This is glorious music. You may disagree, but be prepared to face my wrath.

mosiddiqi said:
:grin:

Sorry Prof, but I think you're having the same problem I have when I try and tell people that every note in the solo to "Mean Street" makes sense and has a melodic purpose and all they can hear is "wheedly wheedly whee"...:embarrassed:
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And a shrill wheedly whee at that. :tongue:
 
Prages said:
Watt isn't in my house spouting misinformation and flinging poo if I don't read his posts.

Same way the video in the OP isn't making me nauseous if I don't click on it.

I did click on it. Sounded like complete rubbish. Reminded me of highschool band when everybody would be warming up doing scales and stuff just to get their instruments warmed up...everybody doing something completely unrelated and non-musical.

Yep, that's pretty much what it sounded like to me.
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...Ive got the record for you...

DSC_4940-75.jpg
 
mosiddiqi said:
:grin:

Sorry Prof, but I think you're having the same problem I have when I try and tell people that every note in the solo to "Mean Street" makes sense and has a melodic purpose and all they can hear is "wheedly wheedly whee"...:embarrassed:
Click to expand...

If I actually transcribed this, I'd have no trouble throwing together a pdf pointing out exactly how it makes sense. The problem is that it would take a lot of fucking work to transcribe. :grin:

Question: When you guys listen to this:



Do you hear this:

Flamencology said:
Ok, let's take the first one, Study No. 6, and I'll try (and fail) to dumb it down as much as I can. It's a canon, but forget about that for right now. What you should be listening for w/r/t isorhythm is the bass-line, so to speak. It's a 15-note rhythm motif, but the tempo changes every 4 seconds. Because 4 doesn't divide evenly into 15, the pattern shifts by one note per row. Thus it changes slightly but perceptibly with every repetition, but you can't really tell from just listening where that irregularity is coming from, exactly... partly because of the different tempos, and partly because of syncopation. Nancarrow accomplishes all of this by writing the bass-line as a single line divided between two staves played at different speeds (in this case, 4 8th-notes-per-second and 5 8th-notes-per-second, respectively). The melody in the bass is as simple as it gets; just an A major figure that moves from tonic to dominant. 15 notes, like I said.

Over that, you have a pretty traditional Western/cowboy kind of melody that sounds like it's in 4/4 time. Nancarrow uses scale fragments to link statements of theme (this is where the "canon" thing comes in), though he mixes this up a bit; he ascends using the major scale, and then descends on the melodic minor (this is a pretty neat trick if you want to go for "Mexican" or "Tex-Mex" kind of sound, FWIW), cycling through single notes, parallel thirds, and finally triads. The third time around, you get a nice little statement a perfect eleventh below where it all started. Things don't get too fucked up w/r/t chromaticism because he's basically restraining himself to the pentatonic scale. When things do start getting a bit chromatic, the canon ends... but Nancarrow goes on for a bit after that, developing 2 and then 3-part counterpoint. He cuts this off by stating the scale motive in triads, and then states the first and second halves of the theme simultaneously.

Finally, he wraps things up by inverting the pattern of the motive; the whole piece, he's been ascending and then descending, here he descends and then ascends, with the bass-line in contrary motion, and triads following the tempo variation of the bass-line.
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And if you don't, does that mean it's that this is like the Emperor's New Clothes, too? :grin:
 
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Flamencology said:
If I actually transcribed this, I'd have no trouble throwing together a pdf pointing out exactly how it makes sense. The problem is that it would take a lot of fucking work to transcribe. :grin:

Question: When you guys listen to this:



Do you hear this:



And if you don't, does that mean it's that this is like the Emperor's New Clothes, too? :grin:
Click to expand...


no, i don't hear any of that. i just hear "that's pretty cool".
 
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Flamencology said:
If I actually transcribed this, I'd have no trouble throwing together a pdf pointing out exactly how it makes sense. The problem is that it would take a lot of fucking work to transcribe. :grin:

Question: When you guys listen to this:



Do you hear this:

And if you don't, does that mean it's that this is like the Emperor's New Clothes, too? :grin:
Click to expand...


Could I have came up with that dissection of the piece and communicated it as well as you did? Some of it, almost maybe, but for the most part, no. I know enough about music theory to understand what you're saying, but I'm not fluent in the language. However, would I hear what you described from an independent listening, without reading your exposition? I would think so. The trouble would only come in communicating what I hear and feel. Since it's my most recent study, I'll liken it to tasting wine. An amateur can taste two wines, note their distinctions and differences in color, bouquet, texture, and taste. But when asked to describe exactly what he tasted he would be at a loss for words. It would just be 'different'. However, if walked through the tasting with a Master of Wine, all the while explaining what the gradient of color around the meniscus means, picking out the familiar fragrances that come out of the bouquet, explaining exactly what he is tasting, the amateur will most likely be in agreement and more capable to dissect the wine in his mind now. His tastes and his palate have not changed. The wine has not changed. Only his understanding has changed.

