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cstack3

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Posted: August 28 2013 at 17:32

^Nice post, Toddler!

I once read a story (perhaps made-up?) where Andres Segovia met Django Reinhardt playing fluidly and emotionally, with tears running down his cheeks as he played. Segovia asked Reinhardt where the (transcribed) music was, and Reinhardt pointed to his temple.

That really says a lot for me. I'm classically trained in voice & used to read vocal music with no problem, but I'm self-taught on guitar and bass and so am limited by lack of theory training. However, over nearly 40 years of playing, I've become comfortable with scales, modes etc. and have few limitations with improvisation.

Not that all improv sounds great, mind you! There are times that I amaze myself, and other times when I know I stink! Technical skill and knowledge of theory surely enriches the ability to improvise. I'd love to be able to comp jazz like a Barney Kessel, Joe Pass etc.!

Now, THIS is some improv by the Master!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6sxvext9c8

Edited by cstack3 - August 28 2013 at 17:33

moshkito

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Posted: August 31 2013 at 15:26

Guldbamsen wrote:

Just wanted to say that I really treasure the two very different posts from Moshkito and TODDLER. They both resonate with me on a personal level.

Thanks you guys.

Thx ... much appreciated and Toddler also put together a nice write up. We're actually very close about the points, with the exception that my experience comes from acting and directing ... and musicians don't like directors and think that they are telling them to change the music from rock'n'roll to rock'n'poop or something more insane and bizarre!

I have a parallel interest in the subject via acting ... and I posted it in another thread. And it goes like this ... and what is important here ... and the only thing that will teach you anything ... is the experience, and it does not have a lot of precedent ... and this is the kind of exercise that most musicians will never learn, and, and why there are so few Jon McLaughlin's around ... (Egberto Gismonti in his early days!).

You take about 5 or 6 actors, and you tie them up in a room for 3 hours, let's say ... the length is REALLY important ... why in a minute! You start and say ... this is this and that ... so for out exercise, let's say ... this is a nursery and you are all 5 or 6 years old!

Now you, the instructor or teacher, sit aside and watch and take notes.

Acting ... or ANY PROCESS will fall apart at about the one hour ... you run out of tricks, you run out of ideas, and you run out of processes, and you have no help, and can not talk enough to be able to discuss anything with anyone ... (thus the young age -- very important!) ... and when you start the 2nd hour, your "character" starts changing ... now you could say that it is growing up ... but sometimes the changes are drastic and not in tune with the way you started ... but you are "aimless" ... and are still struggling with what to do and what to say. You don't even REMEMBER what you did an hour ago ... and you have to continue ... and from here on, the "characters" tend to settle down and it appears that a more complete characterization starts showing up, and there is more consistency.

This is a massive exercise, that is unbelievably helpful for folks struggling with the work they do. I've done this in writing (comparatively speaking) and it works. I've had three artists do this, and it works, not to mention helping a lady draw the most fantastic line of angels you ever saw! She had the touch, though, so no issues there ... she just needed help in focusing it in a particular direction so it would not be wasted!

The main issue, is that musicians are LOUSY at getting off their duff and their "learning" in order to take it further. The world of dance has been fanatical about these exercises and extending the work ... a Misha, and many of the more famous experimental and modern dancers would not be listed anywhere if it were not for the ability to free form themselves with their craft!

Would it, ever, make music better? I don't know.

But what happened in the late 60's that brought so much of this music out, was a serious artistic revolution that helped a lot of folks create new things in many arts ... and music has become the most important of them ... since no one gives a damn about a ballerina and Ian Anderson killed her anyway, and classical music is next to 78RPM albums these days, when it comes to the amount of sales!

I sincerely, believe that the ability to learn from improvised methods was very important, and when you read Peter Brook's books about the stage directing (The Empty Space ... and the other one -- sorry title fails me), you can see why and HOW so much theater took a serious turn in London and the whole world, but the same similar process was also happening in America with The Actor's Studio ... which gave us writers AND actors and directors! And later, even NY had Fosse and Papp ... major names in the shaping of a culture definition through its work!

