What's your opinion on feeling level for good sounding jazz?

[Strat-itis]

The three transcendental are truth, goodness, and beauty. Musically they express authenticity, appropriateness, and allure, respectively.

This is an awesome adage.

Emotion is not something added to the music.

However emotion is clearly something that can be and is often added to music you foos. Although it's still possible and often desirable to focus on the form of the music itself.

[Litterick]

The three transcendental are truth, goodness, and beauty. Musically they express authenticity, appropriateness, and allure, respectively. Emotion is not something added to the music; it is what emerges when you express the transcendental musically.

Truth, goodness and beauty are not transcendental. They are human values. Emotion is part of music because musicians are human, and so capable of feeling.

[ragman1]

Any musician who has to ask this question is not worth his salt.

[Christian Miller]

I always enjoy the story about Richard Strauss, composer of some of the most highly emotionally charged, lush and emotional late romantic music being a total cold fish. The story goes at the end of a performance he would feel under the conductors armpits to see if they'd been sweating. For him music was about giving voice to the score in all its details and one look at a late Romantic score like his or Mahler's reveals just how much detail is given in that music.

Effects are different to inputs. Music can in fact be highly emotional to the listener without the musician feeling it themselves. I think of it as being the in the space of ritual and magic spell. Which makes sense when we consider where human music - and art in general - probably came from.

As a musician I'd rather see emotion as something I connect with rather than trying to express my emotions in music. The latter usually leads to me being out of time lol. I'm with Galper on this again.

This is not the same thing as saying that music can have no emotion. Music generates emotion when done well. You probably shouldn't emote through music, but you can, as a performer connect with the feeling of the music. That's very different.

The thing is music is also a performance art, and people do like to think that you are feeling what they feel. So it's good to create that sense in performance. I'm not saying do the blues face, but people do like it if you look like you are into what you are doing.

[Strat-itis]

Any musician who has to ask this question is not worth his salt.

ragman being competitive when he can't play a lick. Love it.

[Strat-itis]

As a musician I'd rather see emotion as something I connect with rather than trying to express my emotions in music.

How you put this is exactly what I've been coming to lately. Are musicians free to play music however they want? Yes. But the listener won't like all of that. Good music is more what people connect to. And that takes focus, not just indulging any emotional avenue.

[John A.]

The poll isn't intended to represent the full explanation of the topic. It's an overview, but also joking as you can see.

I laugh at pretty much everything you write.

[DawgBone]

I want to remain cool as a cucumber when I play it, while the audience has beads of sweat form on they brow from the intensity. The end.

[luk_luk_guy]

I think many people perceive a non-emoting musician as that musician simply being bored.

In music, as on stage/screen, the AUTHOR of course has very little reason to externalize any of the composition/stage/screenplay's emotional content, but to me the performance of a song is very similar to the performance of a script - the emotional content of the text is there to be interpreted, not rejected.

If you read An Actor Prepares, you too might be convinced of the value of identifying with the material... Although I guess if you watch some David Mamet movies you might go the other way... Fun stuff in any case.

[Christian Miller]

I think many people perceive a non-emoting musician as that musician simply being bored.

In music, as on stage/screen, the AUTHOR of course has very little reason to externalize any of the composition/stage/screenplay's emotional content, but to me the performance of a song is very similar to the performance of a script - the emotional content of the text is there to be interpreted, not rejected.

If you read An Actor Prepares, you too might be convinced of the value of identifying with the material... Although I guess if you watch some David Mamet movies you might go the other way... Fun stuff in any case.

I have read it.

I’m assuming it’s the reason I can never understand dialog in movies anymore.

But seriously, I think it can be very powerful for actors. I’ve seen people who study that stuff seriously transform into a character in front of me and it’s an extraordinary thing. That’s not emoting - it’s connecting with something real. It couldn’t be further from emoting.

I was never able to connect with acting in that way when I studied it briefly. It’s not the only way to study acting of course.

As a professional musician I have found that the most meaningful experiences have always come from getting out of the way.

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[pauln]

I want to remain cool as a cucumber when I play it, while the audience has beads of sweat form on they brow from the intensity. The end.

Indeed, the conduit from cool on stage to arousal in the audience is live music stagecraft. It's why we play in view and within hearing inside the same space as the audience.

[wolflen]

I want to remain cool as a cucumber when I play it, while the audience has beads of sweat form on they brow from the intensity.

a strange topic indeed. A form of therapy perhaps..emotional transfer..hmm..a good band name!

from my out of tune view..

Ahh the intimate room..low lighting..but excellent sound management..the listeners close their eyes..and hear a melodic passage that is felt by most..played by
just one man at the piano.

The few that open their eyes to view the artist playing this spellbound work..are almost in shock..as they see what appears to be
the man having a seizure--his body bent over..his face contorted..his head bent back.--Keith Jarrett comes to mind.

It would be nice if our collective perceptions of how music affects our reaction to what we hear/see could
be fitted in a nice yes/no/maybe poll.

But then again..much of life is like that.

[luk_luk_guy]

That’s not emoting - it’s connecting with something real. It couldn’t be further from emoting.
...
As a professional musician I have found that the most meaningful experiences have always come from getting out of the way.

So for you is "getting out of the way" similar to the method thing of basically focusing only on connecting with the material and forgetting about the external manifestation? Or do you see improvement when you Hal Galper it and actively suppress (not sure if that's a zen enough way of putting it) external manifestation entirely? Could it change with the % of the performance that is improv?

[Christian Miller]

So for you is "getting out of the way" similar to the method thing of basically focusing only on connecting with the material and forgetting about the external manifestation? Or do you see improvement when you Hal Galper it and actively suppress (not sure if that's a zen enough way of putting it) external manifestation entirely? Could it change with the % of the performance that is improv?

The only way I can play in the pocket is to detach myself a bit and let go of what I am doing. But that’s a very measurable timing thing.

The emotion thing is a wider topic

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[Strat-itis]

I laugh at pretty much everything you write.

I laugh whenever I see what you look like.

[pauln]

Stop laughing; minimize your emotion.

[John A.]

i laugh whenever i see what you look like.

lol!

[DawgBone]

Stop laughing; minimize your emotion.

I definitely start laughing when the rhythm hits a certain way. There is something amusing about it. It gets so good that it becomes humorous, the way the rhythm instrument works over the drums n bass and pushes the lead instrument and the way the lead notes drop onto/into that rhythm. I am fairly certain there are no greater secular, earthly joys than that, brief as it may be.

[Strat-itis]

lol!

You're amused by your ugliness too? That's healthy!

[pauln]

I definitely start laughing when the rhythm hits a certain way. There is something amusing about it. It gets so good that it becomes humorous, the way the rhythm instrument works over the drums n bass and pushes the lead instrument and the way the lead notes drop onto/into that rhythm. I am fairly certain there are no greater secular, earthly joys than that, brief as it may be.

Yeah, there are moments when everything spontaneously just blends into focus that makes everyone in the band visibly ecstatic - best thing in the world when your audience shares that with you!