# Are Jazz musicians more creative than Classical?



## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

_by Sam Gillies on June 8, 2014_

New survey finds improvising Jazz musicians are the most creative of all.

http://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/Article/387718,are-jazz-musicians-more-creative-than-classical.aspx

Make of this what you will.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

"The tasks included two alternate uses tasks asking participants to generate different creative uses for a "tin can" and a "simple string", and two instances tasks which asked to generate many things that could be used "for faster locomotion" or that are "bendable". In all tasks, participants were instructed to find as many and as creative ideas as possible within the given time (120s, or 90s for the alternate uses and the instances task, respectively)"

Already, I see a problem with the methodology. Just because one could not come up with many innovative uses for a tin can and a string in two minutes, it does not mean they are less creative. That's like putting faith in IQ testing - saying people who can match little boxes in fewer seconds are outstanding geniuses. IQ has been proven a faulty standard for measuring intelligence, and I do not see why this is any different.

Perhaps the classical musician would be able to come up with a more creative solution to a musical problem way above the researchers' heads in a larger amount of time. Perhaps they could come up with fewer but more innovative uses for the string and tin can over a longer period of time while the jazz musicians, trained to improvise on the spot, would have a shorter amount of time work to their advantage.

On a side note, I do not see how "creative cooking" indicates more creativity. Just for the record.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Are jazz musicians (which is to say, classical musicians with a really limited repertory) more susceptible to pop science than classical musicians?


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

Aren't Jazz musicians just failed Classical musicians?:devil:


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## Antiquarian (Apr 29, 2014)

I really didn't see the point of the article as proving jazz musicians are more creative, than that they have greater sense of " fun", whatever that may be. Classical musicians, due to the form of the music, must be more rigorous to staying within the score. Jazz allows personal interpretation, particularly in free form. This article really didn't reveal anything new to me, other than the fact that the writer had an agenda to prove that jazz was somehow superior to classical in some respects. It's like comparing apples and oranges. They're just different.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

I think jazz musicians improvise a lot more than classical musicians and the latter are forgetting about the art of improvisation when it comes to performing pieces that require such.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

That's yesterday's news. Musicians aren't "forgetting" the art of improvised embellishments, they _forgot_ it somewhere around 1930, and the HIPsters have since recreated it (with mixed results, but of course the results were mixed in the old days too).

This all of course only applies to non-composing performers. Composition is improvisation.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

_Some_ jazz musicians are certainly more creative than _some_ classical musicians, but the fields are too wide to make blanket statements. I think the best musicians are able to perform classical and improvise jazz.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

The best musicians are able to perform jazz and improvise classical.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Harold in Columbia said:


> The best musicians are able to perform jazz and improvise classical.


Incorrect. Jazz as a form is more based on improvisation. To be a 'legit' jazz player one _must_ improvise, the same is not necessarily true for classical music - as far as performance goes. Your statement implies one can excel in jazz by simply performing.

I do agree the best musicians can improvise classical and jazz though.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

tdc said:


> To be a 'legit' jazz player one _must_ improvise...


Who cares? If I had penny for every 'legit' practitioner whom nobody now remembers, I'd _actually_ be rich.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Composition is improvisation.


Not necessarily. Some compositions are largely/fully improvisations, some are not. Some composers were outstanding improvisers, but not all.

Do you think most of Wagner and Ravel's music is improvisations?


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Wagner? Dear God yes! Ravel? Yes, because all composition is improvisation, but his is admittedly very slow improvisation.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Yes, because all composition is improvisation.


Maybe if we are using 'improvisation' in a very broad and vague way. A lot of composition is more like 'borrowing' an idea and then building off of it and modifying it through a slow process of trial and error.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

If creative means novelty, then yes... absolutely. Constantly. When do you see a Classical musician improvise like a Jazz musician? Improvisation is the epitome of creativity. You're no longer playing what has been written down... you are "creating."


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Blake said:


> When do you see a Classical musician improvise like a Jazz musician?


Since we have the internet, whenever I feel like it. 






Blake said:


> Improvisation is the epitome of creativity. You're no longer playing what has been written down... you are "creating."


Well, you're creating within a set of limitations, some consciously chosen by you, some clichés that you haven't realized are clichés.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Improvisation is a great and impressive skill, but to me creating an excellent composition that has lasting value is a more significant artistic contribution than improvising a jazz solo. 

How a work itself is composed (whether its improvised or not) to me is not really important.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

I do not know.

I played lead tenor sax in the jazz band and marching band and bassoon in the concert band when I was in the Army. I was not as good a jazz musician as I was classical.

I know the skills I used when playing jazz were different than when playing classical. Especially when dealing with rhythm and phrasing. At least they were for me. I am not sure if one medium is more creative than the other.

The best musicians I played with could do both. When I was in the Army I had to do both.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

tdc said:


> Improvisation is a great and impressive skill, but to me creating an excellent composition that has lasting value is a more significant artistic contribution than improvising a jazz solo.


But of course an improvised jazz solo can be an excellent composition. (As you say, it doesn't matter how it was done.)


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Classical musicians of ages long gone use to improvise a lot more than they do these days. They could take some little melody and come up with a whole fugue, or a waltz, or anything in particular. This is the origins of jazz. It does well for Classical musicians to challenge themselves with improvisation. It doesn't have to be in the jazz style to be improvisation.


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## Guest (Apr 16, 2016)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Classical musicians of ages long gone use to improvise *a lot more than they do these days*. They could take some little melody and come up with a whole fugue, or a waltz, or anything in particular. This is the origins of jazz. It does well for Classical musicians to challenge themselves with improvisation. It doesn't have to be in the jazz style to be improvisation.


I don't know what 21st century you're living in!


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

tdc said:


> Improvisation is a great and impressive skill, but to me creating an excellent composition that has lasting value is a more significant artistic contribution than improvising a jazz solo.
> 
> How a work itself is composed (whether its improvised or not) to me is not really important.


Aren't you contradicting yourself? You stated that a composition is more signifigant that an improvisation, and then you go on to say that it doesn't matter. The art of the improvised jazz solo has had lasting value, and it has influenced generations of musicians and how they play. Musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, Coltrane, and Miles Davis have had a huge influence and lasting impact as a result of their improvised solos.

I've read claims that American classical trumpeters play different than their European counterparts as a result of the influence of the jazz musician's technique and style of playing.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Since we have the internet, whenever I feel like it.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Okay, anything perceived is within a set of limitations... or else it wouldn't be perceived. We need contrast. But there is a level of looseness where we can express some sort of freedom from these structures. I'd say improvisation is about as close to this as it gets.

And show me something more convincing than a renegade Messiaen clip. Something that shows improvisation isn't "dangerous," "uncommon," or an "outcast" form of Classical.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Blake said:


> And show me something more convincing than a renegade Messiaen clip. Something that shows improvisation isn't "dangerous," "uncommon," or an "outcast" form of Classical.


So, basically, show you that classical improvisation isn't a living art. Why would I do that?


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## Guest (Apr 16, 2016)

Harold in Columbia said:


> So, basically, show you that classical improvisation isn't a living art. Why would I do that?


If Beethoven didn't do it, it really ain't important, lolololol.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Harold in Columbia said:


> So, basically, show you that classical improvisation isn't a living art. Why would I do that?


Mhmm, a subtle disposition that rears its head in opposition to a form of complete structuring. You really can't tell me Classical has as much momentary freedom as Jazz.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

And don't get me wrong. I love both. I wouldn't be a part of a Classical forum if I didn't dig it. But one obeys a structure. The other uses a structure to improvise.


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## Guest (Apr 16, 2016)

Blake said:


> Mhmm, a subtle disposition that rears its head in opposition to a form of complete structuring. You really can't tell me Classical has as much momentary freedom as Jazz.


