EDAN said:
BS. It's the people who weren't born with "it" that try to gain "it" via learning theory and "studying" music etc etc etc, they can become technically good musicians, they can get work, they can lead a happy musical life, but they'll NEVER gain "IT.
I agree with you completly on that. It takes a combo of talent and soul to be a truely gifted musician. But even those how have "IT" play by the rules of harmonic theory. The difference is that they know how to take that theory as a basis and use it in creative way.
I mean, Christ; you use Clapton as an example (one of my all time faves, BTW. I'd take his "From The Cradle" album with me on a shipwrecked desert island.) All his music, from the Yardbirds, to Cream, to "Lay Down Sally" to his newest stuff is nothing but constructions on basic blues. You can't get much more basic music theory than that stuff. Yes he knew how to put emotion into it, but even that emotion is based in solid theory that dates back to Bach and earlier. He just has the talent and soul to know how to modulate that theory, whether he or anybody else realizes that is actually what he's doing or not.
giraffe said:
tell thelonious monk that.
I already mentioned that bebop still adhears to western musical theory. And, BTW, it just so happens that my mother was one of Monk's regular bed nurses as he was going down hill after he stopped playing in the '70s, so while I personally have no desires for music the likes of T Monk or Ornette Coleman, I do feel a personal connection, albeit a very indirect one in reality (I unfortunately never met the man myself.)
I think the cause of much of this argument about "rules" is that one side (including me) is talking about the "rules" as the fundamental theory itself, whereas those on the other side (including Edan) are referring to "conventions" when they say "rules". I'm all for breaking convention. Hell, if we didn't, we'd all be recording and mixing the drivel pumped out by American I-Dull!
The point is that even those that "break convention" (which, BTW is something nobody could ever rightly accuse EC or EVH of doing), are still doing so based upon the fundamental rules. Monk, Davis, Gillespie and the rest of that gang certianly not only broke convention, they purposely planted a directed IED right beneath it's feet. But they did so not by ignoring the fundamental rules, but rather by exploring, exploiting and turning those rules on their ear and seeing what shook out. But there was always a shadow of the funndamental rules in what they did.
If you want another quote, how about the one from Miles Davis: "It's the notes you
don't hear that are important." What he meant by that was while he may have been playing oddball rifs and variations that defied convention, what was really important in his bop were the ones that were implied, that he didn't necessarily play conventionally (or at all). And those implied melodies were pure and standard music theory stuff.
And, finally, T Monk and the rest of the boppers are the textbook definition of "you gotta know the rules before you break them." These guys weren't just shooting dope and tossing out random notes. They were some of the most advanced and knowledgable musical theorists of our time.
G.
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