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this wager:
Okay in 5 years, I need to play a session with a high flyer, a famous musician. My friend Allan plays drums with Kurt Rosenwinkle. James Chirillo played with Wynton. Okay so I have to play with a high flyer under the following circumstances:
1. I take my own solo
2. I engage in a contrapuntal solo with said musician (whomever that maybe)
3. The tune is a bright bebop tune
4. We solo for multiple choruses
5. The solo satisfies the 4 C's of Storyline: Character, Complications, Causality, and Conflict
6. I have a friend film the event and I post it here on the site.
If I don't post in 5 years then:
I am no longer welcome to the site (I will involve Matt and Mark in this wager)
If I do post and it is somewhat successful then:
1. I get an apology from those that slighted me here on the site
2. You all at least try Bruce's material and give it a chance.
In the end it's win win for everyone
What do you think? Is that a fair wager, all? I do think we all make out like Kings at the end. If I loose, I loose the most. But I will honor it not to comb my ego, but to prove a point about Bruce Arnold and Charlie Banaco's material. Also, I want to end this talk of impossible. Anything is possible, you just have to find the right path...
The odds were a hundred to one against me
The world thought the heights were too high to climb
But people from missouri never incensed me
Oh, I wasn't a bit concerned
For from hist'ry I had learned
How many, many times the worm had turned
They all laughed at christopher columbus
When he said the world was round
They all laughed when edison recorded sound
They all laughed at wilbur and his brother
When they said that man could fly
They told marconi
Wireless was a phony
It's the same old cry
They laughed at me wanting you
Said I was reaching for the moon
But oh, you came through
Now they'll have to change their tune
They all said we never could be happy
They laughed at us and how!
But ho, ho, ho!
Who's got the last laugh now?
They all laughed at rockefeller center
Now they're fighting to get in
They all laughed at whitney and his cotton gin
They all laughed at fulton and his steamboat
Hershey and his chocolate bar
Ford and his lizzie
Kept the laughers busy
That's how people are
They laughed at me wanting you
Said it would be, "hello, goodbye."
But oh, you came through
Now they're eating humble pie
They all said we'd never get together
Darling, let's take a bow
For ho, ho, ho!
Who's got the last laugh?
Hee, hee, hee!
Let's at the past laugh
Ha, ha, ha!
Who's got the last laugh now?"
Lest I remind you all of my middle name:
CEDAR TREE
Erez is hyperactive, quick-thinking, resourceful, dynamic and excitable. He always seems to be in a hurry and patience is not one of his finer qualities. He constantly makes plans that he can´t wait to get started on. He is immediately likeable and seeks the company of others who tend to follow in his wake (he cheerfully affirms his position as the leader). Shrewd and swift, Erez tends to think that anything he can do, others can too; which can make him less than tolerant! He is a man of conquest - a seducer who is stimulated by a challenge, which means the more out of reach something is, the greater his desire to obtain it.
Because he is quite happy with himself, Erez lets himself go to self-satisfaction without any hang-ups whatsoever... Curious and into everything, he is versatile and once he has solved one mystery he quickly gets bored and impatient to move on to the next. This is one of the reasons why he enjoys travelling so much, he loves to find himself between two trains or aeroplanes and easily adapts to any new situation. He loathes monotony, the humdrum of the daily grind and constraints in any shape or form, which he prefers to avoid: his policy is to live each day as it comes - what´s the point in worrying about tomorrow? Furthermore, he often lacks organization and doesn´t always flow through with his ideas, which can lead to drastic measures: generally quite untidy, he can go through phases where he will sort and tidy all of his cupboards and drawers - until the next time six months later! This is an imaginative, sensitive and intuitive individual who doesn´t tolerate solitude very well.
As a child, Erez is a real little tyrant whose parents would be wise to draw a thick line in the sand and inculcate the notions of sharing and the respect of others. He is independent and autonomous from a very early age, and his first words could have been: "I´ll do it myself". Boisterous and quick as a flash, the practice of a sport will allow him to both express himself and burn off some of that excess energy.
http://www.first-names-meanings.com/...name-EREZ.html
I dunno if I fit the whole description, but it's time to start living up to my name. The least I can do is spell it correctly ROTFL
Last edited by Irez87; 10-17-2015 at 09:41 PM.
