Guitar Improvisation frustration

[joe2758]

I would say that the more I listen to Mozart the more I hear Charlie Parker and vice versa. ]

Don't get Mozart into it. guys... please... it's just driving me crazy

I read somewhere Mozart was actually HIGHLY influenced by the work of Charlie Parker, and later Coltrane. Really interesting stuff

[christianm77]

Ligon references hundreds of examples from transcriptions etc., and always juxtaposes against classical. :-)

I actually had my first IRL musician person mention Ligon to me the other day.

[christianm77]

I read somewhere Mozart was actually HIGHLY influenced by the work of Charlie Parker, and later Coltrane. Really interesting stuff

Great scott!

[fasstrack]

That's why I do it.

Why, you...you....you imp​, you...

[christianm77]

Why, you...you....you imp​, you...

Haha. Jonah likes to keep everything neatly separated, and I like to mash everything together.

I have a band like that. Just trying to fix up the dates to do our album. Jonah will hate it. :-)

But I can't see how jazz is separate from classical and baroque music. The history of African American music is full of musicians who would probably have pursued a career in Western Art music in a different world, and ended up expressing themselves in jazz and other forms. Jazz musicians knew this music intimately. Barry Harris, for instance, will often play reams of Bach and Chopin in his classes.

[Boston Joe]

But I can't see how jazz is separate from classical and baroque music. The history of African American music is full of musicians who would probably have pursued a career in Western Art music in a different world, and ended up expressing themselves in jazz and other forms.

Music is music. You can find commonalities among almost all types of music. I hear blues in almost everything.

[christianm77]

Music is music. You can find commonalities among almost all types of music. I hear blues in almost everything.

Indeed. Movement two of Pergolesi Stabat Mater? b5-4's all over the place.

But, there's an obvious direct and verifiable connection with the classics going into jazz, because the pianists were the harmonists and they (by and large) learned classical first. Even Monk.

Fats Waller, I have heard, was more interested in playing Bach on the organ than he was in playing Ain't Misbehaving. A serious musician who had to do the whole joking around thing (and was consummate at it) that was expected of him. That was just the meal ticket, man...

Bach has always been a big deal with jazzers, as has Debussy.

The mystery to me is where Parker got these super legit Fonte (what we would interpret as VI7b9 IIm V7b9 I) lines which do not seem to appear in the music of Lester Young - at least not the stuff I've transcribed. Would it have been the Klose sax books?

Which is of course absolutely not to say that nothing new was introduced harmonically in the music of Bird etc, and the rhythm thing is just huge, but just to underline that the classical harmony was super important to jazz too, and understanding that is worthwhile. Pianists, in my experience, really get this.

Anyway this has all gone OT.

[joe2758]

Christian, thanks for the video; one of my favorites from you for sure.

However, I will be going with Jazz-Hack guy-- "weeks not years," that's more like it.

lol.

[Boston Joe]

Indeed. Movement two of Pergolesi Stabat Mater? b5-4's all over the place.

Yeah, man! I haven't listened to it in a long time, but there's a section in Tchaikovski's "Pathetique" symphony that I recall sounding very blues-ish to me.

But I'm not even talking about specific intervals or notes. I'm talking about the feeling. Nat Hentoff in one of his books talks about a conversation he had with Mingus where he made a comparison of the blues to the "krecht" (cry) of a Jewish cantor. IIRC, Mingus was receptive to the idea, but they got interrupted or something.

B.B. King used to say that everyone got the blues, from Alabama dirt farmers to Wall St. stock brokers. If we all feel it, then we'll all find a way to express it.

[Jonah]

Haha. Jonah likes to keep everything neatly separated, and I like to mash everything together.

Not really... I just hear Mozartian music as essencially being absolutely different entity moved by absolutely different logics than Parker's...

I just probably hear it in absolutely different way... it is just organized very diffrently.

Though I agree that in particulars some things may look the same or coincide... but this not essential.

that's why thousands of fragments will not help to prove.
No need to prove that jazz is connected with European tradition. But connection ca be borrowing not necessarily heritage of essence.

Mozart is identifiable not through fragments or motives - will many people who compare him with Parker be actually able to distinguish Mozart's music from Salieri or other his contemporaries?
I can do it.

Listen to the complete sonata or at least one part of it - do you hear how it works - what is it for? Why is it?
this is where Mozart is.