The issue at hand here is, now, that some people just don't care about wine, and more often, people just don't care about the academics of it. Some people care not to talk about wine, they just enjoy the purely hedonistic pleasure of drinking it.

So bringing this full circle back to music, jazz in particular, some people care not to think about music, they just wish to feel it and to get 'drunk' off of it. And some music, like some wine, is more disposed toward analysis than gut level enjoyment. When you introduce this type of music to people, and more so when you try to talk about it with them it's hard to not come off as a snob.

From the current wine book I'm reading:
"...the snobs main armoury is language." - Michael Broadbent

So the question, my little shepherd boy, isn't 'Do you hear what I hear?' The question is, one which I still have no answer to after spending much time back and forth between both camps, 'Who is missing out on the most?' It's the mind versus the body. Intellect versus primal urges. Is the unexamined musical life worth living, or should someone like yourself stop talking about roses and stop to smell them once in awhile? Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once and awhile you might miss it.

c771bf8f.jpg
 
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Flamencology said:
If I actually transcribed this, I'd have no trouble throwing together a pdf pointing out exactly how it makes sense. The problem is that it would take a lot of fucking work to transcribe. :grin:

Question: When you guys listen to this:



Do you hear this:



And if you don't, does that mean it's that this is like the Emperor's New Clothes, too? :grin:
Click to expand...


I think my theory is sound enough to understand what you wrote here and I think I would understand a breakdown of the Ornette piece and why it makes sense. The problem is, that as a piece of music, it's simply not enjoyable for me. I'd probably dig the theory and concepts used..and find them used elsewhere, but in a context I much prefer. It's all about the intention of the artist..that's what comes across to the listener(well, this is how it works for me at least)..I don't know for sure what Ornette's intention was with this piece..but if it was to ensure I sat there grimacing through the whole thing...job done :grin:
 
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eloydrummerboy said:
Could I have came up with that dissection of the piece and communicated it as well as you did? Some of it, almost maybe, but for the most part, no. I know enough about music theory to understand what you're saying, but I'm not fluent in the language. However, would I hear what you described from an independent listening, without reading your exposition? I would think so. The trouble would only come in communicating what I hear and feel. Since it's my most recent study, I'll liken it to tasting wine. An amateur can taste two wines, note their distinctions and differences in color, bouquet, texture, and taste. But when asked to describe exactly what he tasted he would be at a loss for words. It would just be 'different'. However, if walked through the tasting with a Master of Wine, all the while explaining what the gradient of color around the meniscus means, picking out the familiar fragrances that come out of the bouquet, explaining exactly what he is tasting, the amateur will most likely be in agreement and more capable to dissect the wine in his mind now. His tastes and his palate have not changed. The wine has not changed. Only his understanding has changed.

The issue at hand here is, now, that some people just don't care about wine, and more often, people just don't care about the academics of it. Some people care not to talk about wine, they just enjoy the purely hedonistic pleasure of drinking it.

So bringing this full circle back to music, jazz in particular, some people care not to think about music, they just wish to feel it and to get 'drunk' off of it. And some music, like some wine, is more disposed toward analysis than gut level enjoyment. When you introduce this type of music to people, and more so when you try to talk about it with them it's hard to not come off as a snob.

From the current wine book I'm reading:
"...the snobs main armoury is language." - Michael Broadbent

So the question, my little shepherd boy, isn't 'Do you hear what I hear?' The question is, one which I still have no answer to after spending much time back and forth between both camps, 'Who is missing out on the most?' It's the mind versus the body. Intellect versus primal urges. Is the unexamined musical life worth living, or should someone like yourself stop talking about roses and stop to smell them once in awhile? Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once and awhile you might miss it.
Click to expand...

The question was whether you heard it, not whether you could articulate it. :grin:

But you're making a few assumptions, here - this is a forum of musicians, and anyone who claims that they enjoy music on a purely visceral level without intellect or analytical... is being pretty disingenuous; to varying degrees, they are effortlessly conscious of things like pitch, dynamics, tempo, harmony, rhythm, consonance, dissonance, tension, release, timbre, etc. All of that is taken in without giving it a second thought.

So, why assume that the experience is any different for someone who's listening to jazz, just because the musical tools, techniques, and strategies become more varied, more complex, or whatnot, and require more training/education to describe accurately? Why assume that, let's say, isorhythm (in the case of the Nancarrow) provides a wall or barrier to my experience, if a crescendo or a lamento doesn't obstruct yours? (I'm not using "you" and "me" personally, here, just making a point.)

Prages said:
Inspired by the OP, I dug out my old Alto Sax which I haven't played since high school.

