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check out dusan bogdanovic
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01-21-2012 10:14 PM
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I almost don't know what the thread here is anymore. So I will throw in my 2 cents on the Classical/Flamenco/Jazz guitar idea.
I taught myself how to play from age 8-18. I went to school and studied classical guitar [that I now have taught at a Major University for over 35 years]. I say this just to show I have earned the right to have an opinion.
From the beginning I listened to Country, Folk, Rock, Jazz and Classical. Through it all what held my attention was the guy playing solo guitar and keeping everything going. That had a great appeal to a kid growing up on a farm with no bands to fit into.
My listening cycled this way; The Beatles [mostly George and Paul], Chet Atkins, Jose Feliciano, Mason Williams, David Crosby, Julian Bream, James Taylor, Lenny Breau, Andres Segovia [a bit of backpedaling], John Williams, a little Wes Montgomery, Ralph Towner, lots and lots of Ralph Towner, Pepe Romero, Gerardo Nunez, Tommy Emmanuel...
Always drawn to the finger style playing regardless of musical genre. The solo artist.
I simply don't care what music they play if it can speak to the Human struggle with just the sound of the guitar. This is my tribe.
I would say to all here, "Please don't fight as to which music/player is sophisticated or rustic. Who 'rocks' and who doesn't. Listen to what moves you and steal from the Best!".
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Originally Posted by Zhivago
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Originally Posted by jack_gvr
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Originally Posted by fumblefingers
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Dunno if that got mentioned here already. Legato is a big thing in classical and needs a lot of time to get the technique good enough. When I jumped to jazz, first thing I noticed its considered "lazy" or a "shortcut".. That was strange. In classical, legato is used to make phrases sound more fluid. They are marked everywhere in the scores... I couldn't understand why jazzers had to play at "100% velocity" all times.
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Originally Posted by neilio
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all you need to do is be able to read and have good technique.
But unfortunately you are right... modern educational system turned many classical players in meaningless reading machines.
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Originally Posted by FZ2017
So a classical player needs interpretation skills too. And this can involve a lot of personal and creative choices to make when playing a piece.
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Originally Posted by grahambop
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Originally Posted by Billy Stewart
Surely there are just two types of music, good and bad. If classical guitarists weren’t hemmed in by the expectation that they cannot improvise then maybe we would see more players like Ralph Towner who cross the divide and just play wonderful music. I bet Ralph never sat down and put himself firmly into one category or another.
Incidentally, I play both classical and jazz although I’d prefer to say I just play. Hopefully it is good!
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Originally Posted by CP40Carl
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Oh and your right about Towner. He's a monster! I've been listening to Clifford Brown with Max Roach, Curtis Mayfield, and Rush lately. Mixed in with a little Stravinsky and Bach to fuse an interesting gumbo. Now that's a mix and mash of styles!
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Originally Posted by neilio
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Originally Posted by FZ2017
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When listening to KoKo, lets say by fats Navarro, to hear the chord changes do you listen to the piano or are they implied? Cause there's no guitar but the pianos gotta be playing the chords right? I know if there's no instrument in the ensemble with harmonic possibilities the chords are definitely implied then right?
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Originally Posted by FZ2017
If there's no harmonic instrument, then really you have to combine the bass line with what you think are the important chord tones in the soloist's lines, to work it out.
Also depends on the style, if it's a 'standard' type tune and you are familiar with a lot of those tunes, after a while you can sort of guess what many of the changes are because they all ultimately use similar harmonic moves (such as 2-5-1 etc).
On the other hand if it's a Wayne Shorter or ECM-type thing, it may be more difficult to pin down.
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By the way if you're trying to figure out KoKo (i.e. by Charlie Parker), it is the same chords as 'Cherokee', apart from the introduction (I don't know if Navarro includes the intro, I don't know his version). In fact Parker's KoKo isn't really a 'tune' as such, just a fast 'composed' intro, then he goes straight into his solo. The intro has no piano and no chord changes really, it's on an implied Bb pedal as I recall.
(There is also a completely different tune by Duke Ellington called Koko, I assume you didn't mean that.)
