If you can use scale intervals and sing them!

[METOPERARETIRED]

Hi out there in Theory land..
My first visit, but here's my thoughts.. I was trained very young by my Jazz Vibes /Drum teacher to say out loud every rythmic pattern no matter what, and if I didn't he'd stop me and we do it again. When studying Vibraphone we did the same thing.. I learned movable 'Do' as opposed to fixed 'Do' where 'A' natural is always home plate (if you will).. I sang the tune and when I learned to improvise, I had to sing what was in my mind (the creative part of the brain) and when I improvised I had to sing out loud the riffs etc.. Technically it's called 'Solfeggio' and frankly the best Solfegge was singing in The New England Conservatory of Music's Chorus where I got my Degrees.. True, as every semester there were quartet trials.. Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass would go in front of the Chorus Master and be graded on intonation, harmony, rythm and the ability to sing the Music using the steps of the scale and any modifictions..

Do any of you use solfegge in your playing / teaching? I did throughout my entire professional career and it works..
That's why i always told my students ' If you can't say/sing it, you won't play it '

Many of you already know this stuff & I better wrap up for now as I am exceeding my limit on this post.. How about sharing some thought with me ~METOPERARETIRED aka Herb'

Let me hear from you out there,

[Jake Hanlon]

I know Solfege to a certain extent but didn't find it practical in the same way as Classical training singers learn it. To me it is double registration of a note... to sing a 3rd to me is natural, but then to have to verbalize Mi makes no sense to me since in Jazz articulation is such an important part of the music, it seems counter productive to think of every specific interval as a specific syllable.

I do a lot of ear training with my students but not Solf. I get them to recognize notes as they pertain to underlying harmony. One thing I get them to do as soon as possible is to be able to sing a line and play it back, or even better be able to sing and play every line as they come. It's hard to do, but it is a great way to show them that they're letting their fingers control the music and not the music control their fingers.

I have no problem with people using the syllabic nature of Solf if it helps them to hear things, I'm cool with that. I took 3 classical theory/sight singing classes in grad school that all made me do Solf except for the Sight Singing class where they let me sing things out on scale degrees which to me was more natural. All the Jazz theory and sight singing classes didn't even bother. But hey, all schools present a different take on the same ciriculum anyway right

[METOPERARETIRED]

Hi Jake,
Granted that every school and teacher has it's/their own ideas on solfege, but as I was taught and did teach the use of every diatonic and chromatic note has a sound, like chromaticlly here is what I mean~
Do Dee Re May Mee Fa Fee Sol See La Tay Tee Do (when reaching the Octave).. I am able to do this which does not make me better than anyone, but I can sing any intervals with it's aforementioned designated scale sound and apply that to my Keyboard instruments ~ Vibes / Xylo / Marimba / Glock, and also it was and is a Great thing as a Solo Tympanist which I spent most of my career doing because I can tune fast notes / interval changes by humming a perfect fifth into the head of the Drums and when it correct I get sympothetic vibrations even though the new tunings are far out of any key or mode the Orchestra is playing in at the moment.. Also, since I learned movable 'Do' I am able to instantly modulate into the new key whatever it is, the tonic note becomes 'Do' in the moduation and as fast as these modulation comes, I can move the 'Do'..
Isn't it great that we all do things in a different manner but somehow get to the resolution together,even if it's a deceptive resolution at times..
Nice hearing from you, and I like all kinds of approaches to getting it done as obviously you do. By the way, at 70 years of age I am teaching myself Classical and Jazz Guitar, and I have the same "Burn" as when I was very young starting to play all Percussion. I am not using much in the way of books as yet to form chords, as I stop and think of the 6 strings and where on the strings I can find and finger the interval and voicing of any chord I choose.. Yes, fingering chords, arpeggios et al are very difficult, but inch by inch anything's a cinch (corny I know) but that's how I did, taught it and am still doing it now.
I am now back in my Jazz roots with a new group of fine players/composers many of whom I attended NEC and Tanglewood with decades ago.. How cool is that? I just purchased a Yamaha AEX1500 and am looking forward to getting around on it.. I have a Yamaha Classical as well..
Until later ~~ Later,

[fep]

Herb, I'd say you were very lucky indeed to have an instructor that started you early on ear training as it is my understanding and experience that ear training is much more difficult if started at a later age.

