Non Jazz musicians cannot appreciate how difficult Jazz imrov can be...

[christianm77]

Non Beatles musicians cannot appreciate how difficult Beatles drumming can be...

I'm not ashamed to say Ringo is my favourite Beatle.

[christianm77]

I am sad that the world did not provide us with a Geilgud Western. That would have been.... something

[rpjazzguitar]

Ringo was not known for incredible chops. But, he is known for incredible taste. He created the perfect drum parts for song after song.

I recently played two sessions with a Modern Drummer poll winner. He has incredible chops - simply incredible. And, he used them in demonstrating some things. But, for the songs we played as a group, he played simply and perfectly.

[princeplanet]

Arise Sir, er... Ringo! The people's choice. 50 million people can't be wrong...

[christianm77]

Ringo was not known for incredible chops. But, he is known for incredible taste. He created the perfect drum parts for song after song.

I recently played two sessions with a Modern Drummer poll winner. He has incredible chops - simply incredible. And, he used them in demonstrating some things. But, for the songs we played as a group, he played simply and perfectly.

I’ve noticed drummers are a lot less dismissive of Ringo than ..errr.... other members of the Beatles. There seems to be a consensus that while he was no kind of technical player he was kind of a genius at coming up with quirky but perfect drum parts.

[Irishmuso]

In my own listening, I don't gravitate towards speed, but the dimensions of music that do attract my attention are not so easy either. Clever harmony, for example. Some of Jim Hall's hippest sounds are made with this shape xxx232, but not against the same major chord.

I use that shape but think of it as xx1232 or 'diminished add Jim Hall'

[Irishmuso]

That quote was from rpjazz's original post. I'm sorry it didn't appear as a quote

[Jonah]

I’ve noticed drummers are a lot less dismissive of Ringo than ..errr.... other members of the Beatles. There seems to be a consensus that while he was no kind of technical player he was kind of a genius at coming up with quirky but perfect drum parts.

My close friend in student years was classical and fusion drummer and he always admired Ringo... when he listened to The Beatles he used to say that 'it was so blatantly primitive and straightfroward as if a kid would just take a can begin to bump on it with a spoon... but at the same time so genuine and effective' ...
Ringo impressed him with uncoventional appraoch that probably trained and educated drummer would never go for...

[Jonah]

Arise Sir, er... Ringo! The people's choice. 50 million people can't be wrong...

they can... even more... majority is mostly wrong

[henryrobinett]

Ringo had a groove. I think that’s the simplicity of it. It wasn’t even the coming up with parts. It was his groove. That’s hard to teach.


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[henryrobinett]

Everything about The Beatles was infectious. Listen to She Loves You, I Wanna Hold Your Hand. The groove Ringo plays is infectious. It's not chops. I think in many ways Ringo MADE the sound of that band. It might be overstating, but his contribution is continually ignored because John, Paul and George wrote such great music and sang like nobody. And then the rock instrumental monsters came on the scene like Ginger Baker, John Bonham, Mitch Mitchell - he got buried. Then later Paul just played a lot of the drum parts. But those early Beatles records - Ringo man. Ringo.

[S F]

Jazz improv is nothing other than normal improv. If you can hum an improvised melody you should be able to play it on your instrument. I think we get caught up in the theory too much and while playing our brain says that something doesn't fit over the structure. Your brain is always wrong and your ear is always right.

[Matt Milton]

Jazz improv is nothing other than normal improv. If you can hum an improvised melody you should be able to play it on your instrument..

I can hum much faster and more complicated bebop style lines than I could ever hope to play on the guitar. In this respect, jazz is way more difficult than say blues or folk music or the average TV theme or English hymns. (Speaking as someone new to jazz but who has been playing blues and folk guitar for years.) The aspects of jazz playing related to speed, the expectations of density (a near-constant stream of notes - canonical jazz players considered 'minimal' aren't all that minimal compared to instrumentalists in other forms of music) when soloing - the amount and length of solos too - that's all very different from other forms of music. I can hum you loads of Thelonious Monk heads, as I've listened to his music more than any other jazzer, but I couldn't just pick up a guitar and play them all. However, I have no problem playing folk melodies on the spot at folk sessions, for the simple reason that they are lot less complicated, fewer notes in them, more repetitive, far more symmetrical.

[christianm77]

I can hum much faster and more complicated bebop style lines than I could ever hope to play on the guitar. In this respect, jazz is way more difficult than say blues or folk music or the average TV theme or English hymns. (Speaking as someone new to jazz but who has been playing blues and folk guitar for years.) The aspects of jazz playing related to speed, the expectations of density (a near-constant stream of notes - canonical jazz players considered 'minimal' aren't all that minimal compared to instrumentalists in other forms of music) when soloing - the amount and length of solos too - that's all very different from other forms of music. I can hum you loads of Thelonious Monk heads, as I've listened to his music more than any other jazzer, but I couldn't just pick up a guitar and play them all. However, I have no problem playing folk melodies on the spot at folk sessions, for the simple reason that they are lot less complicated, fewer notes in them, more repetitive, far more symmetrical.