It can most certainly have far more freedom, if the composer desires such freedom. I think it's clear that you're simply applying a limited cross-section to the whole of classical music.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Blake said:


> Okay, anything perceived is within a set of limitations... or else it wouldn't be perceived. We need contrast. But there is a level of looseness where we can express some sort of freedom from these structures. I'd say improvisation is about as close to this as it gets.


If anything, it's the other way around. Mozart revolutionized music more with _Don Giovanni_ than with the C minor fantasia, magnificent as it is.



Blake said:


> You really can't tell me Classical has as much momentary freedom as Jazz.


Yes I can. How could I possibly not?

And to reiterate a point that shouldn't need making but evidently still does, jazz is now a form of classical music anyway.



Blake said:


> And don't get me wrong. I love both. I wouldn't be a part of a Classical forum if I didn't dig it. But one obeys a structure.


No it doesn't. (That is, a composer can of course "obey a structure" if they want, or not.) What do you think classical music _is_?


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

nathanb said:


> It can most certainly have far more freedom, if the composer desires such freedom. I think it's clear that you're simply applying a limited cross-section to the whole of classical music.


Okay, now we're just being silly. I'm starting to think I'm arguing with people who really haven't listened to Jazz.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

There's nothing in my posts or nathanb's that suggests we really haven't listened to jazz. Your posts on the other hand do suggest that your experience with classical music is somewhat limited in range.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

In Classical, the people actually playing the instruments have zero input other than their personal discrepancies. In Jazz, it's all about what they have to say.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Ugh, it's like arguing with a creationist. You know their time is past and you kind of don't want to kick them when they're already down, but the willful myopia is just so maddening.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Hah, then you know my pain...


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

How could I? I'm not trying to make yesterday's popular music more important than it is.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

starthrower said:


> Aren't you contradicting yourself? You stated that a composition is more signifigant that an improvisation, and then you go on to say that it doesn't matter. The art of the improvised jazz solo has had lasting value, and it has influenced generations of musicians and how they play. Musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, Coltrane, and Miles Davis have had a huge influence and lasting impact as a result of their improvised solos.
> 
> I've read claims that American classical trumpeters play different than their European counterparts as a result of the influence of the jazz musician's technique and style of playing.


No, not a contradiction, to clarify if a jazz improvisation becomes a composition of lasting value, or if the improvisation is so remarkable it becomes a definitive version then I think it is equally significant. I just don't think having the ability to improvise in itself whether in classical or jazz is as significant an artistic contribution as composing (whether or not the composition came from improvising).


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Harold in Columbia said:


> How could I? My time isn't past. (Well, in a lot ways, it is - politically, for example - but I'm not entirely in denial about it.)


It's okay, you'll be completely in the past some day.

... and then the past will be forgotten. But, I'm with you. I'm fading, too....


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Blake said:


> In Classical, the people actually playing the instruments have zero input other than their personal discrepancies. In Jazz, it's all about what they have to say.


There is still a fair bit of improvisation in both styles and virtues on both sides. There is something to be said for the musician who is willing to focus more on simply creating beauty and being a humble servant of the music.

At the end of the day what is most important to me is the sounds I'm hearing, how they are arranged and how they speak to me. What is less important is whether or not the musicians are making it up on the spot.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> Aren't Jazz musicians just failed Classical musicians?:devil:


​


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Blake said:


> It's okay, you'll be completely in the past some day.


Not in the sense that you are. In 50 years, I'm not going to be telling people that electronic dance music is different from classical music because it has... I don't know, let's say, dancing.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

tdc said:


> There is still a fair bit of improvisation in both styles and virtues on both sides. *There is something to be said for the musician who is willing to focus more on simply creating beauty and being a humble servant of the music*.
> 
> At the end of the day what is most important to me is the sounds I'm hearing, how they are arranged and how they speak to me. What is less important is whether or not the musicians are making it up on the spot.


The bolded is something that could be greatly expounded upon, but my energy is waining...

However, you're last point really should be the baseline. Atleast that's how it is for me. I'm not asking for permission to enjoy. I'm on a forum to discuss, argue, yada-yada, strictly because I'm enjoying this music so much.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Not in the sense that you are. In 50 years, I'm not going to be telling people that electronic dance music is different from classical music because it has... I don't know, let's say, dancing.


Dude, I'm 26. Surprise.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

I'm 30. Your point?


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

With classical musicians as they most commonly exist today, yes, I would say jazz musicians generally are engaging in more creative music making. Interpreting pieces well requires artistry, intelligence, and sensitivity, but an extra component is active in jazz improvisations which is probably the part most subject to creativity; the creation of the music itself. 

But there are some classical pianists today who seem capable of improvising, and organists are more commonly doing it. Certainly in the baroque era, harpsichord players were improvising with comparable inventiveness and imagination to the jazz artists of today, as were many pianists of the 19th century, forte pianists of the classical era, and even the english virginalists in the late 16th and early 17th century could improvise the heck out of their peculiar harpsichords in the style of their times.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Harold in Columbia said:


> I'm 30. Your point?


I may have misinterpreted your last post. I thought you were referring to me as an old man.

Oh, well. I hope I've made my point. I'm sure you'll say I haven't. Nonetheless, I'm sure I have.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Harold in Columbia said:


> That's yesterday's news. Musicians aren't "forgetting" the art of improvised embellishments, they _forgot_ it somewhere around 1930, and the HIPsters have since recreated it (with mixed results, but of course the results were mixed in the old days too).
> 
> This all of course only applies to non-composing performers. Composition is improvisation.


That's was what I trying to say. I am well aware that HIP aspires to that art of improvisation. Interesting you mention around 1930s - has that got to do with modernism where the score of experimentalism for example, although it is written down, is almost semi-improvisation?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Playing jazz and classical are two different skills of course, However, many classical musicians can improvise. Cziffra made a living as a boy doing it in a circus. Dig this for his warm up:


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

I think there are many points of confusion here. And as usual, some are to do with definitions.
To say that "composition is improvisation" is an overstatement that renders the terms useless.
There are four categories here, the dividing lines of which are often blurred and occasionally non-existent:
Jazz performer
Jazz composer
Classical performer
Classical composer.
They are all musicians. So when the OP asks which kind of musician is more creative, I presume they are talking about the performers. 
While the Jazz repertoire has historically made improvisation far more important than composition, the opposite was true in the Classical repertoire except for the Baroque continuo, da capo aria, and Baroque and Classical cadenza. 
The 20thC saw the growth of improvisation as a part of the Classical repertoire so the distinction no longer holds so fast.

We must also distinguish between improvisation and interpretation as well as between performance and recording where a once fleeting and never to be repeated phrase takes on, through being captured and re-listened to, the status of a composition.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Are jazz musicians (*which is to say, classical musicians with a really limited repertory*) more susceptible to pop science than classical musicians?


let's say that your idea of a jazz musician is a bit strange.
Anyway don't think how to take the article, maybe the practice of improvisation is something that helps when one has to take decisions in a short time. I don't know if that means automatically that a jazz musician is more creative and it seems a bit forced to me.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Are jazz musicians (which is to say, classical musicians with a really limited repertory) more susceptible to pop science than classical musicians?


You are almost correct. It is actually classical musicians with imagination! Anyway weren't Mozart and Beethoven prone to a bit of free improvisation at the end of their concerts. I'm sure that it is well documented that after the programmed concerts they quite often played off the cuff for their audiences. I also believe that Gabriela Montero (the classical pianist) quite regularly asks her audiences for music that they like (including popular music) which she then freely improvises upon. Keith Jarrett's long solo improvisations have more in common with "classical" music than you might think.


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## Guest (Apr 16, 2016)

Blake said:


> In Classical, the people actually playing the instruments have zero input other than their personal discrepancies. In Jazz, it's all about what they have to say.


