From: skovitz@MAGNUS.ACS.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Sonia Kovitz)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Subject: Re: classical training,improv,heart
Date: 15 Oct 92 14:06:37 GMT
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
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              "musical bridges" at Oct 14, 92 1:16 pm


 Mick said (a while ago):

> I vehemently disagree with anyone who says that classical musicians are
> less emotional or convey less feeling than someone like a jazz or rock
> musician. In fact I think a good classical musician may be in a better
> position to isolate the music and interpret and inject his or her feeling
> into the performance. I know that when I am improvising or even writing
> on the guitar (mostly rock, jazzy stuff) I get caught up in the physical
> aesthetics of it. My fingers write instead of my head or heart.
> This is not a generalization by any means, just my experience.

Problem of talking about making music: almost inevitably we end up talking in
metaphors because how else ARE you going to talk about something so
complex & subtle involving multiple levels of consciousness, perception,
intelligence, etc etc etc... so you have to realize that "fingers vs. head or
heart" is a fairly meaningless opposition--though I figure you mean that you
tend when improvizing to lapse into patterns of playing that are
somewhat automatic, based on internalized physical moves (or something like
that)?

I'm not raising this point just to pick at language, because I think it is
always interesting to see what language people choose to describe all this
ineffable stuff.  It's true that fingers / head / heart are all PART of making
music, but I don't think these words (metaphors for something harder to
describe) are very helpful in getting at the differences between classically
trained musicians and jazz/rock/blues improvisors.  I DON'T think
it works to distinguish the strengths/weaknesses of each in terms of their
level of musical knowledge--because there is such a range of knowledge in each
group.

Some jazz players make some classical players look like utter fools in terms
of their grasp of theory--and vice versa--so this factor in itself is not
significant.  And even aside from getting at the differences between the two
groups, knowledge of theory in itself doesn't make you a good or bad
musician, of whatever kind...

Although many classical players ARE afraid to improvise and
unable to do it well, in a sense many rock/jazz/blues players are also inept at
improvising when you come right down to it: they learn some standard riffs and
maneuvers and that's it-- in other words, we're talking mediocrity (of which
the world abounds) and both classical and non-classical musicians can be
afflicted with it: mediocrity defined as always staying on safe turf.

In the end, I would say that if classical musicians often turn out to be UN-fun
improvisers--it's NOT because of their classical musical training PER SE:
rather it's because of the ATTITUDES toward music they pick up "in the air" of
their hothouse conservatories (I think NEC -- New England Conservatory in
Boston is one exception that I am aware of)... That is, along with their
 musical training, students absorb a LOT of other weird stuff
in ways they are not even aware of--attitudes re: the supposed "superiority" of
certain kinds of music over other kinds, and attitudes re: "success" and
"competence" that scare people off from trying out unproved approaches, from
experimenting, being crazy.

I'm talking EDUCATIONAL APPROACH = the culprit
here, not musical training per se--and you don't get the latter without the
former: often supposedly innocent "information" comes with its unseen level of
brainwashing... true in music schools as everyplace else...

The premium for success in this culture is DO IT BETTER THAN ANYBODY ELSE, and
also DO IT FASTER while you're at it...  Maybe the jazz/rock/blues improvisers
(you can throw in metal/thrash/industrial while you're at it) play differently
NOT because of their musical knowledge in itself, but because they have
challenged some of this crap--whereas many classical musicians are more
obedient to these values--you know, making a respectable career, pleasing the
powers that be.  So "improvising" seems to them like a very questionable or
worthless undertaking--but perhaps a wild and reckless and bold
classical music student will come along every once and a while--and voila, give
that person the chance and he/she can Get Down and Jam.  It's not because of
what that person does or doesn't know musically that allows them to jam--it's
WHO THEY ARE.

And to take the argument the other way: this same wild and reckless and bold
classical music student--I just BETCHA--will also OUTPERFORM her musical peers
at Bach and Beethoven and Chopin, again because of that bold spirit that isn't
afraid of the music and isn't afraid to express itself THROUGH a Bach piece no
less than through a jam...I think discovering the heart of a classical piece
is
ultimately no different an artistic act than discovering the heart of a live
jam... it takes the same combination of musical sensibility and balls--

 As Mick said...
>  whether the piece is mine or Beethoven's, I can be similarly expressive.
>

I agree!

Sonia "spouting off"
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