Order a set from the Index so no two tunes in a row are the same kind of tune. Six axes, weighted, scored at every joint. How to work it
Every control, what it does, and what it leaves alone. The section after this one explains why the tool is built the way it is; this one explains how to drive it.
Controls run across the top. Below them the set sits on the left and the Index on the right. Changing any control updates the Index list and the pool line at once. Only Build a set rewrites the set, so you can move the controls around under a set you have already built without disturbing it.
Say how long the set is. Say what may be drawn from. Say what the set must and must not hold. Build. Read the audit. Move or swap by hand. The tool never edits a set you built by hand unless you press Build a set again.
A number from 3 to 16, starting at 8. It is a target rather than a promise. If the pool will not order a chain that long, nothing is built and a line appears naming the longest it will order, so the next press succeeds.
Eight chips, one per index, pressed to toggle. 1A and 1B start on. This is the first gate: a title has to sit in a lit index to be drawn. Jam platforms are the one exception, below.
One chip, on at the start. On, the pool holds the three bands the call instruments reach - Reconciled, Logged and Distilled. Off, Sub-Floor and Untouched come in as well. Across all eight indexes that is 325 titles against 594, and the reach is uneven on purpose.
| index | on | off | what the difference is |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1A | 91 | 93 | the tunes the instruments name most |
| 1B | 53 | 53 | untouched by the filter |
| 2 | 55 | 116 | about half |
| 3 | 20 | 141 | a depth index, and this is what depth costs |
| 4 | 15 | 99 | a period house, reached by almost nothing |
| 5A | 47 | 48 | Index 5 enters at its reached and platform sets already |
| 5B | 26 | 26 | |
| 5C | 18 | 18 |
The thirty-six boldface titles, the ones marked as counting off with no singer. They sit at Index 5A, 5B and 5C - ten, seventeen and nine. The control has three settings, and the one to watch is the first.
| setting | what reaches the pool | what you must light first |
|---|---|---|
| with their index | they arrive only when 5A, 5B or 5C is in play, alongside everything else those indexes bring | 5A, 5B or 5C |
| always in | all thirty-six, whatever the index chips, the bands and the skill path say | nothing |
| only platforms | the pool is the thirty-six and nothing else | nothing |
Leaving this on with their index with no Index 5 chip lit is why a platform sometimes appears and sometimes does not. Nothing is broken when that happens; the tap is closed.
A platform is exempt from call likelihood in all three settings. That exemption is not a setting and cannot be switched off. Twenty-six of the thirty-six sit in the Untouched band, which the filter drops, so without the exemption the mark would be invisible whenever the filter was on. Call likelihood goes on binding everything that is not a platform: with all eight indexes lit and the filter on, no Untouched title reaches the pool except a platform.
Forty-three instrumental seats carrying a lyric a singer can front, at Indexes 1A, 1B, 2 and 3 - sixteen, ten, twelve and five.
| setting | what it does |
|---|---|
| any | no effect; the forty-three are drawn like anything else |
| at least one | the builder keeps drawing until one is in the set, and says so if none is available |
| only these | the pool narrows to the forty-three within the indexes already lit |
only these narrows; it does not reach past the index chips the way the platform settings do. The reading is index by index, so lighting Index 2 alone and asking for only these returns the twelve at Index 2 and not the other thirty-one.
Four chips, all on at the start: fnd foundational, 62 titles; emg emerging intermediate, 58; int intermediate, 47; off the path, the 427 the path does not place. Turning one off removes those titles from the pool. Phase filters; it is not a seventh axis, and the builder does not try to alternate hard and easy.
Six kinds, each on a three-way select. up to 1 is the ceiling and the default. exactly 1 makes the builder keep drawing until one is present. none bars the kind from the set entirely. The counts are blues 70, minor blues 15, rhythm changes 31, bossa 16, groove 19, ballad 84, and 234 of the 594 titles carry at least one.
| chip | start | what it enforces |
|---|---|---|
| spread them out | on | no two capped tunes back to back, and required ones placed as far apart as the length allows |
| a Latin feel | off | at least one tune on a Brazilian or Afro-Caribbean feel; 49 titles qualify |
| an anchor every four | on | no run of four without something from Index 1A or 1B. It goes inert when neither index is lit |
| a jam platform | off | at least one platform in the finished set, not merely in the pool |
| one from each index | off | every lit index that has titles in the pool is represented at least once |
Build a set draws at random from the pool and keeps the first arrangement that breaks none of the rules above, trying up to six hundred times. Clear empties the set and leaves every control where it is. Export saves the set as a plain text file with each title's seat, band and idiom; if the browser refuses the download, the same text goes to the clipboard and the button says so.
