phatsolid wrote:
Greg, I'm just curious... do you play any other instruments at all?
It's funny, among my musician friends, I don't know any of them who listen to or like jazz who don't also play it pretty well. But I do have other non-musician friends who like it and listen to it as much as they do other forms of music.
- D.
It's funny, among my musician friends, I don't know any of them who listen to or like jazz who don't also play it pretty well. But I do have other non-musician friends who like it and listen to it as much as they do other forms of music.
- D.
No, David, not really any other instruments. I have flirted with the piano on occasion and I enjoy it although I don't own one. I owned a bass for a while but that was a non-starter.
In most great music, and this includes rock, first hearing is not necessarily first liking. And some of what might be, or is said to be, great music never improves. I am opposed to the psychotic beehive approach to jazz, and I'm vehemently opposed to most modern "classical" that seems to embrace angst as the proper response to everything. I noted the value Munch's Scream just brought at auction. Stupid, and who wants that in their living room? "Honey, the world seems a little chaotic today. Why don't we have a look at our Munch?" I think it is an interesting painting in its time and as a singularity, but if I had painted it, it would not be hanging on my wall.
I can certainly relate to the state of liking something more the better one gets at it. And I wonder, now that you mention it, if my liking (or not) for jazz is not directly related to my hands being able to relate to what the drummer is doing. I have non-musicain friends who love jazz. I have no musician friends who can't play jazz but love it. As a musician, if you love jazz it would seem that you would pursue it, but there is about this a little of the old chicken-and-egg.
I believe that jazz is a more demanding language than rock. Rock is the common music, and that is the beauty of it. As I said, hit 2 and 4 and you've got it, add a bit of style and the world is yours. While one can add much more to the mix, it isn't necessary to convey the message, whereas jazz requires, at a minimum, understanding of rudiments, time and its divisions, syncopation, and dynamics.
What intimidates me is the vast body of jazz about which I know almost nothing, because I think that one needs to be educated in the form in order to play the genre well. But then I would have to want to listen to it, which I don't... or I'm not very adventurous in my listening habits... or something.
Whatever I'm going through is like a birth. There's a lot of pain involved.
