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Playing with live musicians...that's it.
Then you learn things you won't find in books.
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08-13-2023 05:13 AM
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It seems to me though you and Skip Ellis are the exceptions. I think for many musicians (professional or not) music is more than just a survival job. In fact some have survival jobs to support being musicians. Their personal satisfaction does not solely defined by keeping their employers happy.
Originally Posted by tbeltrans
It seems, reading your posts in this thread, that you and I have had very similar experiences playing professionally with regard to getting the job done. We are definitely on the same page here. For me it was a job at a time when there were few other jobs and I was paid to deliver. Nothing complicated about that.
TonyLast edited by Tal_175; 08-13-2023 at 07:15 AM.
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For me personally, I enjoy music as an avocation rather than a vocation. Originally Posted by Tal_175
Tony
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I came to conclusion that in general there are two perspecives: one is when I feel myself within an ocean of ideas, the world (in this case it is music) is outside of me and I am overwhelmed with it often. Originally Posted by Rick5
Hi All,
I don't feel this way every day, but I do today.
Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of things to work on and practice? I try to remain mindful when practicing, but balancing learning new material with review is always so hard. It really bugs me when I forget parts of a tune I used to know or forget sections of a solo that I spent forever transcribing.
Rick
Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk
Another one is when I am the world and everything important is within.
In real practice it means that what I am interested in at the moment, what I am doing right now is the only thing that exists.
Of course it is also important to keep some guidelines and organization in general but not when I am playing or practicing.
With years it turned out I needed much less things that I was eager to grab but probably the ambition to cover everything hepled to sort things out.
And forgettig is normal, the important things never go away completely, the things you learn show up unexpectedly again and again.
I do not care about forgetting much any more.
When I really play one piece of music or practice some idea it is actually necessary to forget everything else.
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I envy you. I guess it's just my DNA but I've never been able to enjoy anything as an avocation/hobby - there MUST be a return even if it's just breaking even on materials in my leatherworking or woodworking. I didn't grow up with so much money that I can be comfortable with losing any. As bad as I might want a particular guitar, I refuse to buy it unless I know that I can flip it and, at least, break even. I guess that's why I don't understand music 'hobbyists' who buy instruments and never expect to gig. From the beginning, I only wanted to learn to play to be in a band and make money - it wasn't for the fun and socializing - it was to learn a marketable skill that would earn more than minimum wage. Money spent on equipment was justified as 'tools of the trade' and those tools were carefully researched as to what they would add to my value as a musician. I know there are folks who spend untold $$$$ on model railroads, expensive guitars, fishing boats, cruises, etc. with no expectation of anything more than a good time - I'm not one of those folks - sometimes wish I was. Right now at 78, I'm getting ready to take my ham radio test for no other reason than I want to - doubt that I'll even buy a radio as it would be money that I couldn't recoup unless I could find a used one that I could buy 'right'. Originally Posted by tbeltrans
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Fantastic post! Thank you. Originally Posted by Jonah
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I didn't grow up with money either, but I realized that as a musician (unless I became one of the .01% who really make a go of it) I would have to find something else to pursue to make a living. Engineering suited me just fine and I made a very good living from it. People have told me that those doing what I did when I worked as a musician, aren't making any ore today than I did back then. I never understood those who choose to pursue music and then complain that they don't make much money after all the work involved such as traveling to and from the gig, setting up and tearing down and al the practice in between to build and maintain repertoire. Also, most folks I know who pursued some form of music as a career, whether teaching or performing, tend to burn out on it by the time they get much older. Because I chose another career, I can still enjoy playing. Fortunately, I found engineering to be both lucrative and fascinating. Originally Posted by Skip Ellis
Tony
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cq cq? Originally Posted by skip ellis
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Go for it! I got my Novice ham license during my first year in the Army. I was stationed at Ft. Lewis and some of the operators of the base MARS station helped me study and learn Morse code and then gave me the test. Later, I got my General class license, but didn't go any farther. My main interest was really building gear and putting it on the air rather than joining nets and that sort of thing. I let my license lapse when we bought our condo. Originally Posted by Skip Ellis
I am 70 years old right now. I remember while I was going to college at night, a guy retired from AT&T was in one of my math classes. He was 70 at the time. I asked him why he was taking that particular class since I thought most "old guys" took painting and exercise classes. He said that if he wasn't in school, he would probably just spend his time drinking.
So kudos to him and you for doing real useful things.
