While it is common to dot your quarter notes, if you forget one or two, I will put money on the band still playing them short. The length of the lead trumpet note is proportional to its height.If the dynamic is forte or more, the notes will be played with accents.Here are the things that I feel are the foundation of the jazz default: What happens if you add a staccato, a tenuto, an accent, or a cap? In a nutshell, what does a player or section do when they see a naked note, with no articulation? If you can learn to think about this default reaction correctly, you will find many situations where you do not need to add any articulation. On my blog, deBreved, I talk a lot about my concept of the Orchestral Default. If you notate in a way that exploits this default, you will save yourself a lot of time and the players will know exactly what you mean, you do not need all the extra information. A lot of these extra indications are instructing players to perform in a way that is already covered by standard jazz, or what I call the Jazz Default. I see a lot of things that do not need to be on the page, or are written in ways that are way more complicated than necessary. I get a lot of scores sent to me by composers and arrangers both young and old. Thank you to Makemusic for their sponsorship. This post and its companion, Jazz Notation – Drums and Chords, present the material from my talk on January 11, 2014, at the Jazz Education Network Conference in Dallas, Texas.

Shout it out loud chords