Bits of Wisdom

[Sailor]

I'd love to have a thread of short bits of wisdom, i.e...

Joe Pass - "Everything is Major, Minor, or Dominant"

Jamey Aebersold - "Think and sing 12-bar blues while waiting for a bus"

"Think sharp 4 not flat 5"

" If you don't improvise everyday, what is the point of practicing scales and chords?"

Miles - "It will take a long time to play like yourself"

I love this kind of stuff.

Sailor

[billkath]

"You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead"
Me-after a feed of beer, 1982.

[NicolasV]

o.O...
Why not thinking flat 5º?

[Drumbler]

"Don't eat yellow snow." -- Frank Zappa

[cosmic gumbo]

[Music]...if you don't make mistakes you aren't really trying.

—Coleman Hawkins

[Metal Fingers]

"if you can't sing it how are you going to play it"-unknown

"it's just the major scale but there's a lot you can do with it"-sco

[hooker4186]

"Everything is Everything."
-my teacher when I discovered that Am6 is the same as F#m7b5 (F#m7#4?)

[Tom Karol]

Never look at the trombones. You'll only encourage them.
- Richard Strauss
Classical music is the kind we keep thinking will turn into a tune.
- Kin Hubbard
Wagner's music is better than it sounds.
- Edgar Wilson Nye
My music is best understood by children and animals.
- Igor Stravinsky
There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.
- Johann Sebastian Bach
There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.
- Albert Schweitzer
Yeah, but you should have heard what I was trying to play!
- Theolonius Monk
It's taken me all my life to learn what not to play.
- Dizzy Gillespie
Only play what you hear. If you don't hear anything, don't play anything.
- Chick Corea
The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes - ah, that is where the art resides!
- Artur Schnabel

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

All musicians are subconsciously mathematicians.
- Thelonious Monk

Don't play what's there, play what's not there.
- Miles Davis

[mr. beaumont]

turn it up and it doesn't need any reverb-- danny gatton

it's such a fine line between stupid, and clever-- david st. hubbins

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.
-- John Cage

[Goofsus4]

"Fear is the mindkiller." - Frank Herbert

Not from music, but applies to everything including music.

[Gambrosius1984]

...it bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It's not. It's feeling. —Bill Evans

Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity. —Charles Mingus

I start in the middle of a sentence and move both directions at once. —John Coltrane

It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception. (When asked about the theory of relativity) —Albert Einstein

ahhh cartoons America's only native art form. I don't count jazz because it sucks. —Bart Simpson

[Modalguru]

"Notes are just a way to connect rests"
An Indian saying

[abdke99]

jazz guitarist plays 1000 chords in front of 3 people,
rock guitarist plays 3 chords in front of 1000 people

[Goofsus4]

Originally Posted by abdke99

jazz guitarist plays 1000 chords in front of 3 people,
rock guitarist plays 3 chords in front of 1000 people

Rock guitarist gets panties thrown at him too.

[Bill C]

"The answers are all in your living room."

I don't know who said this, but the basic idea is that if you study great recordings you'll find all the answers to your musical questions.

[abdke99]

Originally Posted by Goofsus4

Rock guitarist gets panties thrown at him too.

...and bras also

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

I get stuff thrown at me! Just not like that

[monk]

No matter how beautiful she may be; someone, somewhere is sick of her crap.

Never eat at a place called "Mom's".

Never sleep with anyone crazier than you are.

Never play poker with a anyone called Doc.

Always read the fine print.

[Metal Fingers]

"the masses are asses"-not really music related,but may help with self esteem when no one appears to be too interested in what we are playing

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

I like to say "nothing exceeds like excess".

[Goofsus4]

Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles

I get stuff thrown at me! Just not like that

And then there are the rock guitarists who you might want to throw their panties at you...

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5hIvOoTJzH...ey+-+Front.jpg

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

we'd need to use a supercomputer to calculate the infinitesimal odds of that ever happening.

[mr. beaumont]

Originally Posted by Metal Fingers

"the masses are asses"-not really music related,but may help with self esteem when no one appears to be too interested in what we are playing

on that topic, "people think they know what they like, but really, they like what they know."

[monk]

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

on that topic, "people think they know what they like, but really, they like what they know."

Good one!
Howard Roberts used a similar example at GIT. When people say "I don't know anything about music but I know what I like" they're actually saying "I like what I know".

[monk]

Originally Posted by Metal Fingers

"the masses are asses"-not really music related,but may help with self esteem when no one appears to be too interested in what we are playing

The worst thing about popular music is that so many people like it.

[TommyD]

You can lead a horse to water but you can't lead a horticulture.
Segovia: What's so important about scales? "They will solve all your problems."

tommy/

[monk]

"You can lead a whore to culture but you can't make her think".-Oscar Wilde

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

I can do it quick, I can do it cheap, I can do it right: pick any two.

Who said that?