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This I would sort of agree with. Though my understanding of Wes was that he was a bit more theory-savvy than he let on, even if it wasn’t how he arrived at sounds. Coltrane is obviously an extreme case but Russell and Slonimsky and all that stuff was big for him.
Originally Posted by Chris236
But there’s definitely a lot of people arriving at sounds pretty organically, and intense theory knowledge doesn’t preclude “organic” music either. And we also tend to overestimate the amount of theory we need for jazz in general. Mostly it’s simple tools applied with a healthy dose of creativity.
Also the theory stuff can be a bit loaded with earlier jazz guys. Hard to know what their actual process was because white audiences didn’t care to think of black musicians as being intellectual.
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09-16-2023 01:10 PM
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you can break them. Going ‘out’ is breaking with that gravity…..some are more comfortable living out farther(and farther out!) than others, but the guys that are truly good at it are usually very sensitive to that har-melodic ‘nature’. Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
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Newtons laws are considered descriptive of our experience as large objects in the same small area, but they’re not … ahem … fundamental. Originally Posted by Chris236
This is further down this particular rabbit hole than is helpful. Point is you’re describing immutable laws about how music works and most things we consider immutable are way more complicated and relativistic than that.
Not to mention sound is physics; music is art.
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If you know how a theoretical thingy sounds and feels like and choosing to "go for it", isn't it playing by ear also?
I mean, "by ear" doesn't have to mean "winging it" at all.
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No, that’s not what I’m eluding too regarding the greats as much as access to information……which to say would have been limited, would be and understatement. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
Wes got a 4 string tenor guitar as a child and he and his brothers grew up imitating, exploring and making music every day…..
wasn’t until later in life that he even owned a 6 string guitar. That may have helped too!
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Hmm. You don’t see the contradiction here? Originally Posted by Chris236
If you jump you come back to ground … unless you decide you’d rather not?
If playing out is breaking with your fundamental nature of music, and some people are very comfortable with it and others aren’t, then it really can’t be all that fundamental can it?
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Yeah that was just a comment. Not really pointed at anyone. Not something establishment folks really wanted to hear about for a lot of complicated reasons. Originally Posted by Chris236
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you are the one talking about Newton’s laws. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
I asked what happens when you jump?
Some are artists, some are linguists, some are neither but struggling to be…..there’s a lot of music out there. And opinions.
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You missed the final part of what I wrote with regards to playing ‘out’. The guys that are most adept at it are usually incredibly sensitive to the nature I’m referring to. Have to have a deep sense of where the bull’s-eye is to dodge it in a meaningful way. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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Do I have type my stance for a 3rd time? You said there are zero rules. I said there are some rules and some guidelines that you can work with or disregard. You have to follow some rules in music for the music to be effective. Like following the form, keeping time, understanding the harmony etc. People who never develop following any of the music rules end up like this. There's no getting around it. (Guy on my other forum.) Originally Posted by Chris236
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Lol
many very different conversations going on here. Some overlapping, some not so much.
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Take it to the mad at theory thread.
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Also - I’m not using language like ‘rules’ and ‘laws’. At least not intentionally. Did you fellas miss that gem comparing music theory to a still life painting a page or two back?
lol, all in good fun.
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Ur just mad at onions, Jim. Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
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no thanks, I’m not mad (if that wasn’t obvious) and it’s incredibly pertinent to the thread title. Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
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Didn’t miss it. I even agree with it. I just don’t agree with the whole idea that some aspects of the thing are fundamental. Meaning that bullseye isn’t always in the same place. Originally Posted by Chris236
Folks hear things in different ways and that’s pretty much fine.
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I doubt that seeing as how they're my favorite vegetable. Originally Posted by ccroft
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I think the way you use words like “fundamental” “fact” and “natural” might be leading to the confusion on this point. Originally Posted by Chris236
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Somehow you’ve ended up in a place where one person thinks you’re saying music is the Wild West and another person thinks you’re saying music is governed by immutable fundamental principles. Originally Posted by Chris236
Lol
many very different conversations going on here. Some overlapping, some not so much.
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Yes, people do hear things (and not hear things) for different reasons to be sure! I’ll leave it at that since I’ve already sited plenty of examples of what I’m taking about. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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hahaha Originally Posted by pamosmusic
love it.
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Right. Tough to verbalize a sensation, which is what music ‘theory’ was ultimately born from and why there’s a lot more uniformity in it than not. But at the end of the day, still just a ‘still life’. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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Good musicians arrive at their art, the still life artifact that you're describing, through musicality and following some theoretical rules.
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oh god, not physics analogy
plus the attribution of platonism to physics is, well, I think a lot of physicists would struggle to describe physical law as eternal and immutable, and if pressed might say they are no more than human models of possibly some abstract truth that may never be attainable. Most would rather duck the question as one for the philosophers.
I think musicians are still influenced by a sort of cultural tendency towards what I often call - probably incorrectly - platonism. They are music and music theory as some Eternal Truth. This is actually a Middle Ages/ancient viewpoint. Music used to be set alongside mathematics and astronomy. But this was a pre scientific view of the world.
music theory is obviously not immutable because it has changed vastly over time. Neither the stylistic norms nor the theory of the time have remained the same from antiquity, to the Middle Ages, to the early modern era, to the present…. All these eras had their own theory, and built on aspects of the past, but all are utterly different. Dowland was not thinking about melodic minor modes, just as a modern jazz composer isn’t thinking about the Guidonian hand or hexachord mutation through the Great Scale.
other cultures have their own music theory and don’t hear music the same way westerners do…. hell, classical musicians have trouble hearing jazz harmony (and I suspect vice versa - but in a subtle way.)
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Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
Still not sure we are having quite the same conversation but maybe go back and read my posts from the beginning if you’d like to join in. Nobody, least of all Me, wants to hear me repeating myself.
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