Do non musicians dig jazz?
Lyudmila
after many an effort is 'impossible!'. I'm a musician wannabe myself, and
practically everyone else I know or have known who likes jazz is a
musician, so, the question naturally arose. I started young, influenced
by two great tenor players at my high school, and, I've ever since been
hooked on tenor. I myself am not a great fan of trumpet players,
pianists, bass?, I can't even hear the bass, couldn't pick any bass player
in a blindfold test. Maybe it's impossible, or next to impossible, for a
non player to really appreciate a jazz instrumentalist.
R Shapiro
wrote:
>I started young, influenced
>by two great tenor players at my high school, and, I've ever since been
>hooked on tenor. I myself am not a great fan of trumpet players,
>pianists, bass?, I can't even hear the bass, couldn't pick any bass player
>in a blindfold test.
What this suggests to me is that you're listening very hard for details of
technique, the craft of playing, and hardly at all to structure and
content, the art of playing. If this rather lopsided approach is what you
consider to be "appreciation", I would have to respectfully disagree with
your definition.
>Maybe it's impossible, or next to impossible, for a
>non player to really appreciate a jazz instrumentalist.
Unless you define "appreciate" in such a way as to rule it out by fiat for
non musicians, this is basically nonsense. Do only novelists appreciate
novels? Only film-makers appreciate movies? Art doesn't work that way,
fortunately. If it did, it would be a trivial and unimportant thing, like
some eccentric hobby.
--
rs/rsha...@bbn.com
Benjamin Smith
>There was a recent thread on 'hooking someone on jazz' and my experience
>after many an effort is 'impossible!'. I'm a musician wannabe myself, and
>practically everyone else I know or have known who likes jazz is a
>by two great tenor players at my high school, and, I've ever since been
>hooked on tenor. I myself am not a great fan of trumpet players,
>pianists, bass?, I can't even hear the bass, couldn't pick any bass player
>non player to really appreciate a jazz instrumentalist.
So all you hear is tenor? One of the big thrills in jazz is the
interplay between the musicians.
Many non musicians love jazz. Some love the standards that are used,
some love it's rhythmic sense, and after repeated listenings they can
recognize well structured solos or swinging solos from run-in-the-mill
solos. Some love the virtuosity, some lyricism.
But I am alarmed that you like tenor and seemingly nothing else.
Are you really a jazz fan or a tenor saxophone fan?
Ben Smith
hjs...@usa1.com
>There was a recent thread on 'hooking someone on jazz' and my experience
>after many an effort is 'impossible!'. I'm a musician wannabe myself, and
>practically everyone else I know or have known who likes jazz is a
>musician, so, the question naturally arose. I started young, influenced
>by two great tenor players at my high school, and, I've ever since been
>hooked on tenor. I myself am not a great fan of trumpet players,
>pianists, bass?, I can't even hear the bass, couldn't pick any bass player
>in a blindfold test. Maybe it's impossible, or next to impossible, for a
>non player to really appreciate a jazz instrumentalist.
You're not a musician and you like jazz tenor, so what are you talking
about. Also, people's tastes change and they develop, so in a few
years who know what else you'll like?
Yes, there are plenty of people who love jazz who don't play an
instrument (although some may have tried to at one time.)
Harold
R Shapiro
wrote:
>Here's another opinion - question - it
>seems to me that different instruments play on different emotions
A better way to say this is that there are different sets of emotive
conventions typically associated with particular instruments. But these
are contingent and historically specific, not anything essential to the
instrument itself.
Players like Miles Davis and Lester Young (or Evan Parker) radically
altered the emotive conventions of their particular instruments, and
helped to create new conventions as a result. These are just two examples
that spring to mind, there are lots of others. In fact most great players
do this to some extent: the interplay between convention and individuality
is one of the most interesting aspects of art.
In any case it's important to see that this *is* a matter of convention,
not of the essence of instruments.
The whole issue of this sort of conventionalized emotive expressism is an
important one, because it's gotten in the way of the progress of jazz
imho. Certainly *reverence* for conventions, including expressivism
itself, has this effect. But we'll save that for later...
>Thus each instrument has its
>own distinct emotional vocabulary, if you will. So, what gives here, has
>anyone else noticed this?
Each instrument has its own history of performances and performance
styles. Sometimes these have simple emotive connotations, sometimes not.
>I also note that I can hear a recorded tenor and appreciate it, while, the
>experience of hearing an actual trumpet seems way better, and even
>qualitatively different, than hearing a recorded trumpet.
Recording technology certainly doesn't capture the sound of any intrument
perfectly. Different conclusions can be drawn from this, for instance (a)
records are a poor substitute for live performances and are always in that
sense a failure, or (b) records should be used for something other than
replicating live performances and should be judged on a completely
different basis. I like (b) myself...
As for your particular "inability" (as it were), I think we've already
discussed this. You're very focused on specific techniques of tenor
playing. Other listeners have a more general way of listening, so they
hear the structure of what's being played (for instance) and the interplay
among various players as much as they hear technical specifics, though
perhaps they don't hear quite as much of the last as you do. It's
certainly not obvious that your approach makes you more of an appreciator.
>And... I still think most heavy jazz fans are players.......It would
>probably take a survey to convince me otherwise.
Something tells me that no amount of evidence will ever convince you otherwise.
Accepting this would require you to accept that there are other ways of
listening that are at least as legitimate as your own. Nothing in your
posts suggests that you're prepared to do this.
--
rs/rsha...@bbn.com
W.Hery
>There was a recent thread on 'hooking someone on jazz' and my experience
>after many an effort is 'impossible!'. I'm a musician wannabe myself, and
>practically everyone else I know or have known who likes jazz is a
>.... Maybe it's impossible, or next to impossible, for a
>non player to really appreciate a jazz instrumentalist.
As an ardent jazz fan, serious appreciator of the music, and a total
non musician I strongly disagree with you. When I listen to great
jazz, I am moved by the music. I can appreciate the originality of the
music played, the creativity of the artist, and the artist's
distinctive voice. A musician may appreciate the technique more than
I do, and a music theorist may appreciate precisely what is special
about the changing keys, chord structures, the lack thereof, etc. that
I only sense intuitively. But that does not lessen my appreciation of a
broad rnage of non-commercial jazz.
To me, suggesting that only musicians appreciate jazz is equivalent to
suggesting that only painters could appreciate Van Gogh or Serraut
becuase they know the difficulties of the techniques of these artists.
Or that to appreciate the architecture of a great building you have to
understand the construction techniques available to the architect and
why he/she selected the ones they did, etc.
Another way of looking at it is that there is a difference between
the creation and the technique of creation: the goal is (or at least should
be) the creation itself, not the technique. That creation should be
something which should be appreciated for itself. The technique of
creation may be appreciated in a differene way by those who are
practiioners, but that is only incidental.
A few years ago, I was discussing my lack of formal knowledge of music
theory with a friend who is a classically trained pianist with a
grounding in music theory and an appreciation of jazz. I suggested
that I would like to learn a lot of music thoery to better understand
the jazz I was listening to. She didn't think it was that important in
the appreciation of the music, and, in fact, that I might get less of
the "meaning" of the music becuase I would be paying too much
attention to the theory. Being a mathematician by training, I think I
would really appreciate the music theroy aspects very much, but I
suspect whe was right. BTW, I still haven't had time to dleve into the
theroy in detail yet, but I plan ot eventually...
Bill Hery
AT&T Bell Labs, Whippany NJ
w.h...@att.com
R Shapiro
>A few years ago, I was discussing my lack of formal knowledge of music
>theory with a friend who is a classically trained pianist with a
>grounding in music theory and an appreciation of jazz. I suggested
>that I would like to learn a lot of music thoery to better understand
>the jazz I was listening to. She didn't think it was that important in
>the appreciation of the music, and, in fact, that I might get less of
>the "meaning" of the music becuase I would be paying too much
>attention to the theory.
Basically I agree with everything Bill says in his post, but I want to
introduce a strong caveat at this point.
We've been talking about different ways of listening that are open to
musicians and non-musicians, and the general wrongheadedness of claiming
that only the former can provide "true" appreciation of the music. It's
tempting to start talking at that point about the "soul" of the music, or
its "spirit" or its "meaning". These are not necessarily the wrong words;
nonetheless it's a temptation that should probably be avoided because
these words are so easily misunderstood.
Connotations of spirit or meaning should not be taken to imply that
non-technical listening is casual, or vague, or sloppy, or New Age like,
or unanalytic or imprecise. On the contrary, it can be very close and
detailed listening, just as close and detailed as a style of listening
that focuses on fingerings and embouchures, It probably is required of a
serious listener that he or she listen closely and carefully. But this
does not require any sort of background in music - all it takes is open
ears and practice.
The notions of spirit or soul or meaning, in this context, imply something
else entirely, namely multi-dimensionality: an approach that considers
multiple aspects at once, instead of focusing on one at the expense of the
others. *That* is what provides a listener with some real insight into the
"soul" of a performance.
Now I know Bill H knows all this, but I also know there's a
anti-intellectual contingent on this newsgroup who could easily turn this
discussion into "spirit vs letter" or something equally vacuous ("all that
matters is how the music makes me feel" or some such silliness). I'd like
to try to keep that from happening before it does...
--
rs/rsha...@bbn.com
Benjamin Smith
>O.K., O.K. !!! Lighten up already. Here's another opinion - question - it
>seems to me that different instruments play on different emotions, that
>is, the emotion evoked by a tenor solo is different, in fact, way
>different, from the emotion evoked by a, say, piano, solo. A tenor wails,
>expresses some sort of anguish, often highlighted by a forlorn scream or
>cry,
It can certainly do that. It does depend on the musician. There can be
some concensus of the emotional evocation in the music of a particular
player, but it is personally different to each listener.
while a piano solo expresses, well, here I can't be sure, some sort
>of architectural sophistication.
The piano is capable of many colors and attacks and tones and it is a
purely polyphonic (capable of playing many lines) and multi textured
instrument. So part of your answer is a component of what the piano
expresses.
Ben Smith
R Shapiro
>one human to play. Also, the average layman seems rarely to the difficulty of
>playing really high on a trumpet.
A crucial word was inadvertently edited out of this sentence, and I'm
*very* curious what it was!
From what I can see, "laymen" are absolutely enthralled with flashy
high-note trumpet playing. Me, I find it truly awful to listen to, and
almost completely without merit, like going to see a movie that has
nothing to it but good special effects. Yucch. This is a classic example
of empty technique. Give me a thinking middle-range player any day (Rex
Stewart vis a vis Cat Anderson, Hobart Dotson vis a vis Michael Ray).
--
rs/rsha...@bbn.com
Marc Sabatella
> A musician may appreciate the technique more than
> I do
Sometimes I think this works the other way around as well - certain types of
technical displays are more impressive to the non-musician than the musician.
For instance, fast runs of certain scales, which a musician might recognize as
very simple, might fool someone who didn't realize that certain lines lay so
well on an instrument that it takes very little skill at all to play them. For
example, take the back of your finger, start at the bottom of a piano, and run
it up the white keys as fast as you can. You've just played an A minor scale
as fast as Oscar Peterson. Now, if you could play an F# minor scale that fast,
I might be impressed. Conversely, there are some things that are difficult,
but only players of the instrument realize how difficult it is. I think Buddy
Rich has the reputation of playing things that are even more difficult to pull
off than they sound. Even the average musician, when trying to program a drum
machine, will often unwittingly program something that would be impossible for
one human to play. Also, the average layman seems rarely to the difficulty of
playing really high on a trumpet.
> and a music theorist may appreciate precisely what is special
> about the changing keys, chord structures, the lack thereof, etc. that
> I only sense intuitively.
Here, I think the intuitive sense is more important anyhow. I think of theory
as a way of explaining *why* we react intuitively the way we do, and for
musicians, it provides a way of generating a particular intuitive reaction.
Certainly my knowledge of theory provides me with extra mental stimulation when
I listen to music, but I think the intuitive reaction is the stronger and more
important.
> To me, suggesting that only musicians appreciate jazz is equivalent to
> suggesting that only painters could appreciate Van Gogh or Serraut
> becuase they know the difficulties of the techniques of these artists.
But then, this still would explain the popularity of Mondrian :-)
> I would like to learn a lot of music thoery to better understand
> the jazz I was listening to. She didn't think it was that important in
> the appreciation of the music, and, in fact, that I might get less of
> the "meaning" of the music becuase I would be paying too much
> attention to the theory.
This is kind of complicated. In the best case, you will now have additional
facilities to appreciate the music, meaning you are capable of more
"meaningful" reactions. Sort of like the argument audiophiles give to counter
criticisms that they are not really into the music. Or, a simpler analogy,
if you learn to really understand the nuances of Shakespearean English and the
culture of the day, you will be able to see sorts of things you'd have missed
otherwise. On the other hand, there is the danger that music you used to enjoy
at an "intuitive" level will now seem too simplistic (although knowing your
tastes, this is highly unlikely). It is likely that your tastes would change
somewhat as you learn to react on different levels, but I don't think one could
really say this was a bad thing.
--
Marc Sabatella
--
ma...@fc.hp.com
http://www.fortnet.org/~marc/
--
All opinions expressed herein are my personal ones
and do not necessarily reflect those of HP or anyone else.
Rory Stuart
> W.Hery wrote:
> > A musician may appreciate the technique more than I do
>
> Sometimes I think this works the other way around as well - certain types of
> technical displays are more impressive to the non-musician than the musician.
I agree, but I think the music can be appreciated well without any focus on
technique. What I mean is that, while I might appreciate, for example, the way
Jack DeJohnette is swinging like crazy without ever playing his high-hat on
2 and 4, or the technical difficulty of what Tuck Andress is doing when he
simultaneously plays certain legato bass lines with staccato chords and melody
notes on guitar, or the technical control Bill Dixon demonstrates in his
sound production on trumpet (to take 3 very different examples), I think
a non-musician can appreciate the music of all 3 of these musicians just
fine by listening to the music they are creating *with* their technique
and not even thinking about the techniques involved.
> > and a music theorist may appreciate precisely what is special
> > about the changing keys, chord structures, the lack thereof, etc. that
> > I only sense intuitively.
>
> Here, I think the intuitive sense is more important anyhow. I think of theory
> as a way of explaining *why* we react intuitively the way we do, and for
> musicians, it provides a way of generating a particular intuitive reaction.
> Certainly my knowledge of theory provides me with extra mental stimulation when
> I listen to music, but I think the intuitive reaction is the stronger and more
> important.
There is really only one area that it strikes me (at least thinking about it at
this moment) where non-musicians often miss out on the pleasure of listening to
jazz improvisation. A non-musician can do fine at hearing the sounds (melody,
harmony, rhythm, timbre) produced and the emotional content they convey,
and can hear and at least intuitively understand the interaction between
musicians as they improvise. But it seems to me that non-musicians often miss the
dynamic that could be thought of as "relationship to underlying form."
For example, listen to Miles intentionally turn the beat around in his
solo on "So What" on "Live at the Plugged Nickel." For me, there is this
wonderful tension-filled drama in his interaction with the rhythm section,
and a big smile as this is resolved and they maintain the form correctly
(even in the case of such a simple form).
My experience is that non-musicians (including many jazz critics!) generally
miss this sort of thing entirely. I think a non-musician *can* learn to
appreciate this kind of thing by learning forms (at least on a "hearing" level,
not necessarily intellectual level). In a sense, this is a kind of tension/resolution
with an "unheard" thing, so to appreciate this, I think the non-musician has to
be able to "hear" (or at least "feel") this unheard thing. If you are a
non-musician, I think spending some time with a jazz musician who is willing
to play and show you some forms would help.
Of course, this kind of understanding could *detract* from appreciating jazz in
some cases as well, I guess. I'm thinking of a time a jazz writer showed
a video of a widely known saxophonist to myself and another musician who were
on tour and had come to play in the writer's town. The video showed the
saxophonist playing with some "sad like a m-----------" rhythm section.
As the rhythm section would drop beats or screw up the forms of the tunes,
the other musician and I apparently must have given some knowing glances
or raised eyebrows or whatever to each other. I mean, as great as this
saxophonist was, we were suffering with him in sympathy -- this rhythm
section (and hence the music) was dreadful. The writer had no clue that
there was anything musically wrong and enjoyed the tape much more than we
did (and asked afterwards whether we were glancing at each other because
of some especially cool thing the saxophonist had played!).
> > To me, suggesting that only musicians appreciate jazz is equivalent to
> > suggesting that only painters could appreciate Van Gogh or Serraut
> > becuase they know the difficulties of the techniques of these artists.
I think Mr. Hery is *right* on the money here. If you are a painter (and non-musician),
you certainly understand things about Van Gogh's technique that I don't (and to which
I pay no attention), and I certainly understand some technical things about what Coltrane
is playing that you don't (and to which you pay no attention), but I can enjoy Van Gogh
and you can enjoy Coltrane without this technical knowledge. Further, without ever
concerning ourselves with the technical level, I can further my enjoyment of Van Gogh
(as you can your enjoyment of Coltrane) by spending more time with his work, checking
out how his style evolved, and checking out the work of his contemporaries to
see what new things he brought to his art, how he was influenced by and
influenced others, etc...which is not to say that we may not enjoy them *before*
we get this kind of exposure (I will never forget how much I loved the "Coltrane"
["blue"] album from the first time I heard the beginning of "Out of This World"
when I was a kid and had practically no previous exposure to Coltrane, nor any
clue to what was happening technically!).
*****shameless self-promotion mode on!*****
In closing, I suggest that all of you non-musicians reading this BUY MY RECORDINGS :-)
(as Andrew White would say :-), and see if you don't enjoy them! They got four star
reviews in Downbeat and were praised by the critics, but what do YOU think?!
Available at jazz record stores or through Cadence (315)-287-2852... Feel free
to e-mail me if you want more info.