I'm in a college ear training course right now (second semester). In the first semester the teacher asked if anyone had ear training prior to the class. Only two students out of about 35 raised their hand. The instructor asked if they were from a foreign country... One of them was. It seems that the U.S. is really lacking in ear training as part of the education of youngsters.

I'd say there are maybe 10-20% of the students in the class that find it fairly easy. The rest of us find it extremely difficult. The most difficult class I've taken, and it's only 1 unit per semester.

[METOPERARETIRED]

'Fep',
I don't believe that it's ever too late to learn something as if I thought that, I would not be teaching myself to play Jazz and Classical Guitar.
When I teach snare drum for instance, here's how I go about it. I'll use 4/4 as an example..
The quarter not must be said out loud as "1",8th notes"1&",16th notes are "1tah&tah 2tah&tah and so forth. Now the reason that the 16th notes are "1tah&tah" instead of "1uh&uh" is because of the definative articulation of "1Ta as opposed to 1uh" which is
is that very fact that the T is pointed and the uh is softer which shows up in articulation.. Triplets would take on the sound as all the other aforementioned examples "The sound of each beat".. This is what I mean ~triplets= 1uh uh 2oooo 3 ee ee 4 or or..
Sounds strange perhaps? Well it's not and it can be practiced anytime. Walking ~Every step you take can be slow,faster,fast,very fast, ad nauseum(spelling?).. So this means that while one walks he/she can actually be speaking the way I speak of above.. When playing constant measure markings like ~2/4 to 6/8 to 5/8 to whatever there is always a constant and in this case it's a pulsating 8th note.. 3/4 is the same as 6/8 for example..Bernstein's (who I played for many times over the years) song from West Side Story ~ I want to live in America is 6/8 and the 2nd measure America is 3/4..That's how it's conducted so whether Classical,Jazz,Rock, you name it, Music and
Physics are virtually synonomous. Rythm, Notes, Chords, Modes etc.~ It comes
down to relationship of pulsation (like your heart beat/pulse) and notes is the relativity of predetermined intonation which is not that old a concept in the world. If you get Ovation TV, you should watch a series called "Howard Goodall's Big Bang" and the newest one "Howard Goodall's Great Dates".. I and my fellow Professional Musicians in the Boston Symphony,Metropolitan Opera/Syphony Orchesra and New York Philharmonic just to sight a few are flabbergasted by what and how this Musician/Historian(not from text books but travelling the world) presents what all of us were taught and are still taught in Conservatories.. Top Maestri in the world are also reintroduced to what Goodall has experienced in his travelling all over.. Please trust me that you will be amazed about how notes came to be (not long ago), how Gregorian Chant used only what we now know as diatonic tones and not all of them at that.. Developmant of a staff totally unlike the staff we know.. How the Piano came to be as it is only less than 300 years old as a Piano that can sustain tone because of the strings being hit percussively and the recoil of the striker enabling fast response to another note.. The precursor to the piano was a plucked string, called harpsichord and other things but as the note was plucked much like a Classical Guitar, there was NO sustain.
God, I hate people who are writing stuff like I am.. The Piano and it's "Tempering" is what caused there to be an Orchestra !! True, as instruments after the Piano were
developed so as to make up the Strings,Brass,Woodwinds,Percussion sections of an Orchestra..
He takes 3 or 4 parts in the Big Bang series and now I have seen 3 of the Great Dates series which comes up to Jazz.. Yes he plays and discusses in a manner that virtually anyone can understand.
Guys and Gals, it all comes from all the periods of the Art that we all love and are lucky enough to be a part of ~
MUSIC !!
Please forgive the seemingly technicality of my explanations as I write them with much humility..
We all are and were taught different ways to play but one thing that we have in common is that no matter what and how you get it done is the bottom line.. Until later ~~ Later

[franco6719]

"Herb, I'd say you were very lucky indeed to have an instructor that started you early on ear training as it is my understanding and experience that ear training is much more difficult if started at a later age."