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What I've enjoyed most about classical style guitar is composing tunes in the classical style. Nowadays, other than my own tunes I'm not that interested in playing classical guitar. Well not quite, if the material is easy enough to site read I enjoy playing classical pieces. Grinding away learning a difficult classical piece is just not for me. I find it an unrewarding use of my time... too much time spent on a single tune.
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Very old thread but I just found it now, let me in, and let me share my experiences about this. I have been visiting classical music school and learnt flute about 6 years long, saxophone for a half year, or so, classical piano, and jazz guitar in conservatory (3 years long), now I am learning in college (jazz guitar also). And I am teaching classical because where I live jazz is unfortunately not so common but classical is, so all we have to do is teach classical with no classical guitar background. And that is a pain in the ass... In my view in official school we all should leran classical for about 4-5 years long, and then change to jazz (whoever wants). It is a must to get that classical background in this instrument because of the sight reading. I am a pick player so right hand technique is not a problem in this case but the sight reading is...
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Originally Posted by mrblues
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At the beginner levels it doesnt give me trouble. But when I try to sight read a Bach piece, which consist of 3-4 voices, that gives me trouble, yes. I have a very good friend, who is classical guitarist, and he is showing me things, so I am trying my best but the jazz college is the first now. I teach the kids to use their fingertips instead of nails.
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Originally Posted by mrblues
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Hello, thought this might help you.
ive played a lot of Bach on classical guitar, for whatever reason, it seems to favor beginning on the M plucking finger, alternating with I. Starting on I, ime, doesn’t work out as nicely.
hope that helps
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Originally Posted by grahambop
For those that do not know, Oscar was Segovia‘s most famous student, studying with the maestro for 10 years. I found him to be a very nice, down to earth guy with a very quick wit and an articulate, very cultured point of view.
I was thinking about the relationship between Jazz and classical players. I remember this conversation I had with my old teacher; he recounted in an interview with Studs Terkel in 1968 that becoming a professional classical Player after already being a professional jazz musician helped keep him sane , Because the sad reality is, being a professional jazz musician meant playing your heart out in a a bar or a club in which most people are talking over you, don’t really give a shit, and are more concerned with getting drunk and barely noticing the music at all. The much more respected classical venues at least meant people were paying attention to the music. .
He had this great story, he was playing electric guitar with the singer Peggy Lee in her band at a small jazz club in Chicago. Before anyone else would arrive, he would show up early and bring his classical guitar to keep his chops up-to-date and practice the classical repertoire in a room away from everybody else. One day when he was doing this, as he finished, he heard a noise and looked behind. It was Peggy Lee, and she had heard the entire practice repertoire and was in tears and demanded that he perform a solo classical set before hrr Jazz group played. He happily complied and did double duty .
This double duty kind of created this attitude in which his fellow musicians saw all that green grass over there. Oscar for example, was always wowed by his Jazz playing, and conversely, every time Joe Pass would come into town, he would always demand that he played classical guitar for him. After he would finish, Joe would always say something like, “Man, what do you play is real art and when I play is bullshit “. Talk about being humble and self deprecating. Wow.
By the way, Bream asked him to play jazz with him in a duet setting . It did not go well at all, he felt Bream was stuck in the 1930s and was downright brutal with the guitar . That is actually not a surprise conclusion for anyone who has watched Bream’s DVD documentary of his life, when he subbed for a jazz big band for a Fiver in London. The big bandleader thanked him for his service and said if he showed up tomorrow, he would give him a rhythm guitar lesson
Thank God he had his day job !
The other thing I want to say about the relationship between jazz and classical is another story my teacher said about long ongoing conversations he had with Jimmy Weible decades ago. Jimmy was developing his ideas about two line counterpoint on an improvised basis , and my teacher convinced him the in order to develop these ideas more fully, he needed to develop his right hand in a more systematic way by taking formal classical guitar lessons. Finally Jimmy agreed, and my teacher flew out to LA to help him get a very nice guitar with one of the famous Spanish guitar makers he knew. I believe the Jimmy actually studied classical with the Brazilian guy who played with the modern jazz quartet among others and lived in United States for many years . Not Baden Powell or Luis Bonfa, I can never remember his name.
The point is, Jimmy studied classical guitar not to perform classical music, but to develop his technical skills in order to musically develop his jazz improv two line improv ideas better.
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