*****Oooops, just couldn't suppress that urge :-)...shameless self-promotion mode off!****
-Rory Stuart
stu...@nynexst.com
------------------
"Rory Stuart is one of the freshest new guitarists in jazz. He has a full sound
with a long lean style of playing. His quartet has the energetic flow of the
Coltrane quartet... Rory Stuart knows the tradition even while pushing out most
broadly from that tradition." - CODA
"Rory Stuart is perhaps THE most innovative straight-ahead jazz guitarist to emerge
in years." - JAZZ TIMES
Lyudmila
seems to me that different instruments play on different emotions, that
is, the emotion evoked by a tenor solo is different, in fact, way
different, from the emotion evoked by a, say, piano, solo. A tenor wails,
expresses some sort of anguish, often highlighted by a forlorn scream or
of architectural sophistication. Similarly, a trumpet is different still,
and even an alto is different from a tenor. Thus each instrument has its
own distinct emotional vocabulary, if you will. So, what gives here, has
anyone else noticed this?
I also note that I can hear a recorded tenor and appreciate it, while, the
experience of hearing an actual trumpet seems way better, and even
qualitatively different, than hearing a recorded trumpet. And, while
after listening to any number of Miles' sides, I couldn't even tell the
difference between RG and WK, but I know a piano player whose live sound I
can recognize immediately. So, I'm thinking that since I play tenor, I
can hear the nuances, inflections, etc., that give a sound its character
even on a recording, but, since I'm not as familiar with trumpet or piano,
say, I miss the inflections I could hear live when listening to a
recording.
hjs...@usa1.com
> while a piano solo expresses, well, here I can't be sure, some sort
>of architectural sophistication.
jazz piano, but not because of any "architectural
sophistication",whatever that is.
>I also note that I can hear a recorded tenor and appreciate it, while, the
>experience of hearing an actual trumpet seems way better, and even
>qualitatively different, than hearing a recorded trumpet. And, while
>after listening to any number of Miles' sides, I couldn't even tell the
>difference between RG and WK, but I know a piano player whose live sound I
>can recognize immediately.
So, you mean that live music is better, more real,clearer than
recorded music. I think we can all agree on that.
> So, I'm thinking that since I play tenor, I
>can hear the nuances, inflections, etc., that give a sound its character
>even on a recording, but, since I'm not as familiar with trumpet or piano,
>say, I miss the inflections I could hear live when listening to a
>recording.
>And... I still think most heavy jazz fans are players.......It would
>probably take a survey to convince me otherwise.
Does the same hold true for rock,country, reggae, folk, rap,or
classical fans. If not, why?
Harold
Marc Sabatella
> >one human to play. Also, the average layman seems rarely to the difficulty of
> >playing really high on a trumpet.
> A crucial word was inadvertently edited out of this sentence, and I'm
> *very* curious what it was!
Edited is indeed the correct word. I originally wrote "appreciate", but
realized this wasn't right, for exactly the reasons you suggest: "laymen" do
indeed "appreciate" the music, and I guess I never found the word I was looking
for, and accidentally left it blank. "Understand" is closest to what I meant,
perhaps. Some people "appreciate" the excitement value, but do not realize how
technically demanding it is. Of course, many people *do* understand this. But
I've met many who don't. This is reinforced for me when I explain how a friend
of mine had to have surgery for a number of ailments associated with his
playing high, and I'm met with blank stares: "I don't get it; how can you get a
hernia from playing a trumpet? It's not that heavy". I suppose anyone who has
actually *seen* a trumpet player do this would have some idea, though.
> This is a classic example
> of empty technique.
"Empty" is a loaded word. It excites many people, and therefore has precisely
the intended emotional effect, so I am not inclined to judge it unfavorably,
even if I personally no longer find it so interesting as an end in itself.
However, it is indeed a perfect example of music that might become less
appealing to a player as they come to understand more about the music - the
raw excitement of the high note playing will cease to be as fulfilling an
experience as a listener comes to realize other aspects are missing from the
music. That is, the untrained observer might *enjoy* the screeching, but not
truly understand the difficulty of execution the way another trumpet player
might. And indeed, some trumpet players will appreciate the music because they
appreciate its difficulty. This is their right. But the more one listens for
besides technique - and this can be based on theory or intuition or any
combination - the more one is apt to not be impressed.
Of course, not all screech trumpet is completely devoid of musical value; I
happen to *like* the way Cat Anderson's playing fits into the arrangements
written as a showcase for him. Rex Stewart would have sounded rather silly
playing "El Gato" or "Open House". Similarly, Chase needed this type of
playing to keep the drive going. Even Miles tended to play high more when
playing "rock" music, and I think this was entirely appropriate.
Marc Sabatella
> But then I suspect that there are some things
> which a musician might not be able to appreciate.
I see no basis for believing this. What I do see is that a musician might see
deficiencies elsewhere that work to make the overall impression negative, but
I don't see any reason to believe one loses some abilities as a result of
musical training.
> The
> truth is, there are many things that a non-musician can appreciate
> which you cannot. Like for example, sometimes you will wake up and
> you will feel that you don't have *it* (there was another thread about
> this). So there are many things which cause intuitive musical
> pleasure and which have not yet been explained by musical theory. I
> think you are more likely to lose this skill as you learn more about
> musical theory.
Your "example" is nothing of the sort. You have yet to name a single thing a
non-musician can appreciate that a musician cannot, nor have you given a single
reason for believing that one might lose anything by learning about music.
> Musical theory cannot explain why human emotions pass through music.
Says who? Just because it has not yet been done to your satisfaction, does not
mean it is impossible.
> You can try to say that Major is Happy and Minor is Sad - and you can
> try to make other theories about it.
And many of these theories seem verified by empirical data. We don't "make"
theories. We "discover" them. We try to explain what we already can see is
happening. Someone didn't "make up" gravity and then predicts that things
would fall; they *started* with the observation that things fell, then tried to
understand why. Similarly with many aspects of music theory.
> But when we both listen to So
> What, you will enjoy the tricks that Miles uses and I will enjoy
> the straight emotions that he conveys.
I can enjoy both.
Jeff Volkman
On Thu, 4 Jan 1996, Gary Valentin wrote:
[cut]
> I agree 100% with her. I used to love Bach's preludes and fugues.
I > had a friend play them for me. Once he explained to me the structure
> of the fugue, with subject and counter-subject and the little parts in
> between, and trying to see which voice is playing the subject. Since
> then, I cannot enjoy fugues anymore because they have lost their
> magic.
Hmm, I had the opposite reaction; I never was impressed by fugues until I
understood how much technical juggling is involved in their composition.
-Jeff
Gary Valentin
R> I agree, but I think the music can be appreciated well without any focus on
R> technique. What I mean is that, while I might appreciate, for example, the way
R> Jack DeJohnette is swinging like crazy without ever playing his high-hat on
R> 2 and 4, or the technical difficulty of what Tuck Andress is doing when he
R> simultaneously plays certain legato bass lines with staccato chords and melody
R> notes on guitar, or the technical control Bill Dixon demonstrates in his
R> sound production on trumpet (to take 3 very different examples), I think
R> a non-musician can appreciate the music of all 3 of these musicians just
R> fine by listening to the music they are creating *with* their technique
R> and not even thinking about the techniques involved.
R> There is really only one area that it strikes me (at least thinking about it at
R> this moment) where non-musicians often miss out on the pleasure of listening to
R> jazz improvisation. A non-musician can do fine at hearing the sounds (melody,
R> harmony, rhythm, timbre) produced and the emotional content they convey,
R> and can hear and at least intuitively understand the interaction between
R> musicians as they improvise. But it seems to me that non-musicians
R> often miss the
R> dynamic that could be thought of as "relationship to underlying
R> form."
R> For example, listen to Miles intentionally turn the beat around in his
R> solo on "So What" on "Live at the Plugged Nickel." For me, there is this
R> wonderful tension-filled drama in his interaction with the rhythm section,
R> and a big smile as this is resolved and they maintain the form correctly
R> (even in the case of such a simple form).
Maybe you are right. But then I suspect that there are some things
which a musician might not be able to appreciate.
R> My experience is that non-musicians (including many jazz critics!) generally
R> miss this sort of thing entirely. I think a non-musician *can* learn to
R> appreciate this kind of thing by learning forms (at least on a "hearing" level,
R> not necessarily intellectual level). In a sense, this is a kind of
R> tension/resolution
R> with an "unheard" thing, so to appreciate this, I think the non-musician has to
R> be able to "hear" (or at least "feel") this unheard thing. If you are a
R> non-musician, I think spending some time with a jazz musician who is willing
R> to play and show you some forms would help.
Why? because of that small possibility which you mentioned above? The
truth is, there are many things that a non-musician can appreciate
which you cannot. Like for example, sometimes you will wake up and
you will feel that you don't have *it* (there was another thread about
this). So there are many things which cause intuitive musical
pleasure and which have not yet been explained by musical theory. I
think you are more likely to lose this skill as you learn more about
musical theory.
R> Of course, this kind of understanding could *detract* from appreciating jazz in
R> some cases as well, I guess. I'm thinking of a time a jazz writer showed
R> a video of a widely known saxophonist to myself and another musician who were
R> on tour and had come to play in the writer's town. The video showed the
R> saxophonist playing with some "sad like a m-----------" rhythm section.
R> As the rhythm section would drop beats or screw up the forms of the tunes,
R> the other musician and I apparently must have given some knowing glances
R> or raised eyebrows or whatever to each other. I mean, as great as this
R> saxophonist was, we were suffering with him in sympathy -- this rhythm
R> section (and hence the music) was dreadful. The writer had no clue that
R> there was anything musically wrong and enjoyed the tape much more than we
R> did (and asked afterwards whether we were glancing at each other because
R> of some especially cool thing the saxophonist had played!).
R> *****shameless self-promotion mode on!*****
<shameless self-promotion snipped>
R> *****Oooops, just couldn't suppress that urge :-)...shameless self-promotion mode off!****
Musical theory cannot explain why human emotions pass through music.
You can try to say that Major is Happy and Minor is Sad - and you can
try to make other theories about it. But when we both listen to So
What, you will enjoy the tricks that Miles uses and I will enjoy
the straight emotions that he conveys.
--
____________________________________________________________________
garyValentin \ IBM DB2 Performance
rud...@vnet.ibm.com \
(416)-448-3467 \ Everybody makes me steaks,
(TL)-778-3467 \ even me.
R Shapiro
>Edited is indeed the correct word. I originally wrote "appreciate", but
>realized this wasn't right, for exactly the reasons you suggest: "laymen" do
>indeed "appreciate" the music, and I guess I never found the word I was looking
>for, and accidentally left it blank. "Understand" is closest to what I meant,
>perhaps.
Very Freudian :) I *think* we're saying much the same thing, except that
you're making an effort to employ non-judgemental rhetoric -- and you see
where that leads you...
>> This [high-note trumpeting] is a classic example
>> of empty technique.
>
>"Empty" is a loaded word. It excites many people, and therefore has precisely
>the intended emotional effect, so I am not inclined to judge it unfavorably,
>even if I personally no longer find it so interesting as an end in itself.
It is a loaded word. It was intended to convey that it's a very fleeting
effect, with little staying power -- good for live spectacle, not so good
for serious, and especially repeated, listening.
>However, it is indeed a perfect example of music that might become less
>appealing to a player as they come to understand more about the music - the
>raw excitement of the high note playing will cease to be as fulfilling an
>experience as a listener comes to realize other aspects are missing from the
>music.
Exactly.
> That is, the untrained observer might *enjoy* the screeching
"Screeching" is pretty loaded too :)
>But the more one listens for
>besides technique - and this can be based on theory or intuition or any
>combination - the more one is apt to not be impressed.
There's a distinction to be made between technique in general, and what I
was calling "empty" technique. I chose Rex Stewart quite specifically to
contrast with Cat Anderson because Stewart too was a master of all sorts
of arcane trumpeting techniques (on a cornet, I know, but it's not
relevant for this discussion). For me anyway, it never comes across as
show-boating; everything he does is integral to the whole content of what
he's playing. Stewart was one of the great pre-bop player -- he's somewhat
underappreciated these days, and I like to champion him when I can.
>Of course, not all screech trumpet is completely devoid of musical value; I
>happen to *like* the way Cat Anderson's playing fits into the arrangements
>written as a showcase for him.
Anderson was maybe a bad example. I've been immersed in Ellington lately,
and the contrast between the Anderson-era band and the Rex Stewart/Cootie
Williams band has always been a kind of example for me of what can happen
when flash begins to take over from substance. The Sun Ra examples are
there for a similar reason -- something happened to the Arkestra when Ra
left those graceful middle-range trumpeters behind and replaced them with
flashier ones.
--
rs/rsha...@bbn.com
Marc Sabatella
[ re: technical displays ]
> This is all fine and well. But a non-musician will not be looking for
> these things. A non musician will be looking for beautiful things,
> whether they are easy or difficult to play.
I don't think this distinction has anything to do with whether the listener is
a musician or not. There are musicians who don't care much about technique
when listening, and there are non-musicians who do.
> Musicians like Wynton Marsalis and
> Glenn Gould are not so popular among non-musicians because we are not
> impressed by their technical skill.
The sales of their records suggests your analysis is faulty; surely these
people have not reached the commercial success they have by appealing only to
musicians?
> >> To me, suggesting that only musicians appreciate jazz is equivalent to
> >> suggesting that only painters could appreciate Van Gogh or Serraut
> >> becuase they know the difficulties of the techniques of these artists.
> M> But then, this still would explain the popularity of Mondrian :-)
> I think Mondrian appeals to the "intuitive" sense of art lovers. Did
> you know he was a Jazz-lover?
Nope. Of course, I meant to include the word "not" somewhere in my tongue-in-
cheek comment, which was a little inside joke anyhow and not really meant as a
slam against Mondrian, so I suppose I should explain. When discussing museums
with Bill while I was in NY, he mentioned a special Mondrian exhibit at the
Museum of Modern Art, and we thought this was an odd choice; he seems the least
likely artist to want to see lots and lots of at once. I ended up going there,
but not paying the couple of bucks extra for the Mondrian room. Ads for it
were plastered all over the place anyhow, and there were a couple of originals
in one of the regular galleries that they didn't bother to move to the special
exhibit gallery, so I got to see a couple. That was enough. The remainder of
the Mondrian's that would normally have been in that gallery, BTW, were
replaced by Kandinsky's, which I considered a vast improvement, as there
weren't any others in the musuem that I saw.
> it destroyed my appreciation of fugues.
Bummer. Highly surprising, though. I find I love fugues all the more for
knowing a little about them.
Gary Valentin
R> In article <4ceiem$j...@fcnews.fc.hp.com>, ma...@fc.hp.com wrote:
>> one human to play. Also, the average layman seems rarely to the difficulty of
>> playing really high on a trumpet.
R> A crucial word was inadvertently edited out of this sentence, and I'm
R> *very* curious what it was!
R> From what I can see, "laymen" are absolutely enthralled with flashy
R> high-note trumpet playing. Me, I find it truly awful to listen to, and
R> almost completely without merit, like going to see a movie that has
R> nothing to it but good special effects. Yucch. This is a classic example
R> of empty technique. Give me a thinking middle-range player any day (Rex
R> Stewart vis a vis Cat Anderson, Hobart Dotson vis a vis Michael Ray).
it's very obvious what Marc was talking about. The average layman is
not aware of the difficulty involved with playing high on a trumpet.
Being the exceptional layman that I am, I was very much aware of this.
Apparently Louis Armstrong was famous for hitting one very high note
in "west end blues".
I always associated high notes with pain... Especially on a guitar.
So I love high notes. but you can get by without them.
even on a trumpet.
Some of the most beautiful Miles Davis ballads have no high notes at
all. This is another classic case where technical skill has no
direct relevancy to beautiful music.
Gary Valentin
>> Musicians like Wynton Marsalis and
>> Glenn Gould are not so popular among non-musicians because we are not
>> impressed by their technical skill.
Marc> The sales of their records suggests your analysis is faulty; surely these
Marc> people have not reached the commercial success they have by appealing only to
Marc> musicians?
actually, I think they did.
>> >> To me, suggesting that only musicians appreciate jazz is equivalent to
>> >> suggesting that only painters could appreciate Van Gogh or Serraut
>> >> becuase they know the difficulties of the techniques of these artists.
M> But then, this still would explain the popularity of Mondrian :-)
>> I think Mondrian appeals to the "intuitive" sense of art lovers. Did
>> you know he was a Jazz-lover?
Marc> Nope. Of course, I meant to include the word "not" somewhere in my tongue-in-
Marc> cheek comment, which was a little inside joke anyhow and not really meant as a
Marc> slam against Mondrian, so I suppose I should explain. When discussing museums
Marc> with Bill while I was in NY, he mentioned a special Mondrian exhibit at the
Marc> Museum of Modern Art, and we thought this was an odd choice; he
Marc> seems the least
saw it. wonderful exhibit. Kinda repetitive though.
Marc> likely artist to want to see lots and lots of at once. I ended up going there,
Marc> but not paying the couple of bucks extra for the Mondrian room. Ads for it
Marc> were plastered all over the place anyhow, and there were a couple of originals
Marc> in one of the regular galleries that they didn't bother to move to the special
Marc> exhibit gallery, so I got to see a couple. That was enough. The remainder of
Marc> the Mondrian's that would normally have been in that gallery, BTW, were
Marc> replaced by Kandinsky's, which I considered a vast improvement, as there
Marc> weren't any others in the musuem that I saw.
Well - I'd replace Mondrian with Kandinsky anytime!
>> it destroyed my appreciation of fugues.
Marc> Bummer. Highly surprising, though. I find I love fugues all the more for
Marc> knowing a little about them.
So I guess we hear music differently. That's okay though.
I have a friend who is a fantastic pianist - and he hates jazz. He
doesn't like listening to music as much as he loves playing it. When
he plays, you can feel his emotions going into the music he creates.
But when he listens to other recordings he doesn't feel as much. So I
generalized... I used him as an example for all musicians, and "me" as
an example of non-musicians. And he hated fugues until he learned how
they work. I think his appreciation of music is limited to appraising
the technical skill of the performer. His true love of music comes
through only when he is playing.
Marc Sabatella
> Apparently Louis Armstrong was famous for hitting one very high note
> in "west end blues".
Which is nothing compared to what, say, Cat Anderson can hit.
> I always associated high notes with pain... Especially on a guitar.
Yeah, but on guitar, the pain is only in listening to them; they aren't any
more difficult to produce than other notes. And indeed, this is the case on
most instruments other than brass. Although on most woodwinds, they take more
control than lower notes, but nothing like the type of "intestinal fortitude"
(do other people use that phrase, or was it just the crowd I hung out with in
high school?) that high notes require for brass instruments. So I'm not really
surprised some people don't realize this about the trumpet. Yet the high notes
on a guitar at rock concerts get the crowd creaming, too - it's not the
appreciation of the difficulty that excites some people, it is just something
about the sound.
