All Of You: Lead Sheet / Fake Book

Elegant and intimate. The lead sheet format gives you room to breathe and make interpretive choices, creating conversations between the melody and your harmonic accompaniment. There is sophistication in restraint.

Pianists tackling jazz standards and Broadway repertoire, vocalists building a songbook, and music students learning to read and interpret lead sheets. This works for anyone who wants to own a song rather than follow someone else's written-out voicings.

• Listen closely to how the melody sits against the changes during the first run-through; some voicings feel obvious, others will surprise you once the comping starts.
• Lock the vocal line with your left hand's root movements to anchor the harmonic progression, especially in passages where the melody jumps.
• Experiment with sparse versus fuller voicings depending on context. A trio setting calls for different comping density than a full band arrangement.

Slot this into a jazz combo or cabaret set where the focus is on the song itself rather than a specific arrangement. Lead sheets also serve as invaluable references during sectional rehearsals, allowing you to isolate and refine how the band interprets a standard.

• reading lead sheet notation and chord symbols
• comping voicing choices based on harmonic context
• ear training for standard melody recognition
• harmonic analysis and reharmonization awareness