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In aviation there are such things as HANGER-QUEENS they look like really nice airplanes but they dont fly well. I call some guitars HANGER-QUEENS such to me are rickenbackers they look cool but sound? Not so much.
Originally Posted by jameslovestal
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12-02-2020 04:43 PM
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I thought a "hanger queen" was a really nice plane owned by a rich guy who never flew it. It just sat there. Kinda like these really nice guitars collectors buy and then just... sit them somewhere. Originally Posted by steve burchfield
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Nope. Hanger queens because they spend their time in a hanger and not flying. Common Navy and airline term. Eventually you start to scavenge them and they become, well, write offs.
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Ah... high maintenance low function... I dated that girl in high school. Originally Posted by jazzkritter
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A hangar queen (not hanger) is an aircraft that just stays in the hangar because something is always broken, or there is a major airframe or powerplant issue too expensive to repair. Old airplanes (and helicopters, which are more my specialty) are not like old guitars. They do not get more valuable with age, but the opposite. Many couldn't be sold for the cost of replacing an engine or having other major repairs done. Hangar queens just sit around and slowly disintegrate, although sometimes one gets fixed up and earns its keep.
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I think we all did. And most girls dated that guy. Originally Posted by lawson-stone
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Yea high initial investment, high operational costs, and low ROI.
Guess there’s one in every high school. Seemed to lighten up in college but out in the work world whoa they got expensive.
Man in these Covid times am I glad I left the airlines biz behind years ago. How are all those pilots keeping current? And getting everyone back up to mins once it’s over. Wow. Just wow.
Good you, I was in one helicopter in my day and that was enough for me)
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Some interesting comments here, as always. For those that are frustrated though, I can't help but wonder...did they ever really sit down and LEARN THE HECK out of 20, or 10, or even 5 jazz tunes? If every tune is a harmonic and form-based minefield, yeah, it will always be frustrating. The whole jazz thing really starts making more sense and becomes less frustrating after some tune familiarity and repertoire building. I just don't think there's any way around that.
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I did. Still do. Something just never clicks. I've learned maybe 75-100 tunes over the last 30 years, though I can't remember all of them. Many I studied very intensively. I just always sound lame. Originally Posted by coolvinny
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WHAT KEEPS YOU TRYING TO LEARN TO PLAY JAZZ AFTER YEARS OF TRYING?
Lots of reasons, but they come down to responsibility and obligation to the bands that call me to perform with them... I have a show with a horn band in nine days.
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For me it’s bloody mindedness. This I think is the most important quality for a jazz guitarist above and beyond anything else (such as musical talent.)
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One of the things I like about jazz is that fact that you can walk into a jam session (or could, anyway) anywhere in the world, and there's common repertoire. You can just play anywhere you go without having to figure things out or rehearse, or have a set arrangement. You can get that to a degree with blues/R&B (which I also play), but it's never a guarantee, and often times the level of playing is frustratingly low. So just being able to do that, and be able to cut it with better players keeps me wanting to learn new tunes and play better. The music itself also has a great balance of feel and intellect, so it stimulates both head and heart, which in itself is gratifying.
John
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After 35 years of playing I think I'm starting to make some progress ...
TBH I stopped caring about how ' good ' my playing is years ago . The joy of spontaneously creating , when the band is really swinging and inventive and you can think of ideas and play them , is it's own reward . I know of no human activity quite like it .
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This may not be a popular response with teachers but a musician must start with talent. If its not present, you may still become a good functional musician but you'll never have "it." And, that's O.K. if you're happy. However, dissatisfaction is the motor to success. The problem with most musicians is that they are dissatisfied with their playing and never move on. That requires talent, not just hard work . . . period.
Play live . . . Marinero
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Well I don't know anything about being a "great" musician or having "it" (whatever that is), but I think I know some things about learning jazz guitar as an adult and becoming reasonably competent as a non-pro (though I still have a long way to go to my goals). Originally Posted by Marinero
And from that perspective, I think your comments are actually very harmful as they will deter some people from putting in the necessary WORK. You don't need "talent" to become a decent amateur player...you need to put in the work AND you need to do the extra-curricular activities like ACTIVE LISTENING TO LOTS OF JAZZ (especially tunes you know! mentally track the tune all the way through, etc), attending live gigs, and playing with other people.