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10-17-2015 09:20 PM
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Do it not to prove a point but because it is a GOOD thing to do.
Originally Posted by Irez87
TBH, you need to acknowledge that you are a hungry, driven musician who WILL learn no matter what because it's what gives you FIRE in your belly. Be ambitious.
Anyway, get out there and play with some of the extraordinary musicians in NY. If you do not I will shout at you on this forum in RAGECAPS about how you are wasting an opportunity I dream of.
Deal? :-)Last edited by christianm77; 10-17-2015 at 09:33 PM.
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Originally Posted by Irez87
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5 years seems a little too ambitious. As you seem to have average talent (like most of us), if you can transform yourself to be able to play as described above (bright bebop, let's say 280+ bpm ?), then that will certainly stand as testament to all your claims as well as those of your teacher. Let me caution you that anyone over 40 on this forum (most of us) has probably had the experience of overestimating how much they could advance in 5 years. So go for it, nothing wrong with aiming high, but don't beat yourself up if it takes longer than you thought. Originally Posted by Irez87
You have to be born "special" to do this. If you're "normal" like the rest of us, I seriously doubt that even 10 hours of ear training per day for 10 years will get you close. Some of that time might be put to better use learning vocab, patterns etc, and then learning how to manipulate them to cover all the situations you expect to encounter.
So, planet, care to make friendly wager?
Here it is guys. I've studied Bruce's material for 5 years give or take.
Here's what I propose:
In 5 years, hoping that this great forum is still alive (Mark and Matt really go out of there way to make this place great Thanks guys!)
Okay in 5 years, I need to play a session with a high flyer. My friend Allan plays drums with Kurt Rosenwinkle. James Chirillo played with Wynton. Okay so I have to play with a high flyer under the following circumstances:
1. I take my own solo
2. I engage in a contrapuntal solo with said musician (whomever that maybe)
3. The tune is a bright bebop tune
4. We solo for multiple choruses
5. The solo satisfies the 4 C's of Storyline: Character, Complications, Causality, and Conflict
6. I have a friend film the event and I post it here on the site.
If I don't post in 5 years then:
I am no longer welcome to the site (I will involve Matt and Mark in this wager)
If I do post and it is somewhat successful then:
1. I get an apology from those that slighted me here on the site
2. You all at least try Bruce's material and give it a chance.
In the end it's win win for everyone
What do you think? Is that a fair wager, all? I do think we all make out like Kings at the end. If I loose, I loose the most. But I will honor it not to comb my ego, but to prove a point about Bruce Arnold and Charlie Banaco's material.
Bookmark this thread, young grasshopper, for the challenge begins today!
ps- you don't have to win this wager for me to investigate the Bruce Arnold thread, I'll head there soon enough (thanks).....
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you don't need a teacher at all - unless you have psychological issues that mean you need to be bullied or cajoled into action
every great player who has played a solo or accompanied a soloist etc. on record is teaching anyone who lets themselves be taught by them
i don't get this at all
i want bill evans to be my teacher - have done for a very long time - but until i've spent longer having lessons with bird and sonny there is just no point in my turning up to the lessons he's giving in my living room the whole damn time.
one day
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Well you're a beaming ray of sunshine aren't you? :-) Originally Posted by princeplanet
Failure is a glorious thing.... Talking someone out of attempting an ambitious move is to rob them of the learning experience of trying something, maybe succeeding, maybe falling on their arses and trying again.
The way I see it, the best way to learn is to play with m*th*rf*ck*rs anyway, because they will raise the bar for you. It will certainly do more to advance anyone's playing than hanging around on this forum reading posts, or posting videos of jamming along with Band in a F**king Box.
And turning 30, Saturn's Return and all of that is the IDEAL time to do this.
Not everything will work out as planned, but life would be quite boring if it did? And - isn't that the spirit of true improvisation?
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Prince,
I want to push myself to do this anyway. This way I have another reason to make it happen, captain. Average talent, yes... But, I am figuring out the secret to unlocking the music in my head that's been up there since I was a kiddo
Think of learning another language or developing perfect pitch. If kids are around it at an early enough age, the brain is elastic enough to absorb the language like a breath of air. I learned about this through my Special Education studies. Bruce confirmed them.
