How tall can a sapling possibly grow if it doesn't first dig into the earth and develop its roots?

now I'm done

I studied jazz because I liked it and because I wanted to. I didn't study jazz because someone told me to. I've yet to hear a b13th chord played in a heavy metal song. Nor have a heard it in a classical song. I have heard b13th chords in jazz, blues, fusion, rockabilly. As a matter of fact it was the fusion stylings of Steely Dan that lead me to study jazz. Had someone slammed down The Well-Tempered Clavier shook ther fist at me and told me that I must learn it to worthy I'd be out of there so fast it would make your head spin.




People who want to get good at what they do don't need outside discipline they develop internal discipline because they want to get better. No one ever told me I have to play scale xyz 30 times or I wouldn't get any supper or slapped my wrists for not excuting x pattern correctly. I did it because I wanted it for myself.

Ok wonderful, and we've all heard your credentials, it's great that you've been so successful with your art. and i mean that in the sincerest way, it warms my heart to see someone succeeding through their passion, it doesn't happen enough in the world.

but if you EVER start to think you are done learning that is the day the artist in you dies. you can always improve, there's always more to learn.

If you went back and learned the Well-Tempered Klavier now (i'm not shaking my fist or threatening your food supply...) and perhaps a couple other pieces, it would only help you in your writing jazz/rock/whatever. that's all i'm saying. this is not a "which genre is superior" argument, so please stop turning it into one.

there's more to music than b13s
hahahahahaa

I doubt that. My Jazz studies taught me jazz, my rock studies taught me rock and my blues studies taught me blues. My studies included learning jazz blues and rock standards. I doubt I'll find the richness of harmony found in popular music over the last 100 years in the classical era. Another thing I won't find are pentatonics or the wide assortment of rhythms found in popular music

If I wanted to perform the well tempered Klavier in hopes of studying classical works or enhancing my abilities in the classical realm I most certainly would. However I have studied several pieces from it and while I can say I performed those pieces well it in no way shape or form enhanced my jazz playing or writing.

Bullshit, Mike. You were there with Hendrix the whole time were you? Jimi Hendrix was interested in many types of music he was not personally involved with and didn't have a relationship with outside of curiosity (if I take him at his word in interviews). Do you think the things he did in Star Spangled Banner happened because he stuck to blues? Get Real. There is a lot of Hindustani in Hendrix music, there is a lot of avant-garde jazz, there is avant-garde classical, electronic music influences...

Stockhausen is on the cover of Sgt Pepper's. That's because McCartney was interested in that music. I don't know what his extent of 'study' was... but I know he was interested in quite more than Beatles music, pop, or the influences that are clear on the surface. McCartney had the golden ear. He was doing things that were talked about in serious 'theory' terms, along with eg., Schubert or another earlier innovator in harmony... with no formal study. McCartney is an anomaly, like a Mozart. Also some of Lennon's ideas were striking and I don't think his mind expanded like that just out of LSD. It is of NO relevance to say, 'The Beatles didn't study _'. It has no reasonable relationship to your advice to a kid here. And it's not the truth; what it is is a projection of Mike.

Besides, Harrison studied with Ravi Shankar. Was he doing that so he could *be* an Indian Classical Musician? He had more humility than that, he never presented as a sitarist in that setting. He studied it to become a better person and a better musician overall.

You're actually creating an excuse for your own insularity with that pseudo-argument. If you 'played some classical' and it didn't rub off in other areas, you failed yourself.

You've been around for a while. You carry that attitude in every post these days. There are areas for all of us where we just are not big experts. You present as if one on many subjects I have caught you out as no expert a'tall, in fact you maybe just scratched the surface, and really pulling arguments out of your ass, such as here.

No skin off my nose, but you are talking in a lot of cases to impressionable young minds, and you always present as uber-authoritative. Here you're bullshitting the class completely. Cut it out, man.
Last edited by jancivil on Sat Mar 24, 2012 9:49 pm; edited 2 times in total

yeah you doubt you'll find where you didn't search.

the reality is there were people such as Ravel who were making jazz changes and things you DO NOT FIND in popular music for half a century or more, where the jazz cats found it that much later and this is where you'll have reccived it from.
a nice little ditty from 1909:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mlc_S9bJTJg
check out that change at 1:05.

