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This is a weird place sometimes . Simultaneously you can have a thread where people whinge about anything remotely harmonically advanced, and try to convince us that all music written after 1917 is complete tosh, and now here we have a thread where someone laments Mozart's limited musical theory and wishes he might have done something more interesting. Gotta love PW

Well, I never listen to recordings of those people. I do not have to. I was tuning for the jazz immortals before you got out of elementary school. You do not learn about improvisation from recordings.

Any fool can tell that there are differences in the harmonic language between Mozart and some of today's musicians. However, great musicians are great musicians no matter what language of music they speak. The important thing is to look for what they have in common.

Really?? You don't learn the language of jazz by playing with and stidying the recordings of other jazz musicians? Learning jazz is ore about listening and emulating than anything else. That's how all the greats of the ancient period that you're talking about learned the dialect and language of jazz. Guys like Diz, Bird, Lester, Louie, etc., didn't have colleges to teach them. They learned by sneaking into speakeasys and hiding in the rafters to listen to jazz players.
When Bird came up with Diz, he couldn't even read music! Didn't really know what he was playing theroetically, but played the sound in his head that was downloaded by all his listening and then jamming.
Jazz of bygone day was learned by listening, not by analyzing. Listening to the dialect and then seeking it back to another speaking the same dialect ad fine tuning that.
When you say that jaz isn't learned by listening, it's obvious that you haven't a clue.
All the notes and chords in jazz, no matter how advanced, have been used before, in clasical music. It's the dialect that's changed. The way the notes are phrased and harmonies stacked, and the way you get that i by speaking with others, through others, and by listening to others speaking that language that you wish to emulate.
In learning to play jazz, listening is 90% of the task!
Also, you really should listen to some post 20's jazz. jazz has come a long way since Eubie Blake, Bix Beiderbick, and Paul Whiteman's swingless "jazz".

I agree with BJones here, I heard from Jeff Clayton that Ray Brown used to stole idea from Oscar Pettiford so much that people use to call him "Ray Pettiford".. in fact the whole school of thought for them is LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN, and learn to play everything by ear.. Jeff Clayton also told me that John Clayton told his son Gearld and Tamir Hendelman, both excellent pianists, to learn to play Oscar Peterson's "Canadina Suite" note by note without writing them down. My friend was lucky enough to talk to Kenny Garrett, and Kenny basiclly told him that your practice routine should consist of 4 hrs of technique and 4 hrs of transcribing

So apparently Kenny Garrett, Jeff/John/Gerld Clayton, and TONS of very accomplished jazz musicians think that you CAN learn jazz from recordings... and in fact a lot of these people have problem with jazz education nowdays because a lot of school rely too much of method books.

Corrct. learning to play jazz is a completely different process than learning to type classical music. Classical pianists strive to selflessly play the music of others, like zombies, sacrificing their own creativity in the process, slavishly losing their own identity, absorbed by the composers who's muisc they're playing, note for note, time after time, nothing ever changes, it can actually make you wretch if there's even a spark of creativity in your soul or muic in your head!, while jazz musicians strive to play their own music from within. To create, out of the amalgam of music they've uploaded by constant listening and honing their ear and getting in touch with themselves at the keyboard. That music gets there in only one manner. By hours and hours of listening rather than playing. The ear and imagination, plus learning to play in the moment, to instantaneously create, instant composition is the goal of jazz musicians and the training to do so is completely different than classical music once the basic nuts and bolts common to both genres are mastered.

So classical musicians do not:
a) have any creativity?
b) have any individual identity?
c) hone their ears?

Please answer-I am eager to hear your response!

Not unlike some posters here...

Ah, the old BJones classical-pianist-as-mere-typist analogy again. But now we're zombies as well!

Sorry, BJones, you didn't actually answer my questions.
I shall ask them again.
So classical musicians do not:
a) have any creativity?
b) have any individual identity?
c) hone their ears?

Please answer-I am eager to hear your response!

Yeah, but we've come a long way since then ...

just listen ...

Miles went to Juilliard. Generalizations SUCK.