Right now, I am in the process of putting together my little "studio". I have been collecting some gear over time and finally got the last piece, a Waldorf Kyra desk top synthesizer. The centerpiece is an Akai Force. I don't like using computers for music (I arrange for solo guitar using pencil and staff paper - odd since I worked as a software engineer writing firmware for most of my career), so mine is all dedicated hardware. I just want to explore sound and play with some composing. I have a self-study course for composing, not a heavy duty college level thing, but something lighthearted and geared to hobbyist types like me.
Tony
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To respond to the op, I think the amount of stuff to learn can indeed be overwhelming if the goal is just 'getting good' like bediles said:
Mastery of BH and application everywhere lol. Originally Posted by bediles
However, I think the amount of stuff to learn is manageable if you prioritize the tunes you want to play and what additional stuff you need to practice to play them proficiently like tbeltrans said. Being a monster or a master would be great, yes, but I think playing the tunes well and proficiently is a satisfying goal and can be achieved in a reasonable amount of time.
Originally Posted by tbeltrans
That advice peeves me also. Only practicing tunes will not lead to proficiency. You have to practice fundamentals related to the tunes like Kirk Garrett said: Originally Posted by pamosmusic
Originally Posted by Kirk Garrett
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Being clear about one’s goals is certainly very helpful. ‘Learn to play jazz guitar’ is not a very helpful goal in fact.
‘Learn the shell voicings for an F major jazz blues’, ‘learn to play the chords and melodies to 20 standards by memory’, ‘learn to play the chord tones through rhythm changes in quarter notes with a metronone’, ‘transcribe ten Pat Martino ii V I licks and transpose to all twenty four major and minor keys’, ‘master the drop 2s and 3s for all basic chord types in all string sets’ and so on, are all good, measurable goals for varying levels of player.
But the flip side is it may not always be obvious what is a reasonable and helpful goal for a player of a certain level. Because of this external goal setting - not necessarily a teacher, could be gigs, jams or a weekly group workshop - is very helpful. You learn what sort of things the community expects of
a player.
I think sometimes people talk about this stuff as if it takes place in splendid isolation.
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It is because for many people it is splendid isolation Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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Originally Posted by Jonah
I was going to say the same thing. I think the passionate hobbyists outnumber players 20 to 1 on JGF (100 to 1?).
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Yeah that’s super true. And not in a disappointing way, but in kind of a fun way. Lots of people coming into the music from very different places. So when someone offers advice, it’s important to remember that the person asking has a personal context for their question that might be very different than anyone else’s. Originally Posted by Jonah
The flipside is that it’s also important for the person asking the question to remember that some things in this music are truly not that simple. Or when they’re conceptually simple, the execution might be really difficult or there might be nuance in the application that takes years to sort out.
I find a lot of the time on this forum, people give very confident advice without considering that there are lots of ways to go about the same thing, before even taking into account the disparity in skill levels and goals. I also find that people looking for advice or direction often really confidently (sometimes stridently) write off advice that demands time or more in-depth prerequisite knowledge because they don’t have the context to understand it yet.
As a person who loves jazz, but also really enjoys teaching and learning for their own sake, and sorting through all that, it can be a really fun little cauldron of weird over here. Other times it can be frustrating. Sometimes both. More fun than not, I think, in the end.
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I like think that those giving advice in this forum are doing so from their own experience regardless of how they might phrase it (i.e. phrasing it as general advice applicable to all or phrasing it as clearly coming from their own experience. If people reading the advice understand that, then there is no cause for disagreement because it would seem not necessary to have to say that we are speaking from our own experience. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
My post specifically talked about when I was playing full time, as did Skip. Doing it for a living, we don't necessarily have the luxury of picking and choosing what we want to learn because our focus is on producing the product that we are being paid for night after night. It is a job in that situation and there is nothing dreamy or romantic about it. If you want to eat, provide shelter for yourself and family, then just as with any job, you have to produce results.
To me, it has always seemed odd that people will put musicians they enjoy listening to (or sports people) on a pedestal as if they are some sort of "god", while those who save lives, protect our freedoms and safety, often go largely unnoticed or even (these days) treated badly. It doesn't matter what one does for a living, if that is what they are doing, it is a job first and foremost.
I see posts here of people who gig maybe once a month or even less, and to me that could be fun and provide the time to spend on learning anything and everything, but that is very different from playing 6 nights a week every week for 4 - 6 hours a night. That, is a job pretty much like any other. I can tell you that the romanticism of being on the road wears of rather quickly as it becomes routine.
Tony
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Fair enough. Originally Posted by tbeltrans
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Hobbyists don't play? Originally Posted by bediles
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I wouldn’t have learned jazz like I did I don’t think if it hadn’t been for others. I was playing the music even before I could really play. It was an impetus to learn fast. Just learning tunes and responding to feedback. I learned Parker heads and bop because that’s what the horn players liked to play and ended up getting into that. So I don’t know how it works if you are doing it on your own.
