The official mad-at-theory thread

[Christian Miller]

For myself I enjoyed playing video games for years and then I discovered guitar and liked that more.

[Jimmy Smith]

tbh I think my business model is fundamentally flawed. When it comes to jazz teaching as a business… well I’ve heard some stories!

I’m an idiot otoh.

Capable young student: ‘does this sound good?’
Me: ‘why do you care what I think? Does it sound good to you?’
S: ‘ummm thanks for the lesson, I’ll be in touch.’

the idea that anyone would look to me for validation as a player is terrifying (beyond the initial stages of course where I’m obviously doing that a lot.). There are also such things as grifts, whale hunting and cults in music edu and I find them morally repugnant. They are a good way to get money though .

Fwiw I think there’s an interesting challenge in teaching improv at a beginner-intermediate level. It engages me. It’s flipping hard. Much easier to expound on theory.

That's a good instinct to have as a learner. You can't hear everything as a novice and so you could illustrate specifics for them about what sounds bad and then they learn.

[JimmyDunlop]

And I never played computer games and I don't have time to catch up with all that. :-)
When I was a little boy I played football and I wanted to be a car mechanic.
Television was black and white... and life was grey.
The Shadows rock group were playing over and over on the radio.I even played their tunes.

when were you born?

lato or lewan?

[JimmyDunlop]

1954...

very nice year.

lato or lewan?

[Christian Miller]

I hope you understood what I mean.
The fact that a child, when it comes to music school, should practice systematically or at least try to do so.
Fun is fun but you have to follow the school curriculum, which is not so easy in music schools.
There's a simple rule: you either practice playing or you're out.
Maybe you mean other schools but in music schools it's like I wrote.

I don’t know much about specialist music schools (assuming you don’t mean university or conservatoire since you are talking about children), having neither attended one or taught at one. I assume music is much more central to the school, so it’s treated differently.

(in terms of career prospects, kids might be better off with the video games ….it’s a big sector. Maybe video game music?)

In general if a child isn’t practicing generally it’s down to me failing to make it engaging and rewarding. Parental support is important but the motivation has to come from the child, so it has to be enjoyable in some way. I wouldn’t do anything I was told as a child so I don’t feel it’s fair to expect that to work on my students. Once they can play a bit it usually gets easier.

Mostly, it seems ok. Some kids I really can’t work with. That’s life. I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault.

[Christian Miller]

That's a good instinct to have as a learner. You can't hear everything as a novice and so you could illustrate specifics for them about what sounds bad and then they learn.

Sure. novices need close guidance - but even then I’m looking to develop their own autonomous learning and encourage them to assess their own playing - all good jazz players are highly self directed learners regardless of how many teachers they’ve had.

It’s when you have someone who can actually play. At that point they really have to start developing independence. I know what I like, and that’s my subjective opinion. A lot of people hate the things I like, and love things that leave me cold.

I can critique things like feel, phrasing, note choice, vocab and so on, but once that stuff’s together and I do not have anything to fix, they should be out in the real world playing as much as possible…. You need to be a bit of a badass, as Bruce Forman puts it. Believe in what you are doing or no one else will (easier said than done.)

[CliffR]

(in terms of career prospects, kids might be better off with the video games ….it’s a big sector. Maybe video game music?)

I'm reminded of an old cartoon (I think it was Larson) of a kid stuck in front of the TV playing video games, and one of his parents with a think bubble imagining a newspaper page full of classified ads for professional games players.

There was this guy Ben who worked as a composer at one of the studios I worked at. Once his brother Jamie Cullum made it big he left and went on tour with him.

[kris]

I don’t know much about specialist music schools (assuming you don’t mean university or conservatoire since you are talking about children), having neither attended one or taught at one. I assume music is much more central to the school, so it’s treated differently.

(in terms of career prospects, kids might be better off with the video games ….it’s a big sector. Maybe video game music?)

In general if a child isn’t practicing generally it’s down to me failing to make it engaging and rewarding. Parental support is important but the motivation has to come from the child, so it has to be enjoyable in some way. I wouldn’t do anything I was told as a child so I don’t feel it’s fair to expect that to work on my students. Once they can play a bit it usually gets easier.

Mostly, it seems ok. Some kids I really can’t work with. That’s life. I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault.

It is often the case that when parents are musicians, their children also work systematically, but it is not a rule.
Fashions come and life becomes more complicated for both children and parents.
I'm not talking about bans here, but moderation.If you want to be a musician, you can't play soccer for hours and not practice the guitar.

