Rant on music theory ignorance.

[Hovmod]

Was Chicago a jazz band playing rock and Yes a rock band playing jazz, or was it the other way round?

Chicago was a crap band playing crap, and Yes was a pretentious crap band playing pretentious crap.

sounds like someone needs to hear Rick Wakeman's Journey to the center of the earth...

I kind of like Yes (in small to medium doses), but I still think it's pretentious crap. And I think I'll pass on Wakeman.

[tee boy]

Sascha,
You mention that trained musicians had to learn about rock before being able to play it? Ofcourse, rock is music and has its own theoretical principles (air guitar for one!).

I think it's about the "attitude" that you gotta learn when doing rock (apart from a few technical things).
And hell, "air guitar" are a great example. Ever seen an "air jazz saxophone" contest? That's just nothing that'd meet any jazz attitude, so it'd most likely fail miserably.

I agree with you there totally. I mean, Id dont believe their is an equivalent to the shread for clarient players! But I'll happily be proven wrong (infact I live to be proven wrong on this one!).

Funnily enough, I have a recorder ensmeble player living next door to me. Not suprisingly her music lacks 'rock' attitude. You should see the mug's she pulls when I crank the Bluesbreaker - its not a pretty sight!

[Hink]

Was Chicago a jazz band playing rock and Yes a rock band playing jazz, or was it the other way round?

Chicago was a crap band playing crap, and Yes was a pretentious crap band playing pretentious crap.

sounds like someone needs to hear Rick Wakeman's Journey to the center of the earth...

I kind of like Yes (in small to medium doses), but I still think it's pretentious crap. And I think I'll pass on Wakeman.

actually I was never a big Yes fan, like you small doeses...however I have to be honest...at the last minute I was given a ticket to see Asia on their first tour and I wouldn't of even entertained the idea if it wasn't free...I went to over 100 shows...Queen in 82, Floyd in the late 80's and Asia were the best. (Asia had Geoff Downes on keys though and a guy named Palmer on drums who wasn't too bad )

But please even if you borrow it, check out journey to the center of the earth...yes it is not, but awesome it is...

[kaden]

I don't know a SINGLE jazz or classical musicians doing a great job in a rock lineup - unless they "studied" that as well.
And believe me, I know a lot of them...

Steve Morse.

[tee boy]

I suppose its probably worth mentioning that not many classical / jazz muso's play rock friendly instruments.

[Sascha Franck]

Steve Morse.

He "studied" (or "learned", if you prefer), rock just as much as anything else.

[Hovmod]

Was Chicago a jazz band playing rock and Yes a rock band playing jazz, or was it the other way round?

Chicago was a crap band playing crap, and Yes was a pretentious crap band playing pretentious crap.

sounds like someone needs to hear Rick Wakeman's Journey to the center of the earth...

I kind of like Yes (in small to medium doses), but I still think it's pretentious crap. And I think I'll pass on Wakeman.

actually I was never a big Yes fan, like you small doeses...however I have to be honest...at the last minute I was given a ticket to see Asia on their first tour and I wouldn't of even entertained the idea if it wasn't free...I went to over 100 shows...Queen in 82, Floyd in the late 80's and Asia were the best. (Asia had Geoff Downes on keys though and a guy named Palmer on drums who wasn't too bad )

But please even if you borrow it, check out journey to the center of the earth...yes it is not, but awesome it is...

Right. I have a colleague who is probably the world's biggest Yes fan. I'll start talking about the journey album with him, and I'm sure it'll rain CDRs my way

[Hink]

I suppose its probably worth mentioning that not many classical / jazz muso's play rock friendly instruments.

huh...lets see...drums?...no they're rock friendly, Bass? Rock friendly...guitar? Piano? another horns....a few rock bands use them...hell Queen went out on stage playing kazoos...so which instruments is it that are not rock friendly?...

[herodotus]

As always, the frustrating thing about these threads is the way it's all centred on taking musical traditions from just one part of the planet and turning them into some sort of universal truth. Like Schoenberg 'invented' atonality - that's like saying that Luigi Russolo 'invented' noise in his 1913 manifesto. Of course, atonality never existed in any other musical traditions on earth before those clever white people enlightened the unwashed hordes.

What is frustrating to me is that people throw technical terms about as if they were much more general and vague than they really are.

The 'Atonality' that was 'invented' by Schoenberg was a conscious negation of a theoretical tradition. That tradition of 'tonality' was a very specific western european concern. To say that non-western, non-white people had nothing to do with it is no more bigotted than saying people that speak only Mandarin Chinese had nothing to do with the evolution of a language like Hawaiian Creole. I mean these are different worlds we are talking about.

Good theory is specific, as in this book, or this one.

Using technical terms in a vague sense, and getting in arguments due to this vagueness, while casting very narrow technical considerations into a specious political framework that has nothing to with music, makes these discussions seem much more 'hot-button' than they really are.

[Hink]

I wish I could remeber what some dumb singer said to me once describing his voice something like "I sing in tenor monotone falsetto"...I said "oh you mean like felix unger clearing his sinuses?" We didn't audtition that singer....

[androidlove]

this thread has inspired me to make some more f**king noise

[tee boy]

I suppose its probably worth mentioning that not many classical / jazz muso's play rock friendly instruments.

huh...lets see...drums?...no they're rock friendly, Bass? Rock friendly...guitar? Piano? another horns....a few rock bands use them...hell Queen went out on stage playing kazoos...so which instruments is it that are not rock friendly?...

I was thinking generally. You dont see many alto flute playering in metal bands, you dont find many Cornet players... etc

This is not to say these instruments have never been incorporated into rock music. But they would tend to be outside players, not members of the group. Take that orchestral thing Metalica did - Id imagine that the orchestrator, conductor and orchrestra werent part of the original Metalic line up

What do i consider rock friendly instruments?

- Drums
- Bass guitar
- Piano keyboard
- Guitar

[Meffy]

<DaveBarry> We think that "Tenor Monotone Falsetto" would be a great name for a rock group. </DaveBarry>

And there is one musical instrument in the world -- only one! -- that is truly rock friendly.

Luray Caverns' Stalacpipe Organ

[Morgaxx]

My point was that the lines are a little blurry.
Crap and pretentious are often used to describe Jazz (along with self indulgent noodling). So, Chicago were not "rock", fair enough. Personally I hear jazz/rock/pop in these two, and I dont think I'm the only one. A sophisticated pop band smells a little jazzy, and how do we know Yes employed jazz techniques if there is no hint of jazz in thier music. I would like to imagine that most members of those bands would do well in both worlds. Where would Blood Sweat & Tears fit in?

Hope this dosnt come across as argueing. Its a decent thread and I appreciate the experiences/opinions of those older than I.

[Hink]

I was thinking generally. You dont see many alto flute playering in metal bands

ever hear of a band called Jethro Tull? Though by todays standards they are not metal...but back then they were more heavy then most of the pop music...however I always considered them art rock....