> This is another classic case where technical skill has no
> direct relevancy to beautiful music.
Well, Miles certainly had plenty of technical skill, or he wouldn't have been
able to express himself so eloquently. But he isn't usually flashy, to be
sure, and I agree it is neither necessary nor sufficient. But I will again
observe that a display of technical flash can be generate an emotional response
and therefore is, to me, a valid expression.
Ir. Erich Kohlhöfer, South Africa
play, I love it even more and I can be critical about how certain sounds
are acheived. It however, does not mean that you cannot enjoy jazz
without knowing how to play yourself. I mean, can't you drive a car and
enjoy it without actually knowing how it works.
Erich
Marc Sabatella
> Marc> The sales of their records suggests your analysis is faulty; surely these
> Marc> people have not reached the commercial success they have by appealing only to
> Marc> musicians?
> actually, I think they did.
I find this extremely unlikely, especially given the number of other musicians
who bash Wynton, and the number of people for whom Wynton is their only
knowledge of jazz. I don't really know about Gould; I guess I hadn't realized
he was as controversial as Wynton. Then again, I've never seen the big deal
in differentiating performers of classical music; I tend to hear through the
interpretation to the composition. Whereas in jazz, I tend to hear primarily
the performance.
In any case, I certainly wouldn't base any theories the hypothesis that Wynton
Marsalis appeals primarily to musicians.
> I have a friend who is a fantastic pianist - and he hates jazz. He
> doesn't like listening to music as much as he loves playing it. When
> he plays, you can feel his emotions going into the music he creates.
> But when he listens to other recordings he doesn't feel as much. So I
> generalized... I used him as an example for all musicians, and "me" as
> an example of non-musicians. And he hated fugues until he learned how
> they work. I think his appreciation of music is limited to appraising
> the technical skill of the performer. His true love of music comes
> through only when he is playing.
I'd say this is the exception, not the rule. Although there are types of music
I tend to enjoy playing more than listening to; free / non-idiomatic
improvisation most strongly so.
RON JOSEPHS
-> >after listening to any number of Miles' sides, I couldn't even tell the
-> >difference between RG and WK, but I know a piano player whose live sound I
-> >can recognize immediately.
Red Garland was easly distinguished from Kelly, RG's trade mark was his superb
use of block chords and pyramiding.
Gary Valentin
B> I think that when it comes to free jazz that mostly it is musicians who
B> are big supporters of it although I may be wrong. I think that definitely
B> proportionately more musicians like free jazz vs. non musicians liking it
B> than say bebop, swing, fusion. Since people are used to a certain amount
B> of familiar harmonies, melodies, and sounds or expansions of them free
B> jazz makes little sense to them. Musicians, on the other hand, argue over
B> how much of free jazz makes any sense, but still recognize structures,
B> music acheived by difficult technical means, and musicians interplay.
B> Most non-musicians need guidance of some sort to make sense of it.
B> Ben S.
I like free Jazz. But it's hard to make general rules about it
because it's a fringe ocurrence.
All the things you mentioned "familiar harmonies, melodies, and sounds
or expansions of them" are just more accessible. Even the experienced
free-Jazz listener will admit that. Once you have accepted that free
Jazz requires lots of patience, you can learn to love it.
So anyways I'm a non-musician who likes free Jazz. The only question
I ask myself is: "Is the extra effort justified?"
That is, after listening to a free-Jazz song 20 times until you
finally get it, is it so beautiful that it was worth going through all
that effort?
Unfortunately, the answer is sometimes no.
Jill Goodwin
>And... I still think most heavy jazz fans are players.......It would
>probably take a survey to convince me otherwise.
I don't think jazz musicians could make a living playing only for
other jazz musicians. The bulk of the fans are laymen. You don't see
jazz clubs full of other musicians unless they are some kind of hang
out and concerts and festivals certainly do not draw only musicians.
Some fans are more knowledgeable than others perhaps (because they
have listened longer or more, not because of musical training), but
the people who sustain the music financially by going to hear live
music and buying recordings, are just regular people.
Marc Sabatella
> >> Musical theory cannot explain why human emotions pass through music.
> Marc> Says who? Just because it has not yet been done to your
> Marc> satisfaction, does not mean it is impossible.
> of course - you are right. I am only going by my intuition. But even
> though you know that a specific chord change will be nice, you do not
> know WHY. This is a physiological question. Medicine.
> Biology... whatever.
Is this fact significant?
BTW, there is some research into this area, but it is not part of what most
musicians learn as music theory. We just learn that V7 (dominant) likes to
resolve to I (tonic), and we know the type of tension to expect when we deviate
from this in particular ways. Note that even without a background in theory,
you can probably tell pretty easily if someone is following the chord changes
or not. Thus, a musicians knowledge that certain notes are "supposed" to work
over certain chords is only a way of characterizing what the ear is going to
hear anyhow. When listening to music, this knowledge is, for most of us, a
novelty at best. But it is useful information to know when playing.
Note the perception of harmony is largely cultural, not physiological - it is
only because we've been hearing tonal music all our lives that we "hear"
chords as such. At least, studies of the music of other societies seems to
suggest that little of this is constant across the human race.
> okay - so why is minor=sad?
> what's the theory?
No idea. As I asked above though, does this have any relevance to the question
of whether knowing a bit about theory has any effect on one's enjoyment of the
music?
BTW, the particular equivalence you make is a bit oversimplistic, and again, is
not the sort of thing musicians mean by "music theory"; we rarely attach
specific emotional meaning to things in this way. It has much more to do with
tension and release - knowing what causes this. Then one can decide for
oneself what emotions might come out of this. Yet this is only a small part of
emotional content - most of it comes from tone quality and other cues which are
not part of music theory training. Which is, again, why I say that musicians
in general still hear things the same way non-musicians do; they just also are
able to put labels on certain aspects of the experience.
> I have seen proof where musical education can inhibit my appreciation
> of music. I gave the example of fugues, but there is another example
> with Sonatas. Once someone taught me about Sonatas, I started seeing
> them everywhere. Even in the Allman Brothers song Jessica. I used to
> love that song. Now I just hear a long passage where they play
> strange chords and a very exciting moment when he returns to the
> tonic. And then they play the theme again and it's over.
> I hate that song now.
You are weird :-)
> My point is this: musical education CAN be negative to your
> appreciation of music because it happened to me. Obviously it's
> different in your case.
You are free to say that *for you*, knowledge can be a bad thing. But it
is still a far cry to conclude that "musicians hear things this way, while
non-musicians hear things this other way".
Jeff Volkman
On Fri, 5 Jan 1996, Gary Valentin wrote:
> >>>>> "Jeff" == Jeff Volkman <ve...@u.washington.edu> writes:
>
> Jeff> On Thu, 4 Jan 1996, Gary Valentin wrote:
>
> Jeff> [cut]
>
> >> I agree 100% with her. I used to love Bach's preludes and fugues.
> Jeff> I > had a friend play them for me. Once he explained to me the structure
> >> of the fugue, with subject and counter-subject and the little parts in
> >> between, and trying to see which voice is playing the subject. Since
> >> then, I cannot enjoy fugues anymore because they have lost their
> >> magic.
>
> Jeff> Hmm, I had the opposite reaction; I never was impressed by fugues until I
> Jeff> understood how much technical juggling is involved in their composition.
>
> Well! this is what I was trying to say! there are some things that
> only non-musicians can appreciate.
But that's not what I was saying. I'm saying my appreciation increased
as I gained technical musical knowledge.
-Jeff
Gary Valentin
Jill> lyud...@aol.com (Lyudmila) wrote:
>> And... I still think most heavy jazz fans are players.......It would
>> probably take a survey to convince me otherwise.
Jill> I don't think jazz musicians could make a living playing only for
Jill> other jazz musicians. The bulk of the fans are laymen. You don't see
Jill> jazz clubs full of other musicians unless they are some kind of hang
Jill> out and concerts and festivals certainly do not draw only musicians.
Jill> Some fans are more knowledgeable than others perhaps (because they
Jill> have listened longer or more, not because of musical training), but
Jill> the people who sustain the music financially by going to hear live
Jill> music and buying recordings, are just regular people.
We could take a survey right here.
but first we would have to get into the complexities of defining who
is/isn't a jazz musician...
Gary Valentin
Jeff> On Thu, 4 Jan 1996, Gary Valentin wrote:
Jeff> [cut]
>> I agree 100% with her. I used to love Bach's preludes and fugues.
Jeff> I > had a friend play them for me. Once he explained to me the structure
>> of the fugue, with subject and counter-subject and the little parts in
>> between, and trying to see which voice is playing the subject. Since
>> then, I cannot enjoy fugues anymore because they have lost their
>> magic.
Jeff> Hmm, I had the opposite reaction; I never was impressed by fugues until I
Jeff> understood how much technical juggling is involved in their composition.
Jeff> -Jeff
Well! this is what I was trying to say! there are some things that
only non-musicians can appreciate.
Benjamin Smith
musical choices and preferences and the familiar and unfamiliar.
Musicians can appreciate, and theorist especially have an ear out for,
the various types of musical structures and how they work
synergistically. Musicians also are usually more aware of the interplay
between musicians than non-musicians are.
However, I hear the qualifier beauty being used with jazz. With art there
are all sorts of experiences and qualities associated with it. If one is
looking for beauty it is truly subjective in what type of sounds one
finds beautiful. I like a lot of music which has harsh sounds in it and
goes to extremes. Sometimes I like contrasts and a build up and subtlety,
other times I like unrelenting intensity, or gloom, or light-heartedness,
ultimately at one shot these are mono-emotions with their variants, but
played at different times they contrast with each other. Certain people
are looking for experiences in music. Some perhaps will not be beautiful,
something is awesome and memorable and rewarding about the listening
experience.
Musicians tend to be more "active" in their listening for structure and
interplay than non musicians. I think it depends on the familiarity of
the music that the non musicians have to determine the degree in which
the non musician listens actively.
So if the listener prefers to hear complex music, intense music she/he
many like certain types of jazz. If she/he prefers a certain type of beat
they might like jazz with that type of beat. The same thing would
apply to other aspects of music (melody, type of feel). Some
non-musicians and even some musicians tend to like vocal music because
they feel that the voice is the greatest instrument. And this could be
further divided into what type of voice - male, female, high, low,
mellow, sharp, straight interpretations, vocalized interpretations,
ornamented interpretations, dry interpretations etc.
I think that when it comes to free jazz that mostly it is musicians who
are big supporters of it although I may be wrong. I think that definitely
proportionately more musicians like free jazz vs. non musicians liking it
than say bebop, swing, fusion. Since people are used to a certain amount
of familiar harmonies, melodies, and sounds or expansions of them free
jazz makes little sense to them. Musicians, on the other hand, argue over
how much of free jazz makes any sense, but still recognize structures,
music acheived by difficult technical means, and musicians interplay.
Most non-musicians need guidance of some sort to make sense of it.
Ben S.
mvs...@vms.cis.pitt.edu
> I have seen proof where musical education can inhibit my appreciation
> of music. I gave the example of fugues, but there is another example
> with Sonatas. Once someone taught me about Sonatas, I started seeing
> them everywhere. Even in the Allman Brothers song Jessica. I used to
> love that song. Now I just hear a long passage where they play
> strange chords and a very exciting moment when he returns to the
> tonic. And then they play the theme again and it's over.
> I hate that song now.
Ouch. Does knowing that this is a standard form compromise the music for
you somehow? This is actually the first example of this I've heard of.
I never noticed that learning about structure made me overlook purely
"emotional" elements of the music. If anything it made me more appreciative
of how the "emotion" is being encoded in the structure. Knowing about the
sonata form allowed me to appreciate Beethoven's skill of "connecting"
things despite the limitations of the form, and learning about counterpoint
caused me to be blown away by Bach's ability to compose diverse and
emotionally meaningful music within the rigid rules of the fugue. But this
was always *in addition* to my appreciation of the music as a whole, never
instead of it... It actually allowed me to enjoy things that I couldn't
before. I don't think this is something "special"
> My point is this: musical education CAN be negative to your
> appreciation of music because it happened to me. Obviously it's
> different in your case.
I hope you get your appreciation of sonatas and fugues back... When I started
learning about music, I tended to concentrate on the technical aspects of
playing, e.g. worshiping Peterson and scoffing at Monk, but it didn't take me
long to grow out of it. My theory is that musical education can sometimes have
a negative effect on music appreciation, but this effect is usually temporary.
Returning to the tonic,
Michael
Gary Valentin
Marc> Gary Valentin wrote:
>> The
>> truth is, there are many things that a non-musician can appreciate
>> which you cannot. Like for example, sometimes you will wake up and
>> you will feel that you don't have *it* (there was another thread about
>> this). So there are many things which cause intuitive musical
>> pleasure and which have not yet been explained by musical theory. I
>> think you are more likely to lose this skill as you learn more about
>> musical theory.
Marc> Your "example" is nothing of the sort. You have yet to name a single thing a
Marc> non-musician can appreciate that a musician cannot, nor have you given a single
Marc> reason for believing that one might lose anything by learning about music.
I don't have musical training, and therefore I cannot explain it with
technical terms. And I suspect the technical terms which I am looking
for do not exist.
>> Musical theory cannot explain why human emotions pass through music.
Marc> Says who? Just because it has not yet been done to your
Marc> satisfaction, does not mean it is impossible.
of course - you are right. I am only going by my intuition. But even
though you know that a specific chord change will be nice, you do not
know WHY. This is a physiological question. Medicine.
Biology... whatever.
>> You can try to say that Major is Happy and Minor is Sad - and you can
>> try to make other theories about it.
Marc> And many of these theories seem verified by empirical data. We don't "make"
Marc> theories. We "discover" them. We try to explain what we already can see is
Marc> happening. Someone didn't "make up" gravity and then predicts that things
Marc> would fall; they *started* with the observation that things
Marc> fell, then tried to
Marc> understand why. Similarly with many aspects of music theory.
okay - so why is minor=sad?
what's the theory?
>> But when we both listen to So
>> What, you will enjoy the tricks that Miles uses and I will enjoy
>> the straight emotions that he conveys.
Marc> I can enjoy both.
you are special.
I have seen proof where musical education can inhibit my appreciation
of music. I gave the example of fugues, but there is another example
with Sonatas. Once someone taught me about Sonatas, I started seeing
them everywhere. Even in the Allman Brothers song Jessica. I used to
love that song. Now I just hear a long passage where they play
strange chords and a very exciting moment when he returns to the
tonic. And then they play the theme again and it's over.
I hate that song now.
My point is this: musical education CAN be negative to your
appreciation of music because it happened to me. Obviously it's
different in your case.
Marc Sabatella
> I *think* we're saying much the same thing, except that
> you're making an effort to employ non-judgemental rhetoric -- and you see
> where that leads you...
I agree with all of the above.
> It is a loaded word. It was intended to convey that it's a very fleeting
> effect, with little staying power -- good for live spectacle, not so good
> for serious, and especially repeated, listening.
But how do you define "serious"? Stands up to musical analysis? I would never
claim this was a better form of listening.
As for repeated listening, I'd bet my friends in junior high school listened to
Maynard Fersuson's "Chameleon" as often as you've listened to any of your
albums.
> > That is, the untrained observer might *enjoy* the screeching
> "Screeching" is pretty loaded too :)
Yeah, but the players and fans themselves seem to use the term, so I think that
makes it OK. I'm not sure, though; I'm still not sure if I'm allowed to call
certain female friends of mine "chicks" or not, even though that's what they
generally call themselves.
> The Sun Ra examples are
> there for a similar reason -- something happened to the Arkestra when Ra
> left those graceful middle-range trumpeters behind and replaced them with
> flashier ones.
This I can't speak to, as I've never really paid attention. I certainly hear
the Stewart and Anderson models of the Ellington bands as different, but I'm
still reluctant to call one "better" than the other. Sometimes I'm in the mood
for one, sometimes for the other. Which is why I always pooh-pooh Duke's
comment about there being only two kinds of music; that is far to simplistic
an analysis, even if one is trying (as he was) to make the point that stylistic
boundaries are largely meaningless.
Vincent Kargatis
>I like free Jazz. But it's hard to make general rules about it
>because it's a fringe ocurrence.
It may be hard to make general rules about it, but not because it's a fringe
occurence. It's certainly not a *musical* fringe occurrence, and there *are*
enough listeners to make a statistical statement, if such statements were
possible.
> The only question
>I ask myself is: "Is the extra effort justified?"
>That is, after listening to a free-Jazz song 20 times until you
>finally get it, is it so beautiful that it was worth going through all
>that effort?
>Unfortunately, the answer is sometimes no.
The answer is sometimes no for all music. But one typically
doesn't go through the "extra effort" (i.e. readjusting your ears to
new sounds) for every piece - after a single "extra effort" period, one
can enjoy most pieces within a genre very soon after first hearing them.
Do you mean "beautiful" = "enjoyable"? Typical standards of beauty have
nothing to do with enjoyment, necessarily. I like plenty of ugly things,
whether it's music, art, food, faces, or whatever (and not in spite of
their ugliness, either). Of course, "eye of the beholder" and all that,
but I don't see why one must make the above equation in the first place.
vince
W.Hery
>Gary Valentin wrote:
>> Musical theory cannot explain why human emotions pass through music.
>
>mean it is impossible.
Any theory that works for emotions is somehow going to have to account for
different reactions by different people. For example, I like Bach's
cello suites, and have a version by YoYo Ma that I play sometimes. I
find much of it to be very uplifting, but my wife finds all of it to
be dark, depressing music.
>> You can try to say that Major is Happy and Minor is Sad - and you can
>> try to make other theories about it.
>
>And many of these theories seem verified by empirical data. We don't "make"
>theories. We "discover" them. We try to explain what we already can see is
>happening. Someone didn't "make up" gravity and then predicts that things
>would fall; they *started* with the observation that things fell, then tried to
>understand why. Similarly with many aspects of music theory.