And now put on Parker record on and say what's there in common except similiar phrasing and motives here and there

and how much this phrasing and motives important for Parker and Mozart - are they equaly important for their music? Are they equally essential?

[christianm77]

Not really... I just hear Mozartian music as essencially being absolutely different entity moved by absolutely different logics than Parker's...

I just probably hear it in absolutely different way... it is just organized very diffrently.

Though I agree that in particulars some things may look the same or coincide... but this not essential.

that's why thousands of fragments will not help to prove.
No need to prove that jazz is connected with European tradition. But connection ca be borrowing not necessarily heritage of essence.

Mozart is identifiable not through fragments or motives - will many people who compare him with Parker be actually able to distinguish Mozart's music from Salieri or other his contemporaries?
I can do it.

Listen to the complete sonata or at least one part of it - do you hear how it works - what is it for? Why is it?
this is where Mozart is.

And now put on Parker record on and say what's there in common except similiar phrasing and motives here and there

and how much this phrasing and motives important for Parker and Mozart - are they equaly important for their music? Are they equally essential?

This could be a very long discussion, and I don't really want to go into it here.

TBH Mozart's music is poorly understood by most modern listeners, because the social context of the 18th century was extremely important to the language of his music. Some broad strokes are widely known and justly famous - for example his musical evocation of the class system in Don Giovanni, but this stuff is encoded into the very DNA of Gallante music.

I feel of all the Western non-jazz music I know, Mozart has taken me the longest to understand. I am understanding more and hearing more know I am learning more about how the composers of his era learned their craft.

Ultimately, I have never felt the need to put any music on a plinth. I see it all as raw material for later expression. I won't ever understand the totally of Mozart's art anymore than Parkers, but I understand it from my own perspective. And I don't really feel that this is any less legitimate than the perspective of academia - their needs and aims are different to my own. But some of their learning may be of use to me (Gjerdingen for example.)

Let me put it this way - I highly doubt Bird knew what a Fonte is - but he still played things that could be understood as this. It's similar to the way a modern musician might analyse Bach using functional harmony. JS wouldn't know what you were on about.

The short reply is that 'the words of a dead man are modified in the guts of the living' (WH Auden.) We may as well say music instead of words. We cannot understand Mozart's context. It is alien to us. So we adapt his material as we wish.

For example, I have taken to Gjerdingen's book because it makes sense to me - it's a lot like something I am already familiar with, jazz. The fact that this is the way that many 17th/18th century composers may have actually learned to write and improvise music is just a bonus as far as I'm concerned.

There's really an awful lot to discuss here, and I know you are a very good person to discuss things with due to your vast knowledge :-)

[christianm77]

Christian, thanks for the video; one of my favorites from you for sure.

However, I will be going with Jazz-Hack guy-- "weeks not years," that's more like it.

lol.

Nothing wrong with a good hack :-)

[Jonah]

We cannot understand Mozart's context. It is alien to us.

not to me

Ultimately, I have never felt the need to put any music on a plinth. I see it all as raw material for later expression. I won't ever understand the totally of Mozart's art anymore than Parkers, but I understand it from my own perspective. And I don't really feel that this is any less legitimate than the perspective of academia

Why academia, Christian? I felt it since I was kid... why do people think if someone gets complex about things he is making things complex... maybe it's his natural way feeling things?

I am not to argue here too... but I just could not pass by)))

So we adapt his material as we wish.

Sure... but just imagine someone speaking of Hamlet: well - what's great in Hamlet is that some sentences are the same as in Faulkner.. they are so similar! it's practically the same thing..

Has he right to say so? Maybe.. but this does not make it less bs

That's just what I feel maybe

[Boston Joe]

Let me put it this way - I highly doubt Bird knew what a Fonte is - but he still played things that could be understood as this. It's similar to the way a modern musician might analyse Bach using functional harmony. JS wouldn't know what you were on about.

For a while, I dated a girl who was a grad student in music history. When I started talking about how jazzers use modes to analyze stuff, she looked at me like I had two heads. I said something like, "It's really just looking at a key through the lens of a particular chord," and then talked about how that was useful for improvising. Then she got it. But it was obvious that never in any of her classes had modes been discussed in that way."