Again, it is very clear that your view is based on only a portion of the classical music world.


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## Guest (Apr 16, 2016)

norman bates said:


> let's say that your idea of a jazz musician is a bit strange.
> Anyway don't think how to take the article, maybe the practice of improvisation is something that helps when one has to take decisions in a short time. I don't know if that means automatically that a jazz musician is more creative and it seems a bit forced to me.


It does seem a bit odd to base creativity on making quick decisions and then to study two groups, one of whom is known for doing basically nothing other than making quick decisions.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

norman bates said:


> let's say that your idea of a jazz musician is a bit strange.


No stranger than calling, say, an operetta specialist a classical musician, and everybody does that now. What's strange is that we pretend jazz is still popular music.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

Morimur said:


> http://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/Article/387718,are-jazz-musicians-more-creative-than-classical.aspx


creativity, eh, jazz my as... and how many operas these undereducated fellows, who call themselves jazzmen, have written?


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## Guest (Apr 16, 2016)

You think the benchmark can't go any higher, then ... SMASH!


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

dogen said:


> You think the benchmark can't go any higher, then ... SMASH!


no, cinematography went higher then opera of course; now try beat it instead of finding creativity with jazz or polka.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Harold in Columbia said:


> No stranger than calling, say, an operetta specialist a classical musician, and everybody does that now. What's strange is that we pretend jazz is still popular music.


let me put this way: what you wrote is completely absurd. First of all I don't even know what you mean with "really limited repertory" considering that jazz music is based on improvisation and so besides the tunes written by jazz composers in the history of the genre musicians have improvised on everything from Monteverdi to Nirvana. 
Second, do you really think that Louis Armstrong, Chet Baker,Thelonious Monk or Ornette Coleman were classical musicians? Because they were not, at all.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Zhdanov said:


> creativity, eh, jazz my as... and how many operas these undereducated fellows, who call themselves jazzmen, have written?


a good example of non sequitur


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

norman bates said:


> musicians have improvised on everything from Monteverdi to Nirvana.


anyone can do that... should try to accomplish what Vivaldi or The Clash have achieved as music producing units to prove themselves creative.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Zhdanov said:


> anyone can do that... should try to accomplish what Vivaldi or The Clash have achieved as music producing units to prove themselves creative.


It's pretty clear that you don't know a lot about the genre. I would add something but I don't think that would be useful in any way.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

ArtMusic said:


> That's was what I trying to say. I am well aware that HIP aspires to that art of improvisation. Interesting you mention around 1930s - has that got to do with modernism where the score of experimentalism for example, although it is written down, is almost semi-improvisation?


I think it has to do with Modernism purging what it saw as the excessive liberties of Romanticism. In making the turning point somewhere around 1930, I'm just guessing, on the basis that I know scholars have found that's when string portamento begins to disappear from recordings (first in France, later everywhere) and fluctuations of tempo in recordings of orchestral performances become confined to a much narrower range. (https://books.google.com/books?id=QaW0AQAAQBAJ&pg=PA318, https://books.google.com/books?id=HIwucGSoxEcC&pg=PA224)

Of course, it never entirely disappeared. When in one domain the HIPsters were getting started in the 1950s, in another Maria Callas was still heavily embellishing the bel canto repertory.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

tdc said:


> No, not a contradiction, to clarify if a jazz improvisation becomes a composition of lasting value, or if the improvisation is so remarkable it becomes a definitive version then I think it is equally significant. I just don't think having the ability to improvise in itself whether in classical or jazz is as significant an artistic contribution as composing (whether or not the composition came from improvising).


Horowitz may have thought differently when he sat down next to Art Tatum and listened to his improvised solos. He assumed they were composed before the fact.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

norman bates said:


> First of all I don't even know what you mean with "really limited repertory"...


I mean they specialize in a form of music that was invented barely 100 years ago.



norman bates said:


> Second, do you really think that Louis Armstrong, Chet Baker,Thelonious Monk or Ornette Coleman were classical musicians? Because they were not, at all.


Do you think Johann Strauss, Jr., was a classical musician?


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

starthrower said:


> Horowitz may have thought differently when he sat down next to Art Tatum and listened to his improvised solos. He assumed they were composed before the fact.


That doesn't contradict anything tdc wrote.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

norman bates said:


> It's pretty clear that you don't know a lot about the genre.


jazz has no message to convey, whatever they improvise, there's no statement about jazz as there's about classical music or pop/rock.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Zhdanov said:


> jazz has no message to convey, whatever they improvise, there's no statement about jazz as there's about classical music or pop/rock.


Okay, I have no idea what this means.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Harold in Columbia said:


> I mean they only play a form of music that was invented about 100 years ago. (Yeah, yeah, a very few of them occasionally prove that they can respectably perform Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, etc. - exceptions inside of exceptions.)


in 1800 the population in the world was of a billion of persons. Think how many persons there are not after a century, think how many more persons play music, and maybe you will realize that even in sheer volume the amount of music in the last century is simply huge. Actually if there's a problem in the music world today is the opposite: an extreme excess of music available.



Harold in Columbia said:


> Do you think Johann Strauss, Jr., was a classical musician?


I guess so, but I don't see what this has to do with considering Louis Armstrong a classical musician.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Zhdanov said:


> jazz has no message to convey, whatever they improvise, there's no statement about jazz as there's about classical music or pop/rock.


What's the message of classical music?

but probably the only thing to say is


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

nathanb said:


> Again, it is very clear that your view is based on only a portion of the classical music world.


It's based on the majority. Those who play Mahler, Mozart, Schoenberg, Brahms, etc... are playing strictly what's written down. Whereas if someone plays a Thelonious Monk piece, they'll improvise all over it.

Again, I dig them both. But one obviously has more freedom of interpretation.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

norman bates said:


> What's the message of classical music?


classical music piece's that is.

take for example the Beethoven 9th, a message is in place.

take any jazz improvisation, it contains no message and has no sense or meaning at all.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

norman bates said:


> in 1800 the population in the world was of a billion of persons. Think how many persons there are not after a century, think how many more persons play music, and maybe you will realize that even in sheer volume the amount of music in the last century is simply huge.


Maybe, maybe not, but in any case, jazz musicians don't play most of it. Maybe you could argue that the difference between Luigi Nono, Gérard Grisey, La Monte Young, and George Clinton all working at about the same time is as big as the difference between Bach and Berlioz - or maybe not. But in any case, when you talk about jazz, you're not talking about the range between all 20th century artists or even just all 20th century artists working in western forms, but rather about something more circumscribed.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

Zhdanov said:


> take any jazz improvisation, it contains no message and has no sense or meaning at all.


Your opinion


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

Blake said:


> Whereas if someone plays a Thelonious Monk piece, they'll improvise all over it.


like i said, jazz is a form without a story to tell, its only a background music you drink your martini to.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Blake said:


> Those who play Mahler, Mozart, Schoenberg, Brahms, etc... are playing strictly what's written down.


Not when Mozart played Mozart.


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

Zhdanov said:


> classical music piece's that is.
> 
> take for example the Beethoven 9th, a message is in place.
> 
> take any jazz improvisation, it contains no message and has no sense or meaning at all.


What's the message of Beethoven's 8th?

What about Schubert's 5th or 9th?


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

norman bates said:


> View attachment 83593


as for getting personal and replying in a boorish manner, wonder why its always modernists are the most aggressive here.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

DiesIraeCX said:


> What's the message of Beethoven's 8th?


"Think not that I am come to destroy the Haydn: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil."


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

Harold in Columbia said:


> "Think not that I am come to destroy the Haydn: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil."


Off topic, but was Beethoven's 8th the first neoclassical symphony?


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

I thought we were living in a post-Modern world...wouldn't that make us all post-Modernists? 