But the brain is a muscle, nonetheless. You just have to know how to train it.
Bruce isn't teaching me how to play his 12 tone serialism music. He is teaching me how to access the music trapped in my subconscious and how to instantaneously comprehend that I hear in the split second moment. That is jazz, no? Responding to the moment?
He himself denies association to jazz. Some of his music may sound like jazz, but Bruce says time and time again that life is too short to be narrow minded. There's beauty in classical music, there's beauty in heavy metal, there's beauty in pop, in hip hop, in rap, country, Indian, Native American, Brazilian, Cuban, Spanish music...
Although he loves Bartok and Schoenberg and can analyze the living hell outta both of em by ear and on the pages of the manuscript... He still thinks that the Beatles were utterly brilliant. He still taps into country, and blue grass. He is teaching himself the lap steel and dobro
And he is still rocking out:
While playing attention (all pun intentional) to America's native people:
While uncovering the tonal mysteries of Webern:
A forum member here with great musical sense but not as much logical sense labeled Bruce a fusion artist. He got the artist part right. Bruce is a musician with a capital M.
He is doing, right now, what Bill Evans was doing in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, until his death. Beautiful Bill had taken his love for French Impressionistic and Russian classical composers, grounded them in Bach and Bud Powell, and reinvented Jazz piano for years to come... Bill Evans school, anyone?
He is doing, right now, what Shamans Sonny Rollins and Wayne Shorter are doing. Much of what they play right now, traditionalists would say isn't jazz (ahem...cough... Wynton are you listening... you don't even stick to tradition, your mind is too free... maybe I'll try to play with Wynton to prove a point to him... I can get that hook up from James Chirillo. Having a good private teacher in jazz is kinda like going to Harvard, you go for the connections as much as for the education).
He is doing, right now, what Bartok did way back in the way back. Taking traditional regional folk songs and applying them to the legitimacy and high brow status of classical modern music.
Bruce is doing all this, and yet, he considers himself a teacher first and foremost. Think on that for a second. A teacher. Instead of rightfully striking it out with his ideas and keeping what his teachers taught him to himself and garnering fame in music history books (is that fame?), he has devoted himself to passing on the tradition. To unlocking the mind. To unlocking the ear. If I haven't genuinely sold you on his method by now... well... then the rest is up to you on your own respective journeys.
Remember, as I said countless times again and again. I will never consider myself a professional musician. Yet I will engage in this wager to demonstrate that ANYONE can learn to truly communicate in music, the way true musicians do, if they put their mind to it.
Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Wes Montgomery, Johnny Smith, Ornette Coleman. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart. John Lennon. These are regular human beings. Brave and brilliant human beings, but human nonetheless. Living, breathing, individuals like all of us here on this planet. Those that follow organized religion, please help me with this. Although living in G-d's image is encouraged, ascribing someone, a mere mortal, as a god, is blasphemous as well as utterly damaging and dangerous to those around him or her. Look at Louis the XIV. I never bash any religion, at its base level. Any practice that encourages moral fiber, strength, and tolerance is great in my book. However, I do have a problem with unfettered fanaticism. Misinterpretations. Seeking man and woman, mere mortals, as false prophets.
Hey Chick Corea, love your music, you are a brilliant mind, but you listening to this? It'd do you some good, brother
A great teacher is NOT a totalitarian egoist trying to graft his or her image on another student. A great teacher IS a guide, a person who knows enough about the learning process so that he or she can left unlock the latent intelligence, unfetter the curiosity, and free the soul of his or her pupils.
If anything, I am honoring this wager to erase CAN'T from our musical vocabularies.
Can I get an AMEN?
... or some BOO's?
**Steps off the pulpit**Last edited by Irez87; 10-18-2015 at 07:54 AM.
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These kind of wagers and challenges are just the worst. Final stages of really marginalizing yourself on the interwebs. Originally Posted by Irez87
I think you're the only one who perceives any kind of slight.
