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  1. #76

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    Quote Originally Posted by Goofsus4
    . The novice just makes a mess and starts again.
    Hopefully the novice learned something from the "mess" and grows in the process. Whether it is music or visual art, most artists produce their more interesting work while going through a "phase", "period" or some other label that we choose to describe their evolution as an artist, don't you think?

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  3. #77

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    who are these people you speak of that come along and decide what art is? what qualifies them? why do you accept their decisions as absolutes? that kind of thinking will serve you well if you are ever a subject in a dictatorship.

    Basically, they will be a combination of other artists, art critics and various knowledgable and expert people in the relevant fields. I don't accept their decisions as absolute. I might not accept many of them at all if I were still alive to debate such issues. But first of all, I won't be, since we are talking about many decades, if not centuries, before something can be legitimately called a work of art. Their is always a sort of mild conformist dictatorship in such matters (the ruling sociological paradigm). This even applies to a large extent to science, as recent philosophy of science has revealed. I have actually written many philosophy papers on the arbitray nature of expertise.

    An example among extremely many: who decided that Virgil's poems were worthy of being preserved and passed down through the generations. Well, Virgil himself asked to have them all burned at his death. Emperor Augustus intervened to save them because the poems were all basically hyms to the glory of Rome under his rule. Later, generations upon generations of artists and other "experts" realized that the work had merit. How many such works have been destroyed? Probably infinite amounts of the greatest work were lost at Alexandria for one. Arbitrary.


    Yes, there are some basic objective standards that probable have a biological origin. Beyond those BASIC principles, we get into muddy and deeply subjective waters. There is no contradiction in this at all.

  4. #78

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jazzcat
    Hopefully the novice learned something from the "mess" and grows in the process. Whether it is music or visual art, most artists produce their more interesting work while going through a "phase", "period" or some other label that we choose to describe their evolution as an artist, don't you think?
    Absolutely. Creating art is a mentally exhausting process. It requires inspiration and intense focus. It's hard to keep that up 24/7. Some artists and musicians are more prolific than others, to be sure, and I wonder if that has something to do with how many "phases" they go through in their careers.

  5. #79

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    To franco6719,

    When eschewing mediocrative expression, it behooves one to be mindful that pedantry, being indicative of inherent megalomania, frustrates it own aim and results in ennubulation!

    To mfarkas: I was with you right up to the point where you said "faith has never done anything." Without faith there is no spirituality and thus we are left with only the resources of our intellect to guide us. We have come a long way in a short time, but in the grand scheme of things we are poor creatures indeed.

    Educators have gotten caught up with "learning styles" (auditory, visual, tactile, etc.). By and large they don't address the "prophetic" style - that is to say those individuals who have an inner sense of knowing(they don't know how they know, they just know). We all know people like that. Some call it intuition, some refer to it as "psychic". Its hard to pin down because you can't feel it, see it or touch it. Educators shy away from it because it is "paranormal" and being prone to pedantry just can't deal with it. Unfortunately (or fortunately as the case may be) some of our most creative individuals are strong in this trait. A lot of kids are diagnosed with ADD when the reality is they are most likely a prophetic learner - their creativity must be constantly challenged and they need to learn to follow through. Too often they have a sense of "been there, done that" because they "know" how it is going to come out, but they fail to realize that follow through on their part in necessary.

    This has been an interesting thread. Thank you all for the discourse.

  6. #80
    Just my two bits, I actually signed up to this site because I thought this point was such an important one to discuss.

    My point of view is that improvisation is a canvas that we can fill HOWEVER we want. If you're playing purely with your intellect that's just as valid as throwing out melodies in a trance.

    The improvising is more or less a reflection of who you are, and in many many fragments according to the songs and the setting, your mood, and all that.

    Of course my favorite way of improvising is when my feelings combine with perfectly with my intellect and "soul"; though I always enjoy improvising purely from concepts. Frank Zappa said he thought of geometry when he improvised, John Coltrane would take binoculars to look at stars before his set... it's all valid, it just ends up making good music somehow.

    The reason you can't seem to agree is because you all have different approaches to improvising, and are all arguing that they are the same thing.

