Discrepancy between what you listen to and what you play?

[stein]

All the bands I've been in have been on the riffy/metal side. I do like some more melodic and quieter stuff. I like a lot of post rock/metal/punk type stuff too. It's all rock and roll to me. I dunno. Everything I listen to does come out in what I play. Often, it's really subtle, and nobody notices but me, but those influences definitely come through subconsciously.

That's a good point.

 

INFLUENCES come through, even if it isn't the same type of music or playing style.

[kaleb]

Yes, there have been some song's that I had a hard time with but have worked on them, and have become natural to me now. As far as singing, I can't sing now like I could in the 1980's when I was a 20 something year old. I can play better now but the voice is no longer what it was back in those day's, I can still do a good job of some Getty Lee (Rush) song's but not the super high rage stuff that was no problem for me in my youth. Unfortunately that is gone never to return to me, but that don't stop me from doing what I can. Also there have been some song's that after I listen to them or first heard them didn't think I could ever play but, researched them and sat down with them and picked up on them fast .

 

Geddy can't even sing the super-uber high stuff anymore....

 

Comes with age. Aging is a b!tch!

[milod]

Kaleb...

 

Gotta admit you're right in ways that aging is a *****, at least when it has to do with vocal range.

 

Mine changes day to day, too. Some days I can hit high; some days I can't even come close. On the right day I can get to some pretty high notes. On the wrong day, stuff I've done for close to 50 years in the same key just plain drops dead - so I'm having to do some changes in arrangement.

 

In retrospect, though, aging has its challenges but so does youth.

 

But on the other hand, I honestly think some things are done more easily and with better quality than in one's youth. Been there, done that. <grin>

 

I think some things are best left to "elders" musically. It's kinda like kids under 40 probably shouldn't be forced to read Shakespeare's King Lear, but it perhaps should be required reading for those over 40.

 

Some music, I think, comes out better from our elder statesmen of music. BB is a perfect example, although there are so many, many others.

 

OTOH, I think some music benefits from some of the energy of youth. The Troggs' classic "Wild Thing" is one, for example, I felt quite comfortable doing in my 20s, even 30s. But now? Naaaah. Now the wild thing has aged like wine into someone far more interesting - if she's survived. <grin> Another sort of song is more appropriate for both her and me.

 

m

[FirstMeasure]

I'm not disputing that age will take a few partials (if not a whole octave) from your voice. But in Geddy's case, and a lot of rock and pop singers cases, they never should have been trying to sing that high in the first place.

 

Jon Anderson still sounds almost exactly the same as the day Yes debuted because he's singing in his natural voice. Even Franky Vallie had to lay off the falsetto by the late 70's, the human voice isn't supposed to do that for 2 hours per show, 2-3 shows per day, 4-5 days per week.

[milod]

Firstmeasure...

 

Right on.

 

I think folks would be about half shocked if they knew how many singers have had to have throat surgery of various sorts because of attempts to power their voices beyond what is natural for their body.

 

It's not unlike the young athlete who won't listen to "the coach" telling him that a given move is being done incorrectly and is putting undue pressure on a given joint or joints.

 

Hey, they can do it, who's the old guy telling them what to do? Then when they're my age, they have difficulty walking or even tossing a pencil onto their desk.

 

I can tell you as that "coach," you also don't wanna know how many super-talented kids had horrid knee, hip, shoulder and hand problems by the time they were 35 or so and couldn't understand how they used to do stuff "better" and now I, at 50, could still do stuff that they couldn't...

 

Ah, to be only 50 again. <sigh>

 

m

[rocketman]

One nice thing about getting older is that now I just don't care, especially on guitar. Yes, I try to learn every Lifeson solo note for note but if I don't get it down perfectly it's no a big deal to me. I love to listen to a lot of players. I'll never play anything like Joe Pass but I try to learn how his brain came up with what he did. I'll listen to Jerry Reed and then 5 minutes later I'll listen to Randy Rhoads.

 

Bottom line is there will always be a discrepancy. Each player is unique. You can practice until you are blue in the face but you'll never get that vibrato of BB King.

 

Enjoy the discrepancy! It's what makes you you.

[milod]

Rocketman...