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Bruce plays with Joe Lovano... I may have to do this sooner as I am moving outta NYC in the next two years. Rent is too damn high
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I've always responded to informal teaching. The sort you get from fellow musicians. Might be a word of advice in your ear, but more commonly its a question I've asked. Like you though, I've never responded to taking lessons, paid for. I had classical guitar lessons as a kid and hated it. Eventually my Mum pulled the plug on lessons and I found my own way. When I studied music I had a guitar teacher for three years and didn't respond well to his inflexibility. I don't blame him, I dare say I'd be a complete Nazi if I taught...but I chose not to (would be hypocritical don't you think). Originally Posted by Groyniad
I continue to learn from others 'informally', and that includes youtube vids, but personally, I'm not one for gurus.
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But it's a wager I want to use to push myself. No vitriol here. Proving a point that we shouldn't limit ourselves to the word "can't". I'm a teacher, a high school teacher, so that resonates with me.
You are a teacher as well, Matt. This "wager" could be a "teachable moment" about having more faith in yourself.
The slights never came from prince, but they did come from elsewhere. I don't want those slights to silence the possibility of others finding their own musical identity through the concepts I learned from Bruce. This is more than me, this is about allowing the people access to everything and anything so that they can unlock the musician within.
I hope that resonates with you as well As I respect you and what you've done here
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hehe... well, I've been described as a Pessimist most of my life, but I prefer "Despairing Optimist"... Originally Posted by christianm77
I think Irez is on the right path, learning to hear better and faster is something we all need to do, but there's always more than one way to skin a cat....
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Of course. I'm a pessimist as well, especially about myself. But I wanna silence the worst critic of my playing once and for all with this wager...
MYSELF
And the wager isn't to stand above you all and stupidly proclaim "I am better than you". I don't have the self-esteem to do that. The wager is to prove to you all that you all can play better and be better musicians, if you put in the time.
It could be an opportunity for us all to look in the mirror and say "I gotta stop saying Pat Martino/Wes Montgomery/ Joe Pass/ Grant Green/ Kurt Rosenwinkle is god and I will never play like him. I can be a better musician. I can be a great musician. Regardless, music is a beautiful and thought-provoking journey that does not allow time for me to self deprecate myself and put others on pedestals"
Constantly saying "I'm not good enough" is like what my therapist told me once day:
"Alex, you are digging yourself a hole, borrowing deep, and decorating. Stop decorating your rabbit hole and be brave enough to greet the rest of the world and do something about your reality"Last edited by Irez87; 10-18-2015 at 11:45 AM.
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I'm digging the professor in specs with a double neck strat vibe...
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I like realistic optimist - i.e. 'you never know, it might be good!...' Originally Posted by princeplanet
hehe... well, I've been described as a Pessimist most of my life, but I prefer "Despairing Optimist"...
I think Irez is on the right path, learning to hear better and faster is something we all need to do, but there's always more than one way to skin a cat....
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Succinctly put. It's not about how good you are at playing anyway... I mean you are never the best judge of your own playing anyway... It is about the enjoyment of the process of learning and playing, and listening to everyone else... Originally Posted by Irez87
Of course. I'm a pessimist as well, especially about myself. But I wanna silence the worst critic of my playing once and for all with this wager...
MYSELF
And the wager isn't to stand above you all and stupidly proclaim "I am better than you". I don't have the self-esteem to do that. The wager is to prove to you all that you all can play better and be better musicians, if you put in the time.
It could be an opportunity for us all to look in the mirror and say "I gotta stop saying Pat Martino/Wes Montgomery/ Joe Pass/ Grant Green/ Kurt Rosenwinkle is god and I will never play like him. I can be a better musician. I can be a great musician. Regardless, music is a beautiful and thought-provoking journey that does not allow time for me to self deprecate myself and put others on pedestals"
Constantly saying "I'm not good enough" is like what my therapist told me once day:
"Alex, you are digging yourself a hole, borrowing deep, and decorating. Stop decorating your rabbit hole and be brave enough to greet the rest of the world and do something about your reality"
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"One's intuition is faster than one's intellect." I agree with that statement and in general terms with Alan Holdsworth observations about hearing an entire solo a priori. The only way to do that realistically is to memorize the solo, like a classical piece, which is certainly doable and undoubtedly some of the "improvised" solos are well massaged versions of homework in the shed. But that takes a lot of work and maintenance plus most of us don't want to play crafted solos chiseled in stone.