    It's like the buddhist story:
    "
    The king said that he should be brought an elephant and all the blind men in the city.
    They were brought to him,
    Now let the blind men study the elephant, he said, and let them tell me what an elephant is like.
    Of course the blind men only had small parts of the elephant to themselves; one had the ear, another the tail, another the leg....
    So once they had done the king asked, "so what is the elephant like?", and as the first blind man answered ("like a tree trunk")(he had the leg) the others were offended and yelled in disagreement ("no he it is like a hose""no like a great leaf")."

  7. #81

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    Quote Originally Posted by chicoplaysthetele
    Just my two bits, I actually signed up to this site because I thought this point was such an important one to discuss.

    My point of view is that improvisation is a canvas that we can fill HOWEVER we want. If you're playing purely with your intellect that's just as valid as throwing out melodies in a trance.

    The improvising is more or less a reflection of who you are, and in many many fragments according to the songs and the setting, your mood, and all that.

    Of course my favorite way of improvising is when my feelings combine with perfectly with my intellect and "soul"; though I always enjoy improvising purely from concepts. Frank Zappa said he thought of geometry when he improvised, John Coltrane would take binoculars to look at stars before his set... it's all valid, it just ends up making good music somehow.

    The reason you can't seem to agree is because you all have different approaches to improvising, and are all arguing that they are the same thing.

    It's like the buddhist story:
    "
    The king said that he should be brought an elephant and all the blind men in the city.
    They were brought to him,
    Now let the blind men study the elephant, he said, and let them tell me what an elephant is like.
    Of course the blind men only had small parts of the elephant to themselves; one had the ear, another the tail, another the leg....
    So once they had done the king asked, "so what is the elephant like?", and as the first blind man answered ("like a tree trunk")(he had the leg) the others were offended and yelled in disagreement ("no he it is like a hose""no like a great leaf")."
    Hey Chico, great first post. Yep, too true, we are all like the blind men, grappling at our own little corner of the truth!

  8. #82

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    im pretty sure joni mitchell was completley self taught, creating her own tunings and chords and everything from scratch. I'd say thats an artist. but this argument belongs on another thread. i wanna hear some more improve ideas.

  9. #83

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    Quote Originally Posted by mfarkas
    if it is subjective above the basic principles, how do they decide what is right and wrong? and when they do decide, what would make their decision right or wrong? the fact that they said it?

    and its interesting to say that you would debate them on it. what would you use as the basis of your debate? if there are no objective principles to go on beyond the basics, how would you debate anything? how would you know anything?

    this is mysticism you are talking about:

    art is whatever the mystics say it is.

    how do the mystics know?

    they just do!

    sorry. doesnt work. its circular and worthless. the only way to know anything is reason; the integration of sensory information. you are talking about taking things on faith and feeling. reason is behind my philosophy of art, faith is behind yours. reason has brought us everything we have. faith has never done anything.

    I never said that these experts actually had any kind of special insight. I don''t know where the devil you could have derived such nonsense. I, BTW, am an atheist, not to say an anti-theist. I don''t know what the hell you are talking about by mysticism and other such transcendental phantoms of the human imagination. Since we seem to enjoy taking thing to a personal level on this forum, or this thread at least, please LEARN TO READ.

    I said that the matter will be decided ultimately by human beings, many of whom label themselves "experts". These decisions will not necessarily be based on reason, mostly they will be totally arbitrary (tyranny of the majority, conformism of the time and other unconscious sociological pressures). They will not be either right or wrong. They will just be whatever they are. Of course I can disagree, but the disagreement would be totally useless in the present context, for example, since I am not a member of the established powers who control such matters.

    You seem to think we live in some kind of genuine Rawlsian ideal state of nature or something close to a Rawlsian ideal of democracy. You are dreaming, my friend. But I won't get into political philosophy here.

    Reason is the "integration of sensory information". Oh boy, I don't know where to start with that. What about deductive reasoning and mathematical/logical reasoning. The integration of sensory information is only a part of the process of empirical (inductive or abductive reasoning).
    Reason is a tool and not an end in itself. I begin to strongly suspect you are another one of these Ayn Randian pop philosophy cranks.