[Jonah]

For a while, I dated a girl who was a grad student in music history. When I started talking about how jazzers use modes to analyze stuff, she looked at me like I had two heads. I said something like, "It's really just looking at a key through the lens of a particular chord," and then talked about how that was useful for improvising. Then she got it. But it was obvious that never in any of her classes had modes been discussed in that way."

Of course... because they were never used that way. The oragnization of music was very different.

[Jonah]

Let me put it this way - I highly doubt Bird knew what a Fonte is - but he still played things that could be understood as this. It's similar to the way a modern musician might analyse Bach using functional harmony. JS wouldn't know what you were on about.

Fonte is not that important for Mozart music... it's key realtions which makes it music.

If Mozart would listen to Parker he would have been waiting - when the ... he would begin transition from Tonic key to Dominant - and how will he do it? How will he come back?
But he will not.

Of course it is simplification - but this is how it works in general...

[matt.guitarteacher]

The examples I have seen have been comparisons of specific melodic devices used in classical and jazz. I don't think the point was ever to say they are exactly the same thing. Things which are the same are the same and may be very helpful in comparing /contrasting. The rhythmic basis alone is vastly different of course. I wouldn't take it personally as an insult to Parker OR Mozart to compare similar aspects of one to the other. It doesn't necessarily have to be simplifying one to fit the other or anything either one . We can all easily appreciate the differences while comparing similarities .

The same is true with Faulkner and Shakespeare. To say that Faulkner is "just " or "simply" the same thing as Shakespeare or vice versa IS possibly insulting. Leave out the "just" or "simply" . There ARE similarities in everything , and the comparisons can be fascinating.

Honestly, I thinkthe entire POINT of comparing Mozart to bird IS the very fact that we all basically understand the fundamental differences at the start.

[fasstrack]

Barry Harris, for instance, will often play reams of Bach and Chopin in his classes.

I've known and loved Mr. Harris for many, many years. He is a great man, and has done more for musicians in this town than anyone I know of.

But I have problems with his retro-ness and some of what he says to and leads the students to in that class, and I'll stop there...

[joe2758]

what's wrong with retro?

[fasstrack]

For a while, I dated a girl who was a grad student in music history. When I started talking about how jazzers use modes to analyze stuff, she looked at me like I had two heads. I said something like, "It's really just looking at a key through the lens of a particular chord," and then talked about how that was useful for improvising. Then she got it. But it was obvious that never in any of her classes had modes been discussed in that way."

Did you try taking the Lydian Chromatic Concept into bed?

[fasstrack]

what's wrong with retro?

Trust me, you don't want to get me started on that.

Again, he's a great man....

[christianm77]

I've known and loved Mr. Harris for many, many years. He is a great man, and has done more for musicians in this town than anyone I know of.

But I have problems with his retro-ness and some of what he says to and leads the students to in that class, and I'll stop there...

Yep. I think people should take it in context. But there's no shortage of young fogeys who want to recreate the music of 1956, only not quite as swinging and demand that what they do is the 'real jazz.' On the other hand, the other faction will make 'music' with no tradition and say the same.

A lot of these guys are phenomenal players, far in advance of myself.

But the musicians I admire have both. And some of the guys who are thought 'super modern' internalised the earlier music year ago - I mean, have you heard Dave Douglas playing bop as a young man? Good lord.

And just today, Gilad Heckselman (!) was asking David B from this forum where he could find Barry's weekly class. So he values both, too. (I mean we knew that already, right?)

Everyone who knows me understands I venerate the music and teachings of the Barry Harris, but I'm quite happy to play fusion, modal music whatever. I'm not even entirely convinced that jazz is a meaningful term for a lot of what I do, and I know for certain he would say that it wasn't (and consider it a value judgement).

That's cool. But I value tradition and purism even if I choose to ignore them in some of my own music.

The cutting edge, forward looking music of yesterday becomes the classical music of today, and attracts custodians, keepers of the flame who might reject the modern world, but crucially, know the history and have a deep well of knowledge. Drink from that well and take what you need.

[joe2758]

lol well I mean I kinda do want to get you started because I'm curious of accomplished pro's opinions, but if YOU don't want to get started that's completely fine

[Boston Joe]

Did you try taking the Lydian Chromatic Concept into bed?

She actually checked it out of the library for me.

However, the Kama Sutra, it's not.

[christianm77]

Trust me, you don't want to get me started on that.

Again, he's a great man....

Ah you know you want to :-)