I agree that the music theory should follow observations of what
really works when you play it. But unlike gravity, there is no
absolute to observe and calibrate a theory too. Hearing is very
subjective--we might hear very different things, and have different
emotional reactions when we listen to the same performance. I'm not
referring to taste" or "preference" but just the way our ears hear
things (different people will hear different frequencies at different
relative levels, particulary as people age and lose some sensitiviey
to higher notes), and process things differently in our brains, partly
due to education/training (some people only hear the melody and do not
notice any harmony unless it is dissonant, etc.).
And hasn't the notion of what is dissonant/consonant in music theory
changed over the centuries, and some things that were considered
dissonant centuries ago no longer are? I even think my personal sense
of dissonance/consonance has changed over time. Hell, I even know people who
don't think Cecil Taylor plays any dissonances :-)
Bill Hery, who is untrained in music thoery but does try to listen.
Eric Scheirer
This is getting off-topic for the group, but I'll toss in a few comments
anyway, as this is What I Do When I'm Not Playing...
Marc S. wrote:
> Note the perception of harmony is largely cultural, not physiological - it is
> only because we've been hearing tonal music all our lives that we "hear"
> chords as such. At least, studies of the music of other societies seems to
> suggest that little of this is constant across the human race.
This is mostly true, but there are important points of commonality. For
example, octave equivalence, the fifth as "consonant" interval, the
notion of "tension" and "release". But it is surely true that your
experience governs "how you hear" a half-diminished chord.
>> Why does "minor" == "sad"?
Well, it only does at all within certain narrow contexts. There are plenty
of songs which are tonally minor but have happy connotations -- "Moondance"
by van Morrison is one which springs to mind. I'm sure everyone can think
of others.
I think this effect is primarily semiotic -- just an arbitrary cultural
connection of signifier to sign. No deep physiological principles. I'm
not familiar with the ethno-musicological work on emotional content of
music cross-culturally, but it's out there, and I'm sure has interesting
things to say about this question.
> Which is, again, why I say that musicians
> in general still hear things the same way non-musicians do; they just also are
> able to put labels on certain aspects of the experience.
As best as I can say, I don't think this is actually true (ie, supported by
experimental evidence). My own experimental background and reading of the
literature supports the view that so-called "analytical" listeners -- those
who are "actively" listening and "parsing" musical structure *do* have a
qualitatively different listening experience than non-analytical listeners.
This can be shown by responses to a number of different experimental tasks.
This is not true for *all* aspects of music, only some things, and it's
not yet clear why some aspects but not others. And it's not a pure
connection that "musician" == "analytic listener" -- very experienced
non-musician listeners can be analytic, and conversely there are musicians,
even good ones, who don't listen analytically. (Although I suspect there
are very few good jazz musicians who aren't). But it is the case that the
majority of analytic listeners are good musicians, and that the majority of
good musicians are analytic listeners.
I don't mean to say that the listening experience of the analytic listener
is "better" or "worse" than a control subject, only that it is different,
sometimes in fairly major ways.
For anyone who's interested in reading more about this issues,
_Listening_ by Stephen Handel (MIT Press, 1989) has a good overview of
the relevant psychoacoustics, music cognition, and psychomusicology
literature; and the writing of Leonard Meyer, especially _Emotion and
Meaning in Music_, provides a lot of the (now somewhat controversial)
viewpoint of the classical music theorist.
I'm always happy to discuss these things by email with interested parties...
-- Eric
--
+-------------------+
| Eric Scheirer | Bbmaj7 | Ab-7 Db7 | Gbmaj7 | E-7 A7 |
| e...@media.mit.edu | < http://sound.media.mit.edu/~eds >
| 617 253 0116 | Dmaj7 | Ab-7 Db7 | Gbmaj7 | G-7 C7 |
+-------------------+
Gary Valentin
V> vale...@torolab.ibm.com (Gary Valentin) wrote:
Re: Free Jazz
V> It may be hard to make general rules about it, but not because it's a fringe
V> occurence. It's certainly not a *musical* fringe occurrence, and there *are*
V> enough listeners to make a statistical statement, if such statements were
V> possible.
There are maybe 10,000 people in the whole world who like Free Jazz.
>> The only question
>> I ask myself is: "Is the extra effort justified?"
>> That is, after listening to a free-Jazz song 20 times until you
>> finally get it, is it so beautiful that it was worth going through all
>> that effort?
>> Unfortunately, the answer is sometimes no.
V> The answer is sometimes no for all music. But one typically
V> doesn't go through the "extra effort" (i.e. readjusting your ears to
V> new sounds) for every piece - after a single "extra effort" period, one
V> can enjoy most pieces within a genre very soon after first hearing them.
not me...
I must be "strange"
but every time I hear a free jazz piece, I have to listen to it over
and over again before I can sing along.
V> Do you mean "beautiful" = "enjoyable"?
yes. enjoyable is a far better word
V> I like plenty of ugly things,
V> whether it's music, art, food, faces, or whatever (and not in spite of
V> their ugliness, either). Of course, "eye of the beholder" and all that,
V> but I don't see why one must make the above equation in the first place.
right
Gary Valentin
Marc> Gary Valentin wrote:
>> of course - you are right. I am only going by my intuition. But even
>> though you know that a specific chord change will be nice, you do not
>> know WHY. This is a physiological question. Medicine.
>> Biology... whatever.
Marc> Is this fact significant?
yes it is. It just shows that we don't know everything about music
and why we enjoy it. In other words, musical theory has a long way to
go in explaining why and how we enjoy music. Why do I like Wayne
Shorter better than John Coltrane? Musical theory cannot explain
this, and it doesn't even want to. That's fine. But when I learn
musical theory, I will start appreciating musicians for what they are
capable of doing, instead of what the music does to me.
Marc> BTW, there is some research into this area, but it is not part of what most
Marc> musicians learn as music theory. We just learn that V7 (dominant) likes to
Marc> resolve to I (tonic), and we know the type of tension to expect when we deviate
Marc> from this in particular ways. Note that even without a background in theory,
Marc> you can probably tell pretty easily if someone is following the chord changes
Marc> or not.
Yes. But this will be irrelevant as to the quality of the music.
Example: Michael Jackson is very much aware of his chord changes.
Marc> Thus, a musicians knowledge that certain notes are "supposed" to work
Marc> over certain chords is only a way of characterizing what the ear is going to
Marc> hear anyhow. When listening to music, this knowledge is, for most of us, a
Marc> novelty at best. But it is useful information to know when playing.
It's more than useful! It's essential. But it is not necessary
information when listening.
Marc> Note the perception of harmony is largely cultural, not physiological - it is
Marc> only because we've been hearing tonal music all our lives that we "hear"
Marc> chords as such. At least, studies of the music of other societies seems to
Marc> suggest that little of this is constant across the human race.
That's exactly what I was looking for. You see, when you start
appreciating what musical theory teaches you, then you become biased
towards Western Music. White Music. I have recently discovered
Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn incredible singer.
Marc> BTW, the particular equivalence you make is a bit oversimplistic, and again, is
Marc> not the sort of thing musicians mean by "music theory"; we rarely attach
Marc> specific emotional meaning to things in this way. It has much more to do with
Marc> tension and release - knowing what causes this. Then one can decide for
Marc> oneself what emotions might come out of this. Yet this is only a small part of
Marc> emotional content - most of it comes from tone quality and other cues which are
Marc> not part of music theory training. Which is, again, why I say that musicians
Marc> in general still hear things the same way non-musicians do; they just also are
Marc> able to put labels on certain aspects of the experience.
BTW, I'm not against musical theory. I think it's essential and that
every musician should learn it. I also believe that pure appreciation
of music requires that you know nothing about it. As soon as you
start thinking about dissonance and resolution then you lose that
magic. You fall from the spell. It's like watching a magic trick
when you know how it really works. Do you see what I mean? A lot of
magicians will watch and they will still appreciate the skill with
which the magician pulls a rabbit out of his ear, but they will no
longer be fascinated by the magic.
Marc> You are weird :-)
c'est comme ca.
Marc> You are free to say that *for you*, knowledge can be a bad thing. But it
Marc> is still a far cry to conclude that "musicians hear things this way, while
Marc> non-musicians hear things this other way".
What I am saying is, once you've learned about musical theory, you can
never hear music the same way again. How often can you listen to the
fugues by Bach and not think about technical stuff at all?
Gary Valentin
<snip a lot of good stuff about musical cognition written in very good
english and highly objective.>
Eric> I'm always happy to discuss these things by email with interested parties...
I'd love to, but I agree with your point of view entirely and
therefore we have nothing to discuss.
Your post was "the final word" on this interesting discussion.
Charles R. Sullivan
>lyud...@aol.com (Lyudmila) wrote:
>>And... I still think most heavy jazz fans are players.......It would
>>probably take a survey to convince me otherwise.
>I don't think jazz musicians could make a living playing only for
>other jazz musicians. [...]
Two comments: 1) lots of jazz musicians do *not* do very well at making
a living. and 2) Even if jazz fans are not exclusively professional
jazz musicians, it still remains possible that they are mostly people who
at least studied music as children, etc.
Charlie Sullivan
Matthew Snyder
>What I am saying is, once you've learned about musical theory, you can
>never hear music the same way again. How often can you listen to the
>fugues by Bach and not think about technical stuff at all?
Whenever I want. Learning theory takes absolutely nothing away from the
wonder of Bach or Bird or Mahler or Coltrane or whoever. The technical
stuff you absorb and use when you need to, but it's a lie that trained
musicians can think of nothing else when listening to the music.
Matt Snyder "I'm all in favor of getting grants for jazz
hsn...@crab.rutgers.edu musicians. Or any other good brand of Scotch."
- Pepper Adams
Charles R. Sullivan
>[......snip..............................] Do only novelists appreciate
>novels? Only film-makers appreciate movies? Art doesn't work that way,
>fortunately. If it did, it would be a trivial and unimportant thing, like
>some eccentric hobby.
Well, I have to admit that some of my friends think that my jazz
listening is precisely a trivial and unimportant eccentric hobby.
And jazz is certainly more often viewed that way than is pop-rock,
even if in some ways it gets more respect.
I think there _is_ a real tendancy for some jazz musicians and music
to play things that are more along the lines of clever inside jokes
or stunts, intended to impress other musicians, but doing nothing as far
as emotional communication. I tend not to like music like this, even
though I have some musical training. However, some of my friends who are jazz
fans but have little or no musical training are even more sensitive to
the difference than I am, and are not at all interested in this kind
of pointless cleverness. And I find it interesting that the things
that they like are often the things that I really like the most deeply
myself.
Charlie Sullivan
Uncle Funkenbooty
> Gary Valentin wrote:
>
> > I always associated high notes with pain... Especially on a guitar.
>
> Yeah, but on guitar, the pain is only in listening to them; they aren't any
> more difficult to produce than other notes. And indeed, this is the case on
> most instruments other than brass. Although on most woodwinds, they take
> more
> control than lower notes, but nothing like the type of "intestinal fortitude"
> (do other people use that phrase, or was it just the crowd I hung out with in
> high school?) that high notes require for brass instruments.
My high school, certainly on the less delicate end of the spectrum, used
"testicular fortitude" (tongue in cheek, but still a knowing reference to
the great overrepresentation of males among trumpet players).
Ben
-|-
| ________
Ben Lima The artist currently known as Prince.
Charles R. Sullivan
>Nope. Of course, I meant to include the word "not" somewhere in my tongue-in-
>cheek comment, which was a little inside joke anyhow and not really meant as a
>slam against Mondrian, so I suppose I should explain. When discussing museums
>with Bill while I was in NY, he mentioned a special Mondrian exhibit at the
>Museum of Modern Art, and we thought this was an odd choice; he seems the least
>likely artist to want to see lots and lots of at once. I ended up going there,
>but not paying the couple of bucks extra for the Mondrian room. Ads for it
>were plastered all over the place anyhow, and there were a couple of originals
>in one of the regular galleries that they didn't bother to move to the special
>exhibit gallery, so I got to see a couple. That was enough. The remainder of
>the Mondrian's that would normally have been in that gallery, BTW, were
>replaced by Kandinsky's, which I considered a vast improvement, as there
>weren't any others in the musuem that I saw.
****warning: off-topic material ahead*******
I gotta speak up in defense of Mondrian. I saw that show, and thought
it was great. The exhibit was put together extremely well, and was
definitely much better than seeing a few isolated paintings. The
chronological presentation of earlier work gave insight as to how his
style developed, (and much of his earlier work is great in its own
right). But also, the chronological presentations of later works in the
style he is most famous for ("neo-plasticism") gave a sense of tension
and development I have previously only experienced in listening to
music. His style gradually built up, adding more elements, until you
suddenly round a corner and see his spectacular "victory boogie woogie".
Your attitude towards Mondrian reminds me of an art student who attended
a jazz festival, but didn't want to pay to see the Ornette Coleman
show, because he heard a recording once and it wasn't nearly as exciting
as Wynton Marsalis. Coleman didn't even have a piano player!
Sorry to talk about art in r.m.b, but....I guess I have no excuse.
I hope nobody minds and that Marc, you aren't offended. I respect your
musical opinions very highly.
Charlie Sullivan
Benjamin Smith
>
>As best as I can say, I don't think this is actually true (ie, supported by
>experimental evidence). My own experimental background and reading of the
>literature supports the view that so-called "analytical" listeners -- those
>who are "actively" listening and "parsing" musical structure *do* have a
>qualitatively different listening experience than non-analytical listeners.
>This can be shown by responses to a number of different experimental tasks.
>
I'd like to know the nature of these experimentations, and their controls.
I think that musicians hear music as its own language and parsing
musical structure is part of it.
>This is not true for *all* aspects of music, only some things, and it's
>not yet clear why some aspects but not others. And it's not a pure
>connection that "musician" == "analytic listener" -- very experienced
>non-musician listeners can be analytic, and conversely there are musicians,
>even good ones, who don't listen analytically. (Although I suspect there
>are very few good jazz musicians who aren't).
But it is the case that the
>majority of analytic listeners are good musicians, and that the majority of
>good musicians are analytic listeners.
I absolutely agree with this.
>
>I don't mean to say that the listening experience of the analytic listener
>is "better" or "worse" than a control subject, only that it is different,
>sometimes in fairly major ways.
>
In the case of understanding the subleties of the language?
>For anyone who's interested in reading more about this issues,
>_Listening_ by Stephen Handel (MIT Press, 1989) has a good overview of
>the relevant psychoacoustics, music cognition, and psychomusicology
>literature; and the writing of Leonard Meyer, especially _Emotion and
>Meaning in Music_, provides a lot of the (now somewhat controversial)
>viewpoint of the classical music theorist.
>
I'll check these out but I'm afraid. The approach of some "scholarly"
works really turns me off. But, we'll see.
>I'm always happy to discuss these things by email with interested parties...
>
> -- Eric
>
Levels of emotion are interesting and how they come about. I play music
for people, in a class situation when I'm teaching, or people who come
over to my house. Some music elicits the same musical response such as
very sad or gloomy. But some people feel that it is an more unpleasant
or more uncomfortable sadness or gloom in the music. So their experiences
or something in their psychological makeup or their level of sensitivity
to what the musicians are projecting are different in each level. Also
the areas of the music that seem most of a certain emotion, sad in this
case, are different. So all of the music around these areas relate to
this one (or more) area(s) and it is interesting to see the variations
and similarities
of these most emotional areas. For some people there is no most of a
certain emotion but the overall feelilng of the whole piece.
My question is, and I'm not necessarily looking for an answer, is how much
of the emotion is in the music and how much of it is a special connection
to the listener, and perhaps enhanced by the listener. Finally, I always
like to go back after a few weeks or months
and see if the feelings of the listeners have changed
and how. If it is then is this related to hearing a piece at a
different time in their lives or are the repeated hearing discovering
new things or both?
Ben Smith
Benjamin Smith
>Marc> Note the perception of harmony is largely cultural, not physiological - it is
>Marc> only because we've been hearing tonal music all our lives that we "hear"
>Marc> chords as such. At least, studies of the music of other societies seems to
>Marc> suggest that little of this is constant across the human race.
>
>That's exactly what I was looking for. You see, when you start
>appreciating what musical theory teaches you, then you become biased
>towards Western Music. White Music. I have recently discovered
>Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn incredible singer.
>
AGHHH! Yes music theory is part of Western education and we are part of the
Western world. We are discussing European music when we speak of Bach,
Beethoven, Brahms and the like. We are also discussing a music of the
Western society when we speak of music by Charlie Parker, Ornette Coleman
and Anthony Braxton. These guys are not White, I don't see a need for
racial characteristics. There are aspects of non-Western music in some
20th Century concert music and in various types of jazz so our music
theory is expanding. There is a time gap between the actual music and the
theory which analyses its structure and construction. Music theory taught
with a consideration of the different music of the world considered should
not bias the listener. Most listeners are probably biased by their culture
however, if for familiarity if not anything else.
Yes, people are in tuned with the music of their own culture as they are with,
say, the foods of their own culture. It takes different people different amounts
of time to acquire tastes for "foreign" music, food or whatever.
It has much more to do with
>Marc> tension and release - knowing what causes this. Then one can decide for
>Marc> oneself what emotions might come out of this. Yet this is only a small part of
>Marc> emotional content - most of it comes from tone quality and other cues which are
>Marc> not part of music theory training. Which is, again, why I say that musicians
>Marc> in general still hear things the same way non-musicians do; they just also are
>Marc> able to put labels on certain aspects of the experience.
>
The music theory classes that I've attended did not deal with emotion. It is
structure and relationships between tones and rhythms. There is talk of tone quality
when dealing with instrumentation. Music appreciation classes, however, use
general music theory principles such as form, or subject/countersubject in a
fugue, and deals with the different emotions that student's feel from the music
and if it correlates to any part of the form.
>BTW, I'm not against musical theory. I think it's essential and that
>every musician should learn it. I also believe that pure appreciation
>of music requires that you know nothing about it.
Little, you can get more appreciation by knowing some basic aspects of form,
theme recognition, and development. This has been my experiences with teaching
music theory and music appreciation.
As soon as you
>start thinking about dissonance and resolution then you lose that
>magic. You fall from the spell. It's like watching a magic trick
>when you know how it really works. Do you see what I mean?
Not really. When I hear music the first time and it comes it an unexpected
place, I'm blown away. Especially the *way* it resolves. In repeated
listening it then loses some of its impact.