Music, was not immune to all this! No art, or person, ever was ... unless they had their head in the sand, and come around and go ... who's Ionesco? Who's Misha? ... who's Lawrence Olivier? Rock music, pretty much followed and copied almost verbatim ... England had "the angry young men" and America had "James Dean" ... same thing, except the leather jacket looks a lot better and cooller than the other guys!

There are, some other things here ... and I would like to go more in depth about Gurdjieff and his own studies (fabulous film called "Meeting with Remarkable Men"), that will also show some synchronicity with all this ... in a different area that I am not exactly experienced, or capable of discussing ... but the end result? ... total inner/outer synchronicity ... and this is the part of the arts ... that make them indominable and so potent ... and part that ... you can say this is the soul at its most open part ... volatile and deadly ... and sometimes violent. The extremes of these for me, would be Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison ... and you can see the utter destruction and unbelievable cry for love, when you hear the bit that was cut out of the Woodstcok film because Janis Joplin went totally nuts ... and in the end ... you listen to all these songs about love, and here she is ... still crying for it ... and it doesn't mean anything ... sorry buddy ... this is not a song! This is a life ... and it makes you wonder, where the process ends, and your life starts ... and this is the part that is hard to discuss and help artists bring foreward, and in the stage, you have to go home tonight and come back tomorrow and then back home and take care of your children ... and you are playing a murderer!

Most musicians are too tied up to their craft, to be able to improvise. Plain and simple! Most of them can only work off a note or chord because it is easy ... and simple, and takes no effort! And of course, it is not scary, because you are not getting out of the comfort zone ... and the idea of "improvisation" is to demolish that comfort zone so you know the difference!

If you are a musician, next time you want to improvise, ask yourself ... why am I doing this based on this note? Or this chord? ... when you have a good answer ... you will probably know how tied up you are to form and process!

Edited by moshkito - August 31 2013 at 15:44

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CPicard

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Posted: August 31 2013 at 16:34

^tl;dr

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Posted: August 31 2013 at 18:28

TODDLER wrote:

I didn't mean to come across snooty. If you're a younger musician that lacks experience in difficult to master areas, then you should hold back and allow nature to take it's course. It doesn't mean you won't reach the levels of John McLauglin one day. It's merely the fine logic or simple teaching that you should not break your musical barriers until you have devoted long hours of practice in a room , alone, to master it before bleeding it to the public

All that needs to be said here is that you need to gain an understanding of something, and then work towards ingraining that knowledge into your brain to a point where it comes as natural as speaking, almost as a reflex. Of course there is a natural course, but the natural course is no more than your own interests. If you go against the tide of your own interests it becomes a chore.

TODDLER wrote:

With Birds of Fire by Mahavishnu Orchestra there is a theory that McLaughlin was inspired by his guru or another rumour states that it was spirituality in general. In which case forming the analogy of the music deriving from some other place, spiritual level...and chanelling through a human being. When I was 17 years old, I read an interview in a magazine with Billy Cobham who claimed that this concept of the music being inspired by some spiritual force was B.S. That the members of Mahavishnu were a binding unit of creative forces which burned out over a 2 year period of touring/recording. Birds of Fire was innovative to prog music and widely defined as Jazz/Fusion. There is something very strange and dark about the music that expresses something other than that identity. The improvisation on Birds of Fire has a mysterious element that will not unfold. You can study all music , as much as possible...from other cultures and you will stumble on to the foundation of McLaughlin's influences. You can play along with the album note for note and best yet...you can add or adapt some of the style to your own vocabulary. The phrasing or notes played during the improvisation opens up a door in your mind. If you believe in a door or passage that can be reached when improvising on an instrument?

Sometimes I feel inclined to think that it is a spiritual thing when a musician improvises because i does seem like you are tapping into a part of your brain that is seldom used, however in hindsight I actually believe that when the brain is demanded of (not forced) then it extends its capabilities to suit that. It really boils down to a science and not spirituality.

