Quote:

Most people whom I've taught to improvise who come from that kind of background soon start to realize that they DO know quite a bit about the thing, what they really don't know is more a matter of nomenclature than anything else. For example, they have never equated the "Eb7" fake chord as being an old familiar pattern from Chopin's Pathetique, etc.

--Mac



Exactly, the best example I know of is my friend who escaped communist Poland in the 60's who I've mentioned before here. She's a graduate of the Warsaw Conservatory. You want to talk about technique, she was trained to front the Berlin Philharmonic on piano. She taught me some Chopin and I taught her how to read fake book charts exactly as you described. She knew all of it already it was just a matter of equating the scale tone chords to what she calls "functions".
I also do some retirement home gigs with a friend who lives there. One of those gigs was a Christmas party and he told me a resident wanted to use my rig to play some Christmas songs and to lead a sing along. His name is Henry and he's in his 70's. Turns out he played a big pipe organ at some huge church for years. I set up my Kurzweil with a nice pipes patch and when I heard him play, I was just blown away. The guy was awesome. He was totally in command, playing some complex stuff while he's talking on the mic and leading sing alongs. No sheet music either, he knows all of it. I asked him about that and he said he was taught to memorize everything. The funny thing is when you ask someone like that about memorizing they they look at you like why are you even asking me this? Of course you have to know it.
He loves jazz, wishes he could play it and I've offered several times to show him how just like I did with Bozena but he just puts a hand up, gives me a big smile and backs off. He shows up at every gig we do there and he always walks up to say hello. I've stopped asking him to sit in and play something. I know the old folks (and me too for that matter) would love to hear some Virgil Fox for a tune or two but he just won't do it. Different strokes and all that.

Bob

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