My great sense of resentment against most of my early teachers, even at Berklee, derives from here. Nothing on ear training. NOTHING useful. Now I work on this stuff about three hours a day with EarMaster, etc.... and it still seems like I don't get anywhere. Banging head against wall.

[franco6719]

The rest of us find it extremely difficult. The most difficult class I've taken, and it's only 1 unit per semester.

Waterboarding!!


==edit===
Alright, a bit exaggerated. My ears do improve with hard work and I think it DOES work. But I always regret that I didn't start it so much earlier.

[gingerjazz]

franco your not on your own when it comes to being annoyed with so called music teachers i went to one when i was younger and was put of going to teachers thinking icould teach myself what this guy was showing me all he did was give me tab of a song to learn for the next week no ear training no theory or anything 30 years later i went to another teacher and couldnt believe how much id missed out on happily thanks to him im now on the right path sadly i believe there are a lot of people out there who are teaching guitar who shouldnt be unfortunately its hard for a beginner to know the difference between a good teacher and a bad one and this disturbs me very much

[METOPERARETIRED]

"Herb, I'd say you were very lucky indeed to have an instructor that started you early on ear training as it is my understanding and experience that ear training is much more difficult if started at a later age."

My great sense of resentment against most of my early teachers, even at Berklee, derives from here. Nothing on ear training. NOTHING useful. Now I work on this stuff about three hours a day with EarMaster, etc.... and it still seems like I don't get anywhere. Banging head against wall.

Frank,
I undertand the frustration as there are so many teachers that should not be. My first teacher I credit for the approach as a bebinner at Drums. My 1st lesson he made it undestood that Say it Play it concept, and I accepted it.. What did I know in the 3rd grade? He was also a very nice Man, and his 3 room studio was in Coplet Square which you know. The building went long ago and far away(a great tune) and here's the kicker..
I was told I would NOT play on a Drum for well over 1 year. All my lessons and my practice at home was on a practice pad ! Drums cheat! They allow many Drummers get away with less than very good rudimentary skills which I realised when I got my first 1/2 Drum Set after 1 1/2 years.. I got the second half 6 months later.. Skipping to when he started me on Vibes.. I used a Fiddle book to learn scales etc.. and when I could get the skills without looking down at the Vibes I started Jazz.. Here's how he did it. I started with 'The Lady is a Tramp' in C major.. I got the 4 hammer chords down quickly all the while I was made to sing out loud.. After that lesson he told me to go home on my Portable Jenco Vibes and practice to listen to the chords, stop and sing a phrase at a time of improv. and finding it on my Ax.. Okay, I went to my next lesson and played the ABA form as on the chart and then started my career as a Jazz Dude. He was slightly impressed that although it was primative (it was) I had an ear.. That's all he said. Then, as we did in the years before on Drums which I should of mentioned earlier in this post, he told me to go to the record store,and buy a record.. 78 rpms in those days and the record store had listening rooms to hear a record. I chose a record for Vibes as I had done for Drums and took it home (59 cents).. I had a Webcor little phonograph as that was state of the art in the late 40s/early50s. I had to (as for Drums) listen over and over to the record lifting the needle over and over, scratching the record and TRANSCRIBE as I had to do for Drums, what the Vibist was playing onto blank manuscript paper.. It worked very well for my Jazz Drumming and as I was learning Vibes I was playing all kinds of gigs in and around Boston, in Jazz clubs as you know, Fraternity Blasts at Harvard and other Frathouses in the other Universities/Colleges and with good musicians at that..I would bring my transcription in to the next lesson, play it on practice Pads and then, Charlie Alden (Teacher) would take mine, the record and Music and I'd get another students same thing. The other guys had to do the same thing and many of them went on to Music Careers.. This went on seemingly forever, but slowly while listening to bands whether Basie, Kenton, Suater Finnegan, Ellington, and on and on, as well as small groups like The MJQ (Bags was the best and he had perfect pitch and a photographic memory), Blakeys Jazz messangers,Brubeck,Herb Ellis,Barney Kessel, Tal Farlow, as we are talking about Guitar and so many more that you may not know, like Chico Hamilton, Australian Jazz Quitet,West Coast Jazz groups of all kinds etal.