Each tune shows its position, its title, its chips, and three buttons on the right - move up, move down, remove. Between every pair sits a line carrying the joint score and the axes the two tunes hold in common. A line reading repeat is under 25 and wants one of the two moved; thin is 25 to 49 and is playable once; anything unlabeled cleared 50.
The line above the set reads the weakest joint, the average, how many capped tunes are in and how far apart the closest two sit, and the phase mix.
Everything in the pool, longest first by index order. The search box matches on title. The three selects narrow by idiom, form and feel. Clicking a title appends it to the end of the set, and a title already in the set shows a dot instead of a plus. The foot of the list reads how many are showing, how many are in play and how many are in the Index; past three hundred it shows the first three hundred only.
| finding | what it means |
|---|---|
| repeat | two adjacent tunes scored under 25. It names what they hold in common |
| two thin | two thin joints in a row. One of the three tunes wants moving |
| look-back | a tune scored under 25 against the one two back. Alternating two kinds is not contrast |
| feel, idiom, origin | a window rule broken: three of one feel in four, four of one idiom family in four, five of one origin in five |
| anchor | four in a row with nothing from Index 1A or 1B |
| cap, excluded, missing | a capped kind appears more than once, appears while switched off, or is required and absent |
| adjacent | two capped tunes sitting back to back while spread them out is on |
A hand-built set is audited exactly as a built one is. The audit reports; it never edits.
Under the controls: how many titles are in play out of 594, how many are platforms, how many a
singer can front, then the per-index split. An index showing 3 20/141 is admitting 20
of its 141 seats, and a bare number means the index is admitting all of them.
| colored, first | the idiom, tinted by family |
| plain | form, feel and terrain, shown only when not the default - song form, swing, functional |
| dotted | a capped kind: bossa, groove or ballad |
| teal | platform - counts off with no singer |
| rust | singer - carries a lyric a singer can front |
| solid | the band |
| dashed | the phase, when the skill path places it |
| last | the seat, as index and number |
| band | titles | call likelihood |
|---|---|---|
| Reconciled | 145 | passes |
| Logged | 111 | passes |
| Distilled | 43 | passes |
| Sub-Floor | 44 | dropped when the filter is on |
| Untouched | 251 | dropped, unless the title is a platform |
A red line appears above the controls rather than a half-broken set. It names the percentage of pairs inside the pool that clear a joint of 50, gives the longest set the pool will order, and says which lit indexes are bringing less than their full seat count. Setting the length to the number it names and pressing again always works. Widening the pool, lighting another index or switching a cap off are the other three moves.
The set you are holding is stored in this browser and comes back on the next visit. Nothing else is stored and nothing leaves the page. The control positions are not stored; they start where this page starts them every time.
Two tunes back to back are compared on six axes. Each axis pays its weight only when the two tunes differ on it. A joint scoring 100 changes everything; a joint scoring 0 is the same tune twice under two names.
| axis | values | wt |
|---|---|---|
| Form | blues · minor blues · rhythm changes · other | 30 |
| Feel | swing · Brazilian · Afro-Caribbean · even eighths · odd or triple · backbeat | 25 |
| Terrain | functional · modal or vamp · blues-based | 20 |
| Idiom | songbook · bop · modern · groove · Latin | 15 |
| Origin | Songbook · jazz composition · Latin American · imported · traditional | 6 |
| Tier | 1A · 1B · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5A · 5B · 5C | 4 |
Form outweighs everything because two blues in a row is the oldest mistake on a bandstand and the one a room hears first. Tier is worth almost nothing between two adjacent tunes and matters only in the window rule below.
Repeat - under 25. The two tunes agree on form, feel and terrain, or on enough of them that a listener hears one long tune. Move one.
Thin - 25 to 49. Playable, and two thin joints in a row is not.
Clear - 50 and over. Something the room can hear changed.