Ode to Ornette

It doesn't suck. Remember, it's art....because I say it is.
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Howie never said that all art is good. :shrug:
 
This was posted by JonFinn over in the LL..and is with regards to people finding the music of Thelonious Monk "difficult"..This is what someone should do to Ornette fucking Coleman's "music" :grin:

 
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Flamencology said:
The question was whether you heard it, not whether you could articulate it. :grin:

But you're making a few assumptions, here - this is a forum of musicians, and anyone who claims that they enjoy music on a purely visceral level without intellect or analytical... is being pretty disingenuous; to varying degrees, they are effortlessly conscious of things like pitch, dynamics, tempo, harmony, rhythm, consonance, dissonance, tension, release, timbre, etc. All of that is taken in without giving it a second thought.

So, why assume that the experience is any different for someone who's listening to jazz, just because the musical tools, techniques, and strategies become more varied, more complex, or whatnot, and require more training/education to describe accurately? Why assume that, let's say, isorhythm (in the case of the Nancarrow) provides a wall or barrier to my experience, if a crescendo or a lamento doesn't obstruct yours? (I'm not using "you" and "me" personally, here, just making a point.)
Click to expand...

To your first point, I see it as a means to an end. The high school stoner hears Zep for the first time, is inspired to pick up a guitar. With teenage cluelessness he learns one of his first life lessons: Nothing comes easy. He needs to learn chords, scales, techniques. However, just because an architect needs to learn all about materials and civil engineering, geometry and art, and many other technical and artistic fields doesn't mean he can't step back and look at his creation and say "That is a fucking good looking building!" To some the point is to create music, while possibly using complex techniques and theory concepts, that sounds effortless. That's the barrier between the artist and the art appreciator. They can both enjoy it on a visceral level, but only the artist knows what skills and knowledge went behind creating that primal sense that the art unlocks.

So as artists we are capable of appreciation on both levels, but for some of us, a compromise in the aesthetics to allow for more of the technical and theoretical is senseless. It's like a chef using herbs and spices. They are there to be used sparingly, only when needed, to compliment the dish. A great tasting dish is the whole idea to begin with, and some people lose sight of that. They take a perfectly good steak and they butterfly it so it cooks faster, and they salt it, and add many odd spices, and smother it in glaze, adding special creams and a berry mix on the side. While the finished dish may be interesting, and from a technical culinary standpoint, the question remains 'Does it taste good?'. Some, who claim to have 'cultured' palates may say it does, they've been trained to taste things like this. Most of us would say that this idiot just ruined a perfectly good steak. All it needed was a dash of salt and pepper. I don't care how interesting and creative it is to make foie gras ice cream (saw it on Top Chef last night), if it doesn't taste good it's not good food.
 
eloydrummerboy said:
To your first point, I see it as a means to an end. The high school stoner hears Zep for the first time, is inspired to pick up a guitar. With teenage cluelessness he learns one of his first life lessons: Nothing comes easy. He needs to learn chords, scales, techniques. However, just because an architect needs to learn all about materials and civil engineering, geometry and art, and many other technical and artistic fields doesn't mean he can't step back and look at his creation and say "That is a fucking good looking building!" To some the point is to create music, while possibly using complex techniques and theory concepts, that sounds effortless. That's the barrier between the artist and the art appreciator. They can both enjoy it on a visceral level, but only the artist knows what skills and knowledge went behind creating that primal sense that the art unlocks.

So as artists we are capable of appreciation on both levels, but for some of us, a compromise in the aesthetics to allow for more of the technical and theoretical is senseless. It's like a chef using herbs and spices. They are there to be used sparingly, only when needed, to compliment the dish. A great tasting dish is the whole idea to begin with, and some people lose sight of that. They take a perfectly good steak and they butterfly it so it cooks faster, and they salt it, and add many odd spices, and smother it in glaze, adding special creams and a berry mix on the side. While the finished dish may be interesting, and from a technical culinary standpoint, the question remains 'Does it taste good?'. Some, who claim to have 'cultured' palates may say it does, they've been trained to taste things like this. Most of us would say that this idiot just ruined a perfectly good steak. All it needed was a dash of salt and pepper. I don't care how interesting and creative it is to make foie gras ice cream (saw it on Top Chef last night), if it doesn't taste good it's not good food.
Click to expand...

Your whole food analogy is a false dichotomy; a really great chef can do simple or complicated, and both approaches will taste great. There's more than one way to cook steak. I mean, the steak you described sounds ridiculous, but it's not like there's no middle ground between that, on the one hand, and salt/pepper/grill on the other. I mean, consider the very existence of even relatively simple things like pan sauces, sous vide, etc.

That's about all I have to say - most of your most read like you were talking in circles.
 
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