The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary

View Poll Results: What do you prefer in music, originality or tradition?

Voters
21. You may not vote on this poll
  • Originality

    12 57.14%
  • Tradition

    9 42.86%
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  1. #1

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    You cannot choose both, and your explanations of how you have/want both are not accepted. It's a tough world.

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  3. #2

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    The tradition of jazz is of individuality. You cannot honour the tradition without your own voice. Otoh that voice cannot be the result of mere contrivance; it has to be geniuine.
    Well put. It gets forgotten in jazz so very often.

  4. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by Vihar
    Well put. It gets forgotten in jazz so very often.
    thanks. I actually deleted it because I felt it sounded like I was saying I have an original voice etc. but it is what I admire in the great musicians - not just in jazz.

  5. #4

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    thanks. I actually deleted it because I felt it sounded like I was saying I have an original voice etc. but it is what I admire in the great musicians - not just in jazz.
    There's nothing wrong with saying you have an original voice either. You do have one.

  6. #5

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    Originality...but never at the cost of understanding jazz tradition.

    My favorite jazz is when someone can bring something new to i tune ive heard hundreds of times....players who understand and respect the past, but who aren't bound to it.

  7. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by Vihar
    There's nothing wrong with saying you have an original voice either. You do have one.
    that’s very kind. Thanks.

  8. #7

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    I can't answer the question as asked.

    I love traditional music done well. If it grooves, I like it. I also value originality -- but it still has to groove.

  9. #8

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    That's not tough, it's a false dichotomy. In every art I'm familiar with, tradition (or convention or the familiar) is in some kind of relationship with "originality"--usually a tension. While there do seem to be frozen or rigid traditions (often connected to some notion of the sacred or to social ritual), the audiences for and generators of living arts engage in a push-pull of the old and the new--the same only different.

    A better question might be, "What proportion of the familiar and unfamiliar do you find pleasing or compelling in jazz?" Which doesn't fit an either/or template.

  10. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by RLetson

    A better question might be, "What proportion of the familiar and unfamiliar do you find pleasing or compelling in jazz?" Which doesn't fit an either/or template.
    I respect your post and understand where you're coming from, but a better question it isn't. It's an awful, brainy, self-important question, and I wanted to avoid that kind, because all it leads to is splitting hairs and sniffing cork. The question I posted above is ultimate & primal, and as such, to the point. Everything else is playing safe.

    You can take ALL the tradition you have loved and learned, but do you have the urge, a serious desire to create something original with it or not?

  11. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by Vihar
    You cannot choose both, and your explanations of how you have/want both are not accepted. It's a tough world.
    Yes.

  12. #11

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    Both is genuinely my favorite. Some of the new players who honor the tradition but who shred with new style, I find amazing. Been listening to tradish for a while.

    Since your thread is about choosing 1 or the other, I would have to choose traditional. That's where my taste stems from and how most of my playing is.

  13. #12

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    "What do you prefer in music, originality or tradition?"

    Quote Originally Posted by Vihar
    The question I posted above is ultimate & primal...
    I can't make sense of this question, must
    deny that it's really ultimate & primal. I'm
    suggesting a substitute for the choices of
    originality or tradition, that's authenticity.
    Authenticity is transitive in the sense that
    it takes an object - authentic with respect
    to what? With respect to those very items
    listed in the poll - originality and tradition.
    Authenticity is respecting the tradition of
    the music styles and reflecting one's own
    originality, so it's a blend of the two; what
    we most highly regard in the best players.

  14. #13

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    Quote Originally Posted by pauln
    "What do you prefer in music, originality or tradition?"



    I can't make sense of this question, must
    deny that it's really ultimate & primal. I'm
    suggesting a substitute for the choices of
    originality or tradition, that's authenticity.
    Authenticity is transitive in the sense that
    it takes an object - authentic with respect
    to what? With respect to those very items
    listed in the poll - originality and tradition.
    Authenticity is respecting the tradition of
    the music styles and reflecting one's own
    originality, so it's a blend of the two; what
    we most highly regard in the best players.
    Even a classical piece of music can be played authentically, yet it doesn't make the performer original. And I wouldn't want to exclude people and their sometimes valuable musical output who do not respect tradition at all.

