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All comes down to the old "KNOW 5 things inside out instead of KNOWING OF 50 things."
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12-01-2022 11:06 AM
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Ok, no problem.
Originally Posted by KingKong
I have never thought of the great players as using some mysterious magic process that I will never understand. There are only 12 notes and I’ve got the same available fingers on each hand as they have (and more than Django!) so I should be able to figure out some of what they do, and do it myself. That’s basically what I’ve been doing for those 50 years!
I have never had the attitude that I can’t do at least some of what they do.
Possibly it helped that I started out with classical guitar lessons for the first six years, that was a very clear and rigorous introduction to music.
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I do, then I'm always disappointed to 'find them out' lol! Originally Posted by grahambop
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But the real magic is in what they do with those notes, arps, etc. The intangible stuff. All you can do is listen, maybe copy some ideas, and try to learn from it, then develop your own approach.
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I think that's their imagination, creativity and confidence. Very free minded individuals. From Cobain at what you might call the lowest technical level, all the way up to Pass and the boys. Originally Posted by grahambop
Albert Einstein is another example, from a different field. His most important work is pretty simple and can be understood completely with high school maths, yet was completely missed by his peers at the time. Mainly because it was born from his imagination as he went about living life as opposed to studying for hours on end.
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It takes a long time to really learn a tune to a degree where you can play a solo without thinking about the changes. But when that happens, those scales and arpeggios acquire a musical purpose. You start hearing more of the ideas before you play them. It's only then playing jazz guitar becomes an art form.
Apparently Ed Bickert would refuse to take solos over a tune for the first two years after he initially learned it. That's the problem with trying to pick the brains of legends by learning and analyzing their licks. You can't really reverse engineer the artistic source behind a solo or arrangement by looking at the micro stuff. But you can extract some general concepts and phrasing ideas that you can use to hopefully channel your own artistry.Last edited by Tal_175; 12-01-2022 at 03:15 PM.
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I've got to ask: what do you think Einstein's most important work was, and why is it pretty simple? Can you explain it? Originally Posted by KingKong
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This is a brilliant deviation from the thread hahaha. Originally Posted by CliffR
Ok, time dilation, the faster you move the slower time ticks. The freedom of mind to break away from human concepts of time. He came up with it as a teenager.
Many vids out there that explain it perfectly using no maths whatsoever, this is good:
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You said "His most important work is pretty simple and can be understood completely with high school maths, yet was completely missed by his peers at the time."
The guy in the video says the math is 'pretty complicated' and doesn't go into it. Towards the end, he also mentions how much Einstein's theory rested on the work of his peers.
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Ok, if there are two people, one is moving at a constant speed towards a source of light and one is stationary with respect to the source of the light. Originally Posted by CliffR
How can they both observe that the beam of light has the same speed?
Only if time ticks slower for the one moving towards the light.
His peers got as far as exposing the problem but couldn't explain it.
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Be careful with the concept of time. "Time ticks slower" (a decrease) means time between clicks is longer... (an increase). Originally Posted by KingKong
When you make a speed, distance, and time calculation, make sure your time and distance values are inversely proportional. The words "contraction" for lengths and "dilation" to times suggest we need them to be inversely proportional. Length contraction is a reduction, a value getting smaller (the distance between end points), while time dilation is an expansion, a value getting larger (the time between periodic "clicks"). If you try to think of dilation as a slowing of time (a value decreasing or getting smaller), you may be trying to see contraction and dilation as in direct proportion, when you need to see them as inverse proportions.
It's a subtle point but if you miss it things won't work when you think them through (thought experiments).
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I agree with Kong that a lot of stuff the pros do is understandable and categorizable and therefore easily reproducable. I agree with grahambop that still after you explain the stuff, in many cases the player's creativity caused the result to be something you can't categorize. You can only spend time with it and try to conceptualize it and maybe it can add to your approach.
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Creativity is an interesting thing. Guitar players are notorious for telling bullshit stories like "I knew a guy, great player...then he learned theory and it killed all of his creativity...maaaaan." Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
I think of creativity as being something in all of us that is unlocked when we've properly prepared for a challenging situation. If the challenge is way beyond us, we flounder. If the challenge is too little, we try to force things. But if we are practiced and prepared we can be in the moment and do something truly creative, something that forces us to really focus and put all of our energy into it.