>Marc> You are free to say that *for you*, knowledge can be a bad thing. But it
>Marc> is still a far cry to conclude that "musicians hear things this way, while
>Marc> non-musicians hear things this other way".
>
>What I am saying is, once you've learned about musical theory, you can
>never hear music the same way again. How often can you listen to the
>fugues by Bach and not think about technical stuff at all?
It is not always something that you have to think about. You can be aware of
the structure but not actively be analyzing the structure of it. And with
Bach, the amazing complexity with the overwhelming emotions in so much of
his music, is rewarding for all listeners.
Ben
>
Charles R. Sullivan
>A few years ago, I was discussing my lack of formal knowledge of music
>theory with a friend who is a classically trained pianist with a
>grounding in music theory and an appreciation of jazz. I suggested
>that I would like to learn a lot of music thoery to better understand
>the jazz I was listening to. She didn't think it was that important in
>the appreciation of the music, and, in fact, that I might get less of
>the "meaning" of the music becuase I would be paying too much
>attention to the theory.
[....]
I think paying too much attention to the theory and not enough to the
"meaning" (although I don't think that is quite the right word) is a
real danger. But it can happen to people who know theory and to people
who don't. I have been to concerts (and art shows) with people who
get inferiority complexes about their inadequate "understanding" of
the music (or art) and don't enjoy it at all because they spend all
their time trying to figure out what it is "about" or what it "means"
and get frustrated by their inability to do so. On the other hand,
I have also been to concerts and art shows with people who are so
proud of themselves for understanding sonata form or for knowing about
different schools of painting that the only aspect they seem to enjoy
is the exercise of identifying pieces or characteristics of the music
or art, as if it were a giant trivial pursuit game.
So I guess my conclusion is that the amount of knowledge isn't the only
determining factor.
Charlie Sullivan
Charles R. Sullivan
>I also note that I can hear a recorded tenor and appreciate it, while, the
>experience of hearing an actual trumpet seems way better, and even
>qualitatively different, than hearing a recorded trumpet....
There is something strange about this: Most performances these days
are highly amplified enough that you are still hearing a trumpet through
a sound system, mostly. And the system is probably not as good quality
or used as carefully as in a typical recording. So if you have a good
sound system at home (a big if, I guess), you might be getting a more
faithful reproduction of real trumpet sound at home than in most live
performances.
Other factors in live performances include being able to see what is
going on, being part of the social experience of being in an audience,
with the potential for audience/performer interaction,
generally higher sound levels than most people listen to at home,
and whatever effect of knowing the performance is not pre-determined,
but is being improvised as you listen.
I'm surprised to hear myself saying this, but maybe you should try
going to a good audio store and listening to a trumpet recording through some
better speakers.
Charlie Sullivan
Marc Sabatella
> >>>>> "Marc" == Marc Sabatella <ma...@sde.hp.com> writes:
> Marc> Gary Valentin wrote:
> >> of course - you are right. I am only going by my intuition. But even
> >> though you know that a specific chord change will be nice, you do not
> >> know WHY. This is a physiological question. Medicine.
> >> Biology... whatever.
> Marc> Is this fact significant?
> yes it is. It just shows that we don't know everything about music
> and why we enjoy it. In other words, musical theory has a long way to
> go in explaining why and how we enjoy music.
You entirely misunderstand what music theory is. As I and others have tried to
point out, it has nothing to do with explaining why and how we enjoy music, and
more to do with "how much tension is created by the following notes in the
following situation"?
> Why do I like Wayne
> Shorter better than John Coltrane? Musical theory cannot explain
> this, and it doesn't even want to.
Correct, which is why I'm asking if is this relevant. All I'm saying is that
knowledge of music theory is *not* necessarily related to enjoyment of music,
and since you seem to be saying the same above, it isn't clear where we
disagree.
> But when I learn
> musical theory, I will start appreciating musicians for what they are
> capable of doing, instead of what the music does to me.
There's that "instead of" again. That's where we disagree, I guess.
> Yes. But this will be irrelevant as to the quality of the music.
Correct again, which is again why I say that knowledge of music theory doesn't
really have any direct bearing on one's enjoyment of music.
> Marc> Thus, a musicians knowledge that certain notes are "supposed" to work
> Marc> over certain chords is only a way of characterizing what the ear is going to
> Marc> hear anyhow. When listening to music, this knowledge is, for most of us, a
> Marc> novelty at best. But it is useful information to know when playing.
> It's more than useful! It's essential.
Actually, not. Since the ear is capable of telling "right" from "wrong"
without any knowledge of theory, one learn to "hear" a note one wants to play
and then play that note, without recourse to any theory. It's called "perfect
pitch" in the best cases, or just "good ears" in general.
> That's exactly what I was looking for. You see, when you start
> appreciating what musical theory teaches you, then you become biased
> towards Western Music.
Not really, you just have to realize that the theory you are learning can only
be applied to certain types of music. When I hear, for example, rap, and
realize that the harmonic content is minimal by classical standards, I simply
have to accept that this music has its own standards, which I am only partially
able to understand, as my culture only partially overlaps with that of the
rapper's. I might dislike the music because of my unfamiliarity with the
cultural standards, but this would continue to be the case even if I didn't
know classical theory; my ears would still tell me there was little of what
I intuitively thought of as "music" in rap.
> BTW, I'm not against musical theory. I think it's essential and that
> every musician should learn it. I also believe that pure appreciation
> of music requires that you know nothing about it. As soon as you
> start thinking about dissonance and resolution then you lose that
> magic.
No, *you* do. Don't tell me what *I* do, or what anyone else does.
> It's like watching a magic trick
> when you know how it really works.
No, it's nothing like that. There is no trickery in music; nothing that need
be spoiled by knowledge. Just because I know how a fugue is contructed doesn't
mean I can't be in awe of how Bach is able to construct them *so well*. I,
following the same theory, can produce a fugue worth the paper I notate it on.
So I am able to appreciate the fugue all the more, because not only can I hear
how wonderful it sounds, but I know how difficult it was to produce. Whereas
with a magic trick, once you know the secret, you are indeed not as awed, as
you know you could probably do the same.
> A lot of
> magicians will watch and they will still appreciate the skill with
> which the magician pulls a rabbit out of his ear, but they will no
> longer be fascinated by the magic.
The key difference is music has value beyond its ability to fool people. Magic
does not.
> What I am saying is, once you've learned about musical theory, you can
> never hear music the same way again. How often can you listen to the
> fugues by Bach and not think about technical stuff at all?
At all? Probably not. But unless I'm deliberately studying them, it hardly
dominates my thinking. I just listened to the Beethoven late quartets I had
bought a few weeks ago, and was conscious of only two things from a theoretical
standpoint - they were more contrapunctal than I would have imagined, and I
heard a lot of V-I's. Beyond that, I can't say that I heard anything
differently from how you might have.
Marc Sabatella
> ****warning: off-topic material ahead*******
> I gotta speak up in defense of Mondrian.
OK, and I took my lashings from others by email too.
> Your attitude towards Mondrian reminds me of an art student who attended
> a jazz festival, but didn't want to pay to see the Ornette Coleman
> show, because he heard a recording once and it wasn't nearly as exciting
> as Wynton Marsalis. Coleman didn't even have a piano player!
Well, I don't think that's fair. All I meant to imply about Mondrian is that
there is a certain sameness about his paintings, which itself implies I'm
judging not based on a single instance but on many (in books to be sure), and
I fail to see where the Wynton or piano aspects of the analogy fit in. I'm
sure I would have enjoyed the exhibit anyhow.
Marc Sabatella
> On Mon, 8 Jan 1996, Bill Carrothers wrote:
> > I realized how close to
> > marriage, in its best form, (or a relationship) music appreciation is.
> > When you first hear a piece of music you love, you are overwhelmed by
> > it. It's mysterious and elusive. It's magic.Then you listen to it
> > again and again and it starts to become familiar, yet still
> > inexplicable. Then you become curious and take it apart to find out
> > why it sounds the way it does. And yes, much of the mystery is
> > temporarily removed during this process. You begin to see the
> > different sides, the angles, the structure. But out of that comes a
> > mature, balanced understanding and appreciation of the music, and then
> > the magic reappears. It becomes an old, sweet song, a best friend. And
> > that carries you to the next discovery.
> That's a wonderful analogy. I totally agree. Trying to retain the magic
> by remaining "ignorant" is just like trying to preserve the infatuation
> stage of a relationship. Can't blame people for trying.
Well, I'd say Gary has finally succeeded in pointing out something that is at
least partially lost by knowledge, but it still isn't clear why this is bad,
except that *for him* (and for him alone, as far as I can tell), enjoyment of
music is completely tied to the ability of the music to fool him. It should be
noted, however, that knowledge of music theory doesn't instantly make all music
transparent, the way the secret to a magic trick might. At best, on each
listen, you pick up a little bit you didn't pick up before. Then there is
music that is completely transparent, and this is the music that I said from
the very beginning one might not like any more. But for music that has any
degree of complexity to it, knowledge only helps you discover more; it doesn't
take anything away. As I posted previously, music is not magic; it has
intrinsic aesthetic value that is not related to its ability to "fool" people.
W.Hery
>ma...@sde.hp.com (Marc Sabatella) writes:
>>Nope. Of course, I meant to include the word "not" somewhere in my tongue-in-
>>cheek comment, which was a little inside joke anyhow and not really meant as a
>>slam against Mondrian, so I suppose I should explain. When discussing museums
>>with Bill while I was in NY, he mentioned a special Mondrian exhibit at the
>I gotta speak up in defense of Mondrian. I saw that show, and thought
>it was great.
And in another post, responding to some comments of mine, Marc wrote:
>BTW, I hope I got *you* in trouble over this Mondrian thing, too :-)
Well, Marc, I haven't yet, since I didn't bring it up :-)...but since
it was my comment and recommendation to you that got you into trouble,
I'll step in and take soem of the heat myself :-)
I enjoy Mondiran's earlier (and less original) work, and like his
"lines and colored boxes" in moderation. But when I saw an extensive
collection of his "lines and colored boxes" work in a museum in
Amsterdam in the late 80s (I don't recall the museum off hand), I
found that after a while they got boring. Maybe more time with them
would have changed my view, but after an hour or two, I felt that
way. My loss, I'm sure. When I spoke to Marc, he was passign through
NY with only a short day to do several things, and from some
discussions we had earlier that evening, I though he would be better
off spending his time at other parts of MOMA or the Met.
>Your attitude towards Mondrian reminds me of an art student who attended
>a jazz festival, but didn't want to pay to see the Ornette Coleman
>show, because he heard a recording once and it wasn't nearly as exciting
>as Wynton Marsalis. Coleman didn't even have a piano player!
I will disagree with that analogy in both level of experience and open
mindedness of the "offenders."
A musical analogy that I would make is that Mondrian is more like
Satie than jazz--I also like Satie in small doses, but long periods
with his music gets boring. Both seem to like to repeat simple things
with minor variations.
Since this is pretty much out of the realm of rmb, I suggest
continuation (if any) be done via email.
Bill Hery
AT&T Bell Labs, Whippany NJ
w.h...@att.com
Bill Carrothers
>I agree 100% with her. I used to love Bach's preludes and fugues. I
>had a friend play them for me. Once he explained to me the structure
>of the fugue, with subject and counter-subject and the little parts in
>between, and trying to see which voice is playing the subject. Since
>then, I cannot enjoy fugues anymore because they have lost their
>magic.
>garyValentin
I want to respond to this comment. I used to feel somewhat the same
way about various pieces of music until I realized how close to
marriage, in its best form, (or a relationship) music appreciation is.
When you first hear a piece of music you love, you are overwhelmed by
it. It's mysterious and elusive. It's magic.Then you listen to it
again and again and it starts to become familiar, yet still
inexplicable. Then you become curious and take it apart to find out
why it sounds the way it does. And yes, much of the mystery is
temporarily removed during this process. You begin to see the
different sides, the angles, the structure. But out of that comes a
mature, balanced understanding and appreciation of the music, and then
the magic reappears. It becomes an old, sweet song, a best friend. And
that carries you to the next discovery.
I think it's impossible (and undesirable) to expect a piece of music
to remain in that half-light of mystery, and unfortunate for you to be
too afraid to explore it more deeply for fear of losing the magic,
anymore than you could expect your lovely wife of 50 years to
constantly give you the same feeling she gave you the night you first
met. Everything evolves.
It's late...Hoping you followed the way I drifted... :)
Bill Carrothers
Jeff Volkman
On Mon, 8 Jan 1996, Bill Carrothers wrote:
> vale...@torolab.ibm.com (Gary Valentin) wrote:
>
> >I agree 100% with her. I used to love Bach's preludes and fugues. I
> >had a friend play them for me. Once he explained to me the structure
> >of the fugue, with subject and counter-subject and the little parts in
> >between, and trying to see which voice is playing the subject. Since
> >then, I cannot enjoy fugues anymore because they have lost their
> >magic.
>
> I want to respond to this comment. I used to feel somewhat the same
> way about various pieces of music until I realized how close to
> marriage, in its best form, (or a relationship) music appreciation is.
> When you first hear a piece of music you love, you are overwhelmed by
> it. It's mysterious and elusive. It's magic.Then you listen to it
> again and again and it starts to become familiar, yet still
> inexplicable. Then you become curious and take it apart to find out
> why it sounds the way it does. And yes, much of the mystery is
> temporarily removed during this process. You begin to see the
> different sides, the angles, the structure. But out of that comes a
> mature, balanced understanding and appreciation of the music, and then
> the magic reappears. It becomes an old, sweet song, a best friend. And
> that carries you to the next discovery.
>
> I think it's impossible (and undesirable) to expect a piece of music
> to remain in that half-light of mystery, and unfortunate for you to be
> too afraid to explore it more deeply for fear of losing the magic,
> anymore than you could expect your lovely wife of 50 years to
> constantly give you the same feeling she gave you the night you first
> met. Everything evolves.
>
> It's late...Hoping you followed the way I drifted... :)
That's a wonderful analogy. I totally agree. Trying to retain the magic
by remaining "ignorant" is just like trying to preserve the infatuation
stage of a relationship. Can't blame people for trying.
-Jeff
Marc Sabatella
> There are maybe 10,000 people in the whole world who like Free Jazz.
You'll catch hell for this, I'm sure. Let's just say that I suspect you are
off by several orders of magintude. Part of the problem, though, is that many
of those who'd enjoy it if they heard it haven't yet heard it. But this is
totally off-topic.
> V> after a single "extra effort" period, one
> V> can enjoy most pieces within a genre very soon after first hearing them.
> not me...
> I must be "strange"
> but every time I hear a free jazz piece, I have to listen to it over
> and over again before I can sing along.
The "strange" part is that you seem to equate "enjoy" with "can sing along".
Marc Sabatella
> This is mostly true, but there are important points of commonality. For
> example, octave equivalence
Except, allegedly, by cats. No really, didn't someone here claim there was
research on the subject that showed cats hear some other interval as
equivalent?
> > Which is, again, why I say that musicians
> > in general still hear things the same way non-musicians do; they just also are
> > able to put labels on certain aspects of the experience.
> As best as I can say, I don't think this is actually true (ie, supported by
> experimental evidence). My own experimental background and reading of the
> literature supports the view that so-called "analytical" listeners -- those
> who are "actively" listening and "parsing" musical structure *do* have a
> qualitatively different listening experience than non-analytical listeners.
> ...
> And it's not a pure
> connection that "musician" == "analytic listener" -- very experienced
> non-musician listeners can be analytic, and conversely there are musicians,
> even good ones, who don't listen analytically.
Just what I was going to say. I do not always listen analytically, although
some "theory" is now so familiar to me that I hear it whether listening or not.
> I don't mean to say that the listening experience of the analytic listener
> is "better" or "worse" than a control subject, only that it is different,
> sometimes in fairly major ways.
Such as? I'm curious, but not quite curious enough to check out the references
you gave :-)
In particular, I wonder how the sorts of difference you can measure relate to
enjoyment.
Marc Sabatella
> > "intestinal fortitude"
> > (do other people use that phrase, or was it just the crowd I hung out with in
> > high school?) that high notes require for brass instruments.
> My high school, certainly on the less delicate end of the spectrum, used
> "testicular fortitude" (tongue in cheek, but still a knowing reference to
> the great overrepresentation of males among trumpet players).
Oh, yes. In our band room, we had "WB" painted in huge letters on one wall as
inspiration, referring to how we were generally expected to play ("with
balls"). The design was like in the Warner Brothers logo, which I'm sure
fooled some visitors, but we all knew what it really meant.
Jeff Volkman
> Gary Valentin wrote:
> > >>>>> "Marc" == Marc Sabatella <ma...@sde.hp.com> writes:
> > Marc> Gary Valentin wrote:
>
> > >> of course - you are right. I am only going by my intuition. But even
> > >> though you know that a specific chord change will be nice, you do not
> > >> know WHY. This is a physiological question. Medicine.
> > >> Biology... whatever.
I think Psychology of Music and Psychology of Acoustics
(Psycho-Acoustics?), both very legitimate academic fields, are closer to
being what you're thinking of than Music Theory. I don't think a
musician or composer really needs to know the actual physiology involved.
> > Marc> Is this fact significant?
>
> > yes it is. It just shows that we don't know everything about music
> > and why we enjoy it. In other words, musical theory has a long way to
> > go in explaining why and how we enjoy music.
> > Why do I like Wayne
> > Shorter better than John Coltrane? Musical theory cannot explain
> > this, and it doesn't even want to.
Actually maybe it can. Music Theory CAN help you isolate the
musical things Shorter does that Trane doesn't, how they differ, etc.
To use the art analogy; art theory can help you figure out why you like
Artist A better than Artist B by demonstrating that Artist A favored
certain color combinations, thematic material, compositional techniques,
etc. For the Psychological and Psysiological explanations, you'd want to
research Psychology of Art, Symbolism in Art, etc.
> > But when I learn
> > musical theory, I will start appreciating musicians for what they are
> > capable of doing, instead of what the music does to me.
> > You see, when you start
> > appreciating what musical theory teaches you, then you become biased
> > towards Western Music.
Only if your listening and study are biased towards Western Music.
Non-Western musics have thier own systems of music theory.