[Christian Miller]

It is often the case that when parents are musicians, their children also work systematically, but it is not a rule.
Fashions come and life becomes more complicated for both children and parents.
I'm not talking about bans here, but moderation.If you want to be a musician, you can't play soccer for hours and not practice the guitar.

I’ve not yet needed to encourage any guitarist who was serious about being a professional jazz player to practice. These kids are terrifying and make me feel like a slacker. Otoh I am often quite surprised at the people who get into the top places and those who don’t…

there must be some who just have no idea though.

you do come across a few deluded undergrads who don’t seem to have any get up and go.

on the other hand, cohort counts for a lot. Imagine being in Jacob Collier’s class. What would that do to you? Could go either way …

[kris]

Back to the jazz improvisation.
It always intrigues me.
What is the ideal of a jazz musician-improviser?
Is that even a smart question....?
I don't care about names because everyone knows them.

[humphreysguitar]

Did he express an opinion on cst? I’d be interested if you have a reference.



yeah I think Gjerdingen overstates it a bit. Many musicians active in classical improv and partimento scholarship (Mortensen, Sanguinetti, canzano, Koch etc) are a bit more open to modern concepts if they help. Otoh professional jazz and popular musicians rely on Roman numerals as a practical tool. See the Nashville system etc.

I like Gjerdingen and have read his books. But he self identified on a recent podcast as ‘an American salesman sort of guy’ (roughly) and I think I agree.

I don't have a written reference on the CST and it's not something he deals with (because he's not focused on jazz pedagogy) but he did say it when I asked that he had reservations about it.

And with respect, since you are great player Christian, I just want to mention that Gjerdingen is the only one out of that entire list you mentioned (who are all great people) who is happily retired and everything on his website partimenti.org is free while the rest are still in academia.

[AaronMColeman]

Lost in the depths of this conversation, several have mentioned theory affecting their comping more than solos. I'm a very early beginner, but I find that to be true. The more I learn the more interesting and appropriate my comping becomes. My solos still kinda rely on knowing chord tones and scale positions on the neck (which I guess is theory but it comes through more in my comping).

[rpjazzguitar]

Lost in the depths of this conversation, several have mentioned theory affecting their comping more than solos. I'm a very early beginner, but I find that to be true. The more I learn the more interesting and appropriate my comping becomes. My solos still kinda rely on knowing chord tones and scale positions on the neck (which I guess is theory but it comes through more in my comping).

With soloing, I find it desirable, when I know the tune really well, to scat sing in my mind and find the notes. It's not so difficult. You play a note and prehear the next note. So, you can prehear the interval and find the next note.

But, to do that with comping, mostly you have to prehear whole chords (or fragments of chords). The point is, it's multiple notes at once. I can't do that. What I try to do is prehear the soprano voice (highest note) of the chord I want. I have a general impression of what I want the rest of the chord to sound like, but I can't reliably find those individual notes. (I might be able to prehear the sound of a familiar grip). So, the process is different than soloing.

At that point, I can think in grips, dictated by the soprano voice. Or, I can think about the chord symbolin the chart and find those notes in different places on the neck.

Now, it seems to me that we don't have any general agreement about what is theory and what isn't. But for me, when I'm scat singing in my mind and playing the result, I'm not going to label that as using theory. Others might. When I'm thinking about chord construction to find the next chord fragment I'm going to play, I'll call that using theory. I guess some others might not.

Of course, over time, some of the comping options become automatic. Rooted in theory but not executed by thinking about it.

The point is that theoretical thoughts are more useful to me in comping than soloing, if I know the tune well.

If I don't know the tune and the changes are unconventional, then I'm going to be using theory to play through them. Mostly knowing the chord tones and consonant extensions.

[Christian Miller]

I don't have a written reference on the CST and it's not something he deals with (because he's not focused on jazz pedagogy) but he did say it when I asked that he had reservations about it.

thats interesting. Yes I know he often references jazz in interviews so appears to have some knowledge of it. To me chord scale theory represents some of the social forces he identifies in German music theory. Anyway, another screed in that haha.

And with respect, since you are great player Christian, I just want to mention that Gjerdingen is the only one out of that entire list you mentioned (who are all great people) who is happily retired and everything on his website partimenti.org is free while the rest are still in academia.