So, I lucked out with Charlie and got into N.E.C. on full scholarship at 17 years age.. My freshman year the principal Percussionist with the BSO was my teacher, but he could not teach.. He was not made to teach, so I went to the office and they changed my Teacher to the best, "Vic Firth" solo Tympanist with BSO.. That's when things got REAL GOOD. Vic's roots were in Jazz and as I did, he had his own band playing Vibes and Drums.
He was born to teach, and his approach was exactly as 1st teacher.. Tympani~he was a stickler for intonation as he sat at a piano and I would sing tuning changes while he was in remote keys.. On Mallets, Marimba/Xylo/Glock/ etc. he was also a virtuoso and he asked that of me as well, and I had to work my butt off but he said Herb,you got the talent, now have the patience.. He told me something that I have taken to this day until I die, and perhaps ovr the Bridge in the sky.. He told me this ~ " Herb, I never want you to sound like a Mouse pissing on a blotter"

Some may not know what an ink blotter is, so google it, but what he meant is that when you play,I want you to have the courage, no matter what to just get it done with conviction and if you bomb in at the wrong place, do it with conviction.. He was 50 years with the BSO and when honored for those 50 yrs. and toasted, he said, "Wait a minute, I'm noy retireing, I'm quitting as I;ve got much to do.. He was 71 when he retired and has the largest Drumstick company in the world as well as cooking stuff.. I am very close with Vic as I have been all these years. He is my Mentor,Inspiration,Teacher,Breat Friend, and like a Brother.. When I had total knee replacement 1 1/2 years ago he called me from Countries in Europe to tell me I'll get through it and someday be playing again. I quit the Met. as well, not retired as I had things to so, BUT I had also contracted Wet Macular Degneration an eye disease and could see virtually nothing.. 33 Yrs. as Principal with 1 of the greatest Orchestra in the world was now going to be over.. I played my Vibes at home I built on the Mountain Top, but quality of life sucked until 9 months ago when a brilliant Doctor examined my eyes and asked me how well would you like too see?? I said, you are putting me on.. She said no and 3 days later I was on a table as an out patient, and she made a slit in my left eye 1st, sucked the lens and some other tissue out, inserted a new type lens, and I went home with vivid vision in the left eye.. One weel later she did the right eye.. I do NOT wear glasses anymore as my vision is 20/20..
This letter is going to close with this thought and belief of mine..
I was never really religious, but now I believe in Miracles..
I am back to Drumset (new Yamaha custom set that I and Yamaha with the help of Anton Fig (Drummer on the Letterman show, also an NEC graduate who told me ~ Herb, you've seem me in the Apple on Jazz dates and I've seen you in Carnegie Hall, The Met. and on some commercial dates, so get your set of drums, and go Kick Ass as I know you do.. wow what a nice thing.. I did and talked to remo about custom Drum heads for the sound I want and got.. Little did I know that I would be forming a Band with some new guys and some I went to sbhool with, like Phil Wilson (Trombone/Arranger/composer, and Roger Kelloway (you guys must know that name).. And then ~~ GUITAR ~Teaching myself GUITAR, both Jazz and Classical..
Guys ~ " Never give up on God ! "

Your Friend ~~ Herb
p.s. I'm too tired to check spellin so figure it out.. I just practiced Classical G for 5 hours..

[elixzer]

"Herb, I'd say you were very lucky indeed to have an instructor that started you early on ear training as it is my understanding and experience that ear training is much more difficult if started at a later age."

My great sense of resentment against most of my early teachers, even at Berklee, derives from here. Nothing on ear training. NOTHING useful. Now I work on this stuff about three hours a day with EarMaster, etc.... and it still seems like I don't get anywhere. Banging head against wall.

You know this guitar performer, and teacher says the same thing. That so many professional guitarists have had no ear training!! Finding and readingthis thread and the experiences really accentuates what he says!!!