TODDLER wrote:

I am not really interested in following the path of a guru, but there is something in the bloodline of a seasoned musician who has played since childhood. To be exact..it's unknown to a majority of people who are not born with natural talent. It's quite unknown and yet people see something which channels through a musician when they improvise. I can understand and relate to it feeling like an "out of the body" experience. Basically it feels like this: You are very schooled, you have composed, you have adapted influences to your vocabulary, you have gained the attention in a live performance , they are picking up on how natural you're playing is and now they want to know what is drawing you in or how can you escape the planet like that? Everyone wants to know what you're thinking about as you go further inward. They paid to see it. Then when you're lying in bed after the show, you feel scared because you actually don't know how or whatever it is that channels through you. That is a huge mystery in improvising. Once you know your instrument ....your mind will command you to pick up the instrument at any given moment. As if you feel surprised and you lack controlling your inner desire. A calling. You begin to improvise in a single note style or naturally placing strange melodic chord voicings together. It feels channeled and I have no other words due to my lack of knowledge about the spiritual world.

This is really a determinist argument. I don't know how much weighting you can put on the notion of "talent" therefore in this context. I don't really believe the notion has weight, moreso that an unwavering interest is ingrained in a person by his/her surrounding phenomena. Whatever we are interested in we work towards, and therefore due to the amount of work we put in it becomes natural to us, and can't be explained by folk who haven't worked at that particular skill because of that boundary set up by the workload. It is no mystery, as like I said above: the human brain accommodates the enormity of the task. There is nothing really mysterious about it I think.

TODDLER wrote:

I have met guitarists on the road who couldn't read a note of music. They played Jazz , Progressive Rock, and figured out Classical pieces without reading the transcription...practically perfect. So....there is something else to consider besides theory. Although theory is important to rely on as a source of music making sense to many, it is quite seperate from what is defined as the all and end result of the musicians creations. The creation can be written down for an orchestra to follow. Theory is vital in that case and being taught by a master will help you to expand musically diverse when the creations surface and you travel to the dark hole or unknown spiritual force. Other cases document that some musicians who do not read, hear everything and their hands fall naturally in place to play it. This can easily occur after learning the basics and everything feels second nature. Sometimes a musician is in touch with the forces of nature. I suppose I still question these observations, but as a musician since childhood, I must render that there is another place a musician travels to which feels powerful and unexplainable.

I have a loaded question regarding the first portion of this paragraph: can maths exist without numbers? Sure, musicians who play by ear (I know a few too) can't recite the theory or read it off a piece of paper, but that doesn't mean that they are still not enlightened with its principles. You could still recognise a major 3rd interval without knowing what its name was or knowing what it looked like on paper, but how it works within the music can still be called theory. You can know that 2 sheep plus 2 sheep equals 4 sheep without knowing your numbers. Same applies to the latter part of this paragraph. There are no forces of nature involved or deep unexplainable spirituality, just muscle memory based on the theory.

"Market value is irrelevant to intrinsic value."

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moshkito

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Posted: September 01 2013 at 11:59

The Pessimist wrote:

...
I have a loaded question regarding the first portion of this paragraph: can maths exist without numbers? Sure, musicians who play by ear (I know a few too) can't recite the theory or read it off a piece of paper, but that doesn't mean that they are still not enlightened with its principles.

...

There is a great example of this with Bruce Springsteen a few years back in some of those relief bs things ... Shankar is with him warming up, and Bruce goes ... "what key you in, man?" ... and Shankar said ... you no worry about the key Mr. Springsteen, you just play and I join you!"

If that does not tell you something about "listening" and "playing" ... you're just a kid playing chords and notes! You're a beginner musician. It also, unffortunately, does not say much about Bruce's individual ability, though ... which is par for the course with the majority of popular folks, anyway! Not to mention a few "progressive" ones!

Edited by moshkito - September 01 2013 at 11:59

Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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Stool Man

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Posted: September 01 2013 at 12:15

CPicard wrote:

^tl;dr

Hello to you. I consider (having pondered the issue for a little while, and come to the following conclusion) that your post is rather too short, in my own personal opinion. Because of this conclusion which I came to, which I reached after the afore-mentioned consideration of your brief post (which I have quoted here for reference, lest I forget the context and lose my thread while I'm typing this) I have chosen to read your post on numerous occasions. The brevity of your post makes this possible, nay easy-peasy.

In case I have confused you, I am willing and able to explain this more thoroughly at some length.

