Questions about a great dichotomy...

[emanresu]

Whenever I hear "vocabulary" when people talk about jazz improvisation, it reminds me the type of douchiness when wanting to sound brilliant by using fancy words.
Not exactly the same but they are kinda similar.

Hm. What's the best real speech you've ever heard?
One that comes to mind had simple words. The vocabulary was simple.
But the thoughts were great.

[Christian Miller]

Not all great writers are Hemingway.


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[pamosmusic]

Not all great writers are Hemingway.


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I’d take Faulkner over Hemingway any day of the week.

He uses words like “satrap”

Or Shakespeare who needed so many words he had to just make them all up.

[AllanAllen]

I like Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore and Frank Miller.

[emanresu]

Here is the funniest usage of the word "up" :

The thing is, it works only if you watch the whole thing up to the point when it happens.
What a great word!

[RLetson]

I'm sure that there are perfectly appropriate technical musicological terms for the elements that make up a musical entity*, but there's nothing wrong with using "vocabulary" to describe some of the components that go into a musical composition or improvisation, even if the term is a bit metaphorical and borrowed from the linguistic end of things--as are the musical senses of "phrase" and "phrasing." For that matter, I recall seeing "gesture" and "texture" used in descriptions of music--borrowed from yet other realms of making/doing-stuff.

* Confirmed by a quick tour through Wikipedia's entries on some musical terms. Too bad I don't have a copy of Grove's--it looks like a wonderful rabbit-hole to fall down.

[SandChannel]

There's your answer.

Improvisation impresses jazz musicians. Pretty small population.,

But lots of musicians can recognize the skill in playing along with a difficult transcription.

So it gets "likes." Validates the effort. That's what people want.

But to be fair to the transcriber, it might also be what they want. Jonathan Kreisberg mentioned in an interview that he had to stop transcribing Pat Metheny because it was becoming too much of a part his playing. Thankfully, he ended up becoming Kreisberg in the end. That said, I have heard a lot of Yngwie clones that are very happy being just that. They wear their influences on their sleeve right down to playing the same rig. At the end of the day, it really is about having fun.

Also, I am not singling out your quote to refute anything, but just piggybacking my thoughts to it.

[princeplanet]

Start to worst best man’s speech ever

‘The dictionary defines transcription as…’


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"The dictionary defines Transcription as when a sheila used to be a bloke, but I've known Martin, er sorry, Martine, since we were kids flicking each others nuts in the showers, and I can tell you no-one ever saw his ball sack, so maybe he never really Transcribed ... but let's ask the groom eh?"

[SandChannel]

... eh. Huh?

[princeplanet]

eh he ...

[pamosmusic]

Stupid joke masquerading as clever. Best ignored.

[mr. beaumont]

But to be fair to the transcriber, it might also be what they want. Jonathan Kreisberg mentioned in an interview that he had to stop transcribing Pat Metheny because it was becoming too much of a part his playing. Thankfully, he ended up becoming Kreisberg in the end. That said, I have heard a lot of Yngwie clones that are very happy being just that. They wear their influences on their sleeve right down to playing the same rig. At the end of the day, it really is about having fun.

Also, I am not singling out your quote to refute anything, but just piggybacking my thoughts to it.

Oh definitely. You are what you eat, so to speak.

For me, the biggest step in achieving some kind of individuality (and I say that with the understanding that I'm definitely nobody special) was to fully acknowledge my influences...

It's like, you start out and you want to sound like somebody else. Then you realize what you're doing and you try to get away from it. Eventually you relax and embrace your influences and if you've allowed yourself a broad enough scope of influence, hopefully something that's uniquely "you" comes out. Then of course the problem of having it come out. I'll let you know when I've figured out how to play Paul Motian tunes like Charlie Christian

[princeplanet]

Stupid joke masquerading as clever. Best ignored.

... or clever joke masquerading as stupid, maybe?

[joe2758]

... or clever joke masquerading as stupid, maybe?

nah

[princeplanet]

I used to write speeches for this guy, but you probably won't find him funny either...