the bottom of the edit window, save and close.

This will bring you back to normal song view mode. Check it says G for key (bottom right). Press Spacebar to play.
Does this work for you?

I can prepare an iReal Pro chart for your chords if you would like me to, but if this helps you, you could try yourself with the previous instructions and let us know how you are doing with this.

[tjjazz]

dflat,

I have changed the chords to F in the edit window, although that's confusing. I guess it's because I need to think in concert key because to me the chart is in Gmaj (one sharp, F).

I closed the edit window and yes, in normal song view mode I have G check in the bottom right. It plays chords, but again, they're concert scales, which does not help me. I can't transpose those scales on the fly. I want/need to see the actual notes for a Gmaj scale (G, A, B, C, D, E, F#, G) for each chord so I can learn them. Your previous instructions of setting the chords so that they displayed in Bb worked but I was fighting other issues.

I honestly do not understand how someone learning to improvise over chords is going to learn by having concert chords and scales displayed. I might as well not even look at the screen and just use iRP to play the music. Of course this requires me to write out the changes (until I know them all by heart)on a sheet of paper, in which case I could find other recordings of the changes to play over.

What am I missing?

TJ

PS-thanks for sticking with me, but I really don't understand how this tool is useful for a novice improviser.