Good players can get to that space more often because they've prepared.
Or again, this time to bastardize Bruce Lee, "Don't fear the man who has practiced 10,000 punches. Fear the man who has practiced one punch 10,000 times."
Or something like that.
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I'm going to quote that. Originally Posted by Tal_175
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For some reason, M. Jourdain's remark in The Bourgeois Gentleman comes to mind:
"For more than forty years I have been speaking prose without knowing anything about it, and I am much obliged to you for having taught me that."
(Sorry--lit teacher joke. Can't shake the habit even after 37 years out of the classroom.)
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In a modern version, M. Jourdain would be ripped off by dodgy online guitar tutors.
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This attitude to theory in a lot of people comes from a few angles I think. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
But its mainly the rock world that has this, and tbf you can be a top level rock guitarist knowing very little theory.
1, that knowing theory is 'not cool' and nerdy, and a lot of guitarists want to be 'cool like Hendrix'.
2. Laziness / fear of the unknown. Theory can be intimidating when you first start looking at it, and it's not helped by certain stereotypes held up by I guess rock guitarists of nerdy and serious jazz and classical musicians.
So imagine a wonderfully creative and imaginative person with no musical education. Give them a piano and they will for sure come up with some nice stuff.
Then show them a load of chords and arpeggios.... How could that not augment their creativity by showing them more possibilities for note combinations etc?
As long as theory is seen as 'inspiration' as opposed to a 'set of rules' , how can it not massively aid a creative musician?
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What would Richie Havens have sounded like if he had formal guitar lessons?
I mention him because he had a unique way of playing guitar. At least I've never encountered anybody who played remotely similarly.Last edited by rpjazzguitar; 12-02-2022 at 06:49 PM.
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With "no musical education" what one learns comprises internal, abstract, unique, representations... relationships not amenable to verbal or visual modes of understanding because the substance of these relationships is aural and phenomenological. Originally Posted by KingKong
Theory is named things and named relationships (verbal) and usually involves music notation which is marks and symbols indicating those things and their relationships (visual).
"Showing them" and 'inspiration" if meaning "playing examples for them to hear" is good because it is aural and phenomenological; but yes, giving a "set of rules" will be in a verbal/visual language to which their concept and performance of music may have no connection whatsoever.
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The "vs" isn't needed imo, ears and theory can go together.
Theory just basically implies that D Dorian notes could be used over Dm G, but how the D Dorian is used in regards to phrasing, melody, intent, context is up to the musician(s) and/or singer(s).
Theory can't definitely say to temporarily unbalance the Dm G progression for a forced effect by using outside arpeggios at a certain time etc etc.
In the end it's how it all sounds and theory is just a guide imo.
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I think what would help this thread is a real understanding of what is involved in being an ‘ear player’, some seeming to think it’s a cop out or something, which it certainly isn’t. If anything theory is the shortcut.
Complicating this are those that say they’re ear players as a pose while actually just being not very good.
As Hal Galper points out, all good players are ear players. Some/most know theory too.
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I've been thinking the same thing, with regards to this thread. Ears AND theory AND whatever else can help you get you further along on your creative path. Originally Posted by semiplayer
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There is no ear vs theory; "by ear" is a theory.
But, with no tangible external manifestations,
apart from happening in a real performance,
it provides no apparent method or audit trail.
This makes it seem a bit... mystical, which it is.
Thus playing by ear is the true religion of jazz.
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Theory is just the ear’s way of explaining harmony and melody. The fact of the matter is until you manifest the theory organically (by ear), you only understand it in a mathematical way - which can very much be like the horse pushing the cart.
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This is a thing. I also worked with a horn player who only used ears and was afraid of school learnin' because it might hurt his creativity. He'd get down on me for playing with a metronome and working on my reading. I told him that if his precious creativity was so weak that it could be harmed so easily, maybe it wasn't worth protecting. Steven King can read the paper with his coffee in the morning without fear it might wreck his afternoon at the typewriter. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
In this case I think it was mostly laziness. More fun for him to do it his way. It worked BTW. We made a living together for almost 10 years, though we weren't exactly playing the GASB.
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