 

Hear hear...

 

m

[badbluesplayer]

I can't play the jazz I listen to because it's just too complicated for me to figure out. I don't know enough music theory (or whatever you're supposed to know).

[stein]

I can't play the jazz I listen to because it's just too complicated for me to figure out. I don't know enough music theory (or whatever you're supposed to know).

I feel you. I have been in the same place (I don't play it now...when I WAS playing more, I mean).

 

I have seem some of your playing on here, so I KNOW you know blues. I am thinking you know how to play a couple jazz tunes, but it ain't the same, is it?

 

To play jazz requires reading music. I don't think it requires any deep thoery, because if you can read music, it tells you the key and mode right on the sheet. That "deep" thoery a lot of jazzers get into is really just icing on the cake for more fun.

 

Like blues, jazz is music that is created on the spot: "play this..." and off you go, as opposed to rock and roll or other forms where you learn the tune, memorize it, and keep it right and tight when you play it.

 

PLAYING blues really only involves knowing a few chord progressions, a few rhythms, and knowing how to communicate them. The key to playing GOOD blues is how to make it interesting and sound good by improvising how you play it as it happens, and in a band, how you do that together based on what everyone else is doing.

 

Jazz is done the same way, but instead of "templates" like common chord progressions and rhythm patterns, each tune is it's own. We can learn a song or two, and that gets us as far as a song or two. Every jazz band I have seen has the guys using the ability to read music as a way of communicating the tune, OR just simply communicating the tune without writing it down, but REMEMBERING it if they are supposed to requires writing it down, or a freak memory.

 

I played in a few practice jazz bands when I was young, it was fun, but I struggled. The best I could do was pick out the key, and follow the chords. I couldn't sight read the melody, so I couldn't play it. Usually, by the time I was comfortable with the tune, it was over! I excelled on "blues" tunes, of corse, but really that's just playing blues ain't it?

[LPguitarman]

I love RUSH, I listen to RUSH and many other classic rock bands. I attempt to play anything I can figure out, but I don't play everything I listen to, just not possible to remember everything, but if it comes to mind, I'll try to pick it out. I play by ear and memory.

[Elmer]

I wanted to learn the blues...I can play some bluezy tunes but I miss structure (can't count properly when I am playing it seems) But that is not a problem because I play alone.

After I could make my guitar sound bluezy I wanted the jazzy tones.

At first I tried so hard to understand that all, I don't do that anymore. I just learned some 9, maj9, 7+9, 11, 13 mb5+7 etc etc on a few possitions. And I learn some standard without knowing the theory. Maybe I play em all wrong but it sure sounds jazzy for me. Also play some of those chords in a jazzy way...is very nice with a good glass of wine and make me fly away in my garden.

 

But what I in some periods of the year do is learn a song I fancy and sing along and darn darn darn am I bad at that :)

Some bluezy songs I start to get in my fingers (Boogie Chillen, ramblin on my mind, shame shame,...that stuff) but I also tried some punky songs (Bad religion==> no succes with that), comfortably numb (solo pink floyd==> total disaster)

Killer Queen, also some old rock n roll songs...I start to learn but give up too fast and start doing my own stuff.

[milod]

I'm not so sure that reading - blowing off the map as I heard it said in the '50s - is necessary to playing jazz, depending on what kinda jazz you're discussing.

 

E.g., when Joe Pass performed solo, had he written down what he would play, then performed it? Or did he just play? I'll wager mostly the latter.

 

I don't know if Django could read or not. I doubt that most of the time he was playing from the map.

 

OTOH, I think in general nowadays playing jazz, especially with a larger group, requires reading skills. In a combo... I think it depends on the players and how they feature their own arrangement or whether they're playing someone else's that's been written down.

 

As with "blues," I think "jazz" can mean many different things to different people.

 

I still keep thinking when such discussion arises about the vid of Roy Buchanan playing a jazz Misty that's not at all how most folks think of him as a picker, yet wow... But written notes? I most seriously doubt it.

 

OTOH, I remember a friend who played a great B3 to anchor a saloon trio and he wouldn't even try to play without "the music" regardless that he'd done the piece probably eight million times.

