Should We Think About Music?

[Ostermilk]

Apologies if I've completely missed the point here, but Mozart was highly trained from a very young age and he was anything but a trained horse.

Nah, he was more of a prodigy, he was basically told by his father "look, a piano, this is a high note and this is a low one" and from hat point on pretty much just ran with it.

Too bad he never got the hang of Tic, Tac, Toe though.

[NekujaK]

A few years back, I wanted to expand my guitar skills beyond the narrow limitations of my self-taught playing, so I took lessons from a professional guitar player. This guy is a highly sought-after studio musician and can play anything, but his core musical foundation is based in jazz, and that's where he started with me. Of course, jazz is built on some pretty heavy music theory, so the first few months of lessons focused more on theory and less on actual guitar playing.

Jazz is highly improvisational, requring musicians to create in real time as the music is being played. Extensive knowledge of music theory enables jazz players to soar creatively while remaining grounded in a commonly understood musical framework. During one lesson, I was struggling to improvise a solo over a fairly complicated chord progression and was in awe of how easily the notes flowed when my teacher played a solo. Desperate to understand the internal process, I asked, "What are you thinking about when you play a solo?" He replied, "Hopefully nothing."

The point being, music is a language we use to express ourselves. Studying music, just like studying a spoken language, expands our vocabulary and provides more options for self-expression. Deep thought and concentration are required to learn any new language, but once we know it, we can disengage our brain and the words, or music, can come directly from our creative center.

[selig]

As a long time student of free improvisation myself, I had a breakthrough when I realized EVERYONE improvises. I'm doing it right now, every reply to this thread was improvised, every time we SPEAK we improvise. Unless you are speaking pre-written text, you are improvising.

I learned improv is not some gift that some have and some don't, it's a skill that can be learned just like we learned to speak. But that's not to say it's "easy" - it takes time and effort and focus. But it's 100% doable if you put in the time and practice.

And yes, when you improvise, you are not "thinking", you are "doing". But to get there, you will encounter some "thinking" for sure!



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[modecca]

I do agree with what some folks are saying about how it depends on where you want to go with your music. I might come off as unstable and a little unhinged at times (sorry EDM kids) but I do have goals with my music that are going to require technical knowledge. So now the question is: why study the technicalities if you have no goals? Does the OP have goals or is he, like Heath Ledger's "Joker", a dog chasing cars?

I do have some music related goals and one of them includes making a video based of some of this wonderful commentary found in here.

There is a lot to be explored here and that includes comments from
people finding problems with some stuff I said.

I'm far less interested in defending what I said in the past and much more interested in genuine growth.
This means I often find holes in my game so to speak and I enjoy addressing them.

I also see what appear to be errors (unnecessary limitations) with some of the ideas other people have and I like to point those out as well.



The topic question can appear to be generic or simple (or dumb), but it has broad implications.

Another way it could have been asked:
Why do I think about music?
One of the answers would be to increase moments like this:
"good half an hour in uncontrollable tears I was so moved"


If people can't see a correlation to taking time to think about what we are doing and being moved to tears, they do not think like I do.


You can find my newsletter on JoinHeavensGateNow.net(kidding)

[Peter]

If people can't see a correlation to taking time to think about what we are doing and being moved to tears, they do not think like I do.

I understand where you're coming from. The artist who provokes tears is obviously thinking about what he's doing. The only way a mindless, musical monkey would move somebody to tears is if the listener was on a bad acid trip I guess.

[normen]

I understand where you're coming from. The artist who provokes tears is obviously thinking about what he's doing. The only way a mindless, musical monkey would move somebody to tears is if the listener was on a bad acid trip I guess.

People can get moved to tears by watching the moon or a mountain, are you implying an intelligent creator?

[Peter]

People can get moved to tears by watching the moon or a mountain, are you implying an intelligent creator?

You actually are if you're referring to the moon or a mountain as art. Uh-oh Normen.

[Ostermilk]

There is a lot to be explored here and that includes comments from
people finding problems with some stuff I said.

I must have missed that, maybe you'll point me to someone finding a problem with anything you've said.

I'm finding the continuing discourse that's appeared over several different sub-forums to have been nothing but congenial, and given that we've been flirting with some pretty nebulous concepts that we're all gonna have different views on that's pretty remarkable for this place.



So much so I want to request the Teflon Tomb remake of 'Kumbaya' in the next video...

[normen]

You actually are if you're referring to the moon or a mountain as art. Uh-oh Normen.

You're implying we have a proper definition for art. Uh-oh Anyway, this was just the removal of any possible intent. Take a tree or a termite colony. Or take the possible insight on the world of a mentally challenged person doing art. Or take the arrangements of birds trying to impress the other sex (can't remember the name of that bird that does these colorful "mosaics").

Point being that the impression - or the "art" - is in all cases I can think of coming from something much greater than its creator and hence not really dependent on his prowess or intelligence. I mean life and the universe ffs ^^ Thats what gives art its power, not the artist. (Sure, as we established an experienced artist is much more capable of willingly "unearthing" art - but he doesn't really "own" it, its basically there already, he just finds it.)

[Ostermilk]

People can get moved to tears by watching the moon or a mountain, are you implying an intelligent creator?

You actually are if you're referring to the moon or a mountain as art. Uh-oh Normen.

It's OK, Donovan is responsible for the mountains.

[Peter]

Point being that the impression - or the "art" - is in all cases I can think of coming from something much greater than its creator and hence not really dependent on his prowess or intelligence. I mean life and the universe ffs ^^ Thats what gives art its power, not the artist. (Sure, as we established an experienced artist is much more capable of willingly "unearthing" art - but he doesn't really "own" it, its basically there already, he just finds it.)

Elizabeth Gilbert would agree.

[siln]

Point being that the impression - or the "art" - is in all cases I can think of coming from something much greater than its creator and hence not really dependent on his prowess or intelligence. I mean life and the universe ffs ^^ Thats what gives art its power, not the artist. (Sure, as we established an experienced artist is much more capable of willingly "unearthing" art - but he doesn't really "own" it, its basically there already, he just finds it.)

Elizabeth Gilbert would agree.

I like tedx..

[4filegate]

And lost be the day to us in which a measure hath not been danced.

[gak]

I like it. Too bad about that soundcloud "everything we put is masked like you never did any mixing" quality.

OH, and I just noticed the "blinking" on your avatar, very nice indeed!

[4filegate]

I like it. Too bad about that soundcloud "everything we put is masked like you never did any mixing" quality.

OH, and I just noticed the "blinking" on your avatar, very nice indeed!

A quick glance makes it seem similar to one, though.

streaming music vs. downloading comparison - some SC works is available in dwnld 24-bit 48/96 KHz to the listener

Olé!