I only found his videos about two days ago, and was very excited, because I am very much wanting to learn ear training.
Anyway please do join me in this ear training workshop :

Elderly Instruments Workshop - Rob Bourassa - Play By Ear

[musicalbodger]

great link elixzer.

I'm completely self taught and have relied on fake books for too much of my life — wish I'd found this 25 years ago. It's taken that long to work out that method for myself.

[METOPERARETIRED]

Hey Guys,
I want to say that I am sorry for the spelling in my last post.. I was tired as heck and didn't do a check.

I said that because as in my studies / practice / playing, I am nothing short of Anal retentive.. I will write more later as now I'm a bit under the weather.
By the way, if you get an idea any time of day or night, I suggest that you immediately write it out, even if on a napkin..
I'll catch up with you later..
Herb

[METOPERARETIRED]

You know this guitar performer, and teacher says the same thing. That so many professional guitarists have had no ear training!! Finding and readingthis thread and the experiences really accentuates what he says!!!

I only found his videos about two days ago, and was very excited, because I am very much wanting to learn ear training.
Anyway please do join me in this ear training workshop :

Elderly Instruments Workshop - Rob Bourassa - Play By Ear

This Rob Bourassa manner is the way I was trained and as I said earlier, it takes patience but DOES work.. At first you scat the improv. and then eventually you do what he does..
Time is on your side, a nice song but also a nice philosophy about your life..
If you do not start trying this sing it / play it, you will never know if you might have been able to get it down !

Herb

[elixzer]

great link elixzer.

I'm completely self taught and have relied on fake books for too much of my life — wish I'd found this 25 years ago. It's taken that long to work out that method for myself.

Regrets...? nahhhhh ....Sometimes i feel that way too, but I try and think of the good shit i have gleaned too.... Remember that those years back none of us had this amazing inspiring Web which has so many diverse forms of help, and you can SEE the action also so to speak
We are here now and that is cool

[musicalbodger]

Regrets...? nahhhhh ....Sometimes i feel that way too, but I try and think of the good shit i have gleaned too.... Remember that those years back none of us had this amazing inspiring Web which has so many diverse forms of help, and you can SEE the action also so to speak
We are here now and that is cool

I hear what you're saying, elixzer and agree with you.

I might not have the original voice that I now have if things had been different. But, I know for sure that not training my ears 25 years ago slowed down my development as a musician. It's not a regret (I don't go in for those), just an honest observation. That said, I've had to get to where I am by knowing theory real well (not as well as Herb, but then my main field has been working with wood), so I guess it's a "swings and roundabouts" thing.

This forum just gets better and better.

[musicalbodger]

Herb,

Hi, your comment about not sounding like you're "pissing on a blotter" is right on the nail. It's so important to make that big mistake with confidence. Once you realise that and remove the blotter, you can bounce right off into something new. (Not that I'm implying you would ever make a mistake, don't mean that at all, I'm just talking from my perspective.)

Love your attitude — I thought I picked up the guitar late in life at 24! 70 is something else!

[METOPERARETIRED]

The rest of us find it extremely difficult. The most difficult class I've taken, and it's only 1 unit per semester.

Waterboarding!!


==edit===
Alright, a bit exaggerated. My ears do improve with hard work and I think it DOES work. But I always regret that I didn't start it so much earlier.

Frank and others,

In the debate about Solfege & Guitar,here is a website that I think is very good to use.. It is never too late to attempt to do something that is/might be helpful, so look at this and make your own decisions as to what you want or not want/need to do..
http://www.iwasdoingallright.com/tools/v2_24/ear_training.aspx

Much respect to all,
Herb

[METOPERARETIRED]

Herb,

Hi, your comment about not sounding like you're "pissing on a blotter" is right on the nail. It's so important to make that big mistake with confidence. Once you realise that and remove the blotter, you can bounce right off into something new. (Not that I'm implying you would ever make a mistake, don't mean that at all, I'm just talking from my perspective.)

Love your attitude — I thought I picked up the guitar late in life at 24! 70 is something else!