A tune is also weighed against the one two back, which has to clear 25. Contrast every other tune is not contrast; it is a two-state oscillation, and a set that alternates blues and bossa scores perfectly at every joint while being one of the more tiring sets you could call.
Four consecutive tunes may hold at most two of one named feel and may not be all four of one idiom family. Five consecutive may not be all five from one origin.
Swing is exempt from the feel rule. It is the default and not a color - 489 of the 594 titles carry it. Three bossas in four is a problem; three swing tunes in four is a Tuesday.
With the anchor rule on, every four must hold something from Index 1A or 1B. It goes inert when neither index is in play.
Six kinds are capped at one per set, and each can be switched off entirely or required. A set holding one of each is the teaching case, and it needs eleven slots to hold them apart.
| kind | read from | titles |
|---|---|---|
| blues | the printed BLUES block, and a compiler reading at Index 4 | 70 |
| minor blues | the printed MINOR BLUES block, and one at Index 4 | 15 |
| rhythm changes | the printed RHYTHM CHANGES block, and one at Index 4 | 31 |
| bossa | idiom Latin jazz - Brazilian | 16 |
| groove | idiom Soul jazz / boogaloo or Jazz-rock / fusion | 19 |
| ballad | a compiler reading, printed below | 84 |
Modal is no longer capped. Twenty-eight titles carry a modal or vamp terrain across four idiom families, five feels and three form blocks, and two of them back to back rarely sound alike. The terrain axis already pays 20 at the joint, which is the right instrument for it.
The bossa cap is the Brazilian titles, not the bossa frame. Sixteen titles carry the Brazilian idiom. Twelve more are jazz heads written over a bossa or samba frame - Blue Bossa, Song For My Father, Ceora, Recordame, Una Mas, Ana Maria, Spain - and those stay uncapped, because a hard-bop head on a Latin frame is not what a second Jobim tune does to a set.
One title is in two caps. Nothing Personal at Index 3 is a minor blues and a fusion tune, so it fills both.
Spread them out keeps any two capped tunes from sitting back to back and places required ones as far apart as the length allows. The builder says when they will not fit rather than returning a set that breaks its own rule.
One from each index is the answer to a set that keeps leaving an index out. Ticking an index makes its titles eligible, not present: the builder draws at random from whatever is in play, so a small index gets picked in proportion to its size. Index 4 with call likelihood on contributes 15 titles against Index 1A's 91 and Index 1B's 53, and lands in about half of all eight-tune sets. With this on, the builder keeps drawing until every index that has titles in the pool is represented, and says so if there are more indexes than slots.
Call likelihood, on, holds the pool to the three bands the instruments reach - Reconciled, Logged and Distilled. Off, it opens to Sub-Floor and Untouched as well. On all eight indexes that is 325 titles against 594. The reach is uneven by design: Index 1A loses two, Index 3 falls from 141 to 20 and Index 4 from 99 to 15, which is what a depth index and a period house respectively are.
Jam platforms are the thirty-six boldface titles - the ones FM.2 marks as counting off with no singer. They are their own tap, on three settings:
| setting | what reaches the pool |
|---|---|
| with their index | they arrive only when 5A, 5B or 5C is in play, alongside everything else those indexes bring |
| always in | all thirty-six, whatever the indexes, the bands and the skill path say |
| only platforms | the pool is the thirty-six and nothing else |
The last two ignore every other control on purpose. A platform is a tune you can call with a band that has never played together, and gating it behind the index that happens to print it would be the wrong instrument. Twenty-six of the thirty-six are reached by no call instrument at all, so under with their index and call likelihood on they would otherwise never appear.
The complaint about jam sessions runs both ways. Instrumentalists say singers call corny tunes; singers say the band will not play anything they can sing. A great many instrumental titles carry a lyric - the vocalese writers set words to most of the bebop repertoire and later writers to the modal and hard bop repertoire - and those are where the two sides meet.
The volume marks a narrower thing. Its italic records a title holding a current independent life as vocal repertoire, which is a stricter test and one that printed counts depend on. This control reads a wider file, data/vocal_option.tsv in the repository - instrumentals a singer can front where known recordings carry the vocal: Afro Blue, Work Song, I Remember Clifford, Waltz for Debby, Twisted, Goodbye Pork Pie Hat. A lyric that exists without a standard vocal version is left out, so the file is a short answer to a real question rather than a long one to a theoretical one.