Pentatonics you say. Well, Claude A. Debussy attended the World's Fair in 1889. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposition_Universelle_%281889% 29
At the Exposition, Debussy first heard Javanese gamelan music, performed by an ensemble from Java
Do you know what he found and what he did with it?
Last edited by jancivil on Sat Mar 24, 2012 11:48 pm; edited 1 time in total

isn't it better to narrow your influences, nay, narrow your spectrum of information, and pretend I know what I like and I like what I know is something wise?

I don't think so.

I should counter that in the positive. That's SUCH a BAD idea to spread, '[classical study] in no way shape or form informed my ..."

I prepared the Violin Partita #3 by JS Bach for jury and was allowed to write a paper on it as I worked on it.

I will say that in every way it informed my later rock playing, my compositional approach eventually, in myriad ways, and it is a seminal moment in my understanding of MUSIC. On one hand I learned to form a performance of a whole, large form, and I had to make arguments for my understanding of The Form. Invaluable.

It isn't a piece I'll listen to again all the way through ever probably. I'll get antsy, it isn't my thing, that whole sound. But I got the most out of that work.

If say hendrix was indeed influenced by holst it would have shown up in his playing.

Malmsteen was influenced by Beethoven and it's all over his music.

Now would someone like to show me a 16th century blues progression?

$**T you could say so!

The point of music is that it is an art. Just like painting. If my passion lies with abstract art, I don't need to go to school to create it. If my passion lies with photorealistic portraits, school would probably help me achieve the outcome I want. Whatever path I choose doesn't make me more childish, or an idiot.

Just like if I wanted to create soundscapes, I could probably create a pleasing product on my own, but if I wanted to write sonatas, school would be pretty useful.

School is there so that you can learn from the trial and error and exploration of hundreds before. Depending on what you want your end product to be, that could be very useful, or not so much, you could write any music without schooling, or write any music with schooling.

Chill with the musical facism

just to put it back IN context...

just to add to what's already been said, nearly every jazz artist i've studied or read about took influences from other musics. the most extreme example is possibly miles davis, who studied bach, elgar, james brown, jimi hendrix, african traditional music, and much more (if his autobiography is to believed), but charlie parker often said he wanted his music to be considered alongside classical great like brahms and beethoven and took great pride in his performances with a classical string group, jim hall played the conceirto de aranjuez (as did miles davis of course), nearly every jazz pianist from herbie hancock to chick corea to john lewis to keith jarret to fats waller has not only played but also recorded credible renditions of classical works, john coltrane spent years studying hindustani music, charles mingus was a classically trained cellist before he started playing jazz, duke ellington was a great fan of ravel and debussy and their use of harmony, wynton marsalis has a grammy for his classical performances, etc. etc. etc.

the idea that jazz music has ever been isolated from classical music runs aground really fast.

I never said that you shouldn't reach out to different styles. I simply am stating that you follow your muse where it takes you. Not have someone else's ideals shoved down your throat.


Hanon controversy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Virtuoso_Pianist_in_60_Exer cises#Criticisms_of_The_Exercises

Some people believe that every student of the piano must study hanon simply because they did.

Holy moly! This thread got attention?

Alright, let's now clear up with the reinventing the wheel thing.

I understand the fact that you learn from what exists. Every time I study musical theory, I study a work (or research) that has been done before.

That wasn't the point. The point was, I'm not into making covers of anything. I do, often, check out the midi files of a song that has melody/harmony that I found very clever and try to study on from there slowly and then proceed to make something that is heavily influenced by it. Usually it's the melody with changes. Though I don't publish them ever, I just see how they work out.



Now to proceed, I've done more reading on musical theory (today mostly about motives and melody indeed) and made some progression in this department as well, nothing major, but it's the slight bits that make up the whole, right?

I guess this is yet a matter of reading more about the theory as well as studying existing work.


As for the flaming in this thread; some people just prefer things one way or another, doesn't matter if it's harder or easier always. Just like turtles. They love obstacles and always try to get across them instead of simply going around them. If it's in the nature, why can't it be the nature of some of us as well?

hahaha, I like turtles!

It's just silly when people want to improve their skills without doing any work. Everything you just described, cherishing the challenges as a way to grow and exceed your potential is what we've been saying.



seems to me you are doing hard work (without ever publishing results), for the sole purpose of learning new skills, and enjoying it \

i could go on speaking in analogies, but if my point hasn't been made by now, discussing further is a waste of energy... I'm going on a bikeride.

which is hard work, borderline painful, but it makes me happier, healthier, and stronger in the long-run.