LOL

rotten hound of the burnie crew

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Posted: September 02 2013 at 10:40

The Pessimist wrote:

I have a loaded question regarding the first portion of this paragraph: can maths exist without numbers? Sure, musicians who play by ear (I know a few too) can't recite the theory or read it off a piece of paper, but that doesn't mean that they are still not enlightened with its principles. You could still recognise a major 3rd interval without knowing what its name was or knowing what it looked like on paper, but how it works within the music can still be called theory. You can know that 2 sheep plus 2 sheep equals 4 sheep without knowing your numbers. Same applies to the latter part of this paragraph. There are no forces of nature involved or deep unexplainable spirituality, just muscle memory based on the theory.

I agree with both you and TODDLER, really. One can have reflective knowledge of music theory and implicit knowledge of it. Lack of reflective knowledge does not imply a lack of implicit knowledge. How people attain implicit knowledge is what any learning theory needs to account for. We deal with these issues all the time in linguistics. I'm a linguist by trade. In my case, for my guitar playing (not by trade), I recall reading about tension and resolution, intervals that lead toward the root note, those that lead away from it, and others that create dissonance. This made sense to me, and I have always thought since then in terms of creating tension and resolution both when I work something out with deliberation and when I improvise. Others perhaps simply hit upon it without reading about it, but I presume that everyone who improvises does this implicitly, even if somewhat mysteriously.

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Posted: September 02 2013 at 11:49

^^ the condition you guys are talking about sounds like Rare Latent Inhabition.
It's a condition or ability that an individual has whereby for example, could look at say a lamp and know how to take it a part and put it back together without really knowing how the whole thing works.
Not many have this ability, but in music I'd say it definitely exits.

Anyway. Great posts and interesting forum.

Gimmie my headphones now!!! 🎧🤣

moshkito

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Posted: September 03 2013 at 11:53

hacketfan wrote:

... One can have reflective knowledge of music theory and implicit knowledge of it. Lack of reflective knowledge does not imply a lack of implicit knowledge....

Agreed.

hacketfan wrote:

... How people attain implicit knowledge is what any learning theory needs to account for. We deal with these issues all the time in linguistics. ...

Which is, for all intents and purposes, what my write up is about! It is the part that I am more experienced with having had the opportunity to work it with actors, up to and including "psychic" exercises.

Attaining "implicit" knowledge, is not easy, and requires a lot of self, internal work, that many folks are not willing to do, and learn from. This is very hard in "acting", where your "character is VISIBLE ... whereas in music, this tends to be a completely invisible demon -- well, we like to call it that ... and say played like the devil! Haha!

The academic wording, is the problem here, that is making an assumption that "theory" likes to take notes from the attainment of "implicit knowledge", and generally, it is best stated that IT DOES NOT ... because academia has a habit of telling you that if they did not create it, it isn't possible! Sort of like Einstein's theory that took almost 40 years for folks to begin breaking it up and showing that ... there are details here that don't fit in advanced astrophysics ... they only fit within the context of this galaxy, not others is the idea that others have pushed. The same with music and the art of improvisation.

There is no "implicit knowledge" in the design and work of a "raga", for example, WHEN IT HITS, though more than likely the player will start with a theme, and the idea is to lose it and become so tied to the music itself that the "notes" become invisible, and you just sit there and appreciate the music coming, and this is NOT the classical music appreciation society counting every note and every this and that and telling you that you don't know what the iambic pentameter is all about (no kidding! btw!).

On a different vein, there would also not BE ... such a thing as "implicit knowledge" as it would be impossible to do 2 things at the same time, and you can not make notes or take notes while you are doing this ... and if you record this and then have Sibelius give you a sheet of paper with all the notes, THEN, and only THEN can you sometimes formulate what it is you did ... and go about trashing the parts you don't like!

The best example I can give you ... is the exercise above ... and you have to make it long ... or you will not even come close to start breaking barriers ... once you get past 2 hours, you will notice the difference, and how you feel about what you are doing and playing, and all of a sudden, it is different ... totally different ... than just a few notes here and there, which most ACADEMICS think that the students and masters HAVE TO DO to show their VIRTUOSITY! Or they are just rock'n'rollers!

