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Parts of it are quite pretty. Much if the time it looked like he was stopping to reset his hands, totally killing any sense of fluidity. So it wouldn't be that it was rubato (which it isn't) but that it's stop and go.
Which is as distracting as his face, which honestly looked like someone getting a colonoscopy without anaesthetic.
The melodic and harmonic ideas, those are good.
Which is not to say it's bad, just not *my* fav thing.
Stumbling fingers still need love ...
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03-30-2017 09:12 PM
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Originally Posted by R Neil
I can see why you hear his expression of time as an imperfection of technique. How about this? I don't think you'd be able to find fault in his technique. But again he is far outside of the criteria that seem common here of "playing fluidly" or "swinging". So I'm still curious about the same question. Does it have to be fluid? Monk wasn't "fluid", but he was on time when it counted.
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Originally Posted by omphalopsychos
I have friends who even love "Nixon in China", in the very ... um ... modern something style used in that opera.
I will not enjoy NIC or most 12-tone either but that doesn't mean I think any less of those who love it. We're just different.
Stumbling fingers still need love ...
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Originally Posted by omphalopsychos
I can appreciate most things on a musical level, even if it's not something I particularly like, but that first clip just feels disorganized to me. The Ben Goldberg example sounds great to me, but he's a horn player. Sadly, I think you have to be a guitarist to get away with just completely playing out of time. You can slow down, speed up, change feels , whatever, whatever, but you have to start SOMEWHERE, don't you?
I don't care what the melodic, harmonic (or any other) content IS...If it lacks rhythmic organization (be it groove, swing, rubato, "free" or otherwise) what's the point?
I honestly feel that so often guitarists are trying to approximate something musically which they think they hear others (like pianists) playing.....and in NOT understanding what is actually going on rhythmically, they then produce something musically nonsensical. Most pianists and horn players learned this stuff in school and basically understand what they're playing.
A guitarist should be able to abstract pulse, as perceived buy the listener, through basic phrasing and rhythmic devices BEFORE you go monkeying around with everything else. You should basically be able to play "in time for rubato" where if the listener heard the click in your head it all lines up.
Sure. THEN work with the ebb and flow of tempo and feel variations, but for many guitarists, rubato just seems to mean "whatever I can get out of my instrument in a given time frame".
Sorry. Need to call it a night...
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Originally Posted by destinytot
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I really don't mean to start an argument or upset anyone. I'm just very curious about how music is heard and critiqued. Since I'm new to the forum, I like hearing your opinions. I hear you when you say it has to have a pulse. I acknowledge the statement that music must be rhythmic, that jazz must swing. I'm simply asking if this is a necessary attribute of enjoyable jazz based on some music I'm presenting as an example of jazz that very deliberately doesn't do what you're describing. One of them sounds more "musical" to someone because it's less interrupted. To me they both sound musical, but one has a very different contour.
I rescind the Monk comment if it complicates things.
I'm curious what delineates straight jazz vs free jazz. Ben Goldberg and Jeff Parker are both playing Monk but they're more known for their "free" styles, and their interpretations exhibit traits of the genre.
In a similar vein, maybe some horn players think Steve Lacy was not a competent sax player because he never really learned or practiced the bop approach to playing changes.Last edited by omphalopsychos; 03-30-2017 at 11:59 PM.
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Originally Posted by omphalopsychos
Cadenzas, recitative and other freer rhythmic forms are not without organization. I don't think it necessarily has to swing always to be jazz. I don't think it has to have a pulse that you necessarily tap your foot to the whole time. There are a lot of 21st-century avant-garde styles which are very free. But usually there's some kind of organization rhythmically.
I just think there's a difference between TRYING to do something "different" versus doing something "different" out of a failure to do something else you THOUGHT you were doing.Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 03-31-2017 at 12:03 AM.
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Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
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Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
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Originally Posted by omphalopsychos
I *would* be interested in hearing a well regarded player of an instrument other than guitar who somehow evokes this "style". The clarinetist was doing something much different IMO.
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Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
(Back to battling dragons.)
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Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
I really can't think of a lot of musicians who play solo with the same rhythmic style as Parker, but here's a clip of him playing with another AACM musician. If you compare their two solos you'll hear similarities in their approach to rhythm. Again, they're pretty different, but you'll hear the same looseness in time (and this is with a rhythm section!). You'll also hear Parker's voice come through in the rhythmic contour that's unique to his style.
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Actually this comes to mind. How would others describe Bernstein's rhythm here? It's not rubato. It's disrupted, coarse, scattered. I think his music is more familiar and respected on this forum, however, than the other things I posted. Interestingly, in the comments one person says it's his worst playing while another considers it to be his best.
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Originally Posted by omphalopsychos
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Originally Posted by omphalopsychos
Still a lot more rhythmically concrete to my ears. Basically abstracting strong sense of beat by rhythmically emphasizing offbeat patterns. A lot of offbeat quarter note triplets etc.
Definitely doesn't sound random, or just "not straight". Bernstein also gives enough context (rhythm section -like) to let you know what's going on. He also sub divides a good bit. there's enough there for Mira mortals to at least appreciate what is going on.
I'm an amateur myself, but I just think, re. the other clip, if other musicians are the only ones who understand what you're doing, again, what's the point? It's the old non-Jazzer joke about jazz being "just play whatever you want".
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Surprised to find so many like minded guitarist that don't dig JP's Virtuoso records. They always seem to be held up as the grail of guitar playing and I find them unlistenable. Particularly the boom-chick-boom-chick bass chord fills he does. Bad tone, constant wanky runs, endless rubato. No thanks.
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There's a real point between rubato playing and metronomic. I played a couple of times with a great rubato cocktail pianist. Fine player. Knew any tune you could throw at him. He sat in with the band and COULD NOT PLAY IN TEMPO to save his life. Could not do it.
Knowing how to work with a metronome doesn't mean without it, you will sound like a robot. Metronome just keeps you honest while you practice. It doesn't mean you must NEVER fluctuate your time. I think the living and breathing, ebb and flow of music in time and tone, dynamics, emotion, is what music is all about.
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Yeah, I dunno...they're "guitar player music." I guess, you name an album "Virtuoso" you should know what to expect. My guess is that was a record label idea, not Joe's. It's a record that makes "Guitar World" lists of greatest guitar albums, sandwiched in between Yngvie's "Rising Force" and an Allman Brothers album.
It's an awful tone, but also not Joe's fault...they had an idea to blend a mic and the electric tone...but it didn't work. At least that's the story.
I play a lot of solo guitar. I hardly ever listen to it. Generally, if I do want to hear solo guitar, it's gotta be nylon string...Gene Bertoncini, Luiz Bonfa...that stuff keeps my ear interested.
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Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
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I think the Parker and Bernstein clips are pretty outstanding. Those guys are really improvising, reaching for some shit. That's listening music, not the tame, in-time stuff I play at the local spaghetti house as background wallpaper.
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Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
:-)Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 03-31-2017 at 11:28 AM.
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Liberals! Always wanting to use up someone else's time. You do know rubato means robbed?
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Originally Posted by omphalopsychos
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Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
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Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
OK, now I'm listening to some Art Tatum. It seems pretty obvious to me that that's what JP was striving for.
John
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