I have gotten to the point where I can actually follow a lead sheet pretty well.  If I open to any page in the Real Book, I feel pretty confident I can follow the progression and comp chords and create solos based on each chord's essential tones -- even if I've never played or heard the tune before. Yay for me!

However, now the Real Book becomes a crutch.  I'm carrying three books to every jam session, or lately -- just opening up my iPad app and reading along. It's time to really learn how to commit tunes to memory.  I've heard lore of jam sessions where they don't even let you on the bandstand if you try and bring up the sheet music.

There are two basic methods I've received on how to memorize tunes

1) Learn a chord melody for the head -- or at least play the root of each bar with the notes in that bar to associate each passage.  Identify what interval the first note in the measure is in relation to that chord's root.

2) Break the tune down into the formula and transpose it to several different keys.

The first idea is a little advanced, and also requires the guitar in your hand.  The second method is something you can do on the bus, in a waiting room, on a coffee break, etc.  Get a note book or fold used pieces of printed paper in half like a book and have a copy of the circle of fifths/fouths diagram handy.


Here is what I've been doing to memorize tunes on paper:

1) Break down the tune

• What is the structure?  A-A-B-A?  Make sure you can lay down all the empty bar marks first
• Figure out the key of the song and mark any place where it modulates to another key, like in a bridge.
• Take each chord and give it a relative roman numeral formula name.  The roman numeral is the interval.  Uppercase indicates a Major (I or IV) or a dominant (V7).  Lowercase is minor (ii, iii, vi).
• Find all the ii-V's and iii-VI-ii-V's.  How do you spot them? Look at your circle.  You should be committing the the progression of fourths -- the circle going clockwise -- to memory.  Any time you see chords matching the counter-clockwise sequence, you probably have a ii-V-I, ii-V or iii-VI-ii-V.
• Most modulations in standards go in fourths as well.  If the new key center is one clockwise from the root, it is the IV chord (or a iv if it is minor).
• If your circle diagram has the major triads and relative minor, you can also suss out the iii chord and the vi chords in the progression.  Sometimes these are not minor, but dominants, so write them as III7 or VI7 if that is the case.
• Sometimes there is a ii-V that is not resolving to the root.  If it is resolving to the IV, you write ii/IV (two of four) and V/IV (five of four).  If it is resolving to the III7, write ii/III, V/III.  If it is resolving to the V, it might actually be a iii/VI/ii/V (three-six-two-five), which is easier shorthand to remember.
• If you get stuck creating the formula or are unsure how to notate a bar, consult the internet or a good music teacher.

2) Once you have the tune broken down into a formula, write just the formula of all the bars on a new blank sheet.

3) Now just have your formula visible for reference and recreate the chords on another blank sheet.  Check your work with the original sheet music when you are done.

4) Now hide your formula and recreate the formula from the sheet of chords you just wrote in step 3 on a new sheet. Check your work against you original formula.

5) Repeat going back and forth between the roman numerals and the chords.  You need to learn both.  Check your work each time.

6) Once you are getting confident going back and forth like this, take the formula and write the chords in a new key, based on the formula values.  Take out your circle diagram if you need help at the beginning.  Try with a key a fair distance apart, especially one you don't play in often.  You can check your transposition in software like iReal, which allows you transpose any song you have instantly.  If your transposition is not coming out right, consult your music teacher.

7) At this point you should be able to hide all references and tranpose the song to any key.  Don't worry how fast it takes you to transpose at first.  Just make sure you are getting the right chords and saying the formula in your head as you write each chord.

8) Transpose the song back into the original key.  Put all you notes away, pull out your instrument and see if you can play it without looking.

9) You should have a reasonable grasp on the song right now, but you have to come back to it tomorrow and the day after that, etc.  Keep writing out the changes in the original key, formula and one other transposition each day from scratch.  If you can do that from scratch for 10 days you should be getting comfortable with the progression. Try adding a song a day or every few days as your schedule allows.

Once you are getting the chords memorized, definitely try learning a chord melody or at least playing the roots along with the head.

When you pick up your guitar, make sure you are not saying the note names of the chord (like Eb7) in you head -- make sure you are saying 'iii' and 'VI' and 'ii' and 'V' and 'III dominant' and 'five flat-nine' and 'one six' and 'two of four', etc., as you search for each chord with your fingers.  See the root of each chords as an intervals from the root (or modulated root) of the song's key.