 

m

[FirstMeasure]

I don't think you necessarily have to be able to read music to play jazz, but you do have to have a working knowledge of theory. Even you can't put your understanding into words, you have to grasp what's going on.

 

For blues, all you really need to know is the Blues Scale and three chords. The three chords are always going to be in the same key so that's all you really need to know about theory to play the blues. The challenge comes from making those limitations sound fresh and interesting. Jazz is just like Blues, except there's more than three chords and there's more than 6 notes to play with. So now you have to know what scales go with what chord changes. You don't have to be able to define or explain these changes, just play them.

 

Like the backyard mechanic that can restore a 57 Chevy back to mint condition, but can't tell you what a Cam Shaft is. That's what I always figured the Jazz Guy to be, a guy who's completely at home in his own understanding of theory.

[milod]

Firstmeasure...

 

Yeah... then there are guys like Joe Pass that had it all...

 

Sheesh.

 

But back to Izzy's comment...

 

Izzy...

 

Seriously, I think there's so much material out there that's fun to play, even with the potential of a mediocre picker to do for money if he/she has a good show, that it's inevitable "we" can't do it all regardless of talent and skill.

 

For example, let's say Joe Pass wanted to play Bluegrass. Could he? Duhhhh... Could Segovia play Flamenco or jazz? Ditto.

 

I think in a sense that my own experience may offer some light for your own pathway...

 

I started out folkie and wanting to do some Flamenco. Then I got into some of what I tend to call New York coffeehouse urban white blues. Then toss in an inclination toward cowboy and classical and also doing some stuff like San Francisco Bay Blues.

 

Now add Link Wray's Rumble even on a classical guitar.

 

Okay, then I got into playing some rock for money. Then into a country band playing saloons. Then into old time to promote the U.S. Bicentennial in my state. Back to a bit of classical. I taught a little (one student had some Warner albums). Got grabbed once to fill in for an ill guitar player for the pit band for an area college's production of Man of La Mancha with only two or three days' warning.

 

Then... Hmmmm. It was a cupla moves and some 20 years of nobody even knowing I could pick and sometimes I almost forgot it myself 'cuz I was traveling and working and almost feeling as if I were sneaking from myself to play anything on guitar.

 

Then... back to picking heavily and working out whatever tunes tripped my trigger regardless of style and figuring fingerpicking arrangements of everything from folk to cowboy to '50s-60s rock and doowop to...

 

Well, you get the picture.

 

Bottom line is if you're being paid, or if you're doing benefit type of stuff formal or informal for something that's important to you, you're likely to figure how to play a lotta kinds of music.

 

So unless you're doing it for a living and a certain style is expected, I'd say just live and learn and love the experience whatever you decide to work on at a given time.

 

For example, if you reeeally get into folkie, what kind of folkie? - And what can you do to craft working arrangements that stretch your ability to do smoothly until you can figure how to do it easily?

 

Ditto any other stuff you wanna do.

 

Youtube offers so many ideas for arrangements and playing styles that today's "younger" guitar player ("younger in guitar years, anyway <grin>) has an incredible resource at hand. Figure the song, then see who's recorded it there and figure what you'd like to do.

 

Then, let's assume some folks want you to gig with their group, whether for money or benefits or whatever, your overall automatic response to music will have improved so you probably could just switch gears and make it work rather well. That's true regardless of great skills or at best, mediocre skills, by the way, IMHO.

 

m

[zigzag]

A skilled musician doesn't need to be able to read music to be able to play. He only needs to be able to play what he hears in his head. To get there, he may learn what scales, modes, or arpeggios he can play over certain chord changes, but that is only a tool to communicate the possibilities of what is in his head and to his fingers. I'm betting Joe Pass didn't think that much about what he played; he thought about what he played only after he'd played it. Miles Davis said "I'll play it, then I'll explain it." Think of this: When you whistle, do you see sheet music with notes on it? Are you deciding what key you're in or know the chord changes. Learning music theory is only a means to an end and a way to communicate music to someone else. Once we can play what we hear in our heads, we are only limited by our physical ability. Granted, for most people it takes a LOT of time to get to that point.

