Players that won't learn a note

[Core Creek]

I don't think there's anything lazy about not doing something until you find a need to do it. I've lived my whole life this way and I also work my butt off to make sure I'm prepared for rehearsals, shows, auditions, you name it. Nobody's ever accused me of laziness because I didn't do esoteric study of things that I would never apply.

But here's the thing - everyone learns differently. I learn based on motivation. During the lockdown I tried, twice, to sit down with an instructional book and brush up my reading in the bass clef. But because I had no practical application for that at the time, I was not motivated to continue.

Right now I'm doing that same study in that same book because I do have motivation - I'm starting a new course of study and I want to be able to read efficiently enough to not waste too much time. So when I have a good enough reason, I do things.

Now, one could say that being able to read can help me learn music that I want to play, which is a practical application, but my ear will always be faster than my eyes on this so for a lot of people that's probably true, but it's not true for me. I can already read well enough to know that a lot of the transcriptions I do look at are wrong, though.

I just had this debate earlier in the week here and I agree completely… I weigh in on the “must read standard notation” on the third page….

How do you play “Any Way You Want It”?

 

[retslock]

Never stop the song. That is the first rule i learned back in the 80s.

Sounds to me like your ego is a big issue.
Everone makes mistakes playing live. Keep playing. The audience will never know. Never stop the song. Great way to never get a second gig.

I know a ton of players that dont know names of notes or names of chords they are playing. It dont matter. We talk in a way that they understand. I dont demand they do it my way, or amyway. We work together to make it work.

In a very long career I’ve been in a few situations when the song had to be stopped. The roof didn’t fall in and nobody lost a gig. It’s much better than grinding through a train wreck. You don’t save face by pretending nothing’s wrong. You get sorted, start again and play it right. The audience understands and appreciates that you took the time to fix it and it’s very soon forgotten. How you do it matters though. Never be ashamed to fix something that has crashed. I’ve worked with professionals who’ve done it with aplomb and a smile and then on with the show.

 

[Core Creek]

In a very long career I’ve been in a few situations when the song had to be stopped. The roof didn’t fall in and nobody lost a gig. It’s much better than grinding through a train wreck. You don’t save face by pretending nothing’s wrong. You get sorted, start again and play it right. The audience understands and appreciates that you took the time to fix it and it’s very soon forgotten. How you do it matters though. Never be ashamed to fix something that has crashed. I’ve worked with professionals who’ve done it with aplomb and a smile and then on with the show.

I’ve actually seen to pro acts do this. The first was Winger. They were playing a small venue in NJ about 15 years ago… Reb Beach did a solo and then while the band continued to play he leaned over to Kip and said something and Kip immediately stopped the band and announced something like “Reb thought he could have done that much better… how about we give him the chance to do it”. I was immensely impressed that they cared so much about getting things perfect.

Another time Steve Vai was performing and he was having an issue with his gear - I couldn’t tell what, but it was enough for him to stop mid song and say something like “you all paid a lot for your tic and I want to give the best show possible, let’s get this sorted out” and just walked off stage as his techs lunged at his board to do something. Again, glad he cared so much to put on a great show.

 

[Bass4Gsus]

I am particularly troubled by this notion when I fly in an airplane.

You probably should not watch Air Disasters on Smithsonian Channel and other outlets. The majority of the problem in my opinion is preventable and people acting like idiots who should know better. And of course when multiple idiots or idiot actions come together that is when we get the disaster.

Bad day on stage is far better than a bad day in the cockpit!

 

[BassyBill]

The simplest and most obvious advice you will ever hear: don’t waste time trying to make music with people who aren’t musicians. It doesn’t work.

 

[Jazzdogg]

The simplest and most obvious advice you will ever hear: don’t waste time trying to make music with people who aren’t musicians. It doesn’t work.

Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

 

[themickster]

I know that some of the greats don't read music. They can at least play well. My gripe is with a guitarist that refuses to learn a chord that's not a power chord, and plays his breaks off-key and out of time. He shreds as fast as he can, whatever the speed of the song. It's sheer luck if his twiddling fits the song. We went to a weekly music night, where folk would play along with each other. Our man was told to stop his twiddling when someone was singing. He's since stopped going altogether.

 

[pepj]

No one pretends that people who run jams are the arbitors etc etc but even so I doubt the person who told the gtr to stfu was too wrong.
The problem here, afaic, is not making the mistake he got called out on, its the apparent refusal to take anything onboard and learn how to play conducively with other people.
Bedroom sulker dude will likely stay there forever, pretty much.

 

[Koshchei]

What gets me about a lot of keys (and guitar) players though is that they tend to think in sharps. So, screw Eb and Ab, those are D# and G#, no matter the key.

This is true. Most guitarists don't understand transposing instruments, or even that guitar itself is a transposing instrument. They also don't think in terms of key signatures because most of them can't read. It's like a form of musical autism, where they're incapable of thinking holistically by taking the perspective of the ensemble.

 

[Koshchei]

Classical players study sightreading extensively. They're generally not spending much, if any time, in improvisational study. So most of them that I have attempted to jam with could not do a thing without paper in front of them.

Jazz players (which is where I would put Wynton Marsalis) study improv.

The inability for classical players to improvise is a new thing. Back when they still composed, they improvised like crazy. My music history's rusty, but IIRC this is where jazz originally came from - classical musicians who wanted to do something fun after the symphony.