> > BTW, I'm not against musical theory. I think it's essential and that
> > every musician should learn it. I also believe that pure appreciation
> > of music requires that you know nothing about it. As soon as you
> > start thinking about dissonance and resolution then you lose that
> > magic.
You're talking romance novel psychology here Gary. There is
no magic (illusion sometimes, but no magic). But of course, the
physiological responses are for real. I know that certain chords and scale
sounds in certain contexts make me cry. I've analyzed the crap out of it
and figured out what sounds are producing that response, and this knowledge
has not diminished the "magic" of the physiological response. It still
occurs. As for a physiological explanation for the response; I'm not
particularly curious about that, and I haven't researched it, but there are
plenty of journal articles and literature about the subject. That's not
music theory though.
> > It's like watching a magic trick
> > when you know how it really works.
> > A lot of
> > magicians will watch and they will still appreciate the skill with
> > which the magician pulls a rabbit out of his ear, but they will no
> > longer be fascinated by the magic.
I understand what you're saying, but isn't that the same in any field?
Lots of people think computers are "magic" because they don't have a clue
about the technologies, and maybe that's a neat feeling for them the
first few times they turn on a computer. I guess learning how the
machine works would destroy the mystery, but is that state of dumbfounded
awe really desirable as a long-term goal?
> > What I am saying is, once you've learned about musical theory, you can
> > never hear music the same way again. How often can you listen to the
> > fugues by Bach and not think about technical stuff at all?
Well, one of the goals in any field of study is to learn it well enough
that you don't have to "think" about it; it becomes subconscious or
intuitive, and this is certainly the case with music. In a way you're
right though, because I know that I have a sort of virtual bass, and to a
lesser extent, a virtual piano and drums, which are always "on" in my mind,
multi-tasking in the background. When I listen to music, or even when
music is on in the background, my virtual hands are figuring out how to
play it on the virtual instruments, whether I'm really aware of it or
not. It becomes quite automatic. A certain amount of analyzation
becomes automatic too, i.e.; you "know" things about the music without
having to think about it. If anything, this enhances the enjoyment of
listening to music (for me).
-Jeff
Gary Valentin
R> In article 96Jan4...@gaia.torolab.ibm.com, vale...@torolab.ibm.com (Gary Valentin) writes:
>> Maybe you are right. But then I suspect that there are some things
>> which a musician might not be able to appreciate.
R> None that come to mind, but perhaps you have some that you are thinking of?
R> [my description of relationship of what a jazz improvisor plays to the
R> underlying form clipped]
it's hard to explain. But if you'll bear with me...
R> I also don't feel it is at all true that in my own case I have
R> lost any ability to enjoy music. However, I'm getting a hint of what
R> I think you might be addressing -- a sort of "student syndrome." I've
R> known some people who, when they first learn about certain musical
R> devices and techniques, start listening as "students" to identify each
R> time these things are used. Having correctly labeled something, they
R> knowingly nod their head -- and have stopped really listening to the
R> music itself (and the emotion it conveys). Usually, this sort of thing
R> goes away when they really learn to play well. Since your posts seem
R> adamant about the ability of non-musicians to appreciate things that
R> musicians can't, and yet you haven't given examples, I'm wondering if
R> you've had some experience with people who were going through this
R> "student musician" phase?
Yes. Maybe that's it.
The reason I'm feeling this way about musical theory, is because I've
seen this phenomenon occur in other art forms. For example, in
poetry. If you learn a lot about poetry technique and tricks, things
like alliteration and sonnet forms (I'm translating these from french)
then when you read a Shakespear poem, you notice that he has many R's
and that he uses open vowels and so forth. In the end, you find that
you've lost the pleasure in reading these poems. They are just a
bunch of techniques. So you start reading nonsense poems and poems
without structure whatsoever because they are the only ones which you
can still read without thinking about "poetry tricks".
In the same way, a lot of good musicians will listen to free jazz to
liberate themselves from the thousands of theories and rules and
tricks which they learned in school.
But this student syndrome which you mentioned is very interesting. I
think you got it. If you are right, then eventually this problem goes
away. But does it go away completely?
Can you ever listen to the whole "Complete Miles at the Plugged
Nickel" and never once think about musical theory?
>> You can try to say that Major is Happy and Minor is Sad - and you can
>> try to make other theories about it.
R> Agreed, that is certainly a superficial kind of statement, which I have never heard
R> a musician make (though I have heard it from a couple of non-musicians I know!);
R> I would never say that, nor is this the content of music theory. In
R> general, music theory, at least as it relates to jazz, is descriptive of
R> jazz practices -- not some sort of esthetic theory of what tonality creates
R> what mood.
You keep getting the impression that I'm "against" music theory. I am
as much against music theory as I am against Charlie Parker, Duke
Ellington, Dave Brubeck, Lester Young and all the beatiful music they
played. All I claim is this: you can enjoy music better if you have
a mind completely cleared of all musical concepts and ideas.
>> But when we both listen to So
>> What, you will enjoy the tricks that Miles uses and I will enjoy
>> the straight emotions that he conveys.
R> Begging to disagree here -- I will enjoy the fire in Tony Williams' playing,
R> the beauty of Miles' sound and use of space, the way Ron anchors the time,
R> the hip choices Herbie makes in what he plays and doesn't play, the feel and
R> way the rhythm section players work together and interact with Miles,
R> the drama in how Miles deals with the form (including the tension he
R> creates by turning around the beat, as mentioned before), the way this
R> performance of the tune compares to the performances of the piece by
R> Miles' groups during the preceding half dozen years, the overall sound
R> and energy of the performance, AND the emotions that Miles conveys,
R> not to mention the wonderfully oblique journey Wayne takes the group
R> on in his solo following Miles. What makes you believe that hearing
R> that Miles has turned the beat around and how he is relating to the
R> underlying form (I'm not sure why you trivialize this by calling it
R> "tricks"..)
for lack of better words
R> detracts from any of the other levels of appreciation,
R> including that of the emotions conveyed?
I don't know why. But that's what happens to me.
R> I guess what I find curious about your strong statements on this subject
R> is that 1) Mark and I and others haven't suggested that non-musicians
R> can't have a wonderful time listening to jazz, in fact it's been suggested
R> that there would be something very flawed with music or other art that
R> could only be appreciated by its practitioners, and 2) when I think about
R> other forms of art, such as painting or modern dance (which I enjoy but
R> about which I have little technical knowledge), I would be surprised to
R> find that painters or dancers could not appreciate their art forms as I
R> do, in addition to their levels of appreciation as practitioners that I
R> do not share.
When you look at the painting, you see a bunch of pretty colors - and
you love it. When a professional artist will look at the same
painting, they will see contrasts in the colors that were used, they
will see "movement" in the painting, and brush-stroke technique.
Because of your clear mind, you will be able to just appreciate the
painting for what it's worth.
When you look at modern dance, you will see pretty boys and pretty
girls in tights jumping around, and (hopefully) this will amuse you.
When a professional dancer sees this they will think of the pain that
the dancers are going through, they will think of how high the dancers
jump and how far the dancers are streching. It will be very hard for
that professional dancer to look at this performance and not think
about all those things. Very hard.
R> Perhaps you could talk about the personal experiences that have led you
R> to the conclusions with which we differ,
I gave the example of fugues and sonatas.
R> and examples of the kinds of
R> things that you find non-musicians can appreciate but musicians can't?
I cannot
Jill Goodwin
>jazz...@ibcco.com (Jill Goodwin) writes:
>>lyud...@aol.com (Lyudmila) wrote:
>Charlie Sullivan
I agree with that a lot of very fine jazz musicians have a struggle to
make a living, expecially with a few "young lions" sucking up all the
money, but that is the fault of a society that does not embrace it's
artists for the most part. I also agree that jazz fans are possibly
more musically literate than those who are not (and in many cases this
may mean they studied music as children, etc.). I took 12 years of
classical piano lessons because my mother believed that all educated
people should have some nodding acquaintance with music, art,
literature, etc. and she exposed all her children to such things. I
have met plenty of fans who have no musical training at all, however.
Music education should be a part of what we do in our schools, but it
doesn't always happen, and not all parents can afford lessons for
their kids.
Charles R. Sullivan
>Charles R. Sullivan wrote:
>> ****warning: off-topic material ahead*******
[snip]
>> Your attitude towards Mondrian reminds me of an art student who attended
>> a jazz festival, but didn't want to pay to see the Ornette Coleman
>> show, because he heard a recording once and it wasn't nearly as exciting
>> as Wynton Marsalis. Coleman didn't even have a piano player!
>Well, I don't think that's fair. All I meant to imply about Mondrian is that
>there is a certain sameness about his paintings, which itself implies I'm
>judging not based on a single instance but on many (in books to be sure), and
Yes, sorry, I was not being fair at all, just having fun at your
expense, for which I appologize. As far as the sameness, the exhibit might
have had that problem but in fact did not, because the early paintings are very
different, and the later paintings were arranged in such a way as to
emphasize their differences. You would not have known that without
having seen the exhibit.
>I fail to see where the Wynton or piano aspects of the analogy fit in. I'm
>sure I would have enjoyed the exhibit anyhow.
I don't claim these were valid analogies, but since you asked, my
thinking was that Wynton corresponded to some other art that you saw and
liked (Kandinsky, was it? I have probably insulted Kandinsky *and* you
for no good reason). And the piano might correspond to some of the
aspects of painting that Mondrian stripped out---respresentation,
perspective, non-primary colors, curves and diagonals. Whatever.
Charlie Sullivan
Marc Sabatella
> >> Musical theory cannot explain why human emotions pass through music.
> >
> >Says who? Just because it has not yet been done to your satisfaction, does not
> >mean it is impossible.
> Any theory that works for emotions is somehow going to have to account for
> different reactions by different people.
Yeah, yeah, I know. This was me in my "I disagree with the main premise, so
I'll attack every statement made in defense of it" mode. I doubt that an
all-encompassing theory of this sort would be possible, and it would indeed
have to not only be cultural, but sub-cultural as well, to explain differences
between you and your wife, for example.
> And hasn't the notion of what is dissonant/consonant in music theory
> changed over the centuries, and some things that were considered
> dissonant centuries ago no longer are?
Yep. Some people alive today still think of bebop as dissonant :-)
This is related to what I said about harmony being cultural - I was referring
to modern cultures of difference geographic regions, but different eras work
too.
BTW, I hope I got *you* in trouble over this Mondrian thing, too :-)
--
John Sullivan
>lyud...@aol.com (Lyudmila) wrote:
>>And... I still think most heavy jazz fans are players.......It would
>>probably take a survey to convince me otherwise.
>I don't think jazz musicians could make a living playing only for
>other jazz musicians. The bulk of the fans are laymen. You don't see
>jazz clubs full of other musicians unless they are some kind of hang
>out and concerts and festivals certainly do not draw only musicians.
>Some fans are more knowledgeable than others perhaps (because they
>have listened longer or more, not because of musical training), but
>the people who sustain the music financially by going to hear live
>music and buying recordings, are just regular people.
And jazz players aren't exactly what we could call an upscale market on the
whole. (How can a jazz player end up with a million dollars? Start out with
2 million. Oh, sorry, wrong thread.)
In my own experience, studying technique and theory (put more generally,
learning how to play) did inhibit my ability to listen to music on a purely
emotional level, to the point where I really missed getting chills up the
spine listening to a piece of music. The last few years, though, I seem to be
able to put that stuff down, and listen more "naively", something I'm glad of.
I really was beginning to despair of really connecting emotionally with my
favorite music, instead of always thinking, "I'll have to remember that
trick".
My next step is to carry that naivete over to my own playing, which is pretty
hard, actually.
Anyway, I would answer the question in the subject line YES. It brings up the
question of the composer's intention. You can miss his intended point and
still have a genuine emotional reaction to the music. The variety of people's
responses to and interpretations of a given piece is fascinating. As a
musician, I find it pretty humbling. I mean, the customer is usually right,
you know?
/* John Sullivan */
/* jsul...@fhcrc.org */
Gary Valentin
Marc> Gary Valentin wrote:
>> But when I learn
>> musical theory, I will start appreciating musicians for what they are
>> capable of doing, instead of what the music does to me.
Marc> There's that "instead of" again. That's where we disagree, I guess.
right. that's where we disagree.
but remember, I am talking about *myself* there. Apparently you are
telling me how musical theory will affect me.
>> [Musical theory] It's more than useful! It's essential.
Marc> Actually, not. Since the ear is capable of telling "right" from "wrong"
Marc> without any knowledge of theory, one learn to "hear" a note one wants to play
Marc> and then play that note, without recourse to any theory. It's called "perfect
Marc> pitch" in the best cases, or just "good ears" in general.
okay, fine. it's "very important". You are very picky with my
vocabulary. I'm trying to say that musical theory is important and I
think every musician should learn it.
>> That's exactly what I was looking for. You see, when you start
>> appreciating what musical theory teaches you, then you become biased
>> towards Western Music.
Marc> Not really, you just have to realize that the theory you are learning can only
Marc> be applied to certain types of music. When I hear, for example, rap, and
Marc> realize that the harmonic content is minimal by classical standards, I simply
Marc> have to accept that this music has its own standards, which I am only partially
Marc> able to understand, as my culture only partially overlaps with that of the
Marc> rapper's.
rap is not linked to culture. Not even to skin color. It is as close
to your culture as BeBop. I think you have just found an example of
what a non-musician might appreciate (rap) which a musician won't. The
musician will see no harmonic relevancy and will not be interested.
Marc> I might dislike the music because of my unfamiliarity with the
Marc> cultural standards, but this would continue to be the case even if I didn't
Marc> know classical theory; my ears would still tell me there was little of what
Marc> I intuitively thought of as "music" in rap.
You might be wrong. We'll never know, will we?
>> BTW, I'm not against musical theory. I think it's essential and that
>> every musician should learn it. I also believe that pure appreciation
>> of music requires that you know nothing about it. As soon as you
>> start thinking about dissonance and resolution then you lose that
>> magic.
Marc> No, *you* do. Don't tell me what *I* do, or what anyone else does.
ouch! getting defensive, are we?
but originally, when you heard those fugues, they had no interest at
all. Or barely. And now you find them fabulous. You say that
musical theory has helped you understand them better. I disagree with
that. I think that it gave you a new way of enjoying the fugues,
replacing the old one, where you appreciate them for their technical
value. Try this: sit down, take the WTC and play it twice in a row.
96 preludes and fugues. And try REAL HARD not to think about
technical terms. Now, are you enjoying the music AT ALL? Can you bear
through the 96 preludes and fugues? (btw I used to do this regularly)
>> A lot of
>> magicians will watch and they will still appreciate the skill with
>> which the magician pulls a rabbit out of his ear, but they will no
>> longer be fascinated by the magic.
Marc> The key difference is music has value beyond its ability to fool people. Magic
Marc> does not.
okay. bad example!
>> What I am saying is, once you've learned about musical theory, you can
>> never hear music the same way again. How often can you listen to the
>> fugues by Bach and not think about technical stuff at all?
Marc> At all? Probably not. But unless I'm deliberately studying them, it hardly
Marc> dominates my thinking. I just listened to the Beethoven late quartets I had
Marc> bought a few weeks ago, and was conscious of only two things from a theoretical
Marc> standpoint - they were more contrapunctal than I would have imagined, and I
Marc> heard a lot of V-I's. Beyond that, I can't say that I heard anything
Marc> differently from how you might have.
I probably would have hated it. I usually have to listen to chamber
music over and over again before I start enjoying it. Even the famous
clarinet quintet by Mozart. I think this proves (again) that you and
me enjoy music in fundamentally different ways. Not that you ever
disagreed with that statement.
Gary Valentin
Marc> Jeff Volkman wrote:
>> On Mon, 8 Jan 1996, Bill Carrothers wrote:
>> > I realized how close to
>> > marriage, in its best form, (or a relationship) music appreciation is.
>> > When you first hear a piece of music you love, you are overwhelmed by
>> > it. It's mysterious and elusive. It's magic.Then you listen to it
>> > again and again and it starts to become familiar, yet still
>> > inexplicable. Then you become curious and take it apart to find out
>> > why it sounds the way it does. And yes, much of the mystery is
>> > temporarily removed during this process. You begin to see the
>> > different sides, the angles, the structure. But out of that comes a
>> > mature, balanced understanding and appreciation of the music, and then
>> > the magic reappears. It becomes an old, sweet song, a best friend. And
>> > that carries you to the next discovery.
>> That's a wonderful analogy. I totally agree. Trying to retain the magic
>> by remaining "ignorant" is just like trying to preserve the infatuation
>> stage of a relationship. Can't blame people for trying.
I don't like this analogy because it doesn't reflect my situation. I
can listen to Miles Davis a thousand times and each time I hear it
it's still wonderful. I'd hate to lose that. Even if eventually I'd
be able to enjoy his music in a different ("more mature, more
educated") way.
Marc> Well, I'd say Gary has finally succeeded in pointing out something that is at
Marc> least partially lost by knowledge, but it still isn't clear why
Marc> this is bad,
because I used to like Allman Brother's Jessica and now I don't. Do
you consider this bad?
Marc> except that *for him* (and for him alone, as far as I can tell),
Marc> enjoyment of music is completely tied to the ability of the
Marc> music to fool him.
you are being unnecessarily cruel. I refuse to continue arguing with
you until you open up your mind a little bit.
Gary Valentin
Karen> Gary,
Karen> Sing along with free jazz? I don't think that that is part of
Karen> the process of either playing or listening to free jazz. I'd have to
Karen> listen to it over and over again to sing along with most of it too.
Karen> Actually some of it (Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Joe McPhee) it would
Karen> almost be an impossibility to memorize it.
Karen> For the listener (as well as the player imho) the object is to
Karen> open oneself up to it on an emotional lever.
There are many many listeners. And each one of them enjoys music in
their own special way. I find pleasure in music as I anticipate the
next note. This is very hard to do in free jazz. But it's possible.
And that's the only way *I* can enjoy it.
Karen> Once you start thinking
Karen> of right/wrong, you've lost it.
right.
Karen> then, that's mho
Karen> Karen
Karen> (free jazz player occasionally with McPhee)
Marc Sabatella
> >> But when I learn
> >> musical theory, I will start appreciating musicians for what they are
> >> capable of doing, instead of what the music does to me.