It's been said before, but this article is comparing apples to oranges. Both classical and jazz musicians are creative, and they approach their respected music in their own ways. Sometimes similar, sometimes different. The biggest different being improvisation, where jazz is built out of that art, and classical has turned to a more purist view of reading the score. However, both musicians have the liberty to interpret their respected works however they wish, and it's up to audiences to judge if those interpretations "work" or "don't work"


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Zhdanov said:


> classical music piece's that is.
> 
> take for example the Beethoven 9th, a message is in place.


and the message is?


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Maybe, maybe not, but in any case, jazz musicians don't play most of it. Maybe you could argue that the difference between Luigi Nono, Gérard Grisey, La Monte Young, and George Clinton all working at about the same time is as big as the difference between Bach and Berlioz - or maybe not. But in any case, when you talk about jazz, you're not talking about the range between all 20th century artists or even just all 20th century artists working in western forms, but rather about something more circumscribed.


I think that if a person would just listen only once every jazz recording 24/7, after a century he would have listened only a small fraction of the music produced in the genre. Isn't that enough?


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

norman bates said:


> and the message is?


"I want to be known as a great artistic champion of human freedom, but in a way that doesn't politically offend anybody."


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

DiesIraeCX said:


> Off topic, but was Beethoven's 8th the first neoclassical symphony?


I guess. Though of course Gluck had already written the first neoclassical opera, _Orpheus and Eurydice_, fifty years previously.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

norman bates said:


> and the message is?


in a nutshell, the 9th's message is: as the World and Man have emerged from One, they will come and return to One.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

The real story here is, of course, not that classical musicians don't improvise, but that some jazz fans feel that one part of the classical tradition - the idea that playing notated music as written is not inferior to improvisation - is a threat to the prestige of jazz.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Zhdanov said:


> ...wonder why its always modernists are the most aggressive here.


Oh no!!!! Not again.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Zhdanov said:


> as for getting personal and replying in a boorish manner, wonder why its always modernists are the most aggressive here.


I don't know how that could be aggressive... I'm just ironically stating that your arguments used just to say that thousand of musicians in a century of music were all ignorants and produced useless music aren't exactly based on a strong logic.
If one says that jazz has no value because "how many jazz operas do you know" or "jazz improvisation has no message" what one can say? That or maybe "merry unbirthday", because there's not even place for a constructive dialogue.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Zhdanov said:


> in a nutshell, the 9th's message is: as the World and Man have emerged from One, they will come and return to One.


I don't need a symphony for that. If you can express that in a short sentence and Beethoven needed a work so long, Beethoven had a big problem with synthesis. OR, maybe music isn't exactly or simply about "message", and certainly not just a message that can be translated in words. You can choose your option.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Oh dear, most of this discussion is way over my head!
But jazz improv is largely theme+variations, a format much used in the western Classical tradition. So listen to Dave Brubeck taking the protest song Brother Can You Spare a Dime for a walk: 




Is that jazz, or is it in the same category as, say, Beethoven's 32Variations WoO80?




 As a student of Darius Milhaud, Brubeck was well versed in the classical repertoire. 
Not sure where that gets us, except to say that I think jazz and classical music have far more in common than purists of either genre would care to admit.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

norman bates said:


> If one says that jazz has no value because "how many jazz operas do you know" or "jazz improvisation has no message" what one can say?


Also, let's face it, the most well known opera since Puccini is a jazz opera:


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

I have very limited experience doing jazz work. I have not done any since I got out of army forty years ago. It would be nice if we got someone with some real experience actually performing jazz provide some input.

Based on my limited experiences I know that there are some real inaccurate observations that have been presented. I can even begin to address all of them.

One is that when improvising (or "taking a ride" which is the jazz slang term for an improvisation) one can not do whatever they want. There are restrictions on what the performer can do. The restrictions can vary on the style of jazz one is performing.  The type of improvisation one does when playing bebop is different than when one is performing a Glen Miller big band standard.

If there are any real jazz musicians who think this in inaccurate, please let me know. It has been awhile since I have done any real jazz work and I am a bit rusty.

Another is that even though all the notes are written down, a classical musician has a lot more freedom to play around with the notes. They are just guidelines.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Jazz has no message? Are you kidding?

I know many jazz musicians especially blues artists who would disagree with this.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

norman bates said:


> If one says that jazz has no value because "how many jazz operas do you know" or "jazz improvisation has no message" what one can say?


say whatever want but why get personal?


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

norman bates said:


> I don't need a symphony for that.


yeah don't need it now that Beethoven had already composed it.



norman bates said:


> If you can express that in a short sentence and Beethoven needed a work so long, Beethoven had a big problem with synthesis.


because he was a genius and thus capable of developing on ideas however basic they are.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Zhdanov said:


> say whatever want but why get personal?


I still don't know what I've said of personal. The sense of what I'm saying is that to say that jazz has no value because there aren't jazz operas is like saying that the Sistine Chapel has no value because it's not an opera. 
It simply does not have sense. 
And the thing about "the message" is quite similar. What's the message of the contrapunctus VIII in the art of the fugue and what are the differences with the message of the contrapunctus XIV? Is it a meaningful way of talking about music (or dancing about architecture)?


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## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

Zhdanov said:


> say whatever want but why get personal?


I'm not trying to gang up on you here but I don't see that norman bates has gotten personal, just pointing out flawed logic doesn't constitute as a personal attack. It's okay to admit you think of jazz is not worthy to be considered in the same category as classical but you have to step up and own it and try to explain why.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

norman bates said:


> What's the message of the contrapunctus VIII in the art of the fugue


in preparing composing tools for future composers to use for conveying messages.

jazz has no such impact on the future, its in fact dwindling.



norman bates said:


> Is it a meaningful way of talking about music (or dancing about architecture)?


i am not dancing about architecture, told you.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

Fugue Meister said:


> I don't see that norman bates has gotten personal, just pointing out flawed logic doesn't constitute as a personal attack.


actually it does, and my logic is not flawed.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

arpeggio said:


> I have very limited experience doing jazz work. I have not done any since I got out of army forty years ago. It would be nice if we got someone with some real experience actually performing jazz provide some input.
> 
> Based on my limited experiences I know that there are some real inaccurate observations that have been presented. I can even begin to address all of them.
> 
> ...


I really don't know how restrictive improvisation is in Jazz. Of course they usually stay within a certain framework, but even that can be broken with a creative musician... see how far out you can get, as long as you come back home.

Not saying that Classical musicians don't have any freedom, but they really can't stray far at all from the score... they're job is almost transparency. A vehicle for the composer's expression.

Of course, these are all just ideas. I don't want to be too heavy about it.


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## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

Zhdanov said:


> actually it does, and my logic is not flawed.


Prove it..........


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Zhdanov said:


> in preparing composing tools for future composers to use for conveying messages.


so the difference between messages in the two counterpoints is that they have different messages that have helped the next generations to convey other messages? I'm sorry but I don't think that this discussion will produce anything interesting.


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## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

Zhdanov said:


> in preparing composing tools for future composers to use for conveying messages.
> 
> jazz has no such impact on the future, its in fact dwindling.


Here's a good example of how you are self interpreting a piece and trying to pass it off as pseudo-fact, which it is not it is a personal (and rather ridiculous) take on something...

Where is a link to the studies that show jazz has no impact on the future and is dwindling? You don't have any, it is just what you think because (presumably) you don't care for jazz and (for reasons unknown) are irked by jazz being semi-considered as serious music or at least is near the same category.

Personally I'm not the biggest fan of jazz, I think it makes nice background music (much the same way you look at it perhaps from your comment about it being background to drinking a martini) what I do take issue with is you proclaiming your views and logic as absolute with no data to back up such an opinion (other than perhaps you don't have any peers that like it either, your never around jazz so when you here it it is irritating or noise and so therefore you see it as nonsense and get upset when someone who does enjoy it and sees it's merits) but stubbornly refusing to consider other opinions as proof that your views are not the end all be all right answer to the matter.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Zhdanov said:


> jazz has no such impact on the future, its in fact dwindling.


