The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26
    "gruff love" ! - ok, I'll use it....

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  3. #27

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    I would like to check it out, but theaters here in the desert didn't have it so I'll wait for the DVD. In general appear avid film fans like the movie a lot. Musicians seem to get into I'd never have a teacher like that, to hey that hard core teaching. I personally had my hardcore in your face teachers in both music and computer world so its normal to me. Plus the hardcore usually were the teachers that would go the extra mile with you when you showed your working hard.

  4. #28
    Yeah, the peeps here were generally split on the vitues/vagaries of the "tough love" approach when teaching Jazz.....

  5. #29

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    I wish I had a teacher like that.

  6. #30

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    Quote Originally Posted by Broyale
    I wish I had a teacher like that.
    My father was a tough love guy. I probably could have thrived under such a teacher. Is it right for the teacher to throw stuff? I'm not too sure.

  7. #31

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    When I worked at Dick Grove, Dick wasn't crazy like that guy in the movie, but Dick wouldn't hold back on his comments. He had endless one liners to describe students work which on the Grove FB page people collect. But the one teacher I do quote from time to time as was one of the other teachers at Grove's. Carl Schroeder at GIT and his famous Jazz Improv class is another one with classic one-liners to put you in your place. You almost wanted to mess up to hear what Carl would say, but if you screwed up you were holding you entire band back, peer pressure is also a good teacher.

    Stuff like this is common in a master student relationship, just don't call me grasshopper!

  8. #32

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    If a teacher has the goods, he has a lot of license to teach it. I saw this movie and I think the guy was a hack, just a bully who didn't really get the music and liked to make others feel small. That's not a good teacher. Never once in the movie was Jazz shown as an expressive music, an interpretive music or a music of individuals, just a drill to be precise. Not even that, just a thing the teacher could find fault in.
    That teacher was searching for the next Charlie Parker so he heard a story that Jo Jones threw a cymbal at him and Bird went home and practiced. Now this character thought Parker was just motivated by that. and acting like Jo Jones would create the next Bird. How wrong is that? He abused all his students thinking that he was Jo Jones on a big scale? Jo Jones was the real deal as part of a real scene. That character in the movie was a scriptwriter's misunderstanding of history and jazz. That's as real as Disney.
    And what's this movie thing that says if you do something until you hurt yourself that it will make you good. Talk about a promotion for stupidity.

  9. #33

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    It should be kept in mind that this is movie is not a "jazz movie", its a drama in a "jazz setting".

    These hollywood guys could care less about jazz in the sense that we as musicians think of it.
    They basically want to make a movie about the relationship between a student and his nutty teacher and all these extreme things he does to the student, and I guess finally whether it's right or wrong or this or that - basically the teacher/student relationship.
    That's the main thing. After that, for whatever secondary reason, they decided, "hey let's do it on jazz!". Probably sports settings became too "mainstream".

    Ultimately they want to sell the movie, and since the general public couldn't - unfortunately - care less about what jazz is and isn't, they just showed a bunch of fancy sheets, shiny instruments and some big band playing - all designed to emphasise "jazz" and "music".

    As far as jazz and music goes - throughout the movie the only things shown were :
    1) Can you play fast? No? Here, how about a chair in your face!
    2) Lots of sheet music
    3) Lots of shiny instruments

    All designed to scream "music!!" in your face.

    It's a great movie, but the moment I realised that this kids main "test of manhood" was how fast he could get swingin', I turned off the "musician mode" and just casually enjoyed it. There's not much that one could really associate with jazz as most of us know it.

    I think lots of guys who are musicians miss this point while reviewing the movie.

    The music itself wasn't half bad though! And to his credit, Miles Teller played all the drum parts himself - with help from the editing studio but still.
    Last edited by pushkar000; 01-06-2015 at 10:18 PM.

  10. #34

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    I thought it was a well produced movie, very professionally filmed, edited and directed. I guess that qualifies it as a respectable movie. The mono dimensional characters and excessive "set on 11" acting and the screenplay that feeds emotional triggers to the audience like a drug dispensary to thrill addicts takes it off my good movie list. I guess it depends on what makes good cinema.
    I did like Rocky though... hmmm this was more like Rocky VIII.

    David

  11. #35

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note
    That character in the movie was a scriptwriter's misunderstanding of history and jazz. That's as real as Disney.
    And what's this movie thing that says if you do something until you hurt yourself that it will make you good. Talk about a promotion for stupidity.
    The writer/director is a jazz drummer. If I am not mistaken some of this stuff actually happen to him or people he knew.

  12. #36

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    Quote Originally Posted by Melodic Dreamer
    The writer/director is a jazz drummer. .
    AH! Now THAT explains a lot. Like how he came to rewrite history so a drummer was single handedly responsible for the creation of Charlie Parker.
    Sometimes drummers can play a beat accurately and some drummers don't. Some writers get historical perspective accurately and some don't.
    Thanks for that bit of illumination.
    David

  13. #37

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    Quote Originally Posted by TruthHertz
    AH! Now THAT explains a lot. Like how he came to rewrite history so a drummer was single handedly responsible for the creation of Charlie Parker.
    Sometimes drummers can play a beat accurately and some drummers don't. Some writers get historical perspective accurately and some don't.
    Thanks for that bit of illumination.
    David
    It sounds as though this movie has offended you on a personal level. I don't think he was trying to rewrite history, but tell a story with conviction from one perspective that he found inspiring or in some way slightly connected to.