Yes, all humans make mistakes and have to accept that fact..
In the Orchestra here's 1 of millions of short funny/true things that go down..
One of the Guys is lost in the score (his personal chart) and turns to the guy next to him and asks in an apprehensive way ~ " Where are we " to which he gets the answer ~" Page 158 ".. That's what happens and we have to grin and swallow it.. In a Carnegie Hall Concert in the 1960s, playing with Stokowski's American Symphony, after the intermission the first chart up was 'The Bolero' of Ravel.. As Principal Percussionist I played the Snare Drum part.. You all know this piece and you would know that the Snare Drummer starts Pianissimo and continually repeats the same 2 meaures for Bolero's 17 minutes, very gradually making a crescendo until the bombastic end.. We were in white tie and Tails.. The Orchestra retunes and audience gets quiet at which time 'Stoki' as he was called reenters the stage.. He looks at me, nods and I start softer than soft..
I am in the middle of the Orchestra for this piece on a raised platform..
I hear some soft laughter from the others in my Percussion section (seated) and then from some Brass in front of the section.. One of my guys points with with his finger ever so slightly at me and is pink faced trying not to lose it.. I see he is pointing at the Fly in my pants. I llok down very cautiously as to not make the audience and others in the Orch. see that " I had not zipped my pants up after peeing at the end of the break ".. I had to play the entire Bolero and my Fly was open with just a bit of my white vest covering it.. After the piece, 'Stoki' points to me to take my bow as he does to some other soloists and I smile..He leaves the stage and I and the percussion section get ready for the next piece with all the instruments.. Usually the last piece in a Symphony Concert is as we call them ~ A Tape Worm, as it is very long.. Bottom line is guys~
Always make sure you are empty in any venue as one never knows what could happen !!~
I thought that a bit of light hearted trivia would be refreshing to all and if you have any ' stuff ' to share, let us in on it..

Latr ~~~ Herb

[franco6719]

Well, there's a lot to read through here. There are a number of very interesting posts.

Herb,

I am very familiar with that Website. He has developed some very good tools for all instruments and I have been using it regularly for about a year or so now. Others have provided me with some outstanding links and resources as well.

As I said before, the ears are definitely coming along at any rate. Straightforward Interval identification is something I have completely mastered, for example. I can also identify the most important chords (dom 7, maj 7, min7b5, dim7, add6, 7#9, etc), though still struggling with inversions. More importantly, I'm now beginning to identify the intervals in short melodies or simple tunes even away from the instrument.

Still a long process and far to go before I can scat sing bebop lines or something like that. But you have to crawl....etc...

Point to those who are in a similar situation: don't get too discouraged and start slamming yourself ever time you feel like your not making headway. (This applies to everything of course). Patience and hard work. As Pierre says, time on the instrument.....but also time listening, singing (in your head or out loud) and ear training. (;

[franco6719]

Interestingly, yesterday I was playing along with some Aebersold backing tracks and got frustrated that I was playing the same arpeggio-based lines and was sort of letting the fingers take over. So, I started playing some sort of block chord "lines" (inversions and slides with rhyhtmic stuff) or just playing along with the pianist. It seemed to sound more "genuine" to me and I was actually having a ball!! Unfortunately, I tend to put a lot of energy when I play this sort of thing and the neighbors were not at all pleased.

[franco6719]

egrets...? nahhhhh ....Sometimes i feel that way too, but I try and think of the good shit i have gleaned too.... Remember that those years back none of us had this amazing inspiring Web which has so many diverse forms of help, and you can SEE the action also so to speak
We are here now and that is cool.

Excellent point.

[METOPERARETIRED]

Frank and everyone,
Please read a friend of mine's word's about Music in 2004..
It should change your attitude about practice and your being in Music..
Herb
( This is the 1st part. The 2nd part will be following as there are too many words for one post )
__________________________________________________ _______

Dr. Karl Paulnack, pianist and director of music division at The Boston Conservatory, gave this fantastic welcome address to the  parents of incoming students at The Boston Conservatory on September 1, 2004:

“One of my parents’ deepest fears, I suspect, is that society would not properly value me as a musician, that I wouldn’t be appreciated. I had very good grades in high school, I was good in science and math, and they imagined that as a doctor or a research chemist or an engineer, I might be more appreciated than I would be as a musician. I still remember my mother’s remark when I announced my decision to apply to music school-she said, “you’re wasting your SAT scores!” On some level, I think, my parents were not sure themselves what the value of music was, what its purpose was. And they loved music: they listened to classical music all the time. They just weren’t really clear about its function. So let me talk about that a little bit, because we live in a society that puts music in the “arts and entertainment” section of the newspaper, and serious music, the kind your kids are about to engage in, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with entertainment, in fact it’s the opposite of entertainment. Let me talk a little bit about music, and how it works.
One of the first cultures to articulate how music really works were the ancient Greeks. And this is going to fascinate you: the Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us. Let me give you some examples of how this works.
One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the Quartet for the End of Time written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940. Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June of 1940 and imprisoned in a prisoner-of-war camp.
He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and a place to compose, and fortunate to have musician colleagues in the camp, a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist. Messiaen wrote his quartet with these specific players in mind. It was performed in January 1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp. Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the repertoire.
Given what we have since learned about life in the Nazi camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture-why would anyone bother with music? And yet-even from the concentration camps, we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn’t just this one fanatic Messiaen; many, many people created art. Why? Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. The camps were without money, without hope, without commerce, without recreation, without basic respect, but they were not without art. Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, “I am alive, and my life has meaning.”
In September of 2001 I was a resident of Manhattan. On the morning of September 12, 2001 I reached a new understanding of my art and its relationship to the world. I sat down at the piano that morning at 10 AM to practice as was my daily routine; I did it by force of habit, without thinking about it. I lifted the cover on the keyboard, and opened my music, and put my hands on the keys and took my hands off the keys. And I sat there and thought, does this even matter? Isn’t this completely irrelevant? Playing the piano right now, given what happened in this city yesterday, seems silly, absurd, irreverent, pointless. Why am I here? What place has a musician in this moment in time? Who needs a piano player right now? I was completely lost.
And then I, along with the rest of New York, went through the journey of getting through that week. I did not play the piano that day, and in fact I contemplated briefly whether I would ever want to play the piano again. And then I observed how we got through the day.
At least in my neighborhood, we didn’t shoot hoops or play Scrabble. We didn’t play cards to pass the time, we didn’t watch TV, we didn’t shop, we most certainly did not go to the mall. The first organized activity that I saw in New York, on the very evening of September 11th, was singing. People sang. People sang around fire houses, people sang “We Shall Overcome”. Lots of people sang America the Beautiful. The first organized public event that I remember was the Brahms Requiem, later that week, at Lincoln Center, with the New York Philharmonic. The first organized public expression of grief, our first communal response to that historic event, was a concert. That was the beginning of a sense that life might go on. The US Military secured the airspace, but recovery was led by the arts, and by music in particular, that very night.
From these two experiences, I have come to understand that music is not part of “arts and entertainment” as the newspaper section would have us believe. It’s not a luxury, a lavish thing that we fund from leftovers of our budgets, not a plaything or an amusement or a pass time. Music is a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we can’t with our minds. (continued in next post ) Herb