 

[themickster]

No one pretends that people who run jams are the arbitors etc etc but even so I doubt the person who told the gtr to stfu was too wrong.
The problem here, afaic, is not making the mistake he got called out on, its the apparent refusal to take anything onboard and learn how to play conducively with other people.
Bedroom sulker dude will likely stay there forever, pretty much.

He posts videos of himself playing high speed twiddle to whatever song he's playing along to - the same speed whatever the song. I saw one of him playing along to Beat It. Who doesn’t know that riff? He came in late and twiddled at full speed on three neighbouring frets. I switched it off. He sometimes gets a cheer at gigs, but only when the rhythm section is underneath his twiddling. He often goes on a lone twiddle between songs or beyond the ending. Those get no reaction, other than to tell him not to do it, gig after gig. The last time he did it to me, I said 'You overshot the ending again.' All he could say was 'What do you mean "overshot the ending"?'

 

[LBS-bass]

He posts videos of himself playing high speed twiddle to whatever song he's playing along to - the same speed whatever the song.

This reminds me of the pain I went through trying to hire a decent guitarist for session work. EVERYBODY out there offering work for hire thought he was Eddie Van Halen. I wanted Larry Carlton. It was just brutal sifting through the sea of loud, whiz-bang mediocrity to find one guy who could play nice, tasteful licks.

 

[retslock]

This reminds me of the pain I went through trying to hire a decent guitarist for session work. EVERYBODY out there offering work for hire thought he was Eddie Van Halen. I wanted Larry Carlton. It was just brutal sifting through the sea of loud, whiz-bang mediocrity to find one guy who could play nice, tasteful licks.

I usually say this about drummers but it applies to all instrumentalists and particularly to guitarists.
There are those who play the guitar and there are those who use the guitar to play music. They are not the same and I much prefer the latter. So many musicians - some of them quite experienced - don’t understand the difference.

 

[Richard Lindsey]

My music history's rusty, but IIRC this is where jazz originally came from - classical musicians who wanted to do something fun after the symphony.

No, it had little if anything to do with symphonies or classical musicians. It came out of the African-American experience, little of which, at the time, was in classical music. Really much more blues and ragtime and the like. Which is not to say that those musical worlds were 100% separate and never touched on each other at all, but really, classical music practice per se, in the early 20th century, was not a major source of jazz. Besides, by then, classical musicians were no longer improvising much, if at all, unless they were moonlighting as jazz musicians. Jazz did not emerge out of classical music practice.

 

[charliethomas]

Yeah, improvisation in performances was mostly phased out in classical music by the time of the Romantic era. Composers were getting more specific with what they wanted and things like large improvised cadenzas went away. Also became common at this time to learn a certain performer's version of a cadenza within a classical concerto or what have you, so sections that were originally improvisatory became written out.

I know little of jazz history but I know enough to know it came from Black musicians, and you'd be hard pressed to find any Black musicians within an orchestra in the early 20th century (I mean... Look at the makeup of orchestras even today). Not that it didn't take any influence from the classical world - nothing is created in a vacuum. But suggesting that jazz came about from good ole orchestra boys goofing off after practice is just plain wrong in so many ways beyond the ahistorical nature of the claim.

 

[SteveCS]

The inability for classical players to improvise is a new thing. Back when they still composed, they improvised like crazy. My music history's rusty, but IIRC this is where jazz originally came from - classical musicians who wanted to do something fun after the symphony.

Not sure about the classical music as the roots of Jazz to any significant degree, but certainly improvisation used to have a much greater place in classical music than it does now. That said, there is still a place for improvisation within the wider 'classical' space - even the humble village church organist can be heard improvising background music during various 'comings and goings' - it probably goes unnoticed by most and is unlikely to ever be something that mght be categorised as Jazz, but it is there and it is improvised.

 

[Koshchei]

Apocryphal then. Thanks for setting me straight.

 

[Jazzdogg]

I usually say this about drummers but it applies to all instrumentalists and particularly to guitarists.
There are those who play the guitar and there are those who use the guitar to play music. They are not the same and I much prefer the latter. So many musicians - some of them quite experienced - don’t understand the difference.

One of my favorite musical sayings:

Play the music, not the instrument.

 

[Bonecat]

I’ve always thought of it as a continuum:

person who owns a bass - person actively learning bass - “bass player” (knows enough to play most things well, seeks to learn new things) - advanced bass player (has a reasonable degree of mastery and has a creative voice) - “bassist” (has a high degree of mastery and an identifiable creative voice and makes lasting contributions to music).

I’m in the third group, slowly trying to advance. This probably applies to other instruments as well. It’s important for me to know this and communicate it to other musicians. Experience suggests that a difference of more than one level among musicians leads to difficulties…

Or maybe I’m full of it… That’s usually true…

 

[SteveCS]

Apocryphal then. Thanks for setting me straight.

Possibly a little, but almost certainly not entirely. The evolutionary paths of music are, thankfully, far from linear. There is no way of really knowing everything that a particular player or composer had been exposed to, had studied or was familar or influenced/inspired by when they came up with this that or the other major work or hit song. And that's the beauty of music - you can find references, 'nods' and quotations in the strangest places. There must be thousands of 'links' and traces missing from the music history books that tend only to consider things that can be verified which in turn biases the focus onto the most major and famous of examples.