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I Can't Play Piano
- Thread starter two fingers
- Start date
I have had a piano access since I was a small child, when I lived in the military Barracks I didn't have a piano but there was one down in the rec deck, and when I got married my wife was a piano player and we've had piano in the house since we've been married I know all the notes on the piano or at least their notational name and where they lie on the key bed, I've moved a bunch of pianos, I've done all kinds of stuff with pianos except actually sit down and learn to play one. I Play guitar, play drums, play Electric bass, play Latin percussion, T-bone, violin, mandolin, harmonica.... I just cannot motivate and I never have motivated or remotely had an interest in learning how to play that darn piano. I think that's kind of weird but maybe not.
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
One other thing. Jazz is much better experienced live.
I like jazz.... if its big band, dixieland, fusion, swing, western swing....etc.
Free jazz?...modal jazz?..not so much.
I find it interesting.... but not enjoyable.
I like fine art too...but I don't get Jackson Pollock.
If your hangin with a group of jazz cats and say " jazz?..oh yeah I love Glen Miller"...they'll laugh with that " what a philostine " condescending way.
Be bop just ain't my thing..
Free jazz?...modal jazz?..not so much.
I find it interesting.... but not enjoyable.
I like fine art too...but I don't get Jackson Pollock.
If your hangin with a group of jazz cats and say " jazz?..oh yeah I love Glen Miller"...they'll laugh with that " what a philostine " condescending way.
Be bop just ain't my thing..
And neither do some of the people who have responded to you.
I stand corrected. I'm perfectly willing to admit that I don't know all of the terminology and/or history.
I have a friend who took a jazz history class and he's a baritone sax player, he hated that class but he gave me his book and the CD that came with it containing a hundred years of jazz music examples... the CD starts out very rudimentary and goes up through the Ragtime era and the traditional Jazz era through the bands out of New Orleans in the river boat folks and some of the band's up in New York who were emulating the New Orleans sound.
Well, my post about paying for college as the only way to enjoy free jazz was (obviously, I thought) a sarcastic joke, but some people just didn't "get it." Those who did understand it as a joke probably got more enjoyment out of it than those who didn't.
I'm pretty much on the same page as the OP when it comes to my appreciation of jazz. But if H. Jon Benjamin did those concerts in character as Sterling Archer, I'd be there in a heartbeat.
For several years I considered starting an act as a solo pianist and just play whatever fell out of my fingers with no consideration for form. My younger years were spent behind an accordion in the mid '60s and I played legit piano for a bit so I know my way around a keyboard, but I thought free-range improv would be fun.
To that end I bought an electric piano and messed around with the idea but then on July 4, 2018 at just after 4AM I suffered a minor stroke that removed my right hand from the piano playing equation due to a new found lack of dexterity.
Thinking that might actually be a good thing for the free-range improv idea, I tried it again but it was just too painful to play. I wonder if somebody was trying to tell me something. I didn't want to use my left hand all that much (it's kind of lazy on keyboards) so I gave up on the idea of playing free-range piano for the betterment of all mankind.
Fortunately, I can still pluck a bass effectively (with some minor restrictions) so I can annoy others doing that.
To that end I bought an electric piano and messed around with the idea but then on July 4, 2018 at just after 4AM I suffered a minor stroke that removed my right hand from the piano playing equation due to a new found lack of dexterity.
Thinking that might actually be a good thing for the free-range improv idea, I tried it again but it was just too painful to play. I wonder if somebody was trying to tell me something. I didn't want to use my left hand all that much (it's kind of lazy on keyboards) so I gave up on the idea of playing free-range piano for the betterment of all mankind.
Fortunately, I can still pluck a bass effectively (with some minor restrictions) so I can annoy others doing that.
We aren't obligated to like everything. But we shouldn't assume everything we dislike is bad. There's a lot of music and art I don't get, and sometimes I have to remind myself that people developed and refined those forms and created a system and esthetic around them, and if they did not develop that music with me in mind it's not their problem.
Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor are totally beyond me, both in music and theory, but I try to listen because every so often something clicks. But there's some free jazz I like, where a small number of musicians are having a conversation. There was a bootleg of Tom Jenkinson (aka Squarepusher) playing solo improvised bass circulating about a dozen years ago (sorry, no link, I'm not sure I could find it if I tried). Most of it was million-notes-a-second stuff. For part of the concert, Evan Parker (legendary free jazz musician) joined him on sax and the show became this wild interpersonal dynamics thing where Jenkinson was trying to outplay Parker and Parker was cooly, expertly putting him in his place to make a proper duet. I'd swear that's what happened although I can't actually walk you through the music and tell you what's going on, I can only feel like that's what happened.
This bass solo by William Parker is amazing too -- maybe I have synesthesia or something but it feels like the musical equivalent of somebody telling their stories.
Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor are totally beyond me, both in music and theory, but I try to listen because every so often something clicks. But there's some free jazz I like, where a small number of musicians are having a conversation. There was a bootleg of Tom Jenkinson (aka Squarepusher) playing solo improvised bass circulating about a dozen years ago (sorry, no link, I'm not sure I could find it if I tried). Most of it was million-notes-a-second stuff. For part of the concert, Evan Parker (legendary free jazz musician) joined him on sax and the show became this wild interpersonal dynamics thing where Jenkinson was trying to outplay Parker and Parker was cooly, expertly putting him in his place to make a proper duet. I'd swear that's what happened although I can't actually walk you through the music and tell you what's going on, I can only feel like that's what happened.
This bass solo by William Parker is amazing too -- maybe I have synesthesia or something but it feels like the musical equivalent of somebody telling their stories.
The world is a big place. There's room for everybody. If you don't like jazz it's probably going to be okay. You don't have to like Led Zeppelin, either, if you don't want to. Or Nutella. It's all good.
I feel from an outsider towards jazz that sometimes the player/band forgets and doesn't think about what it actually sounds like when the "musical gibberish" starts happening and a disconnect happens in the audience or towards the listener who doesn't understand why they would intentionally do that.
The only jazz I can listen to without skipping or without feeling like this sounds like crap is Snarky Puppy because I feel like they always set a melodic foundation to their songs and never get to crazy with it.
The only jazz I can listen to without skipping or without feeling like this sounds like crap is Snarky Puppy because I feel like they always set a melodic foundation to their songs and never get to crazy with it.
I'm with you. I love Smooth Jazz and Fusion and enjoy listening to Big Band music, but I don't enjoy straight ahead Jazz. It doesn't mean I don't respect the musicians, but everybody has their own tastes in music.
I was with you until Nutella. I have no use for anyone who doesn't like to stir Nutella and extra crunchy peanut butter together and dip apple slices into it.
Those people are stupid and immoral. In fact, puppies and God hate them too. They are un(enter your country of origin here). They should be banished from the universe. Only I would hate it for whatever universe they wound up in. Nutella is life. All hail NUTELLA!!!!
Again, there is more than a hundred years of this music on records, and almost every bit of it is readily available for listening. I urge you all to open your ears. "Jazz" does not start with the Coltrane Quartet and end with Cecil Taylor solo piano.
I don't think anyone here has summarily dismissed "jazz". We have simply expressed our preference for more melodic/funky/soulful versions. And, so far, nobody has disrespected anyone who performs and/or prefers the more "out there" versions.
I'm not saying there isn't good jazz music because I clearly haven't listened to enough of it.
I just think there's a direct correlation to jazz being one of the least listened to genres, if not the least listened to genre.
When something sounds "off", peoples natural reaction is I don't like that and I feel like that's what happens.
I just think there's a direct correlation to jazz being one of the least listened to genres, if not the least listened to genre.
When something sounds "off", peoples natural reaction is I don't like that and I feel like that's what happens.
