Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner What do you think the greats would do...

So I just had a random thought today while I was playing a piano part with a band at my church....what do you think the great like Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, and all the other great composers would do with a modern day chord chart to play along with a band or something?
Like today, I was playing a song where the chords were C#m, B, A, E and it repeated that with some variations throughout. I took that and did a lot of long arpeggios with added non chord tones [LOTS of suspensions, passing tones, appoggiaturas and the like], cross rhythms, and stuff since the song was piano driven and it sounded great. If I were just playing along I'd probably have just done a second inversion chord in my right hand and done bass octaves in the left to the beat...but the question is...what do you think some of the great pianists in the past, the composers we play now, would do with chord charts like we have today? Kind of a random question, but I think it could be a fun topic.

They weren't modern jazz musicians, that's for sure. They would have done exactly what you did. Scales, Arpeggios, scales and arpeggios in octaves, etc., etc., ad nauseum as do most classical pianists do when faced with having to improvise on a chord progression.

Here's one of the world's best improvisors, working on a circle of fifths progression:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLCGWh-VZhI

F min - Bb min - Eb - Ab - Dd - G - C
etc.

Although I like some of Jarrett's playing like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq0EWNuR1H8

comparing him as an improvisor to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt etc. is quite pathetic. It's like comparing some tiny bug to a mountain.

Mozart was said to have accompanied a singer in an aria that he had never heard before without any music at all.

That's only because you truly don't understand jazz or improvisation. If major and minor scales in one tonal center float your boat, the ones you mentioned are your cup of tea.
If you appreciate something of a little more substance, which of course, you must understand first to appreciate, Jarret, et. al. will be as totally lost on you as if you were to improvise scales and arpeggios in one key.

You statement assumes jazz is of a "little more substance" and the greatest composers and improvisors of their day were limited to major and minor scales.

You can spend the entire day posting here for the rest of your life(and you seem well on your way to do that)but you're wasting your time trying to convince people on a classical music forum. But if you want to continue beating your head against the wall, be my guest. I don't think you've convinced one person here.

I won't be bothering to read your "reply".

[But if you want to continue beating your head against the wall, be my guest.

Sadly since the classical greats lived before sound recording existed, we will never have a definitive answer to this debate.

...how simply they thought 150 to 200 years ago.

[quote=BDB] But really, in his day, the structure of most music was so predictable

And yet, at least 90% of what jazz artists play uses pretty much the same musical language that Mozart did. That is why they can improvise together even when they have never played with each other before.

To dismiss Jarrett's improvising as trivial demonstrates a total lack of understanding of what he's playing, which is sad.

You have a point. There are other non-classical (though Jarrett did play the Stravinsky concerto) pianists I prefer, but since this is a 'family' forum, is it okay to be a bit honest? Hopefully I won't be modded.

Back at uni, I met this really cool bloke. We smoked quite a bit (bongs are best for this) and all of a sudden he said: you really need to hear some Jarrett. Well, we listened and I was transfixed with what I heard... a few drinks just added to the atmosphere.

Thanks to the 'alterations' Jarrett's improv just slowed my sense of time down, everything he was doing made so much sense. It was incredible. Having seen many Wagner operas in altered states, I would have to admit that Jarrett almost rivals Wagner in his utter control of long spans of time.

Methinks the blood rushes too fast for us these days. Instant gratification is what it is about, and it is a shame what we miss. The Bach B minor Mass, Wagner's Parsifal, the Bruckner symphonies, and yes, Keith Jarrett.

Not the 90% that I listen too and play with!

All that says is that you are too young to differentiate style from substance.