The Unspoken Rules

A music method book for jazz singers looking to start and/or lead a band. Tips and tricks, in other words, The Unspoken Rules.

Have you ever dreamed of being a Jazz singer? Of standing in front of your own combo, expressing yourself and sharing your art with an audience? At the same time, are you wondering how to get started? What to do and how to do it? The Unspoken Rules - How Jazz Singers Survive The Bandstand is for you. Jazz singers are rarely sidemen and so never get to learn from their more experienced bandmates and bandleaders the cues, signals and protocols used to lead a band. The Unspoken Rules will guide you through these procedures and customs - getting the band in and out of a tune, commonly used keys and, most importantly, hints for keeping track of where you are in the song when your sax player is on the third chorus of their solo. Also, there are tips for writing your own charts and arrangements, getting gigs and a glossary of terms. Anne Farnsworth is a working jazz musician and bandleader and the author of Jazz Vocal Techniques (JazzMedia Press). The Unspoken Rules is a compilation of what she herself has learned on the bandstand as well as the commonly asked questions she's received from her students at the universities where she has taught.

Jazz pianist and vocalist Anne Farnsworth resides in upstate New York after living in Los Angeles where she divided her time between performing, teaching, and journalism. She has toured extensively in the States and abroad both as a sideman and leader of her own trios and quartets and has appeared with Harry "Sweets" Edison, Johnny Griffin and Herbie Hancock. Her columns, essays, reviews and interviews have appeared in Windplayer, Billboard Live, Jazz Notes, Tone Audio, All About Jazz - Los Angeles and RealTalkLA. She wrote a biweekly column for the Concord Music Group. A Fulbright Scholar, Anne completed a visiting professorship at the Jazeps Vitols Latvian Academy of Music in Riga, Latvia. She has taught at the University of Southern California, New England Conservatory, El Camino College and Occidental College. An international clinician, she is the author of JAZZ VOCAL TECHNIQUES (JazzMediaPress 2008) and THE UNSPOKEN RULES (JazzMediaPress 2023). In Los Angeles, she was an active participant in the club and theater scenes, serving as musical director for plays and revues and performing with her quartet. Her original recordings can be heard on television soundtracks.