Originally Posted By: Notes Norton

I knew 'woodshed' came from practicing in the woodshed so nobody else could hear it...


One of the legends, actually repeated a few times in different autobiographies and other books I've enjoyed over the years, makes the claim that the term originated with Charlie Parker, who was laughed out of the NYC jazz clubs upon his first excursion there from his hometown in the midwest.

Bird had to go back home with tail tucked between his legs and spent the next year or longer practicing, actually out back of his residence, in a real woodshed.

Determined to never get caught in a situation where the other musicians could ever again "stump" him onstage by using tricks such as sudden key changes, turning the beat around, etc. Bird worked up his own rather complete practice regimen out back in that woodshed. He is said to have worked on his reading skills, checking out classical scores borrowed from public library, forcing himself to practice every line on those scores to include the violin parts, etc. until he could sightread them forwards - and even backwards (!) - a feat that he demonstrated in front of the NYC musicians at least a few times, documented, after his triumphant return. He also used the radio during his legendary woodshed experience, simply put, he would turn the dial to ANY station and practice playing along with whatever musics came out of the radio, in realtime and by ear.

Anyone who knows the least bit of jazz history knows what kind of skills Bird had obtained by the time he returned, triumphantly, to the NYC jazz scene. The woodshed experience he placed upon himself actually led to the development of an entirely new form and method of jazz improvisation, playing in realtime "from the 9 forward" and leaving behind the single modal improvisational technique by being able to hear and play an appropriate mode over each successive chord or chord group in a progression, all the while maintaining that essential swing feel of counting method. Now known as "straightahead" playing.

That said, I don't think it is possible to study the history of terminologies used in any living language and come up with a definitive and final determination as to the real root of the adoption of such terms.

For example, Andres Segovia also is said to have spent much time in an actual backyard woodshed, which may have been really an abandoned chicken coop or the likes, when Andres was a young violinist who discovered and came to love the Guitar. He spent a lot of time in his personal woodshed as well, in his case, transcribing classical violin pieces and etc. for the guitar. And again we have the example of someone who literally changed the face of music forever after putting in the disciplinary time of repetition in controlled environment known as Music Practice.

It has been said that if Andres Segovia had not been so thoroughly devoted to the Guitar as he was, if he had not brought the concept that the Guitar could be approached and appreciated as a "real instrument" (their words, not mine) able to do justice to the classical works originally written for performance on instruments such as violin, piano, etc. - that the immense popularity that the guitar finally enjoys in our time may not have taken place.

The record of guitar sales seems to bear the above paragraph out, but again, there is no way to absolutely prove history. Unlike the empirical sciences, Historians must rely on the tabulation the statistical result of the known facts in order to theorize, simply because there is no way to reproduce history in a laboratory to proof a theory.


One aspect about the term, "woodshed" that I like to point out to our generation is that we have to understand just how prolific the actual woodshed used to be at one time. Before the advent of Electrical Power availability, before the advent of Natural Gas distribution and use, before the advent of Central Heating, just about every home, building, etc. that was not in the equatorial regions likely had an outbuilding for the storage of solid fuels such as wood and in some cases, perhaps coal, or even for the purposes of raising chickens. So the availability was there. Another rather modern term that likely came from the same sort of situation is "Ham Shack" - where the original Amateur Radio Operators designed, built and operated their Amateur Radio Stations from, rather than being inside the home proper.


--Mac

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