BlahBlahCafe - Jean-Michel Jarre forum

One thing that I have always lusted after ( being a musician who likes making replica covers ) is real, accurate and complete scores of Jarres music.

After watching the latest Oxygene tour, I wonder if even Jarre has reliable scores to work from as so much of what was played was WAY off the original album versions. I found that dissapointing.
But what about the previous concerts, surely the musicians had them to work from?. That said, the last tour made me suspect that a vaster amount of concert audio than I first thought was from a tape machine. Of course, noise-effects and sounds from older, generaly unreliable synthesizers would have been impossible to recreate as they sound on the albums, so they would have come from tape.

I accept that some elements - especially the sequences and definately sound-effects - would be perhaps too complex to write down, ( I know, I've transcribed most of them ). But wouldn't it be great to own complete printed scores - I wonder if they exsist or are they just kept as sequencer data ??

During the last tour, all the musicians had a complete score, transcribed by musical director Claude Samard. In the past, all the 'songbooks' had been transcribed by Sylvain Durand for the purpose. I wouldn't care less about complete scores - the few songbooks that I have are pretty informative.

The last tour's score book must have been pretty limited judging by the huge differences in notation to the Oxygen album.

I have all the songbooks and to be frank, to sound anywhere near the originals, they are pretty useless with the exeption of perhaps Waiting for Cousteau.

Even the simplest of Jarre's tracks contain at least 8 elements playing together, the books display next to nothing. Of course, they are intended for home use on limited equipment but I still wonder if complete written scores exsist.

It has been mentioend several times before, that the songbooks are far from the original scores. Personally I haven't checked it.
Slowing down the tracks helps, but it's also possible in some cases to accentuate or hide some parts of a track, to make it possible to hear the details.

I'd like to know how much of Jarre's material was actually scored/written down as notation at the time. Obviously there's synth patches/settings, but how much actual written music there is would be interesting.

I think, apart from the recent Oxygene Tour scores, the 'songbooks' and some occasional orchestral arrangements, very few.

jarrekid wrote:I'd like to know how much of Jarre's material was actually scored/written down as notation at the time. Obviously there's synth patches/settings, but how much actual written music there is would be interesting.

Indeed.

Weren't Equinoxe, oxygene and Chronology released as multi-instrumental songbooks?

Jarp2600 wrote:Weren't Equinoxe, oxygene and Chronology released as multi-instrumental songbooks?

Those are the mentioned, but have been criticized for being slightly different to the original tracks.

Waiting for cousteau songbook is a nice exception, because it has the drum tabs included in it

With a good ear,you wouldn't need a complete score,if you were that desperate for notation,and had a good ear for replicating the tracks,you could simply use a notation/score editor and have notation for each element by printing off your interpretations.most of the songbooks contain the basic Theme and are mainly scored for Piano,so half of the elements are pointless,as they weren't transcribed with seperate timbres mainly only a bass part and upper/main melody for left and right hand playing only,most of them are crap anyway,I've done majority of my covers simply by listening hard and picking out each element as best I could.

I would say the vast majority of Jarre's tracks he's scored them in basic outline form for his own reference or as a guide/reminder as we can see the score for ethnicolor in the JLR biog,given the Way Oxygene and possibly many of his albums were recorded I doubt he scored them 100% exact and merely just made a basic guide/structure,relying more on improvisation than clever scoring.

I'd hazard a guess he only really relied on notation,for collaborational purposes.the fact that he couldn't replicate many of the elements within Oxygene exact 30 years later is an indication that he never did and it was more intuitive playing.The the songbooks they used for this tour,were simply CS using the old listen by ear method and trying to reproduce the elements as best he could,just merely as a reference for everybody during the performance so they could follow a guide as to where they were during the songs,given it was totally live rather than actually trying to replicate them exact.It would be nice to see those books but I bet even they are as sketchy as the Songbooks we all have.

It's curious though, that previous concerts other than his latest oxygene tour contained really accurate versions of Oxygene and all other tracks with all elements present. Live playing practiced from accurate scores, sequencer controlled or audio recording ?

matt222 wrote:It's curious though, that previous concerts other than his latest oxygene tour contained really accurate versions of Oxygene and all other tracks with all elements present. Live playing practiced from accurate scores, sequencer controlled or audio recording ?

you may know, that for example the sequences of oxygene 2, 5, and 12 are played by digisequencer (on the oxy tour 2008)

The Oxygene 2 sequence itself is easy and is just a single pattern repeating over and over again. The Oxygene 5 seq is also just a simple up going arpeggio done with four wooden wedges holding the keys. At the end of the seq, there are a few random changes. I think the Jarre team is pretty much familiar with the whole construction of the tracks, so they know what to do. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the leads and solos on Oxygene and Equinoxe are improvised from the base of the actual melody. It is seen during the tour that even JMJ doesn't follow the leads down to the smallest detail as on the album version.
I hope you get my point

matt222 wrote:It's curious though, that previous concerts other than his latest oxygene tour contained really accurate versions of Oxygene and all other tracks with all elements present. Live playing practiced from accurate scores, sequencer controlled or audio recording ?

Playback...not to start that discussion again,I would have thought as a musician yourself,it would have been fairly obvious,why prior concert versions were accurate,given a few overdubs/arrangements here and there,since its been flamed and flamed for the last couple of years the issue of Jarre Miming.

The Way Oxygene is performed on this tour is total indication of him playing Live,and why he didn't play 100% live prior to it,given his large amount of equipment used over the Albums,can you see him taking every synth he's ever used in order to play every track Live,I also reckon the reason he never played everything live is simply down to how he recorded everything in the studio for the albums, building the tracks by working round small amounts of sequences preprogrammed and a lot of improvised playing direct to audio,he probably never actually had many midi track on later albums or even sequenced alot of them at all.Oxygene is a pure example of free playing and I would say he recorded a lot of his albums that way,manually to tape rather than reliant of machines 100%

Oxygene requires all these synths,but if he took every album device could you imagine the size of the stage and the logisitics to transport it,far easier to take a handful of synths and overdub to presequences or Studer Reels/HD,and I dare say that prior concerts didn't warrant months and months of rehearsals of live playing as they were simply one offs apart from the few tour instances,so Overdubbing was all that was needed,no different to taking a sequencer on stage with you and playing a few select melodies over the top..but let's not get into that again.