Well, maybe not any more, but it was obviously an important influence on La Monte Young, and the future isn't going to be done with him any time soon.



Zhdanov said:


> i am not dancing about architecture, told you.


Me neither, but that's just because I can't dance. What's your excuse?


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Fugue Meister said:


> Personally I'm not the biggest fan of jazz, I think it makes nice background music


this is your idea of background music?


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

Fugue Meister said:


> Prove it..........


prove yourself worthy anyone prove anything to you.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

arpeggio said:


> I have very limited experience doing jazz work. I have not done any since I got out of army forty years ago. It would be nice if we got someone with some real experience actually performing jazz provide some input.
> 
> Based on my limited experiences I know that there are some real inaccurate observations that have been presented. I can even begin to address all of them.
> 
> ...


If I am wrong I am wrong. I will be the first to admit that I have limited experience and have not done any real jazz work in forty years. But I would like to be told I am wrong by someone with actual jazz experience.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

norman bates said:


> this is your idea of background music?


Should it not be?


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

Harold in Columbia said:


> What's your excuse?


guess what?

because architecture is not to be danced about.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Should it not be?


every music can be background music, if one doesn't actively listen to it. Bach, Stravinsky, Edgar Varese, Albert Ayler, the Swans or Justin Bieber. 
But I don't think that this is the sense intended by Fugue meister.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Zhdanov said:


> like i said, jazz is a form without a story to tell, its only a background music you drink your martini to.


You can drink your martini to any music or, ...you can listen!


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Zhdanov said:


> because architecture is not to be danced about.


I don't follow your rules. I'm a rebel.



norman bates said:


> every music can be background music, if one doesn't actively listen to it. Bach, Stravinsky, Edgar Varese, Albert Ayler, the Swans or Justin Bieber.


Yeah, but I get the idea that Slayer, or "The Ride of the Valkyries," or whatever is not background music in the normative sense. But that Ayler track seems very relaxing to me.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

norman bates said:


> every music can be background music, if one doesn't actively listen to it. Bach, Stravinsky,


not Bach, neither Stravinsky or any other classical composer.

classical is to be listened to in a completely dedicated way, otherwise you don't get a thing.

jazz - only as a background, otherwise you end up looking stupid.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Zhdanov said:


> not Bach, neither Stravinsky or any other classical composer.
> 
> classical is to be listened to in a completely dedicated way, otherwise you don't get a thing.


A lot of Bach isn't supposed to be listened to, period, except by the person playing it.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

Petwhac said:


> You can drink your martini to any music or,


nope, can't watch an opera or ballet or listen to a symphony or concerto while drunk, only when absolutely sober.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

arpeggio said:


> If I am wrong I am wrong. I will be the first to admit that I have limited experience and have not done any real jazz work in forty years. But I would like to be told I am wrong by someone with actual jazz experience.


Me too. I don't have any real experience playing either. But I have studied music for years... And I don't consider myself to be a dodo, so I think I have an idea of what's going on.

But yea, it would be nice to hear from more experienced musicians.

Aren't you a Classical musician?


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

Harold in Columbia said:


> A lot of Bach isn't supposed to be listened to, period,


oh yeah, just like that of Cage's.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Zhdanov said:


> not Bach, neither Stravinsky or any other classical composer.
> 
> classical is to be listened to in a completely dedicated way, otherwise you don't get a thing.
> 
> jazz - only as a background, otherwise you end up looking stupid.


You should say this to many modern stupid composers (from Stravinsky to Ligeti) who admired the genre. But you know... they were stupid, certainly not smart as you.


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## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

norman bates said:


> every music can be background music, if one doesn't actively listen to it. Bach, Stravinsky, Edgar Varese, Albert Ayler, the Swans or Justin Bieber.
> But I don't think that this is the sense intended by Fugue meister.


It was primarily to show Zhdanov that I don't have an agenda of defending Jazz as if I champion it better than absolute music. To be completely honest I don't dislike jazz at all I just haven't explored it much and can't see doing it anytime in the future because life is so short and there is an ocean of music I will never get to anyway. As it is I just got into some medieval music and have been moving into the some of the more avant-garde 20th century stuff (mostly American composers)...

Anyway I for the most part listen to any example posted and found yours interesting enough, would be willing to explore a few more options if you are determined to alter my perceptions but like as I said I have no problem with Jazz (like I definitely do with contemporary pop or most rock or hip hop or rap or metal or emo... stuff marketed towards the 15 to 40 something demographic).


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

norman bates said:


> You should say this to many modern stupid composers (from Stravinsky to Ligeti)


Shostakovitch wrote jazz pieces but, as you might guess, they weren't jazz at all; same for Stravinsky.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Harold in Columbia said:


> I don't follow your rules. I'm a rebel.
> 
> Yeah, but I get the idea that Slayer, or "The Ride of the Valkyries," or whatever is not background music in the normative sense. But that Ayler track seems very relaxing to me.


The fact that a piece of music is not over the top like those examples makes automatically the music less interesting (because that's what we're talking about with the "background music")? Then Webern or Takemitsu are background music too.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Zhdanov said:


> Shostakovitch wrote jazz pieces but, as you might guess, they weren't jazz at all; same for Stravinsky.


this does not mean anything. Stravinsky admired the music. Ligeti considered Monk and Bill Evans great pianists. 
It seems you're specializing in non sequitur.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

norman bates said:


> this does not mean anything.


does mean a lot, for if not, then anything doesn't.



norman bates said:


> Stravinsky admired the music.


he also admired pagan folk tunes, so what?


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Blake said:


> Aren't you a Classical musician?


Amateur. Play bassoon and contrabassoon with volunteer community groups. I have had to cut back because of problems I have developed with my right hand.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_sequitur_%28logic%29


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Zhdanov said:


> he also admired pagan folk tunes, so what?


that means that he was so stupid that he appreciated even folk music? Wow this Stravinsky really didn't understand the first thing about music.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

norman bates said:


> The fact that a piece of music is not over the top like those examples makes automatically the music less interesting (because that's what we're talking about with the "background music")?


I don't at all equate "background music" with "less interesting." Obviously, Ayler is more interesting than Slayer. ("Interesting" is an evasive Modernist way of saying "good." So I'll also say it straightforwardly: Obviously Ayler is _better_ than Slayer.)


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

arpeggio said:


> Amateur. Play bassoon and contrabassoon with volunteer community groups. I have had to cut back because of problems I have developed with my right hand.


Ah, sorry to hear that. You still have more experience than me.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Zhdanov said:


> nope, can't watch an opera or ballet or listen to a symphony or concerto while drunk, only when absolutely sober.


Yeah? Just watch me...hic..burp!


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

norman bates said:


> that means that he was so stupid that he appreciated even folk music?


maybe, but that does not detract his genius.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Blake said:


> You still have more experience than me.


Not really. I have extensive experiences in certain very specific areas of classical music. Like concert band music.

For everything I know about classical music there are a gazillion things I do not know.

Even though I enjoy opera 99% of the members know more about opera than I do. I love _Tosca_ but I could never recommend a recording of it.

100% of the members know more about German Lieder than I do.

The trick is understanding what you do not know and not trying to be an expert about things you know very little about. I know of one member who only once in all of the years I have known him admitted he did not know something.

We need a real jazz person to tell us whether or not my observations are bogus. They may be.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Zhdanov said:


> maybe, but that does not detract his genius.


maybe he wasn't a snob and since he was a intelligent man he was able to appreciate a music for its specific values, instead of making meaningless comparisons with a eurocentric vision.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

norman bates said:


> ...instead of making meaningless comparisons with a eurocentric vision.