> Marc> There's that "instead of" again. That's where we disagree, I guess.
> right. that's where we disagree.
> but remember, I am talking about *myself* there. Apparently you are
> telling me how musical theory will affect me.
You are correct, I was off here. In other places, though, you have used the
word "you".
> >> [Musical theory] It's more than useful! It's essential.
> Marc> Actually, not. Since the ear is capable of telling "right" from "wrong"
> Marc> without any knowledge of theory, one learn to "hear" a note one wants to play
> Marc> and then play that note, without recourse to any theory. It's called "perfect
> Marc> pitch" in the best cases, or just "good ears" in general.
> okay, fine. it's "very important". You are very picky with my
> vocabulary.
Not trying to be. This is actually relevant. Music theory is *not* "very
important" to the musician. It is *one way* of achieving a goal. Another is
to use one's ears. And this reinforces the point that one's ears continue to
work regardless of what one's mind is doing.
> Marc> When I hear, for example, rap, and
> Marc> realize that the harmonic content is minimal by classical standards, I simply
> Marc> have to accept that this music has its own standards, which I am only partially
> Marc> able to understand, as my culture only partially overlaps with that of the
> Marc> rapper's.
> rap is not linked to culture.
Sure it is. The urban culture.
> I think you have just found an example of
> what a non-musician might appreciate (rap) which a musician won't. The
> musician will see no harmonic relevancy and will not be interested.
That is *not* what I said. I said that since I see no harmonic relevancy, I
have to look elsewhere to find interest - in other words, I get to use my ears,
just like anyone else. If I here something interesting, I'll like it. But my
familiarity with the culture much more significant factor in whether or not
I'll here something interesting.
> but originally, when you heard those fugues, they had no interest at
> all. Or barely. And now you find them fabulous.
I never said any such thing. I loved them before, and love them all the more
now.
> You say that
> musical theory has helped you understand them better. I disagree with
> that. I think that it gave you a new way of enjoying the fugues,
> replacing the old one, where you appreciate them for their technical
> value.
You are, quite simply, wrong.
> Try this: sit down, take the WTC and play it twice in a row.
> 96 preludes and fugues. And try REAL HARD not to think about
> technical terms. Now, are you enjoying the music AT ALL? Can you bear
> through the 96 preludes and fugues? (btw I used to do this regularly)
This is not a reasonable experiment, as this is not something I would ever
normally do. But, for what seems like the millionth time, whether or not I
happen to think about theory every once in a while has NO BEARING on my
enjoyment of the music.
Perhaps it is becuase I am past what Rory called the student syndrome that I
am able to do this. Some of it comes so naturally to me that it takes none of
my conscious thought, and the part that doesn't come naturally, I don't bother
with, since the music is going by too fast for me to analyze.
> Marc> The key difference is music has value beyond its ability to fool people. Magic
> Marc> does not.
> okay. bad example!
No, *excellent* example of why learning music theory need not spoil anything.
> I probably would have hated it. I usually have to listen to chamber
> music over and over again before I start enjoying it.
Perhaps. But I loved Beethoved before I knew nearly as much as I know now, so
I can honestly say that my knowledge did not change this fact. And since you
would have hated
> Even the famous
> clarinet quintet by Mozart.
Actually, I generally dislike Mozart.
> I think this proves (again) that you and
> me enjoy music in fundamentally different ways. Not that you ever
> disagreed with that statement.
Nope. It is clear we enjoy different different things, and for different
reasons, and indeed, my musicianship is certainly responsible for some of those
differences. But I refuse to accept your proclamation that this has necessary
diminished my appreciation for music, when I know for a fact it has not.
Gary Valentin
Charley> lyud...@aol.com (Lyudmila) writes:
>> I also note that I can hear a recorded tenor and appreciate it, while, the
>> experience of hearing an actual trumpet seems way better, and even
>> qualitatively different, than hearing a recorded trumpet....
Charley> There is something strange about this: Most performances these days
Charley> are highly amplified enough that you are still hearing a trumpet through
Charley> a sound system, mostly. And the system is probably not as good quality
Charley> or used as carefully as in a typical recording. So if you have a good
Charley> sound system at home (a big if, I guess), you might be getting a more
Charley> faithful reproduction of real trumpet sound at home than in most live
Charley> performances.
I never thought of that. But it's obviously true. Not to mention
that in concerts you have people around you shouting and making
noises. I've always enjoyed recordings better than live concerts.
Unless it's a personal concert. Nothing beats that!
Charley> Other factors in live performances include being able to see what is
Charley> going on, being part of the social experience of being in an audience,
Charley> with the potential for audience/performer interaction,
Charley> generally higher sound levels than most people listen to at home,
Charley> and whatever effect of knowing the performance is not pre-determined,
Charley> but is being improvised as you listen.
Also, when someone goes to a concert, they are more likely to give
their full attention to the music. Whereas at home it might turn into
a background noise.
Charley> I'm surprised to hear myself saying this, but maybe you should try
Charley> going to a good audio store and listening to a trumpet
Charley> recording through some better speakers.
It would be even more surprising if you heard yourself saying that
through highly-amplified super-bass speakers :)
Charley> Charlie Sullivan
Remember, though, that quality of the music will not necessarily add
to the enjoyment of music. Some people will swear that LPs have
better sound than CDs. I really can't explain why this is. But
better quality speakers can't hurt. Can it?
Marc Sabatella
will continue this aspect of the discussion, bringing it back to some
semblance of relevance.
Charles R. Sullivan wrote:
> my
> thinking was that Wynton corresponded to some other art that you saw and
> liked (Kandinsky, was it? I have probably insulted Kandinsky *and* you
> for no good reason)
Yep :-). No hard feelings, though. I've seen lots of art, so the Wynton
comparison was off base, and the improvement in my ears was in replacing "lots
of Mondrian" with "some Mondrian, some Kandinsky". This would be be like
saying at a festival, I'd rather hear one set of Ornette and one of Wynton than
two sets of Ornette, which I would think is actually a rather reasonable thing
from someone who prefers Wynton to Ornette to say.
> And the piano might correspond to some of the
> aspects of painting that Mondrian stripped out---respresentation,
> perspective
You don't get these in Kandinsky, either; he is the archetypical abstract
expressionist. Which brings me to my main point:
To what extent does it make sense to compare "abstract" art with "abstract"
music? In my own case at least, it seems my appreciation for these two genres
developed more or less at the same type, and it even seems that the way I
approach them is similar (as compared to how I see "representational" art, or
more structured music). Except that I don't "know" anything about art, so I
don't have that extra facet of understanding I have in music. As a result, I
tend to trust my own judgement less in viewing art - also dance, and a host of
other arts I have no special insight into. The depth of my feeling about any
piece of art I like in these other genres is correspondingly less than the
depth of my feeling about music. So this does seem consistent with what I have
been saying about music.
But it leaves open the question I am really trying to ask here: is there, in
general, a correlation betweens one's apreciation for abstract art and music?
Are there people out there who generally love (at least some examples of) one,
but hate (virtually all examples, on general principle) the other? Do either
of these feelings represent recent changes in your thought?
Gary Valentin
Marc> Charles R. Sullivan wrote:
>> ****warning: off-topic material ahead*******
>> I gotta speak up in defense of Mondrian.
Marc> OK, and I took my lashings from others by email too.
>> Your attitude towards Mondrian reminds me of an art student who attended
>> a jazz festival, but didn't want to pay to see the Ornette Coleman
>> show, because he heard a recording once and it wasn't nearly as exciting
>> as Wynton Marsalis. Coleman didn't even have a piano player!
Marc> Well, I don't think that's fair.
Don't be so defensive, Mark. He wasn't even insulting you. You have
every right to dislike Mondrian.
Marc> All I meant to imply about Mondrian is that
Marc> there is a certain sameness about his paintings, which itself implies I'm
Marc> judging not based on a single instance but on many (in books to be sure), and
Marc> I fail to see where the Wynton or piano aspects of the analogy fit in. I'm
Marc> sure I would have enjoyed the exhibit anyhow.
"sameness" in his paintings? He has at least 3 paintings which are
completely different! :)
I do see a parallel with music though. A lot of people listen to Coleman
and say "it all sounds the same to me."
think about it.
Marc Sabatella
> when you read a Shakespear poem, you notice that he has many R's
> and that he uses open vowels and so forth. In the end, you find that
> you've lost the pleasure in reading these poems. They are just a
> bunch of techniques.
You seem to have this recurring habit of using the word "you" where you clearly
mean "I".
> But this student syndrome which you mentioned is very interesting. I
> think you got it. If you are right, then eventually this problem goes
> away. But does it go away completely?
> Can you ever listen to the whole "Complete Miles at the Plugged
> Nickel" and never once think about musical theory?
Irrelevant. I may or may not think about it; the point is, it does *not* get
in the way.
> All I claim is this: you can enjoy music better if you have
> a mind completely cleared of all musical concepts and ideas.
There's that "you" thing again.
> I don't know why. But that's what happens to me.
Ah, now we're getting somehwere.
> When you look at the painting, you see a bunch of pretty colors - and
> you love it. When a professional artist will look at the same
> painting, they will see contrasts in the colors that were used, they
> will see "movement" in the painting, and brush-stroke technique.
> Because of your clear mind, you will be able to just appreciate the
> painting for what it's worth.
Who says it isn't "worth" those other things, too?
> When you look at modern dance, you will see pretty boys and pretty
> girls in tights jumping around, and (hopefully) this will amuse you.
> When a professional dancer sees this they will think of the pain that
> the dancers are going through, they will think of how high the dancers
> jump and how far the dancers are streching. It will be very hard for
> that professional dancer to look at this performance and not think
> about all those things. Very hard.
So he thinks about them. Does this mean he isn't enjoying the performance?
Gary Valentin
B> Levels of emotion are interesting and how they come about. I play music
B> for people, in a class situation when I'm teaching, or people who come
B> over to my house. Some music elicits the same musical response such as
B> very sad or gloomy. But some people feel that it is an more unpleasant
B> or more uncomfortable sadness or gloom in the music. So their experiences
B> or something in their psychological makeup or their level of sensitivity
B> to what the musicians are projecting are different in each level. Also
B> the areas of the music that seem most of a certain emotion, sad in this
B> case, are different. So all of the music around these areas relate to
B> this one (or more) area(s) and it is interesting to see the variations
B> and similarities
B> of these most emotional areas. For some people there is no most of a
B> certain emotion but the overall feelilng of the whole piece.
B> My question is, and I'm not necessarily looking for an answer, is how much
B> of the emotion is in the music and how much of it is a special connection
B> to the listener, and perhaps enhanced by the listener. Finally, I always
B> like to go back after a few weeks or months
B> and see if the feelings of the listeners have changed
B> and how. If it is then is this related to hearing a piece at a
B> different time in their lives or are the repeated hearing discovering
B> new things or both?
B> Ben Smith
I think that "emotion caused by music" is very much related to the
listener's state of mind while they were listening. I played the song
"It never entered my mind" (Miles) to my three best friends. Here are
their reactions:
1 - it's so sad.
2 - it's so beautiful.
3 - it's good dinner music.
4 - it's so romantic.
(4 is my mom)
All 4 agreed that this piece was fantastic. My personal reaction was #2.
I'm glad that you're not looking for an answer, because, as this
experiment shows, the musician himself had almost no control over the
listener's emotion, except for making these quasi-random emotions more
enhanced.
If you are looking for an answer to the different types of music
appreciation, try comparing the musical appreciation you feel when you
are PLAYING to the musical appreciation which you feel when you are
LISTENING.
I think the second type of pleasure is close to the "analytical."
Marc Sabatella
> I don't like this analogy because it doesn't reflect my situation. I
> can listen to Miles Davis a thousand times and each time I hear it
> it's still wonderful. I'd hate to lose that. Even if eventually I'd
> be able to enjoy his music in a different ("more mature, more
> educated") way.
I see a few different things going on here.
For one thing, your experiences in this matter (Jessica, Bach fugues, etc) have
led you to believe that this new, "more mature, more educated" way of
listening is not enjoyable, and despite our telling you it can be, you can see
that for you, it does not seem to be. This may be only an example of the
"student syndrom" Rory wrote about, and perhaps eventually you'd reach another
plane where you started enjoying the music again.
There is another possibility which has recently occurred to me, however. It
may well be that you and I started out listening to music in different ways -
ways that had nothing to do with whether or not we were musicians, because at
the time neither of us were. Something about the way I listened may have
caused me to *want* to learn more about it and become more excited about music
the more I learned. That is, the difference in the way we listen may have
predated my learning music theory.
And I have been saying all along that we no doubt listen differently, and did
in fact give the example that some music that one previously liked may seem too
simplistic after learning more about it. This definitely can happen. Consider
Kenny G. Millions enjoy his music. Many jazz fans, even non-musicians, do
not. This is because they are hearing the music in a different way,
presumably. But do we feel sorry for them because they cannot enjoy the simple
pleasures of Kenny G?
On the other hand, the type of music we have been discussing here is *not*
music that suffers from listening on other levels - instead, I believe it
*gains* from it. Whereas music that is not analyzable by classical standards
remains mysterious and either enjoyable or not, exactly as it is for the
non-musician. The type of music that is diminished by knowledge is not the
type of music that most people in this forum would have appreciated anyhow, as
it is simplistic even to the more casual observer.
> I used to like Allman Brother's Jessica and now I don't. Do
> you consider this bad?
First, I haven't heard the tune, so it's hard to say. If it really is
so simplistic that it is impossible to enjoy once one knows a little about
music, then no, I don't consider this bad. On the other hand, it sounds to me
like the only thing simplistic about it is your analysis of it, which was
rather shallow. There is without doubt more to it if you look deeper, or if
you reach the point where this ceases to be conscious activity.
> you are being unnecessarily cruel. I refuse to continue arguing with
> you until you open up your mind a little bit.
You seem to be the one with the closed mind - the one who believes his own
experiences are somehow representative of those of musicians, despite the fact
that you are not a musician and despite the preponderance of musicians who are
claiming opinions opposite of yours. This is what mystifies me.
In fact, we both lost this argument before we even began. Neither of us have
any idea how anyone else perceives music, or why they perceive it that way. So
any attempt by either of us to predict what necessarily would happen if they
were to learn about music theory is moot. At best, we can relate our own
experiences, and compare them to those of others.
Consider, though, that if learning about music theory diminished one's
appreciation of music, very few people would bother learning it. So empirical
evidence suggests that for most musicians, it does not diminish it in the
least.
Note that you *have* claimed that knowledge diminishes appreciation, by
characterizing a musicians' enjoyment as being a result of analysis of
technique rather than a reaction to aesthetic value.
Gary Milliken
>I think there _is_ a real tendancy for some jazz musicians and music
>to play things that are more along the lines of clever inside jokes
>or stunts, intended to impress other musicians, but doing nothing as far
>as emotional communication.
If the jokes/stunts do in fact sound emotionally empty, then they are
probably not valid as music -- but there is nothing that says that a
joke cannot also be valid, especially in jazz. Improvisation will often
create a 'joke' in passing that may not even have been intended as one,
but was only a thought that momentarily passed through the player's mind.
A case in point: I saw John Scofield in Santa Cruz last month, and in
the heat of one of his solos early in the evening, I heard a familiar
phrase -- an unmistakeable quote from Stravinsky's "Ebony Concerto"!
Of course, Sco just moved on ahead without any hesitation, and I was
left thinking that I may have been the only one who noticed. I could
even imagine asking him about the quote at the end of the concert, and
finding that he didn't remember it himself. (No, I didn't ask him.)
On the other hand, I consider circular breathing to be (almost always)
a detestable stunt, whose only purpose is to impress gullible audiences.
GM
Charles B Gillett
Marc Sabatella <ma...@fc.hp.com> wrote:
>Eric Scheirer wrote:
>
>> This is mostly true, but there are important points of commonality. For
>> example, octave equivalence
>
>Except, allegedly, by cats. No really, didn't someone here claim there was
>research on the subject that showed cats hear some other interval as
>equivalent?
>
I remember reading this here as well. It would be interesting to
figure out what the "Cat's Octave" is, play music with that scale and see
if my cats respond at all. Or the "ferret octave," or the "hedgehog
octave...."
-- Charles
Gary Valentin
Marc> Gary Valentin wrote:
Marc> Nope. It is clear we enjoy different different things, and for different
Marc> reasons, and indeed, my musicianship is certainly responsible for some of those
Marc> differences. But I refuse to accept your proclamation that this has necessary
Marc> diminished my appreciation for music, when I know for a fact it has not.
I never ever said that.
when I say *you* I really wasn't talking about Marc Sabatella, I was
talking about the general "you" but you (Mark Sabatella) always took
it personally. I was talking about the "non-analytical" type of
listener (as described by C Sullivan. I think that's his name. is it
Charley?)
I'm sure that you enjoy music just as much as I do. But in a
different way!
Gary Valentin
Marc> Gary Valentin wrote:
>> When you look at modern dance, you will see pretty boys and pretty
>> girls in tights jumping around, and (hopefully) this will amuse you.
>> When a professional dancer sees this they will think of the pain that
>> the dancers are going through, they will think of how high the dancers
>> jump and how far the dancers are streching. It will be very hard for
>> that professional dancer to look at this performance and not think
>> about all those things. Very hard.
Marc> So he thinks about them. Does this mean he isn't enjoying the performance?
No - of course not. They're all enjoying the performance very much.
It just means that the professional dancer (it's a she) is enjoying it
differently.
Jeff Volkman
On 9 Jan 1996, Marc Sabatella wrote:
(speaking to Gary V.)
[snip]
> There is another possibility which has recently occurred to me, however. It
> may well be that you and I started out listening to music in different ways -
> ways that had nothing to do with whether or not we were musicians, because at
> the time neither of us were. Something about the way I listened may have
> caused me to *want* to learn more about it and become more excited about music
> the more I learned. That is, the difference in the way we listen may have
> predated my learning music theory.
I think you're right.
One thing about this that's interesting to me is that I remember my
impressions of a lot of music I listened to years ago, before I knew any
music theory. Listening was a different experience then than it is now,
and it was cool, but I wouldn't trade. I really enjoy going back and
listening to some of that same music today in a new light.
I think the "student syndrome" idea is right on the money, but also
clearly some people are naturally analytical and others aren't.