[rocketman]

A lot of jazz players I know (including myself in my youth) did studio time too. If you didn't know how to read music you didn't get far. Most all of my jazz gigs involved only one pass through the chart before playing the real deal. Practicing takes time and time is money. You had to read music and get the nuances of the chart very quickly. For piano it meant knowing the right time to "fill in" during the musical interludes. Jazz guitar mostly had chords and strumming but during solos you had to know the theory. I think some players can do it without theory but those are very rare indeed.

[Izzy]

A skilled musician doesn't need to be able to read music to be able to play. He only needs to be able to play what he hears in his head. To get there, he may learn what scales, modes, or arpeggios he can play over certain chord changes, but that is only a tool to communicate the possibilities of what is in his head and to his fingers.

 

Very true. I play what sounds like the original to me because I have no knowledge of where to go next if I were to follow my own imagination. My imagination would fizzle out while looking for the right notes. This is why, unless I get very intimate with my guitars (because I doubt I'll ever learn scales or read sheet music) I'll always be an imitator. Heck I'd settle for imitating well, lol

 

I've always believed we need to have been born into the vein of what we play to have it in our soul. I mean, no one fiddles like a white country person who grew up listening to that stuff and not a single american chacha record sounds like what we latins call cha cha cha. Sure, Amy Chen from Japan may be the fastest violinist, and she can imitate the fiddling, but the kid who nursed on country has a better chance at getting to your soul with a simpler tune. I don't care how well trained the orchestra and conductor are, I don't care if they have sheet music of the original afroa-antillian composer, American chacha gets watered down in translation. And I won't even go into Indian singers. Does a piano even have those notes?!

[daveinspain]

A skilled musician doesn't need to be able to read music to be able to play. He only needs to be able to play what he hears in his head. To get there, he may learn what scales, modes, or arpeggios he can play over certain chord changes, but that is only a tool to communicate the possibilities of what is in his head and to his fingers. I'm betting Joe Pass didn't think that much about what he played; he thought about what he played only after he'd played it. Miles Davis said "I'll play it, then I'll explain it." Think of this: When you whistle, do you see sheet music with notes on it? Are you deciding what key you're in or know the chord changes. Learning music theory is only a means to an end and a way to communicate music to someone else. Once we can play what we hear in our heads, we are only limited by our physical ability. Granted, for most people it takes a LOT of time to get to that point.

 

+1 I am learning scales and modes to be able to play what I hear in my head... That way my fingers know where to go without hitting a few rats along the way...

[duane v]

A lot of jazz players I know (including myself in my youth) did studio time too. If you didn't know how to read music you didn't get far. Most all of my jazz gigs involved only one pass through the chart before playing the real deal. Practicing takes time and time is money. You had to read music and get the nuances of the chart very quickly. For piano it meant knowing the right time to "fill in" during the musical interludes. Jazz guitar mostly had chords and strumming but during solos you had to know the theory. I think some players can do it without theory but those are very rare indeed.

 

I'll agree with you for the most part

 

I find it difficult working with other musicians that dont know how to read music.... Even if they have a good ear...

 

Most of the bands I have been in, all the players knew how to read music, and it made it so much easier when getting your basic point across. It also saved on time as well.

[milod]

I sorta read music. I've written music on a map, although a long, long time ago. But I've gotta be one of the world's worst sight readers because without knowing the piece, it just doesn't translate in my head. And that's with over 60 years of "knowing" how to "read."

 

I've the basics of theory, too.

 

But I know I've gotta sorta know the music first, whether what it sounds like if somebody else's or what I hear in my head.

 

I think there are some interesting things that go on in a musician's head, and that they go on differently in each one of us.

 

It's kinda like dyslexia, and in different strengths even as is dyslexia for words. That doesn't mean one isn't bright enough, but rather that it may or may not translate through the mind.

 

Oddly I've thought about this for ages, but I also note that unlike other types of studies of learning theory, the reading of music is something I've never heard of being studied.

 

So... I dunno.

 

Izzy... Yeah, I wish I were a better reader, but I also think one need not copy others to play with originality. It's what's in one's head. Some knowledge of theory most certainly helps. Somebody like Joe Pass who seemed to think in terms of alternate chords and such is way over anything I ever learned in academia, but I still think knowledge of how chords fit together and how to transpose is valuable and not that difficult.