  15. #14

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    I don't care about either if you can't play.

  16. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by AllanAllen
    I don't care about either if you can't play.
    Yet another "bananas" kind of post to the sort question of "do you prefer apples or oranges?"

    Will someone say they don't like either if the musician wears red clothing as well? Come on.

  17. #16

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    Then I'll go with tradition since people focused on originality usually can't play very well.

  18. #17

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    Nobody actually has to make this choice, but since this is a mind game after all, I’d choose originality. I answered this from the perspective of which would make for a more interesting world to live in, again, if one actually had to choose.

  19. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Kleinhaut
    Nobody actually has to make this choice, but since this is a mind game after all, I’d choose originality. I answered this from the perspective of which would make for a more interesting world to live in, again, if one actually had to choose.
    Thank you, Mark. That's a very important point of view, to what all creative art is supposed to boil down to: is it interesting?

  20. #19

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    Quote Originally Posted by AllanAllen
    Then I'll go with tradition since people focused on originality usually can't play very well.
    Your distinction regarding playing skills is well noted, but I think that goes without saying. With that in mind, even if you wouldn't like anyone from the group of original musicians you already know, would you still be on a constant search to find new ones with acceptable level of playing skills, or would you settle on listening ones that are more traditional? Also, do you try to be one or the other yourself?

  21. #20

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    Creativity is being original at a high artistic and aesthetic level. Very few people (if any at all) can produce a high artistic and aesthetic output without internalizing a traditional style and language first.

    It is true that jazz is about originality but I don't know if there are very many original jazz players who didn't pay their dues to the tradition first.

  22. #21

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    I would say originality. The problem with saying originality though is too many players use that as an excuse to abandon tradition. So instead of being original or seeking a voice within a tradition they butcher the traditions and say "but it's original" or "I did my own thing with it".

    What now qualifies for the blues genre is a prime example of yo-yos getting carried away with "originality" instead of sticking to originality within a tradition. I found out one day that John Lee Hooker is "Americana" now. Whatever that bullshit is.

  23. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by DawgBone
    I would say originality. The problem with saying originality though is too many players use that as an excuse to abandon tradition. So instead of being original or seeking a voice within a tradition they butcher the traditions and say "but it's original" or "I did my own thing with it".

    What now qualifies for the blues genre is a prime example of yo-yos getting carried away with "originality" instead of sticking to originality within a tradition. I found out one day that John Lee Hooker is "Americana" now. Whatever that bullshit is.
    "Americana" is the authentic voice of "American Roots Music" in which
    Folk, Country, Blues, Gospel, Bluegrass and some other musical forms
    combined in rural early America during the first half of the last century

  24. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by DawgBone
    I would say originality. The problem with saying originality though is too many players use that as an excuse to abandon tradition. So instead of being original or seeking a voice within a tradition they butcher the traditions and say "but it's original" or "I did my own thing with it".
    Of course labeling something "original" doesn't mean it necessarily is. The question wasn't about hipsters and charlatans; it wasn't "do you like the majority of artists that label themselves original?".

    Your point is very similar to what AllanAllen said about skills. It goes without saying that if you don't like someone's art for whatever reason, you don't have to include them in your preferences.

  25. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by pauln
    "Americana" is the authentic voice of "American Roots Music" in which
    Folk, Country, Blues, Gospel, Bluegrass and some other musical forms
    combined in rural early America during the first half of the last century

    Big in New Zealand.

    Americana is a 21st century combination of those musical forms, which were kept apart in their own time by regional, racial and social divisions, but which are now played internationally.

    Heart Attack Alley:



  26. #25

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    There's also a tradition NOT to be original. YouTube is full of videos of people performing other people's solos, even piano players performing Keith Jarrett improvisations note for note in front of audiences.
    That's a tradition that has emerged of NOT being original.
    I shall aspire to be unoriginal, and not traditionally traditional, but to embrace this new tradition of playing other people's original improvised solos note for note.
    I don't deserve making my own music. Maybe, some day. For now, I'll be a nothing. I'll devote myself to rote note for note imitation, which is not the tradition of jazz.
    Works for me.
    (not serious. seriously)