I have been very busy with the closure of my medical practice - beyond physically closing an office open over a quarter century the copying of charts is enervating - but I finally got a chance to record last night. The song was a version of Alfie in the key of A, including my vocals and two tracks - an initial vocal plus guitar "rhythm" track and a solo guitar track panned to ten and two or three o'clock with a third solo "lead" vocal to the center.
When I record songs in this fashion, the first recording is an experimental one to explore the tonalities, keys, and interplays. The first track - vocal plus "rhythm" guitar - would reflect the live solo performance, while I like to add a second guitar track for the interplay. I was recording directly from a lyric sheet with just the chords written above the lyrics as "Fmaj7", etc, and no melody line. I find Alfie to be perhaps Burt Bachrach and Hal David's most beautiful song, and to sing the melody can be challenging. The harmonies and chord progression are also great but challenging in spots, especially if you have not written out the chord progression completely as I had failed to do on the chorus section
But when I hit "playback" after laying down the three tracks on a first pass, I was pleased to see that I had nailed the vocal melody nearly perfectly, though this practice record had two points where I repeated a measure in the later half of the chorus because I was just using my ears rather than sheet music and had take a wrong turn on the guitar. In effect one could edit out the two "wrong" measures and comp a "perfect" performance. What was interesting is that sometimes the best improvisations occur when you make a mistake and have to find your way out of it with the guitar track. What I like was that just using my ears on a complicated piece of music worked very well, despite that fact that I had not played this song for many weeks and pretty much nailed it on the first pass of my initial recording.
Some songs and composers have more 'complicated' or unique melodic phrasing and chord progressions than others. I will also be recording soon a couple of Henry Mancini tunes I love that fit that description - Two for the Road and The Days of Wine and Roses. What makes these songs unique and endearing in my opinion is their unique melodies which make them both more challenging than some standards to play and sing. Two For The Road is a good example which I play in the key of A. But in any case when I play a chord melody version without vocals, intuition is the guide and the subconscious is the conductor. I need to stay in the zone and the flow. If I break that mindful concentration to "think about" what I'm playing, mistakes happen. If I follow my intuition and subconscious including the melodic mental voice that I hear in anticipation, good things happen. As a metaphor, I liken the subconscious "listening" to the music to a situation where you are driving on a dark country road at night and your headlights illuminate the segment of the road immediately ahead. You follow the illuminated path one segment at a time, as you cannot foresee the entire journey, but you can see 'ahead'. In practical terms I "look ahead" to the target tones of the next phrase and focus on making the connections of the phrases and measures as seamless as possible. I don't have to "plan ahead" with playing the guitar so much as "listen well". If I can see the road ahead, my fingers will take me there without "thinking about it".Last edited by targuit; 10-19-2015 at 12:00 PM.
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"..intuition is the guide and the subconscious is the conductor." Originally Posted by targuit
Couldn't have said it better myself. That is exactly what I'm feeling these days. It is so remarkable and mystifying how it all happened. All these years of drilling this stuff to death, i kind of ignored my inner voice. Now that was not itself in vain obviously as my subconscious seemed to collect all these sounds , resolutions and melodies. But finally after years of "ok what are the chords, how did so so played it what am i supposed to do etc..etc.." i just let it fly...for example
the new thing i like doing is just learn the melody of the tune i havent played and start improvising without going through the chords. I recorded My Shining hour that way - was it perfect now absolutely not, it was raw full of slips and mistakes and timing was screwed up whatever - it had the most important thing - a genuine spontenous feeling based on moment i was in the melody i heard in my head. I t was MY TAKE on things however far from perfection it was.
I can tell you this folks I am not going back to the way i used to do things. Now i play tune to death not to learn some parts by rote but because so many possibiliies and ideas sprung to life that i just try to explore them in amazement.
Jazz is my hobby so of course there are different demands for professional perfomer etc..but for me it has to have this magical quality of here and now...i am tired of it being intellectual exercise...
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