Well, it's not like Stravinsky was any more European than jazz is.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

norman bates said:


> he was able to appreciate a music for its specific values,


not appreciate, just use it for composing his own.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Well, it's not like Stravinsky was any more European than jazz is.


usually classical music is considered a product of the european culture and musically Russia shared that culture.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

To be fair, music doesn't have to "mean" anything, so not finding any "meaning" in jazz doesn't make jazz objectively inferior, that's just your opinion of what makes great music great.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Zhdanov said:


> not appreciate, just use it for composing his own.


So do you want to WIN. Ok, Stravinsky hated the music but he used it as a *****. 
What about all the other composers who appreciated the genre.
This is Ligeti:

Benoît Delbecq: In the booklet of Pierre-Laurent Aimard's CD of the Etudes pour Piano (Sony Classics) you mention that both Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans have had a significant influence on you.

György Ligeti: Indeed, in the sphere of jazz those musicians are truly my favorite. Their touch, their poetry. In jazz music there are great virtuosos like Oscar Peterson or Art Tatum, but it's something else. Do you like Peterson?

BD: Er...I mean...what he plays now...

Ligeti: Yes, it's commerce !

BD: Nevertheless on the very topic of virtuosity...

Ligeti: It's impressive! Just like Albert Ammons or James P. Johnson, who worked on a sort of a - let's call it - poetry of the speed. Now, there is this disc where Chick Corea plays with Herbie Hancock. One finds there incredible polyrhythms with subtle offsets that, to my sense, are based on a perfect knowledge of both Latin American and African music. It's one of my favorite jazz discs. But, for me, the great poet-composer was Monk. As far as touch is concerned, Bill Evans is a sort of Michelangeli of jazz. Do you agree?

BD: Absolutely!

Ligeti: Because you're the jazz pianist here! I have nothing to teach you. Monk doesn't have a flashy technique, neither does Duke Ellington, but nevertheless that's where the most beautiful music is.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

norman bates said:


> usually classical music is considered a product of the european culture and musically Russia shared that culture.


No it didn't. German and American (which is to say, English) folk music are almost the same thing. Russian folk music is different.

Stravinsky's starting point was, admittedly, Wagner - and the Mighty Handful (influenced by Liszt, Wagner, and Verdi, but making a point of emphasizing the qualities in Russian music that seemed to them different from western music, such as they found in Glinka, Russian urban popular music, or wherever else), Scriabin (influenced by Chopin, Wagner - and the Mighty Handful), and, as of _The Rite of Spring_, Russian folk music directly.

Jazz is extrapolated from John Philip Sousa and a rudimentary vestige of West African music (that had no more to do with Africa by the time Louis Armstrong got his hands on it than Roger Wolfe Kahn's violin has to do with Beethoven).


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

arpeggio said:


> Not really. I have extensive experiences in certain very specific areas of classical music. Like concert band music.
> 
> For everything I know about classical music there are a gazillion things I do not know.
> 
> ...


I agree. I think most of us understand that a lot of this talk is more of a play of ideas than some hard truisms. Because when you get right down to it, most people don't know much of anything, including myself. Even experts are going to have limitations according to their psychological capacity and actual experience.

But it's fun to play like our ideas have actual weight. As long as it's not forgotten that we're playing.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Zhdanov said:


> like i said, jazz is a form without a story to tell, its only a background music you drink your martini to.


I assume that you are joking. If not, oh dear!


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Harold in Columbia said:


> No it didn't. German and American (which is to say, English) folk music are almost the same thing. Russian folk music is different.
> 
> Stravinsky's starting point was, admittedly, Wagner - and the Mighty Handful (influenced by Liszt, Wagner, and Verdi, but making a point of emphasizing the qualities in Russian music that seemed to them different from western music, such as they found in Glinka, Russian urban popular music, or wherever else), Scriabin (influenced by Chopin, Wagner - and the Mighty Handful), and, as of _The Rite of Spring_, Russian folk music directly.
> 
> Jazz is extrapolated from John Philip Sousa and a rudimentary vestige of West African music (that had no more to do with Africa by the time Louis Armstrong got his hands on it than Roger Wolfe Kahn's violin has to do with Beethoven).


yes but we are talking of the classical european tradition, and Stravinsky is a part of that, he wasn't a folk musician. It's clear that the popular influences incorporated by let's say, Bartok and Gershwin were different, but they were in any case classical musicians.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

norman bates said:


> yes but we are talking of the classical european tradition, and Stravinsky is a part of that...


No more than jazz is part of the popular European tradition.



norman bates said:


> ...he wasn't a folk musician.


All Russian classical musicians, at least since Glinka, are partly folk musicians.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Harold in Columbia said:


> No more than jazz is part of the popular European tradition.
> 
> All Russian classical musicians, at least since Glinka, are partly folk musicians.


I have difficulties to understand why you are insisting on this. 
Classical music is considered a western tradition. This tradition has particular aspects: it's based on equal temperament. It's based on complex harmony, it's written music and it's based on large and complex forms.
Folk music is often based on different systems of pitch, it's often harmonically simple, it's often music that it's not written on paper. 
Stravinsky wrote music on paper, wrote harmonically complex music and based on the forms of that western tradition based on the equal temperament. Then he could have taken inspirations from other sources like folk or jazz, but still he was a classical composer of the classical tradition that is a european tradition. 
If you think that he wasn't part of the classical world no more than a Ornette Coleman you don't know what you're saying.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

norman bates said:


> I have difficulties to understand why you are insisting on this.


American propaganda to the effect that owning a John Coltrane album makes you an honorary citizen of the global south ticks me off.



norman bates said:


> Classical music is considered a western tradition. This tradition has particular aspects: it's based on equal temperament.


So is jazz.



norman bates said:


> It's based on complex harmony...


That's not true. A lot of western classical music is harmonically simple.



norman bates said:


> ...and it's based on large and complex forms.


That's not true. A lot of western classical music is short and simple.



norman bates said:


> Stravinsky wrote music on paper, wrote harmonically complex music and based on the forms of that western tradition based on the equal temperament... If you think that he wasn't part of the classical world no more than a Ornette Coleman you don't know what you're saying.


Read my last post again.


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## Solistrum (Apr 2, 2016)

I think there are some problems with this "new study":

Primarily participants are too low and unbalanced as it is always the case with these kind of research. Secondly, one can argue using VKT is wrong since "musical creativity" (and creativity in general) or divirgent thinking cannot measured like this but I must add I personally think these kind of tests are useful. Thirdly they are ignoring the differences between genres and how they compose. Third one is really weird nearly biased. Lastly, table three is totally useless in this research.

Their conclusion from these data is kinda murky. Though this "can" be interesting if they replicate this study and I think some of their data is usable without obvious objections. But in its current state personally I don't think it is more valuable than usual sunday "shocker" statistic in my local newspaper.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Harold in Columbia said:


> So is jazz.


jazz is based on different things. For one there's certainly the influence of the classical tradition, but from the start it was based also on the blues. That means inflections that are not present in classical music like blues notes. 
It's based on improvisation. It's based on swing, it's based on the individuality of the tone while the classical musicians are more interested in dynamics and in a ideal tone jazz has singers like Louis Armstrong and players that have a tone often considered ugly or inadmissible for a classical player. You would not find any classical saxophonist using a huge vibrato like Sidney Bechet or playing deliberately sharp like Jackie Mclean, growling like Gato Barbieri or breathing like Ben Webster.



Harold in Columbia said:


> That's not true. A lot of western classical music is harmonically simple.


compare classical music with any other folk tradition. Tell me what other traditions have a similar degree of harmonic complexity (obviously I'm not talking of things like jazz or brazilian music that have been influenced by classical music), because I'm really interested.