These are the things you'll gain by memorizing the tune in this manner:

• You'll reinforce your understanding the functions of each chord.
• You'll start seeing and thinking about groups of bars to deal with (e.g., iii-VI-ii-V, major to minor, ii-V to the four chord) instead of trying to come up with something for each bar.  There will eventually be a transformation where you are not just concentrating on every bar, but will be able to create longer lines over multi-bar passages.  Your phrases will start speaking to the functions that the chords are  outlining, with their tensions and releases.  You'll start to appreciate the whole 'conversation' the progression of the song is making.
• You'll know where key modulations hit in a tune, allowing you to anticipate and flow into them more confidently.
• You'll start to see these progressions repeated and mutated in other standards, allowing you to break down and pick up on new songs quicker.
• You'll realize other tunes are contrafacts -- the same progression with a new head -- and you just need to learn the new head.
• You'll reinforce your knowledge of diatonic and subdominant note names in every key.
• You'll start getting facile with transposing.  
• Most important -- you'll have tunes memorized!  You don't have to fumble through the real book or application on the bandstand.

To outline chord changes during a solo, your best bet is to target the chord's 'guide tones.'  Guide tones are the key tones that differentiate the chords.  Every chord has a root -- so that can't be a guide tone.  Unless you are playing half-diminished or altered voicing, a chord will generally have a natural fifth, so that doesn't outline the basic chord type either.

Thirds and sevenths are the best tones to hit in your passage over a given chord to outline it's harmony.  From those two tones, you can instantly distinguish between Major/Minor/Dominant.  Minor thirds immediately highlight the minor sound and the flat seventh will immediately signal 'this is not a major chord.'

Once you know how to introduce a phrase with a flat third over a minor chord and a flat seven over a dominant, your listeners will instinctively hear the chord progression just in your solo phrases alone.

Eventually you should take a song and, for each bar,  start your phrase with the appropriate third or seventh for that bar's chord.

It is key that you start with 'guide tones' as your target tones, but eventually you will want to break out of the habit of always grabbing those notes first to start a phrase over a chord.

Once you are ready to expand beyond the guide tones, try this exercise:

Pick out another scale tone and map it over the chord passage.  For instance -- take a ii-V-I and start the measure with the ninth of each chord.  For a four bar ii-V-I in C major, you will start bar 1's phrase with an E (the ninth of D-7). On bar 2, start a phrase with an A (ninth of G7), and finally start your bar 3 phrase with a D (ninth of Cmaj7).

Once you are comfortable with the ii-V-I, grab a standard you know fairly well and go through the whole tune starting each phrase with the ninth and then continuing to improvise with the scale or arpeggio you've chosen for that chord.

The next 'target tone' to start each phrase with may be a thirteenth.  Map out what the thirteenth is for each chord and play that note to start your phrase when that chord comes along.  Start with a simple set of changes and then move on to a song. Then maybe to a song with more complex harmonic modulations.

After that, move on to all the other tones.  What if you play a b3 to start every chord -- even the dominants and major chords?  Can you make it sound musical?  Can you make it make sense? How about a b5/#11?

Once you are confident of finding a certain interval for any chord in a progression, practice 'leading in' to that target tone from the preceeding chord's notes/scale -- especially when the tune 'hangs' on a chord for more than one bar. 

For instance, in your looped four-bar ii-V-I in C major ( D-7 / G7 / Cmaj7 / Cmaj ):

On the last bar, take a rest on the first half of the measure and then resume soloing in your C major arpeggio leading into your target tone for D minor and continue in your D minor arpeggio or scale without stopping.  

Some tunes to try this on for the starkest effect might be the modulation to the B section of 'So What', going into the fifth bar of 'Green Dolphin Street', going into the half-step modulation for the B section of 'Girl From Impanema', the third bar of 'Solar,' etc.  The goal is to move to these target tones as fluidly as possible, even from an 'alien' harmony. 

​Once you know where all the intervals are for a chord, it will be harder to get lost.  It's like when you are walking in a city and every turn you make, you see a building you recognize, no matter what neighborhood you venture to.  Even if you wake up and get off a bus or pop up from a new subway station -- as soon as you see that landmark, you can quickly navigate to anywhere you want to go. 

This exercise will not only help you identify the intervals across your fretboard for any chord harmony, but it will also reinforce that interval's sound against the chord's harmony. For instance, starting with a 13th (same as sixth) on a Major sound will briefly cue your ear into that chord's relative minor.  You will probably find certain intervals you gravitate towards for different chords and passages.