All four instrumental indexes are read - sixteen at 1A, ten at 1B, twelve at Index 2 and five at Index 3, forty-three in all. A title is entered only where a named recording carries the vocal, and a single vocalese treatment does not count as one. Index 3 returns fewest because vocalese is where its lyrics came from, and a one-record treatment is not a lyric a singer can call. Index 5 has none: it is the vocal index, and every seat in it is already a singer's tune.
A platform in the pool is not a platform in the set. The builder draws at random from whatever is in play, so thirty-six titles among five hundred will land sometimes and not others. Require a jam platform makes it certain: the builder keeps drawing until one is in the set, and says so if none is available.
Index 4 carries all 99 of its seats. The volume's style page classifies 25 of them and stops, so the other 74 are read in data/setbuilder_extension.tsv in the repository, a separate file marked as a compiler reading for this tool with no locus in the volume. Under the rule that file states - provenance is who wrote the tune, idiom is the tradition it is called in - the 74 divide 29 Early jazz, 30 Swing, 14 Straight-ahead and one Cool. They are all in the Untouched band, so with call likelihood on, 15 of the 99 reach the pool and with it off all 99 do.
Index 4 orders cleanly on its own up to six tunes, and not seven. Measured, not asserted: 17 percent of its pairs clear a joint, so a chain of seven runs out of room. The 74 additions widened what it holds and did not widen what it contrasts, which is what a period house is - one idiom, one feel, one terrain, played by people who came for exactly that. Mixed with Index 1A it orders eight without difficulty.
Index 5 still enters at its reached and platform sets only - 48, 26 and 18 against 80, 78 and 69 seated. The vocal divisions are uniform on form, feel and terrain by construction, which is measurable rather than a complaint: of every pair inside Index 5B, none clears a joint of 50, and the best available anywhere in it scores 46. More vocal titles would widen the repertoire and not the contrast, so they are not here yet.
Two taxonomy values exist only for these two indexes. Early jazz / New Orleans is a fourteenth idiom and Traditional a fifth origin; neither is needed anywhere in Indexes 1A through 3, and neither appears in the table at App. M.12, which is scoped to those. Form is a compiler reading here rather than documentary. Indexes 4 and 5 print no BLUES or RHYTHM CHANGES blocks, so the form heads on these pages are named by the compiler, not read off a printed block.
The thirteen idioms of the style classification collapse to five families here. Bebop, cool and hard bop are one family because a room does not hear the seam between them across two tunes; it hears the seam between a bop head and a bossa.
Phase filters the pool; it is not a seventh axis. Difficulty is not variety, and a set that alternated hard and easy would be no better ordered for it. Turning phases off narrows what the builder may draw on, which is what a student working one layer wants and what a teacher setting a jam wants.
Key and tempo. Both matter more than half the axes above and neither is settled for this repertoire - a vocalist moves every key and a leader sets every tempo on the night. The two rules that would use them are the leader's, not this tool's: do not run three tunes through the same tonic, and do not put two burners together.
The volume carries no ballad mark and makes no tempo claim, because a leader sets every tempo on the night and a vocalist moves every key. These eighty-four are a reading of which titles are habitually counted off slow. The reading is published. It is the ballad column of data/style_classification.tsv in the repository, and check 88 of code/verify.py holds it against the roster - 75 marks in the style file and 9 more in the Index 4 extension, every one on a seated row, no third value. It is still not a mark on the Index and no printed count depends on it; it is published so that a reader can disagree with it in the same way they can disagree with anything else in that file. A title absent from the list is not thereby fast; it is a title this reading did not claim.
Built on the 403 seated titles of Indexes 1A, 1B, 2 and 3 of The Realistic Book Index, Draft 15, all 99 of Index 4, and the 92 of Index 5 that a call instrument reaches or that FM.2 marks as a jam platform, with the style classification the repository carries at data/style_classification.tsv. Form is documentary for Indexes 1A through 3, taken from the printed BLUES, MINOR BLUES and RHYTHM CHANGES blocks, and a compiler reading for Indexes 4 and 5, which print none. Idiom, feel, terrain and the ballad column are the compiler's reading, are a Rule 10 prior, and are published in the repository, where the battery checks them. Sets you keep are stored in this browser only.