-Jeff
Gary Valentin
Steve> You don't get these in Kandinsky, either; he is the archetypical abstract
Steve> expressionist.
Steve> I thought abstract expressionism was a post-WWII movement centered in New
Steve> York; Robert Motherwell would be an archetypal example. Kandinsky was a
Steve> member of the pre-WWI German (Munich) expressionist movement Der Blaue
Steve> Reiter;
Apparently, abstract painting started in Russia with Malevich during
WWI.
Uwe Dillschneider
Valentin (vale...@torolab.ibm.com) wrote:
GV>That is, after listening to a free-Jazz song 20 times until you
GV>finally get it, is it so beautiful that it was worth going through all
GV>that effort?
I think *that* is the point! It takes a lot of time and searching once you are
bored by the mainstream stuff, be it jazz, rock, pop, classical, or whatever
the (sub-)culture you are part of is mainly listening to. And you have to be
somewhat privilegized (sp?) to have that extra time and an open mind. That is
why I am always surprised to meet a labourer who is really into free jazz or
modern classical.
Bye, Uwe
uwe_dill...@du2.maus.de
!!!!NO MAIL BIGGER THAN 48 KB ALLOWED!!! THANK YOU!
Steve Berman
Charles R. Sullivan wrote:
> And the piano might correspond to some of the
> aspects of painting that Mondrian stripped out---respresentation,
> perspective
You don't get these in Kandinsky, either; he is the archetypical abstract
expressionist.
I thought abstract expressionism was a post-WWII movement centered in New
York; Robert Motherwell would be an archetypal example. Kandinsky was a
member of the pre-WWI German (Munich) expressionist movement Der Blaue
Reiter; I believe all the painters of this movement, including Kandinsky,
were quite representational (Kandinsky's often on religious themes). His
later style (all the geometrical figures), which he is probably best known
for, was certainly abstract, but I don't think it is classified as
expressionist in terms of art criticism, though someone who knows more may
want to elaborate.
--Steve
Charles R. Sullivan
but there are some very interesting ideas being thrown around, like this
one:
vale...@torolab.ibm.com (Gary Valentin) writes:
>In the same way, a lot of good musicians will listen to free jazz to
>liberate themselves from the thousands of theories and rules and
>tricks which they learned in school.
I think there might be some truth in that. Anyone else?
Charlie
Gary Valentin
Jeff> On 9 Jan 1996, Marc Sabatella wrote:
Jeff> (speaking to Gary V.)
Jeff> [snip]
>> There is another possibility which has recently occurred to me, however. It
>> may well be that you and I started out listening to music in different ways -
>> ways that had nothing to do with whether or not we were musicians, because at
>> the time neither of us were. Something about the way I listened may have
>> caused me to *want* to learn more about it and become more excited about music
>> the more I learned. That is, the difference in the way we listen may have
>> predated my learning music theory.
Jeff> I think you're right.
Jeff> One thing about this that's interesting to me is that I remember my
Jeff> impressions of a lot of music I listened to years ago, before I knew any
Jeff> music theory. Listening was a different experience then than it is now,
Jeff> and it was cool, but I wouldn't trade. I really enjoy going back and
Jeff> listening to some of that same music today in a new light.
Jeff> I think the "student syndrome" idea is right on the money, but also
Jeff> clearly some people are naturally analytical and others aren't.
So what you two are saying is that I should learn more about music and
how it works. And eventually I will love "Jessica" and "Prelude 21,
book I" just as much as I used to, maybe even more.
R Shapiro
I missed this amidst all the GV silliness...
>But how do you define "serious"? Stands up to musical analysis?
I don't know quite how I would define "serious listening". Careful,
attentive, focused, thoughtful? Something along those lines. Analytic
listening is usually serious, in this sense, but it doesn't have to be;
and serious listening doesn't have to be analytic, although it helps.
>I would never
>claim this was a better form of listening.
I have no trouble with the concept that serious listening is better
listening. I think it's the least a listener can do to meet a
performer/composer partway. It's as close as a listener can get to
creativity.
I also have no trouble claiming that flash doesn't stand up well to
serious listening. It's almost the definition of flash, in fact, even
outside the context of music: bright, but short-lived. In visual terms, it
would make no sense to focus on a flash, and I think the same is true of
instrumental flash: it's quite specifically intended for other purposes.
One might even say "spectacle" rather than "music".
>I certainly hear
>the Stewart and Anderson models of the Ellington bands as different, but I'm
>still reluctant to call one "better" than the other.
Would you call *any* Ellington unit better overall than any other, or are
you opposed to that in principle?
>Which is why I always pooh-pooh Duke's
>comment about there being only two kinds of music; that is far to simplistic
>an analysis, even if one is trying (as he was) to make the point that stylistic
>boundaries are largely meaningless.
There's a logic problem here. I think you're absolutely right that
"there's only two kinds of music" is hopelessly simplistic. But that
doesn't imply that it never makes sense to say one thing is better than
another. There's lots of dross in the Ellington catalog, and there's lots
of genius, and there's lots besides (it's a big catalog). Each is what it
is for any number of reasons. I don't see any reason to hesitate in saying
that, say, the late 40s band was rather dismal compared to its immediate
predecessor. The tunes were less inventive, the arrangements were
hackneyed and uninspired, the soloists were boring and cliched -- it just
wasn't a good period. Why not say so? And if greater reliance on
instrumental flash contributed to this relative decline, well, perhaps
there's something to be learned there. Or maybe not. But it we have to
consider it, no?
--
rs/rsha...@bbn.com
Charles J. Masenas
In article <4cuefn$q...@fcnews.fc.hp.com>, ma...@sde.hp.com (Marc Sabatella) writes:
> Gary Valentin wrote:
> > I don't like this analogy because it doesn't reflect my situation. I
> > can listen to Miles Davis a thousand times and each time I hear it
> > it's still wonderful. I'd hate to lose that. Even if eventually I'd
> > be able to enjoy his music in a different ("more mature, more
> > educated") way.
I have been following this thread for a while, though I have not seen Gary's
post quoted above. Just when I think maybe Gary has a valid point and is
perhaps not choosing his words carefully he manages to come back and
restate his view that ignorance is better. Evidently some people do not
appreciate the sarcasm in the saying "ignorance is bliss".
--
-------
Regards,
Charles J. Masenas
Marc Sabatella
> >In the same way, a lot of good musicians will listen to free jazz to
> >liberate themselves from the thousands of theories and rules and
> >tricks which they learned in school.
> I think there might be some truth in that. Anyone else?
For me, I don't think it is a question of "liberation" from theories, but more
a matter of getting tired of hearing the same old chord progressions over and
over. It becomes rather transparent. Not too intellectual, just too simple.
Free jazz is one way of getting a different sound, but there are lots of other
ways, including using "long form" compositions that do not rely on a single
repeating sequence, or even modal tunes with only a couple of chords. The
latter, although seemingly simple, seems to open up more possibilities than
it closes. I don't get tired of 20 minutes of C minor when Trane plays over it
nearly as quickly as I get tired of 2 minutes of "How High The Moon" no matter
who is playing over it.
Marc Sabatella
> M>Except that I don't "know" anything about art, so I
> M>don't have that extra facet of understanding I have in music. As a result, I
> M>tend to trust my own judgement less in viewing art - also dance, and a host of
> M>other arts I have no special insight into. The depth of my feeling about any
> M>piece of art I like in these other genres is correspondingly less than the
> M>depth of my feeling about music. So this does seem consistent with what I
> M>have been saying about music.
> Or it could be that you chose to learn more about music because of a
> greater depth of feeling you had for it....However, I am speculating, and you
> might know for sure.
I certainly don't, but your specualtion is probably true. Then again, I was
forced into music lessons as a kid, not art lessons; this was probably the
biggest factor.
Carl Dershem
: R Shapiro wrote:
: > > That is, the untrained observer might *enjoy* the screeching
: > "Screeching" is pretty loaded too :)
: Yeah, but the players and fans themselves seem to use the term, so I think that
: makes it OK. I'm not sure, though; I'm still not sure if I'm allowed to call
: certain female friends of mine "chicks" or not, even though that's what they
: generally call themselves.
I've been reading this discussion with some interest - both as a trumpet
player, and as a jazz player (sometimes it overlaps, sometimes it doesn't
- depending on the music played). The problem I have with it is the
tendency I've seen to equate playing high notes with playing "screech"
trumpet. The two styles can overlap, but there are plenty of screech
players out there (epitomized by 1980 Maynard, I suppose) and also quite
a few players who can, and often do, play very high, but still very
musically and to great musical effect. Frank Mantooth's arrangement of
"Young and Foolish" is a very simple and extremely musical one (when
handled by a good and subtle player, of course), but the high wailing
notes at the end, evocative of a lost soul, *could not be matched by
playing the same thing down an octave.*
Like anything else, it isn't the tool or the technique, but how you use
it that makes the difference.
Do you "grok"? (is that the word you were looking for?)
Carl
Fabio Rojas
jazz more than peformers?
-fabio
Uwe Dillschneider
Sullivan (char...@crissy.EECS.Berkeley.EDU) wrote:
CRS>I think there _is_ a real tendancy for some jazz musicians and music
CRS>to play things that are more along the lines of clever inside jokes
CRS>or stunts, intended to impress other musicians, but doing nothing as
CRS>far as emotional communication.
I agree. You are the one to decide which music you will listen to. And if it
don't mean a thing if there is no 'emotional communication', then you are right
when you stop listening, if it is not there. Others have other ptiorities (e.g.
Duke Ellington ;-) ).
CRS>However, some of my friends who are jazz fans but have little or no
CRS>musical training are even more sensitive to the difference than I am,
CRS>and are not at all interested in this kind of pointless cleverness.
Ok, but what would you say to any professor of any science? I think in this way
you can argue that every scientist ( physics, mathematics, even music profs and
musicians) only show off of their 'pointless cleverness'. Or can you understand
modern theories in physics? And if not, how can you tell if they are important
or foolish?
CRS>And I find it interesting that the things that they like are often
CRS>the things that I really like the most deeply myself.
Ok, but why devaluate things you don't like or don't understand?
Marc Sabatella
> >> Something about the way I listened may have
> >> caused me to *want* to learn more about it and become more excited about music
> >> the more I learned. That is, the difference in the way we listen may have
> >> predated my learning music theory.
...
> Jeff> I think the "student syndrome" idea is right on the money, but also
> Jeff> clearly some people are naturally analytical and others aren't.
> So what you two are saying is that I should learn more about music and
> how it works. And eventually I will love "Jessica" and "Prelude 21,
> book I" just as much as I used to, maybe even more.
That is part of what we are saying. But my speculation above is that perhaps
this would not happen - the quality that caused me to enjoy music theory and
enjoy music all the more for it may have existed *before* I started learning
music theory, and it may simply be not present in you. Merely learning music
theory then would not necessarily give you this quality. Which again suggests
that the difference in our listening styles is not caused by knowledge music
theory, but rather caused some some thing (gene or whatever) that also is
causing my enjoyment of music theory.
Marc Sabatella
> >But how do you define "serious"? Stands up to musical analysis?
> I don't know quite how I would define "serious listening". Careful,
> attentive, focused, thoughtful?
OK.
> >I would never
> >claim this was a better form of listening.
> I have no trouble with the concept that serious listening is better
> listening.
Me neither, now that you have defined it as above. I was thinking of the
"musical analysis" definition. Some amount of analytic listening - the type a
non-musician would be just as likely to perform - I might indeed agree was
"better", but not an analysis that required pencil and paper and a half-speed
tape deck.
> I also have no trouble claiming that flash doesn't stand up well to
> serious listening. It's almost the definition of flash, in fact, even
> outside the context of music: bright, but short-lived.
Again, though, I don't see flash as short-lived in this sense. Cat Anderson's
high notes stand up to repeated listening, for me, as well as any Trane lick.
Anything will start to lose luster if I hear it too much, which is why I tend
not to listen to a recording over and over. Then again, it is certainly
possible that if I really did do a lot of repeated listening, I *would* find
the "flash" wore off quicker. I don't know. Part of my reason for not
listening over and over to a recording is that I don't want it lose the
immediate quality of live performance.
> >I certainly hear
> >the Stewart and Anderson models of the Ellington bands as different, but I'm
> >still reluctant to call one "better" than the other.
> Would you call *any* Ellington unit better overall than any other, or are
> you opposed to that in principle?
While I have in general expressed reservations about making absolute judgements
of "X is better than Y", I certainly have no qualms about saying which *I*
prefer. Recall my arguments about why I preferred the second Miles quintet to
the first, and considered the first "overrated", for example. However, I'm not
familiar enough with the history of the Ellington band to really if I have a
favorite edition.
> There's a logic problem here. I think you're absolutely right that
> "there's only two kinds of music" is hopelessly simplistic. But that
> doesn't imply that it never makes sense to say one thing is better than
> another.
It might not imply it, but it is consistent with it. And I do, for the most
part, believe this. One piece of music is "better" than another only to the
extent that a given listener finds this to be the case. The analysis of
"better" is always a personal one, I think. And not only that, it might shift
with the moment - I might be in the mood for Cat one day, Rex the next.
> I don't see any reason to hesitate in saying
> that, say, the late 40s band was rather dismal compared to its immediate
> predecessor. The tunes were less inventive, the arrangements were
> hackneyed and uninspired, the soloists were boring and cliched -- it just
> wasn't a good period. Why not say so?
I'd be happy to say so if I thought there was universal agreement on this.
Otherwise, I'd simply acknowledge that, according to *your* criteria, one is
preferably to the other.
> And if greater reliance on
> instrumental flash contributed to this relative decline, well, perhaps
> there's something to be learned there. Or maybe not.
Again, I'd say this "contribution" to the "decline" might just be a reflection
of your personal tastes. Others might see it as the factor that made the
later band better.
Gary Valentin
Jeff> On 10 Jan 1996, Charles J. Masenas wrote:
>> ma...@sde.hp.com (Marc Sabatella) writes:
>> > Gary Valentin wrote:
>> > > I don't like this analogy because it doesn't reflect my situation. I
>> > > can listen to Miles Davis a thousand times and each time I hear it
>> > > it's still wonderful. I'd hate to lose that. Even if eventually I'd
>> > > be able to enjoy his music in a different ("more mature, more
>> > > educated") way.
>>
>> I have been following this thread for a while, though I have not seen Gary's
>> post quoted above. Just when I think maybe Gary has a valid point and is
>> perhaps not choosing his words carefully he manages to come back and
>> restate his view that ignorance is better. Evidently some people do not
>> appreciate the sarcasm in the saying "ignorance is bliss".
Jeff> Ignorance rules!
sarcasm? where?
no sarcasm there. There are too many cases where ignorance is just
the right thing.
like when you're eating a hot dog.
TornCot
note! Jazz wouldn't exist if only musicians were able to appreciate the
beauty and nuance of great jazz. As I say I can't play a note but my life
would be missing a lot of joy if there was no jazz.
Cheers,
Dave Krugman
Jeff Volkman
> > > I don't like this analogy because it doesn't reflect my situation. I
> > > can listen to Miles Davis a thousand times and each time I hear it
> > > it's still wonderful. I'd hate to lose that. Even if eventually I'd
> > > be able to enjoy his music in a different ("more mature, more
> > > educated") way.
>
> post quoted above. Just when I think maybe Gary has a valid point and is
> perhaps not choosing his words carefully he manages to come back and
> restate his view that ignorance is better. Evidently some people do not
> appreciate the sarcasm in the saying "ignorance is bliss".
Ignorance rules!
-Jeff
Jill Goodwin
I don't get tired of 20 minutes of C minor when Trane plays over it
>nearly as quickly as I get tired of 2 minutes of "How High The Moon" no matter
>who is playing over it.
>--
>Marc Sabatella
>--
>ma...@fc.hp.com
>http://www.fortnet.org/~marc/
>--
>All opinions expressed herein are my personal ones
>and do not necessarily reflect those of HP or anyone else.
Really? What about Coltrane playing "how High The Moon?"
Alan Lind
>From: drum...@ix.netcom.com (Karen)
>Subject: Re: Do non musicians dig jazz?
>Date: Mon, 08 Jan 1996 00:58:59 GMT
I'm a non-musician, and I've been following this thread with some interest.
It's certainly one of the more prolific treads in the recent past. When this
subject was first posted I was insulted by the presumption that I, as a
non-musician couldn't appreciate the music as well as a trained musician.
This past weekend I had an experience that changed my initail opinion, and
smoothed my hackles completely. I attended the IAJE conference in Atlanta,
and worked as a volunteer. On Thursday Kenny Garrett, Nat Reeves & Jeff
Watts played the first evening concert in a hotel ballroom that held +/- 3000
people (my estimate). Around a third of the audience were young musicians -
all the way from middle school to college age. I was working light security
in front of the stage so I had a great view of both the performers and the
audience. It would be an understatement to say that this was a fantastic set.
What is pertinent to this thread is that as much as I enjoyed the performance,
I saw and heard the responses of the student musicians in the audience to what
Garrett and Watts were playing - the best way I can explain it is controlled
histeria. They we're obviously hearing things that I wasn't, and I was
hearing a whole hell of a lot of fantastic music. Later, as late as Saturday
night, I overheard students still discussing this set - they had bought tapes
and were anxious to get home and listen to the music again.
So, I have to concede that there are things going on during a performance that
I don't (in fact can't really) appreciate. I'd say that knowing more about
the music certainly didn't lessen the appreciation of any of the students.
But, my lack of musicianship in no way diminished my appreciation of what I
heard.
Everyone brings all their past experience into their interpretation of what
they see, hear, and especially what they feel. It is quite obvious to me that
musicians do bring a lot more along with them than a non-musician, and as
much as I hate to admit it, Marc is right.
AL Lind
Marc Sabatella
> A> It is quite obvious to me that
> A> musicians do bring a lot more along with them than a non-musician, and as
> A> much as I hate to admit it, Marc is right.
> Did Marc say that Musicians enjoy music more than non-musicians? I
> must have missed that.
No, but I did say something more or less like the above - that musicians have
additional levels on which they can appreciate music. This can have a
qualitative effect on what we enjoy and how we enjoy it, but I don't see that
it has a qunatitative effect on the magnitude of overall enjoyment, were it
even possible to measure such a thing.