Hi everyone,
Ever since we added playback to the charts, one request has come back more often than anything else: “Can it sound like a band?” A piano politely spelling out the chords is useful for checking your changes — but nobody wants to practise Autumn Leaves forever with block chords and a metronome. You want something that swings back at you.
So here it is. Press play on any chart and a rhythm section plays along with you: upright bass, drums and piano. It works on every score in the catalog, it’s free, and you don’t need an account.
What it sounds like
The bass walks. Not the same note four times a bar — a real line that lands on the root when the chord changes, moves through the chord in between, and slides into the next chord from a half step away, the way a bass player actually does it. On a slow ballad it drops to half notes and just holds the ground for you.
The drums play a ride pattern with the hi-hat on 2 and 4, the kick ticking underneath, and the odd snare hit where a drummer would drop one in. On ballads they switch to brushes. On a bossa you get the cross-stick pattern and the hi-hat straight through.
The piano stays out of the way. It comps in the middle of the keyboard, off the beat, leaving the bottom to the bass — chords that sound like a pianist behind a soloist, not a chord chart being read out loud.
How to switch it on
Open any chart, click the 🔊 speaker button in the player, and under Accompaniment pick Jazz combo. That’s it — press play.
Pick the feel — or let it pick for you
Under the combo there’s a Feel menu with four grooves:
- Swing — the standard jazz ride pattern, hi-hat on 2 and 4, bass walking in four.
- Bossa nova — cross-stick, straight eighths, and a bass that plays root and fifth. Try it on Blue Bossa.
- Ballad — brushes and a bass in two, for when the tune needs air.
- Straight — an even eighth-note groove for tunes that aren’t swing at all.
Leave it on Auto and the site reads the chart for you: if the tempo marking says “Medium Swing” you get swing, if it says “Bossa” you get bossa, and a slow tempo brings out the brushes. Most of the time you’ll never need to touch it.
Mute whoever you want to be
Next to the Feel menu there are three switches — Bass, Drums and Piano — and this is the part that makes it a practice tool rather than a toy:
- Piano player? Turn the piano off and comp along with just bass and drums.
- Bass player? Turn the bass off and walk your own line over the kit.
- Horn player or singer? Leave all three on and you’ve got a trio behind you.
- Working on time? Bass and drums only, no chords to lean on.
It works with everything else on the page
The band follows the chart, not a fixed loop. Transpose All The Things You Are into your key and the bass line moves with you. Set the tempo slower to learn the head, then push it up. Repeat the whole tune 2, 4 or 8 times and blow over the changes. Repeats, first and second endings, pickup bars, key and time signature changes — the rhythm section reads all of it and stays with you.
All of it is free
Viewing charts, transposing them and playing them back — including the new rhythm section — stays free and always will be. No account, no limits, nothing to sign up for. Open a tune and play.
What’s paid is taking a chart away with you: a PDF for the gig bag, or MusicXML, MEI and MIDI files for your own software — and the browser editor, where you can change a chart or write your own lead sheet from scratch. If it’s one tune you need this week, a single download is $1. If you’re downloading regularly or want the editor, it’s $10 a month — cancel any time. No PayPal account? There’s a pay-once Editor Pass instead: $10 for a month or $100 for a year, with nothing to renew and nothing to cancel. That’s what keeps the free side of the site running and improving.
And this isn’t the last of it
The rhythm section is the start of something bigger we’ve been building, not a one-off. There’s more coming soon — and we think you’re going to like the next one even more. Watch this space.
In the meantime: open a standard, hit play, and take a chorus. We’d love to know how it feels under your fingers — and which tune you tried it on first.
Thanks for being part of Realbook.site.
New charts announced first on our Telegram channel