  10. #84

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    The basic point is simply this: It is just as ridiculous to think that there are absolute objective standards according to which we can all agree to draw up some such ordered classification as the following:

    Mozart > Bach
    Bach > Beethoven
    Beethoven > Art Tatum
    Art Tatum > Miles Davis
    Miles Davis > Sonny Rollins
    Sonny Rollins > John Coltrane
    John Coltrane > Wes Montgomery
    Wes Montgomery > Jimi Hendrix
    Jimi Hendrix > Pat Metheny
    Pat Metheny > Pat Martino
    John Scofield > Joni Mitchell,
    Joni Mitchell > Sting
    Sting > Les Paul
    Les Paul > John Lennon
    John Lennon >

    It is just as ridiculous to think we can classify art and art creations that way than to think that "Everything goes and everything is good.

    So, I fall in neither simplistic camp. Sorry. Most things like this do not have easy answers.

  11. #85

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    As far as improvisation goes, it is an expresion of who we are, so in it's purest form it can't be taught, but we can teach tools to express ourselves.
    We have things to say before we can speak, it's just important not to forget there are things we can't say with the words we are taught, sometimes we have to make our own words or simply stomp and sign.

    As far as the the sub conversation, perhaps take it to PM.

  12. #86

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    I think it's difficult to seperate who is an artist and who is not. The Temptations sang My Girl and it will be around a long time. Smokey Robinson's songs are here to stay as are Stevie Wonder' s. They were artists. The Temps never wrote any of what they sang but they sang better than any group around at the time.There are some great POP songs out there and some great covers by some real artists. I think you need a combination to be remembered. Daryl Hall and John Oates write the songs for Hall and Oates. Daryl has one of the best voices ,technical and other, in the business...yet Mick Jagger gets more Press....Those songs will be remembered but only certain ones will survive the test of time. In comparison, I doubt that Cold Play or some of today's "JAZZ" groups have yet to do anything "TIMELESS" .Smooth Jazz may or may not produce timeless songs..."Yet to be determined" as they say. Miles, Bird, they are timeless except the listening audience is not large enough to create standards that people will associate with times in their life that they want to recall as did Lionel Ritchie with his music.Benny Goodman songs are still requested... Very few ask for Miles or Bird or Mel Torme for a wedding but The Christmas song will be around a long time and most think that Nat Cole was the originator when Mel Torme wrote it. Why did Nat Cole have the hit and not Mel? Always wondered....It's just the time , the place , the writer the singer or player and who remembersthe songs and why. Jobim's music will be around a long time. Most do not even know who wrote half of them but they like them. Why ? I hated the Beatles in the 60's but now I can hear the intricate things that I never thoiught about. It still is not music that I would want to listen to when i recall times in my life that mean anything. It's Circumstance". If you were in the Village at a club watching Miles you might love that music because of what it means to you not because of the technical aspects of the music. As a wedding singer for 30 years or so I realized that certain songs will remain in people's minds...no matter how great or how lousy I could sing that song , they heard what they heard in their head ...what was on the record , and then told me I was great...No , The song was great , the memory was great...99% of people have no clue as to what is "GREAT" ! A great song is going to stay around a long time. That sound of the artist that sings or plays will live in people's minds and everytime they hear me they are really hearing the original not me.

  13. #87

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    Quote Originally Posted by Paul Jerome
    I think it's difficult to seperate who is an artist and who is not. The Temptations sang My Girl and it will be around a long time. Smokey Robinson's songs are here to stay as are Stevie Wonder' s. They were artists. The Temps never wrote any of what they sang but they sang better than any group around at the time.There are some great POP songs out there and some great covers by some real artists. I think you need a combination to be remembered. Daryl Hall and John Oates write the songs for Hall and Oates. Daryl has one of the best voices ,technical and other, in the business...yet Mick Jagger gets more Press....Those songs will be remembered but only certain ones will survive the test of time. In comparison, I doubt that Cold Play or some of today's "JAZZ" groups have yet to do anything "TIMELESS" .Smooth Jazz may or may not produce timeless songs..."Yet to be determined" as they say. Miles, Bird, they are timeless except the listening audience is not large enough to create standards that people will associate with times in their life that they want to recall as did Lionel Ritchie with his music.Benny Goodman songs are still requested... Very few ask for Miles or Bird or Mel Torme for a wedding but The Christmas song will be around a long time and most think that Nat Cole was the originator when Mel Torme wrote it. Why did Nat Cole have the hit and not Mel? Always wondered....It's just the time , the place , the writer the singer or player and who remembersthe songs and why. Jobim's music will be around a long time. Most do not even know who wrote half of them but they like them. Why ? I hated the Beatles in the 60's but now I can hear the intricate things that I never thoiught about. It still is not music that I would want to listen to when i recall times in my life that mean anything. It's Circumstance". If you were in the Village at a club watching Miles you might love that music because of what it means to you not because of the technical aspects of the music. As a wedding singer for 30 years or so I realized that certain songs will remain in people's minds...no matter how great or how lousy I could sing that song , they heard what they heard in their head ...what was on the record , and then told me I was great...No , The song was great , the memory was great...99% of people have no clue as to what is "GREAT" ! A great song is going to stay around a long time. That sound of the artist that sings or plays will live in people's minds and everytime they hear me they are really hearing the original not me.
    Nice point. Not sure how nostalgia and sentimentality figure in to a definition of art, but you make a compelling argument. However, please do me and others a favor and take a breath (paragraph break) occassionally. It was tough to follow such a long post without them.