If you want to be world class, talent is probably involved. But if you just want to get pretty good as a non-pro, talent is overrated. Remember that this thread was not about becoming world-class...it was about the line between amateurs who never quite get it and therefore give up vs. those who are still working at improving.
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My aim is to create music that’s got a good balance of art, originality and entertainment. It doesn’t necessarily need to be jazz (whatever that means), but the jazz community seems to be a good place to help me learn to do it. It’s more about the journey than the destination. It’s the special moments that keep me going: discovering something new, realizing that something that used to be difficult now comes easily, gaining a deeper appreciation for a piece of music or for how others perform it, sharing the sense of creativity in an ensemble, or the simple satisfaction of playing a piece of music well.
I begin to lose interest when it begins to seem more like a business or service than a purely creative pursuit, so I don’t perform much outside of casual family or community gigs.
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I could hit like on every post in the thread so far.
I share many of your views and priorities. Like TOMMO, I especially enjoy the sound of my guitar when I plug in. For me, it is like serenading myself.
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"And from that perspective, I think your comments are actually very harmful as they will deter some people from putting in the necessary WORK. CoolVinny
Hi, C,
This is exactly the response I did not want since it was not my intention to deter the "hobbyist," but rather to bring some reality to those who believe that if you put in enough hours on your instrument you'll be a Jazzer.
In the Classical world, most top artist/performers have a very limited amount of students they accept for teaching. In order to study with Segovia, Bream, Yepes, for example in the past, the student had to be recommended by a renowned teacher and then audition for the maestro. Only the cream of the crop were accepted and the number one consideration was "talent" in the eyes of the teacher. And, the reason was that they wanted to work with a musician who had the ability to be exceptional and nothing less. For the rest, there are thousands of teachers who will gladly move them down the musical road ad infinitum to their real or imagined dream.
In Jazz, there was really little difference in approach. Many top performers took a limited amount of students as their "gift" to the genre for future generations and their standards were no less demanding. For example, in another post, I mentioned Chicago saxophonist Joe Daly who took a limited amount of students in the 60's/70's. Before being accepted, you had to be recommended by a teacher and have the ability to play all major/minor scales and chords by rote. So, if he said play an Edim7 chord in two octaves and then modulate to G you could do it. If you couldn't, he asked you to leave since he felt he was wasting his time. And, if you weren't progressing as fast as he liked, you also got the boot. The end result was he only taught the top prospects in Chicago during his tenure. So, to some, this might sound brutal and the antithesis of a good teacher but, in reality, he consciously weeded out those who lacked both talent and seriousness.
So, to return to the OP's original post, my comments are not meant to dissuade anyone from pursuing the quest for beauty in their lives and the enjoyment we have when we play a passage beautifully but rather to emphasize that if you want to choose music for a lifestyle/vocation, there are no amount of hours you can play that will get you there if you don't have talent(this ,of course, excludes popular music where 3 chord guitarists become millionaires). That's the myth debunked.
Perhaps one last example might provide better clarity. As a young person, I played baseball from Little League through college. And, the determining factor to move upward from every level was the ability to hit the pitching. In Little League, a player could consider himself good but to move to high school baseball, he had to be able to hit a curve ball and fast ball. But, the biggest dropout point was from high school to college ball where if you couldn't hit a 90 plus mph fastball, curve and slider, you couldn't make the team. This was in the 60's/70's and today, high school pitchers are all throwing well into the nineties with a dizzying array of junk balls, to boot. In the pros, many pitchers now throw 100 mph fastballs. The point is that talent has its levels but if you expect to play in the pros, no amount of practice will enable you to hit the pitching unless you have the hand/eye co-ordination to match(talent). This is the parallel to music. Don't delude yourself to think you'll be the next Wes, Pat, or Renee if you just put in the time. You may have to accept that you only play Little League or High School ball and . . .what's wrong with that? No amount of time will create talent if there's none there.
