Originally Posted by MarioD
This is the reality for many guitarist:
HaHa, that image is pretty funny. And Tom Jones may say “That’s right!, Ditch the guitar, I did.”

But back to the book.
He recounts a story where he had dinner with Joni Mitchell where Joni told him she would work with top-shelf bass players where each one would ask for the chord sheet so they could ensure that they’d hit the root notes to provide a solid harmonic foundation. [A sentiment I totally get as a bass player].

But let’s back up a bit. According Levitin, Joni never took guitar or other lessons and had no training in music theory. She used a lot of alternate tunings of her own choosing that she could talk for hours about. These tunings and her unique compositional style resulted in avant-garde music that spanned folk, rock and jazz. She would throw together notes in such a way that the chords couldn’t easily be labeled. She simply could not tell those bass players the root.

“Joni’s genius was she creates chords that are ambiguous, chords that could have two or more different roots.”

But then Jaco Pastorious showed up and he didn’t ask for the root notes, he would “float along” thru the song and Joni loved it. He was the only bass player that could understand where Joni’s head was coming from.

“The brilliance of Jaco, Joni said, is that he instinctively knew to wander around the possibility space, reinforcing the different chord interpretations with equal emphasis, sublimely holding the ambiguity in a delicate, suspended balance.”

Now Jaco had other personality traits that made it hard to work with, including causing mayhem backstage, but on the subject of ambiguous chords, he and Joni were on the same page. So Joni put up with his antics.

Personally, Jaco, is not a “bass hero” of mine and there are only a few Joni Mitchell songs I can honestly say I like. At least at this point in time, I’m firmly in the camp of “give me unambiguous chords”. 😊 Nonetheless, I admire them both. Even though I don't find ambiguous music pleasing, I do admire those with a certain genius that can transcend music theory.

There’s much more to this and other interesting stories, I suggest buy the book to understand it all.

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BiaB 2026 Windows
For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.