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Herb's 2nd part of Music is not entertainment. 1st part was just sent out. Please continue and let me have your thoughts.. Herb
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( Part 2 )
Some of you may know Samuel Barber’s heart wrenchingly beautiful piece Adagio for Strings. If you don’t know it by that name, then some of you may know it as the background music which accompanied the Oliver Stone movie Platoon, a film about the Vietnam War. If you know that piece of music either way, you know it has the ability to crack your heart open like a walnut; it can make you cry over sadness you didn’t know you had. Music can slip beneath our conscious reality to get at what’s really going on inside us the way a good therapist does.
Very few of you have ever been to a wedding where there was absolutely no music. There might have been only a little music, there might have been some really bad music, but with few exceptions there is some music. And something very predictable happens at weddings-people get all pent up with all kinds of emotions, and then there’s some musical moment where the action of the wedding stops and someone sings or plays the flute or something. And even if the music is lame, even if the quality isn’t good, predictably 30 or 40 percent of the people who are going to cry at a wedding cry a couple of moments after the music starts. Why? The Greeks. Music allows us to move around those big invisible pieces of ourselves and rearrange our insides so that we can express what we feel even when we can’t talk about it. Can you imagine watching Indiana Jones or Superman or Star Wars with the dialogue but no music? What is it about the music swelling up at just the right moment in ET so that all the softies in the audience start crying at exactly the same moment? I guarantee you if you showed the movie with the music stripped out, it wouldn’t happen that way. The Greeks. Music is the understanding of the relationship between invisible internal objects.
I’ll give you one more example, the story of the most important concert of my life. I must tell you I have played a little less than a thousand concerts in my life so far. I have played in places that I thought were important. I like playing in Carnegie Hall; I enjoyed playing in Paris; it made me very happy to please the critics in St. Petersburg. I have played for people I thought were important; music critics of major newspapers, foreign heads of state. The most important concert of my entire life took place in a nursing home in a small Midwestern town a few years ago.
I was playing with a very dear friend of mine who is a violinist. We began, as we often do, with Aaron Copland’s Sonata, which was written during World War II and dedicated to a young friend of Copland’s, a young pilot who was shot down during the war. Now we often talk to our audiences about the pieces we are going to play rather than providing them with written program notes. But in this case, because we began the concert with this piece, we decided to talk about the piece later in the program and to just come out and play the music without explanation.
Midway through the piece, an elderly man seated in a wheelchair near the front of the concert hall began to weep. This man, whom I later met, was clearly a soldier-even in his 70’s, it was clear from his buzz-cut hair, square jaw and general demeanor that he had spent a good deal of his life in the military. I thought it a little bit odd that someone would be moved to tears by that particular movement of that particular piece, but it wasn’t the first time I’ve heard crying in a concert and we went on with the concert and finished the piece.
When we came out to play the next piece on the program, we decided to talk about both the first and second pieces, and we described the circumstances in which the Copland was written and mentioned its dedication to a downed pilot. The man in the front of the audience became so disturbed that he had to leave the auditorium. I honestly figured that we would not see him again, but he did come backstage afterwards, tears and all, to explain himself.
What he told us was this: “During World War II, I was a pilot, and I was in an aerial combat situation where one of my team’s planes was hit. I watched my friend bail out, and watched his parachute open, but the Japanese planes which had engaged us returned and machine gunned across the parachute chords so as to separate the parachute from the pilot, and I watched my friend drop away into the ocean, realizing that he was lost. I have not thought about this for many years, but during that first piece of music you played, this memory returned to me so vividly that it was as though I was reliving it. I didn’t understand why this was happening, why now, but then when you came out to explain that this piece of music was written to commemorate a lost pilot, it was a little more than I could handle. How does the music do that? How did it find those feelings and those memories in me?”
Remember the Greeks: music is the study of invisible relationships between internal objects. The concert in the nursing home was the most important work I have ever done. For me to play for this old soldier and help him connect, somehow, with Aaron Copland, and to connect their memories of their lost friends, to help him remember and mourn his friend, this is my work. This is why music matters.
What follows is part of the talk I will give to this year’s freshman class when I welcome them a few days from now. The responsibility I will charge your sons and daughters with is this:
“If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you’d take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at two AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you’re going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft.
You’re not here to become an entertainer, and you don’t have to sell yourself. The truth is you don’t have anything to sell; being a musician isn’t about dispensing a product, like selling used cars. I’m not an entertainer; I’m a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker. You’re here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well.
Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don’t expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that’s what we do. As in the concentration camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives.”
You have now read these poignant words and I hope & Pray that you know how important you all are no matter at what level you are in Music ! Your Buddy ~ Herb

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Herb here, and there may be other Foruns / Threads on the site that would like to read my 2 posts. I do not know how to manipulate the site as to get the 2 previous posts somewhere else.. If someone does know how maybe you can let others see the 2 parts of Music is not entertainment I just put up..
The Guitar is your Friend and I am as well ~~ Herb

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Frank,
Every ' No in life puts you one No closer to a Yes ! '

Every mistake ' Puts you one mistake closer to a no mistake '..

That's why in Music we are told " To woodshed the part " (work at it till you get it ) Later, Herb