One last point: countless colleges and universities across the country offer Jazz Studies programs. The positive of these programs is the total immersion into music and the ability to play with others in group settings while learning the tools of the trade. However, the downside is that they are producing generations of musical robots who learn solos by "the greats" as part of their studies and never really develop their own style or improvisations but rely on past memorized riffs of other players. When you hear them play, they have the technique but no personal voice . . . and, their solos are predictable. This, for me, is not the pathway to individuality but rather group thinking . . . the antithesis of Jazz and great Classical music.
Play live . . . Marinero
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If I could afford it and my time schedule for teaching would be limited to only so and so many students you can be sure that I'd have my pick instead of taking on anybody who asks for lessons so I can generate some income...
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Originally Posted by Marinero
Sounds like the usual catholic excuse for not being good yourself. It takes God given talent! .. And sure, som people are totally tone deaf and will never be good, but funnily enough most world class players put in absolutely insane amount of work into "their God given talent" .. At least in their formative years. Once you're good then your good.
Take someone like Metheny .. Because of playing the guitar 24/7 he actually failed elementary school and was an an-alphabet until his mid 20s
Maybe there is a limit on how good you can become but I guessing any of the "Tired" people in this thread could have become working pro's, if they put in the hours and had a bit of guidance in their youth.
Originally Posted by Marinero
No one here is trying to be the next Wes, Pat or Renee (whoever that is)
On the contrary .. This is a thread of people with a deep love of jazz that can't let go despite well knowing that they probably never find the time needed to get good (or Git Gud as it is called on the internet)
C'mon ... Who are you? .. What are your credentials? .. Sound to me like you're just difficult to work with and like to put people down Originally Posted by Marinero
Show me the money .... What the gives you the right to be the great judge of what it takes to become a jazzer? You're just some fellow that never made it on his own and now is blaming lack of talent and maybe God for his lack of success, aren't you?
Jesus Christ ... Originally Posted by Marinero
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I consider the time I give myself each day to play a true gift. I have loved the music for over 45 years now and it is a great joy to pick up the instrument every day.
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It doesn’t matter if you are any good or not unless you are planning to do it for a job.
The main thing is you enjoy it.
That said, I happen to believe for most making progress and seeing it happen is an important part of that.
(It may surprise people here to know many actually great players have similar misgivings. Even people like Allan Holdsworth. Many pro players have quite a complex relationship with their art. It’s not like you ‘git gud’ and this all disappears.)
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"It doesn’t matter if you are any good or not unless you are planning to do it for a job." Christianm77
Hi, C,
That's exactly my point and I'm surprised that some readers missed it. Playing an instrument does more for the soul than Badminton or Chinese Checkers. However, don't be deluded into professional aspirations and wake up broke and disillusioned when the world(including yourself) doesn't find you the "Second Coming" after 20 years of effort and struggle.
Play live . . . Marinero
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I love the music.
I love guitars.
I enjoy a challenge...though I have to keep the frustration part in check. If you don't enjoy the challenge or can't keep the frustration in check, there are easier genres of music you can play. That option is available. But for some reason we don't take it.
Jazz is just such a deep thing, you're never going to get there. So enjoy the journey.
If you take a step back and really look at the big picture, you've probably made a lot of progress. For example...
Originally Posted by lawson-stone
Originally Posted by lawson-stone
Seriously Mr Stone...you have improved SO much in the last couple of years. You sound really good. I know it's hard to see when you're inside of it, but trust me, I've been watching.
And this is probably true of many others in this thread, it's just that Lawson Stone posts a lot of videos and I'm a youtube subscriber.
And on the rare occasions I can stop beating myself up, it's true of me too. I couldn't play this well a few years ago. I didn't understand harmony as well. It took me longer to learn a tune. My chord melodies were even worse.
I think most of us are making progress.
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Originally Posted by Marinero
It's more likely that we play to keep our minds of our professional aspirations ... A decade or is it closer to two in Government administration .. It's cool and all .. and I actually do make a difference in the world ... but sometimes you need something to take your mind of the daily bullshit
Like me everybody else here seems at least middle aged too ... I have absolutely no idea who in this thread you're talking to?
Cheers Marinero .. Play well!
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