  14. #88

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    Maybe I've missed something out here in deep forest, but I have the internet and satellite TV, and I haven't noticed much art around for a long time now.
    Everything these days seems to be configured down to the lowest common denominator ie popular appeal and profit. I sure there are still plenty of people pursuing quality creativity, but they don't seem to be getting much publicity.

    Some argue that everything has been done already. The last big event in Britain was Punk....more than thirty years ago.

    I just think people are becoming toys of technology, rather than the other way around. It's affordable, easy to buy (even from your own bed with net shopping), satisfies short-term curiosity and passes the time. Why should the people of the modern world bother with anything else?

    Soma!

    Back to the original post, I feel that the playing of any musical instrument is artistic, and to be able to make the music up 'on the fly' as in improvisation, is surely art.

    If it isn't, then what the hell is?

  15. #89
    I am a novice improviser but one of your suggestions seems spot-on:

    Knowing the tune cold - chord progression and the melody.

    I encounter some players at jams who “solo” despite not knowing the tune. That rarely ends well.

    Thank you

  16. #90
    Quote Originally Posted by Goofsus4
    I'm not talking about 15 minutes a day. I'm talking about hours upon hours upon hours.

    My philosophy about improvisation is just PRACTICE IMPROVISATION RELENTLESSLY!
    The other day, I read a post. The writer signed off with “... time on your instrument..”

    It blew my socks off. Of course, JazzGuitar.BE is about learning (this Art). There are modes and poly-rhythms and Bird-solos, best books and equipment subtleties. But .... nothing of true value is going to happen without “... time on your instrument ...”

    Isn't there a Latin phrase: Sine qua non
    [ my font went nuts ]
    Maybe that applies. Maybe it means: “without this there’s nothing”.

    I dont know what “Generic Modality Compression” means (Mick Goodrick book) but I understand “... time on your instrument ...”.

    I’m probably going overboard here.
    There’s a local professional musician nearby. He wants said to me: “You know what you need to practice?” “Everything”.

    So yeah. There’s “How to practice.” And “What to practice”. But there isn’t “If to practice”.

    “Time on your (my) instrument
    ”.

  17. #91

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    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarStudent
    The other day, I read a post. The writer signed off with “... time on your instrument..”

    It blew my socks off. Of course, JazzGuitar.BE is about learning (this Art). There are modes and poly-rhythms and Bird-solos, best books and equipment subtleties. But .... nothing of true value is going to happen without “... time on your instrument ...”

    Isn't there a Latin phrase: Sine qua non
    [ my font went nuts ]
    Maybe that applies. Maybe it means: “without this there’s nothing”.

    I dont know what “Generic Modality Compression” means (Mick Goodrick book) but I understand “... time on your instrument ...”.

    I’m probably going overboard here.
    There’s a local professional musician nearby. He wants said to me: “You know what you need to practice?” “Everything”.

    So yeah. There’s “How to practice.” And “What to practice”. But there isn’t “If to practice”.

    “Time on your (my) instrument
    ”.
    Well said!

    To improvise you need to catch the moment. I think no one are trained enough to imagine how a solo will turn out in the end. No teaching materials can change that procedure. It’s your musical influences and hopefully even your spinal cord that will guide you right. All great guitarists and other instrumentalists in jazz history had or have one thing in common, they all had or have feeling about what time was or is right to bring out the best ideas. Of course we can continue to analyze masterful solos over and over again, but in the end it doesn’t matter because we know nothing about tomorrow. That’s my view about the real definition of jazz music. We know nothing to know at what direction we’re going towards. Catch the moment!
    Last edited by Bbmaj7#5#9; 08-29-2019 at 04:21 PM.