  14. #38

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    Finally the little art house type theater here in the desert got Whiplash and I just saw it. From movies standpoint I thought it was pretty good, but not the amazing film many film buffs are raving about. Was fun a friend mines son was in the movie, he played the band's piano player. Also the older sax player in the end was one of the guy from the church I worked at house band Cal Bennett, Cal's an excellent sax player.

    So the band director's tough teacher, he wasn't as bad as I thought he be from reading all the posts in this and other thread. From my time in music schools and employee and student I'd say he was a composite character. I never see one teacher to did or said all the things the films character did, but I've had teachers or watched teachers who did each did some of it, including scaring the crap out of a young drummer trying to get him to play faster. In fact the one teacher who comes closest to being like the character in the movie was my high school's Jazz band director. In fact I've run into a few of the guys recently and even forty years later some get upset remembering some of the things the HS band director did. But he did turn out a lot of great musicians who played with Buddy Rich and went into studio work, and a couple bass players John Clayton and Bob Glaub.

    So to me the character was a composite of many music teachers and band directors rolled into one. And the thing about the one student dying, now that I never saw, I knew ones who gave up music, but where I did see student work themselves to death was at UCLA studying computer science in the early 80's. CompSci was the major everyone was going for so the school made the first couple courses insanely tough, you almost had to live in the computer rooms to get all the work done. Well one student dying, but the said it was something else, but year or two later an girl died and they it was tied to the workload pressure. The school changed the courses and double the length to reduce the workload. So I know of student working themselves to death, but not in music.

    So that's what I thought.

  15. #39

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    Yeah, I just saw this movie a few days ago. It's a good movie, as a movie. As far as getting musically analytical about it, the overdubbing was bad. Also, "bass, play my 5 bars of giant steps" [plays not-giant-steps in no time].

    But then again, it's a movie, since when are those things accurate.

    I think I enjoyed Birdman more, listening to Antonio Sanchez and watching Nate Smith

  16. #40

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    Quote Originally Posted by jtizzle
    I think I enjoyed Birdman more, listening to Antonio Sanchez and watching Nate Smith
    I'm with you on that, Birdman was an excellent movie want to see it again.

  17. #41

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    I loved the poster on the school bulletin board with the quote from Buddy Rich, "If you don't have the ability, you can always play in a rock band". Classic Buddy Rich.

  18. #42

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    Quote Originally Posted by jaco
    I loved the poster on the school bulletin board with the quote from Buddy Rich, "If you don't have the ability, you can always play in a rock band". Classic Buddy Rich.
    saw that too, thought it was hilarious.

  19. #43

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    Loved the movie! I dont care about its getting some things about jazz in real life wrong. I rate the movies based on great acting and great story/directing. It had both for me.

    Reminded of my first jazz guitar teacher in college... My first conversation with him went like: " forget it, you will never get there" "why? Ill be practicing a lot, ill do whatever needed to learn" " go ahead, you can jerk off as much as you want, its not gonna help you anyway". 4 years later, and my last conversation with him:"ok, just remember, the tone is everything, the tone is music, always keep that in mind". It was rough 4 years with him, but in the end he kinda respected me for not backing out. He was a brilliant musician, but really troubled, in a Jaco Pastorius kinda way. Died like him too.

  20. #44

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    Quote Originally Posted by jaco
    I loved the poster on the school bulletin board with the quote from Buddy Rich, "If you don't have the ability, you can always play in a rock band". Classic Buddy Rich.

    Freakin' hilarious!!

    To me, the editing of this movie absolutely pushed it over the top and especially during the action scenes where there were fast transitions (camera pans) from left to right and up and down. Meaning - Kudos to the Director of Photography too.

    Unfortunately for drummers everywhere, the Motion Picture Academy essentially ruled that "drums", aren't "musical" or something to that effect so the soundtrack (drums part) couldn't be considered for an Oscar.

    In another 25 years, the Academy will catch up - and that will change. ;-)

  21. #45

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    I agree on suspension of disbelief; I'd go farther and say that was true for pretty much any art form. I see we have differing opinions on "Whiplash", which is fine; Of the two, I just preferred "Birdman". Opinions are just that.

  22. #46

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    Quote Originally Posted by ah.clem
    I agree on suspension of disbelief; I'd go farther and say that was true for pretty much any art form. I see we have differing opinions on "Whiplash", which is fine; Of the two, I just preferred "Birdman". Opinions are just that.
    Birdland is a wild ride - a tour de force. Suspension of disbelief and belief. I wonder how many people have watched it on acid. Trippy!!!

    Now, capturing fictional theatrical musical scenes on film is extremely hard to do but these guys solved that problem by not relying soley on actual performance alone. The load was split between the story, the acting, the filming and the editing. Tour de force.

    I can't choose between these two movies except for the fact that they're both awesome for what they attempt to portray.

  23. #47

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    maybe we disagree, and maybe not - i haven't seen Birdman, yet.

    something tells me that Edward Norton won't beat out J.K, but what do I know? J.K was in a "supporting" role, but it's difficult to imagine looking away or not being aware of his presence on screen. i'm thinking he's a shoo-in (or is it shoe-in?) for the Oscar.

  24. #48

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    Quote Originally Posted by fumblefingers
    maybe we disagree, and maybe not - i haven't seen Birdman, yet.

    something tells me that Edward Norton won't beat out J.K, but what do I know? J.K was in a "supporting" role, but it's difficult to imagine looking away or not being aware of his presence on screen. i'm thinking he's a shoo-in (or is it shoe-in?) for the Oscar.
    J.K. has it locked down indeed.

    See Birdman and prepare to trip out.

  25. #49

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    any of you guys see the movie whiplash yet?

  26. #50

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    There are a couple threads about it, film buffs like it. The topic of tough teachers is all over the place.