Quote:

Sax players seem to be the biggest offenders. I'm speaking from the pov of doing live gigs. On the one hand it's good to have someone with the chops to play Tunisia for example but I don't want to keep hearing the same 2/5 phrases that are right out of Charlie Parkers book over and over and over and over....
Sometimes I want to reach over my keyboard and slap someone upside the head and say STOP THAT. Play something from your HEART
Bob




Thank god Jazzmammal said this - so true!

I have been bothy sides of this fence. In my youth I played trumpet and cornet, learning from a Salvation Army player. I could read anything, lots of flash pieces like Zelda and Victorian theme and variation stuff, but take the notes away and I was silenced.

I then learned guitar, read a few pieces but then learnt its really not the way to go for contemporary music - on the guitar. I also realised that notation actually captures only bare minimums of a performance.

Then Sax, On this istrument I learnt both ways - playing a head then impro. I can now work from the melody or from the chords.

Now it's piano time, I can play over most chords, but my bass clef reading is like a snail with a limp, so at my age I am not going to bother too much. But, curiously, playing almost exclusively with BIAB, I find my solo piano needs work.

Seems sometimes you can go this way or that way, but not both

And no one has mentioned musical memory. IMO reading notation can really screw up musical memory, it stifles its development amongst the neurons, if there was no notation then we would all have great memories for phrases and pieces

Last edited by ZeroZero; 04/28/13 01:43 AM.
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