Its probably more a matter of practicing getting the music out on the instrument then. It does get easier. Practice scales and arps for technical preparation but focus on playing the lines you hear.

I was trying some Irish style accompaniment the other day. Lot of nuance in that music. Couldn’t quite get the groove.

[cosmic gumbo]

Jazz improv is nothing other than normal improv.

Perhaps on some level, but plenty of improv is not jazz, because the improviser has no knowledge or ear for jazz harmony. If it isn't in your head, you can't play it. Blues, rock improv is often very different in harmonic, rhythmic concept.

[Matt Milton]

Sure, if it isn't in your head you can't play it. That is true. (There is the a side-alley here, which is that often when improvising it's the mistakes, or hitting a string when you're not 100% sure if it's where you should be going, that open new doors, but that's a whole other discussion)

But I can think up an improvisation in my head that is really easy to play... I'm playing what I'm thinking, so long as I don't think of anything too difficult for me to play!

I can agree that if you are really serious about mastering jazz you should work to get to a point where you can play what's in your head. But that's a massive 'should'! If you told John Coltrane to play what he played on the sax on the guitar, it would take him a while... He would know what to play, but technical facility on an instrument is a bigger deal in jazz than in other forms

If you're a fantastic bluegrass soloist you'd probably have fewer problems in learning jazz language and then coming up with jazz soloing ideas and then being able to execute them than if you were coming from a pop or rock background. I say probably cos there are always exceptions but think it's just silly to pretend that jazz doesn't go to a lot more melodic and harmonic places than other popular music forms; it requires an expertise that is generally a bit higher than those other forms in terms of musical dexterity and changes in direction over the course of a tune.

[christianm77]

Jazz improv is nothing other than normal improv. If you can hum an improvised melody you should be able to play it on your instrument. I think we get caught up in the theory too much and while playing our brain says that something doesn't fit over the structure. Your brain is always wrong and your ear is always right.

Correct.

Its really a simple process, but it takes a long time to get good at this. You have to be humble and patient.

It is also very important to work out how to sing other people’s lines to give you an idea of how the music is meant to sound.

Students today seem
to have a big problem accepting this. I think they want it to be a more complicated pursuit. But all the other stuff is just mean to help with this basic process not replace it.

[pauln]

When we consider art in its higher character, we might wish that only masters had to do with it … that amateurs might feel themselves happy just to reverentially approach its precincts. For a work of art should be the effusion of genius, the artist should evoke its substance and form from his inmost being, treat his materials with sovereign command, and make use of external influences only to accomplish his powers.
Goethe

[Jonah]

Correct.

Its really a simple process, but it takes a long time to get good at this. You have to be humble and patient.


.

Don't get caught in this... you have to be daring and ambitious.

[christianm77]

Don't get caught in this... you have to be daring and ambitious.

violent and original

[Jonah]

violent and original

outrageous and authentic

[christianm77]

outrageous and authentic

fast and bulbous

[OneWatt]

In every art form, there's this delicate balance where beauty emerges.

Beauty might best be thought of as that careful blend between order & chaos... Order provides a certain structure. Chaos can then delightfully surprise us by stepping outside that structure by just the right amount.

An artist knows just how much is right. Too much chaos becomes noise. Not enough becomes monotony.

Over our lifetimes our tastes evolve as our senses mature. The "right" balance for each of us changes - whether it's music, visual arts, literature, dance, theater, food, etc. What was initially unintelligible can become quite enjoyable and then, eventually, boring.

If you don't appreciate the structure and order of jazz, it can sound like a lot of chaos to one's ears. Then, if you listen to it long enough, you begin to enjoy increasingly complex levels of what was once "dissonance" - that's what it takes to find those delightfully beautiful artistic surprises.

Enjoy.

[Jonah]

In every art form, there's this delicate balance where beauty emerges.

Beauty might best be thought of as that careful blend between order & chaos... Order provides a certain structure. Chaos can then delightfully surprise us by stepping outside that structure by just the right amount.

An artist knows just how much is right. Too much chaos becomes noise. Not enough becomes monotony.

Over our lifetimes our tastes evolve as our senses mature. The "right" balance for each of us changes - whether it's music, visual arts, literature, dance, theater, food, etc. What was initially unintelligible can become quite enjoyable and then, eventually, boring.

If you don't appreciate the structure and order of jazz, it can sound like a lot of chaos to one's ears. Then, if you listen to it long enough, you begin to enjoy increasingly complex levels of what was once "dissonance" - that's what it takes to find those delightfully beautiful artistic surprises.

Enjoy.

It's all true... only I will not listen long to things that sound like a lot of chaos...

Usually you begin to come back to something like that if you are attracted to it even if you do not know why...