Harold in Columbia said:


> That's not true. A lot of western classical music is short and simple.


and a lot of it is formally very complex. You can't take the fact that there are simple pieces to deny that classical music is famous for its symphonies.



Harold in Columbia said:


> Read my last post again.


for what? It seems you are interested in being polemical without a reason.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

arpeggio said:


> We need a real jazz person to tell us whether or not my observations are bogus. They may be.


I'm not a 'real jazz person', but have studied it a little and attempted to do it a little, and as far as I know your observations are correct. For example you can view master classes with professional jazz musicians on youtube and in these classes they get students to improvise with them and they will often point out mistakes and comment on proper technique. To play jazz correctly requires an in depth knowledge of chords and what scales are compatible with those chords, (also chord/scale substitutions). Proper jazz improv is about cycling through the correct scales simultaneously with the chord changes, and as mentioned up thread it is also about a recognizable theme and developing that theme and doing variations. There are great players who do things more by ear and feel but they still stick to the same basic harmonic language and principles they have learned through listening and playing the style a lot.

Some jazz styles are freer than others, some jazz is modal, I'm just pointing out the basics I've learned are the same as what you've described. A lot of players of today seem to have essentially just learned the techniques and clichés of the past masters and stay within that framework, essentially recycling and creating jazz improvised pastiche (some of this is still quite impressive from a musicianship stand point, but I wouldn't call it the epitome of creativity).


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## Guest (Apr 16, 2016)

Blake said:


> It's based on the majority. Those who play Mahler, Mozart, Schoenberg, Brahms, etc... are playing strictly what's written down. Whereas if someone plays a Thelonious Monk piece, they'll improvise all over it.
> 
> Again, I dig them both. But one obviously has more freedom of interpretation.


20th century classical music obviously has much more freedom of interpretation than everything before it. Of course, you are only comparing jazz to everything in classical music through early modernism, and of course it makes no sense to say "let's compare jazz with classical music except for that nasty classical music that was actually written at the same time as jazz music." If we're talking about jazz, your best bets for contemporary comparison include Stockhausen, Cage, Brown, Cardew, etc, all of whom allowed more interpretative freedom than anything "jazz", so your "majority" is pretty pointless.


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## Inspiracion original (Apr 16, 2016)

I practice jazz but for me is more complex the classical, you can represent a lot of states in a single suite, and trying to compose one is hardest.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Jazz is extrapolated from John Philip Sousa and a rudimentary vestige of West African music (that had no more to do with Africa by the time Louis Armstrong got his hands on it than Roger Wolfe Kahn's violin has to do with Beethoven).


Just in case anyone young and impressionable is reading at home, I need to note that this is deeply, comically wrong.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Harold in Columbia said:


> No it didn't. German and American (which is to say, English) folk music are almost the same thing. Russian folk music is different.
> 
> Stravinsky's starting point was, admittedly, Wagner - and the Mighty Handful (influenced by Liszt, Wagner, and Verdi, but making a point of emphasizing the qualities in Russian music that seemed to them different from western music, such as they found in Glinka, Russian urban popular music, or wherever else), Scriabin (influenced by Chopin, Wagner - and the Mighty Handful), and, as of _The Rite of Spring_, Russian folk music directly.
> 
> Jazz is extrapolated from John Philip Sousa and a rudimentary vestige of West African music (that had no more to do with Africa by the time Louis Armstrong got his hands on it than Roger Wolfe Kahn's violin has to do with Beethoven).


Norman is right. ("Usually classical music is considered a product of the european culture and musically Russia shared that culture.") Ignoring the obvious fact that the relevant part of Russia under discussion _is part of Europe_: From the 1860s nearly all major composers in Russia were educated in a German conservatory style setting. They had a number of German and Italian professors. Even the amateurs among The Five made a point of digesting European musical culture through score study and playing four-hand piano arrangements. Before that Italian opera was the dominant influence on Russian musical culture and Italians held the important court positions. The upper classes in St. Petersburg spoke French.

Stravinsky's starting point was not Wagner; where do you get this stuff? It was R-K and the French, especially Debussy. Neither Wagner nor Verdi was a particularly strong influence on opera among The Five. Their philosophy and theory in opera were largely homegrown and strongly influenced by Dargomizhsky.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

norman bates said:


> ...it's based on the individuality of the tone while the classical musicians are more interested in dynamics and in a ideal tone jazz has singers like Louis Armstrong and players that have a tone often considered ugly or inadmissible for a classical player. You would not find any classical saxophonist using a huge vibrato like Sidney Bechet or playing deliberately sharp like Jackie Mclean, growling like Gato Barbieri or breathing like Ben Webster.


Wrong.












norman bates said:


> for what? It seems you are interested in being polemical without a reason.


For the part that makes your reply ("If you think that he wasn't part of the classical world...") a non sequitur.

I'll repost it for you:



norman bates said:


> yes but we are talking of the classical european tradition, and Stravinsky is a part of that...





Harold in Columbia said:


> No more than jazz is part of the popular European tradition.


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isorhythm said:


> Harold in Columbia said:
> 
> 
> > Jazz is extrapolated from John Philip Sousa and a rudimentary vestige of West African music (that had no more to do with Africa by the time Louis Armstrong got his hands on it than Roger Wolfe Kahn's violin has to do with Beethoven).
> ...


Which part, exactly? Other than in the sense that "wrong" means "I don't want it to be right."

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EdwardBast said:


> Stravinsky's starting point was not Wagner; where do you get this stuff?


By hearing the music, and by reading scholarship written more recently than half a century ago.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

I wonder what they put in the water supply in Massachusetts or is it Columbia?


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Man, we sure are racking up a lot of "LOL he so ridiculous" that somehow all avoid actually specifically criticizing anything. Wonder why...

And Massachusetts is in Columbia.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Which part, exactly? Other than in the sense that "wrong" means "I don't want it to be right."


I mean "wrong" in the ordinary sense of the word.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Which part, exactly?


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Man, we sure are racking up a lot of "LOL he so ridiculous" that somehow all avoid actually specifically criticizing anything. Wonder why...
> 
> And Massachusetts is in Columbia.


In general I'm quite prone to have a serious exchange of ideas or even argument. You seem to be more interested in disqualifying than in open exchange.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Casebearer said:


> You seem to be more interested in disqualifying than in open exchange.


That seems to be another way of saying I'm interested in being correct.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

I'm sorry you don't seem to understand the difference between those. I'm not here for status or winning any argument. Many people on this forum have more listening experience and musical knowledge than I have.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Casebearer said:


> I'm not here for status or winning any argument.


I don't think anybody is here for status. I suppose some people might come here for the sake of winning arguments, but I don't.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Casebearer said:


> In general I'm quite prone to have a serious exchange of ideas or even argument. You seem to be more interested in disqualifying than in open exchange.


you're right, there's no point in continuing this.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Which part, exactly?


The part about Sousa (except for the fact that he helped make band instruments ubiquitous.) The fact that you ignore oral traditions of singing and playing that remained organically represented in jazz. The fact that African diaspora culture from the Caribbean and elsewhere continued to influence jazz throughout its development.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

EdwardBast said:


> The part about Sousa (except for the fact that he helped make band instruments ubiquitous.)


So, in other words, the part about Sousa is wrong, except that it isn't. And it isn't just band instruments, it's also that he was one of the most popular composers of the popular marching tunes that were part of the basis for the cakewalk, ragtime, and jazz.



EdwardBast said:


> The fact that you ignore oral traditions of singing and playing that remained organically represented in jazz.


No I didn't. I called them a rudimentary vestige of West African music, which they were. (https://books.google.com/books?id=PfwfMTWBGgYC&pg=PA15)



> The fact that African diaspora culture from the Caribbean and elsewhere continued to influence jazz throughout its development.