No wonder people are end up feeling overwhelmed - I know from my dry periods that without external influences it’s very easy for me to lose direction and lose motivation even if I don’t. It’s mentally exhausting. Too much choice!
(I’m not talking about pro level stuff btw - these were amateur workshops, jams and weekenders.)
But then if your aim is not to play with other players in live settings, who’s to say what’s important and what isn’t?
I think that’s something I struggle with sometimes with students, my aim is usually to get them on the bandstand in some capacity. But not everyone wants that.
I’m afraid it is axiomatic for me that jazz is, above all, social music (although apparently populated largely by introverts haha) I see everything - its harmony, performance practice, rhythm - as emergent from the way a group of jazz musicians make music together, a musical conversation. Otoh I think solo performance often seeks to recapture that spirit with one person.
One thing might be that people who like jazz might not always be, how to put it, people people and may enjoy being on their own….
Of course everyone got a massive taste of this in 2020. It’s not like I stopped playing, but it became a very different thing. I did a lot of solo guitar.
Would I be a jazz player still if on a desert island? Maybe. I am less in the social mix due to family atm. My main interactions with other players are gigs and rehearsals. Actually some of my musician friends would rather meet for a drink than get together for a play these days as that’s their day job effectively. And your priorities change over time of course.
But even now my practice priorities are built around preparing for gigs and working on my bandstand skills and knowledge such as reading, repertoire, time and so on. Without that I’d probably do completely different stuff.. My interest in things like classical improv probably comes from that, being something I can get into on my own and has a strong virtual community that it lends itself well towards because of its largely solitary nature.
Maybe if I lived in a different part of the world with a specific music community I’d play a different music. I love jazz, but it’s not the only type of music I love. I have a friend who lived in Jerusalem and learned to play a Middle Eastern version of jazz… maybe if I lived in rural Ireland I’d play Irish trad, or out in Kentucky, Bluegrass. And if I was in my twenties knowing what I know now I’d be beating a path to NYC of course. (I wouldn’t say london has a specific music community it’s famous for in the same way.)Last edited by Christian Miller; 08-15-2023 at 04:12 AM.
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Anyway I don’t see it as a pro/amateur split. Where I grew up there were jazz workshops and so on and that’s actually how I discovered the music. It’s probably more a split between those who live in cities and those who don’t.
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At age 57, I'm overwhelmed just memorising the notes to a head
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Which is another way of saying a split between people who have easy access to other musicians and those who don’t. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
The wide diversity of goals is also something pretty unique to guitar. Far and away there are more hobbyist guitarists than any other instrument. So there are more hobbyist jazz guitarists than jazz musicians of any other stripe. Piano and voice are the only other instruments that really even could compare. And I think a big part is that guitar, piano, and voice are easier to learn on your own and practice on your own.
Anyway — I believe jazz is a social music too, but everyone comes to it from a different place. I just left New York after visiting for the first time since I moved and it was lovely. I didn’t go see any shows, but just bounced around the city hanging out with friends and eating a lot of food. All those friends were musicians except for three. One dancer and two friends from the jazz club where I worked. I had about coffee and babysat for a newborn and talked about harmony and what people are practicing and rent. That’s just how the whole music works. I played music with friends and made friends with the people I played with. I still have that where I am now, but it’s less concentrated … trickier to cultivate and maintain than it was. And I still live in what is (relatively speaking) a pretty big metro area. And it’s not obvious how to cultivate that even in a place like New York.
But that’s something that just doesn’t exist in some places. And where it does exist its hard for people to know where to look for it or how to look for it or whatever.
I have a buddy I play guitar with a lot who is an exceptional teacher and two of his cardinal rules of good teaching are It’s Not About You … and Meet Then Where They Are.
In this case, where they are can be geographic as well, I guess.
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well maybe it is geographic! A local teacher has a couple of advantages beyond a Big Name on the web, and one is that they know your local area and may be able to help, provided playing with others is a goal. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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At 57 your memory is going already? I recommend taking a more positive attitude about what your mind can accomplish. Even joking about it can undermine your effort, and give you a way out of doing the work. Originally Posted by CliffR
At age 57, I'm overwhelmed just memorising the notes to a head.
This guy is pushing 80 and is still learning more languages to add to the 20 or so he already speaks.
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We are British. We revel in our foibles.
Accept entropy! Quiet desperation is optional but strongly encouraged. (As much as we encourage anything.)
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Stiff upper lip? Keep calm and shed the rhythm changes?
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