The biggest issue is that rock musicians are afraid to learn these things, and this was what "krautrock" was about in Germany ... and the reason why I find it as good as it is ... it's not self-conscious ... it is the ultimate western raga ... but we think we invented the western world, and God and all that, and no one else out there can have any credit or idea that is ... right on and with it, and a great teaching tool

Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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Dean

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Posted: September 03 2013 at 12:35

wtf does iambic pentameter have to do with classical music appreciation?

What?

moshkito

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Posted: September 04 2013 at 12:19

Dean wrote:

wtf does iambic pentameter have to do with classical music appreciation?

Some of the English Professors at UCSB went to the plays and complained that we did not know how to do the Iambic Pentameter, and that our diction was all wrong. Considering one was a musical farce and such, his comments were so academic and full of ... custard ... that we chose to let it slide ... but the same thing happens here, and in music departments, when improvisation for them is SOMETHING THEY KNOW ... not something they don't know or understand!

It's the veritable STAFF banging on the ground in "Amadeus" ... or nowadays ... even worse ... the DAW!

Edited by moshkito - September 04 2013 at 12:23

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Dean

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Posted: September 04 2013 at 12:33

moshkito wrote:

Dean wrote:

wtf does iambic pentameter have to do with classical music appreciation?

That is an unsatisfactory answer.

You said:

moshkito wrote:

... and this is NOT the classical music appreciation society counting every note and every this and that and telling you that you don't know what the iambic pentameter is all about (no kidding! btw!).

So I asked:

Dean wrote:

wtf does iambic pentameter have to do with classical music appreciation?

I did not ask you what iambic pentameter has to do with Shakespeare (in which case if you put the emphasis on the wrong syllable then your diction would therefore be all wrong) or musical farce (which is unlikely to be in iambic pentameter and is very unlikely to be called "classical music"), but what it has to do with classical music appreciation.

What?

Dean

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Posted: September 04 2013 at 12:42

moshkito wrote:

It's the veritable STAFF banging on the ground in "Amadeus" ... or nowadays ... even worse ... the DAW!

What does this even mean? I mean literally and semantically btw, not philosophiocally or ideologically or metahysically or any of that make-it-up-as-you-go-along drivel.

What?

The Pessimist View Drop Down

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Posted: September 05 2013 at 08:43

Dean wrote:

moshkito wrote:

It's the veritable STAFF banging on the ground in "Amadeus" ... or nowadays ... even worse ... the DAW!

What does this even mean? I mean literally and semantically btw, not philosophiocally or ideologically or metahysically or any of that make-it-up-as-you-go-along drivel.

I read an interesting book on the relationship between music and poetry once having said that... So I kind of get moshkito's meaning

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Dean

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Posted: September 05 2013 at 09:02

The Pessimist wrote:

Dean wrote:

moshkito wrote:

It's the veritable STAFF banging on the ground in "Amadeus" ... or nowadays ... even worse ... the DAW!

What does this even mean? I mean literally and semantically btw, not philosophiocally or ideologically or metahysically or any of that make-it-up-as-you-go-along drivel.

I read an interesting book on the relationship between music and poetry once having said that... So I kind of get moshkito's meaning

So in Pedro's absence, would you care to elucidate? I mean on the particular sentence I quoted... STAFFs and DAWs.

I don't mean on the relationship of iambic pentameter to music (the meter in pentameter gives the game away there), because I know that is about rhythm and tempo and how that relates to the natural rhythm and tempo of life, the dynamics of speech and the drama of ... well, drama, so it is then music in words (as opposed to the words in music that are found in musical farce and opera). Understanding music allows us to understand, interpret and enjoy the plays of Shakespeare as they were written, rather than a cold reading of the words off the page - understanding iambic pentameter will gain you no insight into the appreciation of music, classical or otherwise. Which is why I pushed this question in the first place.

What?

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Posted: September 05 2013 at 09:26

Dean wrote:

The Pessimist wrote:

Dean wrote:

moshkito wrote:

It's the veritable STAFF banging on the ground in "Amadeus" ... or nowadays ... even worse ... the DAW!