 

m

[TarHeelKid]

Nice post, Izzy. I love the challenge of stuff that sounds impossible. I don't like metal personally, but forced myself to learn to thrash a bit because it sounds so friggin cool when tastefully added to a solo or something. I'm also not the biggest country fan, but use a lot of country licks, double-stops, etc. Blending techniques is a BLAST! Being musically diverse in what you play and listen to keeps you fresh.

[MissouriPicker]

There's often a vast difference in volumn, tone, quality, and talent between the artists who made the music I like and my playing of it. We all want to be "somebody," but we can only be who we really are. I can't sound like the artists who first played the music I enjoy. Don't have the talent or ability that they had. But, I can enjoy the act of playing it. It's all about the enjoyment I get from it. That enjoyment translates into a lot of good things in my life.

[Texasbluezman]

Children of Bodom-awesome band. Alexi is one bad mf, but I could never play it. Just not my style, and some reason, my fingers just can't move like his anymore. I play genres from blues to heavy metal. Have dabbled in jazz, and did some studying in classical. But I grew up in the late 80's, and hair metal is my roots. Played in a couple of Pantera-ish, Metallica-ish bands, but have since settled on playing the blues for the most part. Been learning Eruption and Mr. Scary, note-for-note, for years, but always seem to miss notes here and there. I have given up and moved on. When you play Eruption at a party where everyone there is drunk, and the other players there are half as good, they swear I played it exact. Sometimes you don't have to please yourself!

 

An 80's hair band tribute would be the coolest to play in!

[milod]

Izzy...

 

If you think American "cha cha" is odd... I once got into a deal where apparently I was in a Korean ad where I danced with a Korean actress on a business street in Seoul... <grin> Yeah, it was a long time ago, maybe 22-25 years ago. Kinda fun though, but the cha cha had the right 1-2-123 sorta. But as you said, not really.

 

Frankly the idea of a "cover band" does get to me a bit.

 

I think there is now, as certainly there was all my adult life, a dynamic between those who figure doing the same song as somebody else has to sound as close to it as possible. Whole threads on here are about getting somebody else's tone with this or that equipment. On the other hand, up into the '50s, all sorts of artists were doing their own variations of songs with a good tune and/or lyric without trying to sound like the other versions.

 

Personally I think that "we" need to consider more that if the piece is good, it may be the better idea to have our own "version" that expresses our own musical strengths than those of the artist(s) we're trying to copy.

 

I remember telling Ian Tyson that ever since college I was always frustrated because I wanted an Ian Tyson voice. Well, it finally got through my thick skull that it wasn't going to happen, so if I did an Ian Tyson piece, I'd best do it my way 'cuz no matter what, it wasn't gonna sound like Ian Tyson...

 

Ditto any guitar pickin' I do... I'll never be BB or Chet or Leo or whomever, so... why not try instead to be the best "me" I can be?

 

m

[FirstMeasure]

A skilled musician doesn't need to be able to read music to be able to play. He only needs to be able to play what he hears in his head. To get there, he may learn what scales, modes, or arpeggios he can play over certain chord changes, but that is only a tool to communicate the possibilities of what is in his head and to his fingers. I'm betting Joe Pass didn't think that much about what he played; he thought about what he played only after he'd played it. Miles Davis said "I'll play it, then I'll explain it." Think of this: When you whistle, do you see sheet music with notes on it? Are you deciding what key you're in or know the chord changes. Learning music theory is only a means to an end and a way to communicate music to someone else. Once we can play what we hear in our heads, we are only limited by our physical ability. Granted, for most people it takes a LOT of time to get to that point.

Does a musician "Need" to be able to read music? No.

 

Does learning to read music open a world of possibilities unattainable without the skill to read? Yes

 

Using the word "Skilled" implies that it's a musician interested in advancing his skills. Reading Music is a valuable skill, so it could be said that a "Skilled" musician should know how to read, and should be advancing his skills at every opportunity.

 

Does a skilled orator "Need" to be able to read the language he is speaking? No, but it sure does help.