getting mileage from blues scales

[gravitas]

Well, a few years back I studied composition at University for 5 years where the main thrust was 20th C composers, you know, serial, atonal, Schoenberg, Webern, Hindemith etc etc, so I don't find dissonance unfamiliar, infact for a while there I couldn't stand listening to diatonic music and even 50's jazz started to sound "cheesy" to me! And therein lies my point- getting too familiar with dissonance breeds a prejudice against, well, consonance! I mean, we were taught that Beethoven was "simple" and antiquated music! The equivalent in Jazz is where someone insists that Ornette Coleman is infinitely more interesting and more important than Charlie Parker, who in turn was more important than Louis Armstrong. Academically they're probably right, but I've had it with academia, I want music to go into my body, not just my brain..... man

I think it works both ways. You can be prejudiced against dissonance if your ears don't accept it. On the other hand, you could also be prejudiced against dissonance if you build a false concept of what "normal" people like.

You can assume that violent outside playing is inaccessible to everyone because you've become disillusioned with the merit of that style of music, but once you've become accustomed to hearing dissonance, you can never judge which dissonant music is powerful to the non listener again. It could be that a lot of the music you reject on the principle of "it sounds dissonant" might have moved you in a positive way before you grew fed up with outside players that get recognition at the expense of other legitimate geniuses.

Here's an audio example of what I'm talking about. Check out Brecker at 4:11 here

. Even a caveman I think would get the thrust of his playing in those few seconds... Sure it's outside, but it's thrilling to listen to. I don't need to have a music education to understand that. If you really feel moved by Louis Armstrong while modern guys just leave you flat, then more power to you, but I feel that even indulgers of heavy dissonance can be cool sometimes too

[princeplanet]

Sure, hey as we all know, there's no right and wrong way to enjoy anything, let alone music, whatever blows your hair back, right? Irrespective of what we assume "normal" people will like, I just hope we all draw our own line in the sand that reflects our own taste. For me that line at present is Late 50's Hard or Post Bop, that's hip enough for me! Guys who jump in at 60's Coltrane who don't have any changes chops, well, in my experience I've found them to be mainly egg heads trying desperately to find something that no one else "gets" in order to seem somehow mysterious and "hip". Just my experience, mind...

Don't get me wrong, long live the Avante Garde, but if some pimple faced teenager wants to be cool, he gets more cool points from me if he buys the Lester Young record before he even looks at Henderson or Brecker.

But, hey, that's just me... YMMV...