I suppose that means that you do not believe that there are jazz musicians who learn in the very same way as what you decry in classical musicians!

All I said was that I do not listen to recordings because I listen to the artists live. After all, once it is recorded, it is no different from "typed" classical music.

The fact that you do not read correctly proves my point: Your understanding of music is so limited that it is worthless. You read what you want, missing the point, and you listen to what you want, again, missing the point.

BDB
Did you add the "because I listen to the artists live." Just now? or did you say that previously in the post because

"I do not listen to recordings because I listen to the artists live."

"Well, I never listen to recordings of those people. I do not have to"

Means COMPLETELY different things



I don't have the kind of extreme opinion about classical music as BJones do, but I do agree that you learn classical and jazz very differently... I've already mentioned Kenny Garrett and The Clayton Brothers, but there are many others like George Duke who are really concerned that jazz is taught in school more like European/classical tradition and its losing its African-American roots.

Does this mean that you can't be a good jazz musician and be a good classical musician and vice versa? not necessarily.. but its obvious that jazz musicians and classical musician think of music very differently. Uri Caine is capable of doing both, but how many classical purists have been deeply offended by his interpretation of Wagner and Bach's Well Temper Clavier??

I said that I did not listen to jazz recordings much because I tune for the artists. I thought it would be obvious that I listen to them then. If you hear as much live music as I do, recordings are a disappointment.

There are classical artists who can improvise as well or better than jazz artists. There are jazz artists who can and do play classical -- I have heard a lot of them play classics at sound checks. There are many artist who stand somewhere in the middle.

One thing is for certain. Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven were never "classical" performers in their lifetimes. They were the equivalent of jazz artists.

By the time Mozart and Beethoven came along, Bach was a "classical" composer for them, just as Prokofiev, Monk, and Arlen might be for a Keith Jarrett: Someone who is part of the roots upon which their music grew from.

BDB


That may be Bach or Mozart back then but the classical and jazz music world is very divided most of the time. While jazz musicians are able to play classical music and vice versa during warm ups, very few of them actually perform them in front of people. There is hardly anyone who can do both at the top level.

I know Keith Jarret and Chick Corea recorded and performed classical music, but neither of them were successful& most classical pianists I've talked to don't think very highly of their performance either.

And if you look at majority of classical piano students and even teachers, they usually don't have any clue about improvisation.. as far as classical training for jazz musicians, it varies from person to person.. i know kenny kirkland and alan broadbent are concert level pianists, but kenny werner admits that hey didn't go very far with it because he didn't have the patience.

There is a thread in the non-classical forum about keith jarrett, and Vladmir Ashkenazy.. my understanding is that while these people have tremendous respect for each others art and ability, even if you don't quite understand them.. you can't be an 'insider' both worlds so to speak.

Certainly not anywhere near the extent of a Keith jarrett who spontaneously creates all the music he plays on stage by channeling from within and audibly joining his musical flow.

Composers have far more in common with the type of processes I'm referring to.

In a nutshell, a secretary typing a letter that was dictated by her boss is not the creative element that produced the ideas the letter conveys. Her boss was responsible for the ideas. Of course, the typict can be creative too, maybe using different size fontsm underlining, with bold here and there, or even highlighting with a different color, but one thing will alway remain the same; the ideas conveyed by the text, which are not hers and solely the provenance of her boss.

Same with poetry. The reciter can stress or emphasize certain words but that does little to change the original words written by the poet.

Anything original produced by another is far more creative than any pianist perfectly playing a Beethoven Sonata - either from memory or via sheet music.

The reason why is simple. The music produced by the classical pianist via reading off sheets is a recreative act. The music coming from someone playing around or improvising on the piano comes from a far different place.

I'm not trying to put down note readers or classical pianists here. Just stating what I believe to be fact.

yes. As my sound files show, I have no knowledge of music or piano.

What you should do is post a file of your glorious playing to show your true worth as a musician.

Typists will never understand that concept. BDB thinks that the same creative processes are involved in playing the music as the composer who wrote it. Besides, he only listens to live music, which according to him is far more creative than recorded music.

he must live under the stage in a concert hall.