What does this even mean? I mean literally and semantically btw, not philosophiocally or ideologically or metahysically or any of that make-it-up-as-you-go-along drivel.

I read an interesting book on the relationship between music and poetry once having said that... So I kind of get moshkito's meaning

So in Pedro's absence, would you care to elucidate? I mean on the particular sentence I quoted... STAFFs and DAWs.

I'm not going to elucidate on Pedro's point because in all honesty I don't REALLY know what he's talking about, but I get the gist.

All I was really commenting on is a human being's natural aesthetic attraction to rhythm and pattern, and thus it dominates almost everything in our lives, including our speech. Even if you look at prose, it has a rhythm to it (regular syllable lengths) if we're talking of the literary greats like Dickens, Fitzgerald and Tolstoy. If we go into poetry there is a distinct relationship to music. It's renowned that Emily Dickenson wrote bar lines and rhythmical marks on her manuscripts, similarly with Blake.

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Dean

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Posted: September 05 2013 at 09:42

The Pessimist wrote:

Dean wrote:

The Pessimist wrote:

Dean wrote:

moshkito wrote:

It's the veritable STAFF banging on the ground in "Amadeus" ... or nowadays ... even worse ... the DAW!

What does this even mean? I mean literally and semantically btw, not philosophiocally or ideologically or metahysically or any of that make-it-up-as-you-go-along drivel.

I read an interesting book on the relationship between music and poetry once having said that... So I kind of get moshkito's meaning

So in Pedro's absence, would you care to elucidate? I mean on the particular sentence I quoted... STAFFs and DAWs.

Sure, as I said - I don't need that explaining, I got that. I even got (and fully understand) how and why the English Professors at UCSB would say that a group of actors did not know how to do the Iambic Pentameter, and that their diction was all wrong - that's pretty basic Drama-101 Chapter 1, Lesson 1: Shakespeare. I would have thought my last post would have been enough to show that I got that. That does not explain what iambic pentameter has to do with classical music appreciation - because it has nothing to do with it, even after the amusing UCSB annecdote.

You could, I suppose, argue that (instrumental) music has a language, but that would also be "wrong" in this particular instance, because that language is not written in iambic pentameter.

What?

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Posted: September 05 2013 at 09:50

Dean wrote:

The Pessimist wrote:

Dean wrote:

The Pessimist wrote:

Dean wrote:

moshkito wrote:

It's the veritable STAFF banging on the ground in "Amadeus" ... or nowadays ... even worse ... the DAW!

What does this even mean? I mean literally and semantically btw, not philosophiocally or ideologically or metahysically or any of that make-it-up-as-you-go-along drivel.

I read an interesting book on the relationship between music and poetry once having said that... So I kind of get moshkito's meaning

So in Pedro's absence, would you care to elucidate? I mean on the particular sentence I quoted... STAFFs and DAWs.

You could, I suppose, argue that (instrumental) music has a language, but that would also be "wrong" in this particular instance, because that language is not written in iambic pentameter.

As I said, I don't really know what he was talking about with the iambic pentameter thing.

Regarding whether instrumental music has its own "language"... At music college we have this debate all the time. I can only conclude that it's categorically not because it in no way communicates anything specific.

"Market value is irrelevant to intrinsic value."

Arnold Schoenberg

Dean

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Posted: September 05 2013 at 10:05

The Pessimist wrote:

As I said, I don't really know what he was talking about with the iambic pentameter thing.

Regarding whether instrumental music has its own "language"... At music college we have this debate all the time. I can only conclude that it's categorically not because it in no way communicates anything specific.

Presactly. It can convey an impression of emotion or feeling, and even a narrative to some extent, but there is no vocabulary within leitmotifs and phrases of music to be interpreted or translated.

What?

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Posted: September 05 2013 at 10:44

Dean wrote:

Presactly. It can convey an impression of emotion or feeling, and even a narrative to some extent, but there is no vocabulary within leitmotifs and phrases of music to be interpreted or translated.

I like that word... I'm going to start using it if you don't mind?

But yeah, I think we agree on that one. I think when music is called a language (often is the case in Jazz) I think the word used in that sense as an abstract, not literally.

"Market value is irrelevant to intrinsic value."

Arnold Schoenberg