Yeah, I certainly don’t mean to be dismissive or overly critical as his writings have quite literally changed my life, but I do find him a little more polarised than many of his peers. Sanguinetti etc do not come across on Facebook as the type of people who would say something based on their academic position from other things they’ve said. Far from it, they are candid and informal. Which is to say I don’t get the feeling they are saying numerals are sometimes helpful for fear of losing tenure if that’s what you mean ;-)

for myself Canzano’s defining of a theme as I-v-I is useful for instance - loose in a way that a specific bass or even a schema isn’t… one model I find quite helpful is to use functional harmony to help understand broad structure, Schemata to populate this framework, figured bass and counterpoint to describe the details. Michael Koch does it too. Both those guys kill.

I think Gjerdingen is leading the charge against an entrenched orthodoxy, so I get It. And I agree with 90% of what he says.

[kris]

Maybe for musicians who are jazzmen, the term jazz educator is more appropriate?
If so what does that mean?
For example, Dave Liebman.

[kris]

Oh I also like Forward Motion by Hal Galper

I have also this book.
"Forward Motion-from Bach to be-bop -A corrective approachto jazz phrasing".
A very valuable book.
The author's final sentence is interesting:
"The theories in Forward Motion are presented in a way that was shaped by my individually developed methodology.
Take the information herein and find your own way to develop it."

....or this advice:
Dizzy's lesson is,when soloing,always think rhythm first.

[JimmyDunlop]

thats interesting. Yes I know he often references jazz in interviews so appears to have some knowledge of it. To me chord scale theory represents some of the social forces he identifies in German music theory. Anyway, another screed in that haha.



Yeah, I certainly don’t mean to be dismissive or overly critical as his writings have quite literally changed my life, but I do find him a little more polarised than many of his peers. Sanguinetti etc do not come across on Facebook as the type of people who would say something based on their academic position from other things they’ve said. Far from it, they are candid and informal. Which is to say I don’t get the feeling they are saying numerals are sometimes helpful for fear of losing tenure if that’s what you mean ;-)

for myself Canzano’s defining of a theme as I-v-I is useful for instance - loose in a way that a specific bass or even a schema isn’t… one model I find quite helpful is to use functional harmony to help understand broad structure, Schemata to populate this framework, figured bass and counterpoint to describe the details. Michael Koch does it too. Both those guys kill.

I think Gjerdingen is leading the charge against an entrenched orthodoxy, so I get It. And I agree with 90% of what he says.

Sorry I think I got confused. What exactly are you debating and why in relation with the thread? If you would have to summarize it please.

[Litterick]

Maybe a diagram would help.

[kris]

Maybe a diagram would help.

Excellent idea. A diagram that will show how much theory is in a jazz musician.

[Christian Miller]

Sorry I think I got confused. What exactly are you debating and why in relation with the thread? If you would have to summarize it please.

this is to do with classical improvisation- Robert O Gjerdingen who Humphreysguitar brought up is a noted scholar and writer on the subject so hence the slight detour

He represents a recent strain of scholars and musicians who are rediscovering original 18th century methods of improv and composition and especially in Gjerdingens case rejecting (mostly) German 19th century concepts like roman numerals and functional harmonic analysis and so on for this era of music (Bach, Handel, Mozart etc)

[Christian Miller]

So I suppose you could say he’s mad at theory!

[humphreysguitar]

Actually I would say it deals not just with classical improvisation (although that's the main battleground) but deals with the much wider implications of music theory and education as a whole.

So it's really a battle between Roman numerals/function theory/chord symbols vs figured bass/counterpoint/scaled degrees.

it's where non-chord notes are not treated as "chord extensions" but dissonances.

It's so fundamental a battle that it goes well beyond classical music into all tonal music.

I've given examples in previous posts how these older principles have no problem adapting to modern styles (jazz/film etc) and quite honestly are better suited to incorporating styles than chord symbols and function theory.

how often have we heard "is this a non functional chord? Oh what a genius!"

I'll leave with this quintet by Theodore Dubois:

[pauln]

Excellent idea. A diagram that will show how much theory is in a jazz musician.

Here is a starter kit for the jazz musician diagram

[kris]

Are there musicologists on the forum?
After all, these are people who have great theoretical knowledge .
I only knew one jazz musician who studied musicology in college
I must regret to say that his knowledge of musicology did not affect the level of his piano playing.

[kris]

Here is a starter kit for the jazz musician diagram

Well, yes, but this is only a starter kit and can apply to any profession.
I have an interesting follow-up question:
whether by listening to CDs recorded by a jazz musician, we are able to determine his level of theoretical knowledge?