  18. #92

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    Of course pop is art, if it's done well enough. The format of the 3 minute pop song is an artform. Uptown Funk is undoubtedly a piece of art based on the conditions of its genre. You can say it's an art of reflective surfaces with not a lot going on underneath, but that is also an artform. In a way the three minute pop song is aesthetic in its purest form - signifying nothing.

    Now as for improv. I'm not good enough to have a philosophy per se. I have a strategy: Play and listen to the melody until alternative melodies, licks, etc present themselves. Of course that doesn't work if somebody count off a tune I've never played before, but it sort of works for the known/prepared tunes.
    Also, when I was younger I tended to just play whatever came into my mind at the moment, more or less only relating to the changes. These days I try to overtly and consciously respond to the melody. Sometimes by referencing sometimes by rejecting it, but I try to always have the melody in the back of my mind as I play. I suppose that if you want to elevate that to a philosophy, it's this: Any improvisation is always a response to a melody real or implied.

    yeah, good thing I don't make a living off my thinking cap.

  19. #93
    My sense of what makes something beautiful (Art) is (my sense of) the sacrifice that went into its creation: the implicit labor, the sacrifice, the love.

    Seeing a guitar in Segovia's hands, learning how long Rose LaVelle practiced before her famous goal, hearing about Pat Martino overcoming memory loss, learning how cheaply Willie Nelson sold his early songs, hearing that John Coltrane practiced 14 hours a day.

    i believe that Art is sacrifice on display. The saying: “It took him 25 years to become an overnight sensation” captures this.

    It inevitably goes like this: I see something stunning. Later I learn the “noble path” of the artist.

    I think what makes something beautiful is a sense of the labor. Magnificent gardens necessitate a lot of labor and learning. When I see the garden, I’m somehow connecting to the accomplishment of the gardener! (I don’t know a petunia from a nightshade.)

    How many years could the 20 year old Justin Bieber have toiled? What could he have forgone?

    Of course, to refute my own theory: I heard Mozart created Art ata very young age. I guess that’s where the rare “child prodigy appellation is used.
    Last edited by GuitarStudent; 08-30-2019 at 08:59 AM.

  20. #94

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    Derek Bailey wrote a book on improvisation worth checking out. An amazing overview of its use in many forms of music.

  21. #95

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    Quote Originally Posted by Paul Jerome
    everytime they hear me they are really hearing the original not me.
    Spot on. They always go for the songs they know, even if they're not played that well.

  22. #96

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    I know this is common, learn to improvise with scales and arpeggios. But I why not listen to a tune and then improvies, the melody in head?

  23. #97

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    Wow, a 10-year-old zombie thread! I didn't notice when I opened it up, and read the first post, and despite this thread's age, something that I could relate to immediately struck me.

    People unfamiliar with Johann Sebastian Bach are often unaware of how good he was at improvisation. I mean, he improvised fugues, for pete's sake! If you take a look at Bach's history, you'll find that he started out as a youngster, apprenticed to a master musician -- the town cantor, if memory serves. One of his duties was to copy musical manuscripts. No Xerox machines in the 17th Century. He did this all by hand, and he most likely copied many hundreds of pieces of music, all as part of his apprentice duties. What this did for him was not unlike what modern musicians do when they listen to a track over and over again to memorize every phrase, every nuance. When a modern musician is studying the playing of another like this, s/he isn't thinking about improvisation. S/he is thinking about copying what this other musician did.

    I know that this was the way I approached learning guitar licks as a young "lead" player. That was how I essentially developed a blues style -- copying the licks played by all the players I admired the most. Now, strictly speaking, if you're just stringing together a bunch of licks you've learned, one after the other, that isn't really improvising. But what happens is, things change. Just like how language changes over time, one's style begins to evolve. The licks begin to change as one finds out the best ways to fit them together. One begins to think about how these licks are structured and laid out, and can start to break them down and analyze them, and figure out little ways to alter them here and there. Small steps that can turn into milestones with enough practice and exploration. Over time, a style develops and, perhaps before the player realizes it, he or she is improvising. But it all begins by copying the works of others. Same as JS Bach.