And now you've proved that Georges Bizet is African.



norman bates said:


> you're right, there's no point in continuing this.


And yet you did.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

norman bates said:


> you're right, there's no point in continuing this.


I notice this two pages back already


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

And yet you did.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Harold in Columbia said:


> No I didn't. I called them a rudimentary vestige of West African music, which they were. (https://books.google.com/books?id=PfwfMTWBGgYC&pg=PA15)


According to scholarship written about half a century ago.



Harold in Columbia said:


> By hearing the music, and by reading scholarship written more recently than half a century ago.


Mmm, the words petard and hoist come to mind.

I'd still like you to explain your earlier comment that all composition is improvisation.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Petwhac said:


> According to scholarship written about half a century ago.
> 
> Mmm, the words petard and hoist come to mind.


No they don't. I said I read newer scholarship that Edward Bast doesn't. I never there's anything wrong with reading old scholarship (which would obviously be an idiotic thing to say) - which in this case obviously none of you has read either.

And wait, are you the guy who made the same _Hamlet_ allusion to me a month ago? And if you're so obsessed with that line, why couldn't you even quote it correctly?


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Blues and gospel, Harold. Not marching band music. This isn't very mysterious.

EdwardBast beat me to this, but African rhythm, to the extent it had been lost, was reintroduced into African-American music via the Caribbean by the early 20th century.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

isorhythm said:


> Blues and gospel, Harold. Not marching band music. This isn't very mysterious.


What this is is bluster. You for some reason don't want jazz to be descended from marching band music, even though it undeniably (and unmistakably, unless you're trying not to hear it) is. As of course is blues, which incidentally doesn't predate jazz.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

isorhythm said:


> EdwardBast beat me to this, but African rhythm, to the extent it had been lost, was reintroduced into African-American music via the Caribbean by the early 20th century.


To the extent that something is lost, introducing it isn't a "reintroduction," it's just an introduction.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

OK, what's the connection between Sousa and early jazz? If the answer is "brass instruments," we're done.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Harold in Columbia said:


> No they don't. I said I read newer scholarship that Edward Bast doesn't. I never there's anything wrong with reading old scholarship (which would obviously be an idiotic thing to say) - which in this case obviously none of you has read either.
> 
> And wait, are you the guy who made the same _Hamlet_ allusion to me a month ago? And if you're so obsessed with that line, why couldn't you even quote it correctly?


No it wasn't me!

And what about the composition/improv question?


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Petwhac said:


> No it wasn't me!


Sorry!



Petwhac said:


> And what about the composition/improv question?


What's to explain? You have some sort of predetermined guidelines, and then you have to invent some music within them. The only differences from live improvisation are that you can do it as fast or slow as you want, and you can go back and revise.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Sorry!
> 
> What's to explain? You have some sort of predetermined guidelines, and then you have to invent some music within them. The only differences from live improvisation are that you can do it as fast or slow as you want, and you can go back and revise.


I accept your apology!

The _only_ differences, as you put it, are the _big _differences. Especially when it comes to revision, rethinking and planning.

It would be like saying an elephant is the same as a mouse except for the trunk, tusks, size, tail etc. Of course in many ways those two animals are very similar but an elephant is not a mouse.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Petwhac said:


> The _only_ differences, as you put it, are the _big _differences. Especially when it comes to revision, rethinking and planning.


True. That's why the greatest, let's say, worked-over compositions are better than the greatest improvisations, classical, jazz, or otherwise - at least within western music. I'll plead insufficient experience to judge whether the greatest Indian ragas are equal to Beethoven or not.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

isorhythm said:


> OK, what's the connection between Sousa and early jazz?


The fact that I'm bothering to do this instead of just telling you to do your own homework is proof that I invest way too much of my ego in arguments on the internet.



> The earliest ragtime probably arose as a process of improvisation - popular works from the march repertoire and light opera would be... "ragged" by the pianist, and the result was a heavily syncopated melody in the right hand over a steady, march-like bass...
> 
> The rhythm section in this music [early jazz] often plays in a two-beat feel, again derived from ragtime...


https://books.google.com/books?id=x1qMnr-IYHwC&pg=PT26
https://books.google.com/books?id=x1qMnr-IYHwC&pg=PT30


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Harold in Columbia said:


> True. That's why the greatest, let's say, worked-over compositions are better than the greatest improvisations, classical, jazz, or otherwise - at least within western music. I'll plead insufficient experience to judge whether the greatest Indian ragas are equal to Beethoven or not.


But what makes great jazz great is the quality of the performers/improvisors and not the 'composition' which may often be no more than a top line with some chord changes. So it's not really fair to compare a jazz musician with a classical composer.

There may be a case to say the classical performer has less to _invent_ than the jazz performer, except in improvised/part improvised classical music. But I would not generally call even the greatest improvisor a composer.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Petwhac said:


> But what makes great jazz great is the quality of the performers/improvisors and not the 'composition' which may often be no more than a top line with some chord changes.


An improvisation is a composition. This time, that's not even hyperbole. The song on which an improvisation is based is no more "the composition" than is the theme in a theme and variations.



Petwhac said:


> There may be a case to say the classical performer has less to _invent_ than the jazz performer.


Now we're confusing performers and composers again. As I already said, I think the real issue here is that some jazz fans feel threatened by the idea that playing what Beethoven wrote is as worthwhile as improvisation. But the correct analog to a jazz improviser isn't the classical performer trying to be faithful to the score; the correct analog is the classical composer, improvising.



Petwhac said:


> But I would not generally call even the greatest improvisor a composer.


Well that makes no sense, considering that some of Bach, Mozart, and Liszt's (for example) greatest keyboard works are basically transcriptions of live improvisations.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Your sources don't remotely support - in fact they refute - your absurd statement that



Harold in Columbia said:


> Jazz is extrapolated from John Philip Sousa and a rudimentary vestige of West African music (that had no more to do with Africa by the time Louis Armstrong got his hands on it than Roger Wolfe Kahn's violin has to do with Beethoven).


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

My sources of course do support what I wrote, and in the last instance I even took the trouble of transcribing relevant passages (you're welcome). The slightly interesting question here is why you so obviously feel threatened by what I wrote.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Harold in Columbia said:


> An improvisation is a composition.


On that we will have to agree to differ or keep going round in circles.



Harold in Columbia said:


> I think the real issue here is that some jazz fans feel threatened by the idea that playing what Beethoven wrote is as worthwhile as improvisation.


Then you must know some arrogant and ignorant jazz fans.



Harold in Columbia said:


> Well that makes no sense, considering that some of Bach, Mozart, and Liszt's (for example) greatest works are basically transcribed improvisations.


Which greatest works in particular? They may have started out as improvisations but will have no doubt been turned, via much reworking, into compositions. "Basically transcribed" sounds like an overstatement.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Well that makes no sense, considering that some of Bach, Mozart, and Liszt's (for example) greatest keyboard works are basically transcriptions of live improvisations.


I see you changed your post to read keyboard works. Still, in the great scheme of things those, and other composer's improvs are probably a side-show to their really great works.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Petwhac said:


> Which greatest works in particular?


Bach's chromatic fantasia, Mozart's fantasia in C minor, K. 475, Liszt's 12 grand etudes published in 1837 (later revised into the _Transcendental Etudes_ published in 1852).


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Petwhac said:


> I see you changed your post to read keyboard works. Still, in the great scheme of things those, and other composer's improvs are probably a side-show to their really great works.


Probably not quite the single greatest thing Bach or Mozart ever wrote - as I said, the greatest worked-out compositions are better than the greatest improvisations - but not by any stretch of the imagination a side-show, or anything less than really great works. In Liszt's case, a contender for the best thing he ever wrote, period.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Harold in Columbia said:


> In Liszt's case, a contender for the best thing he ever wrote, period.


overlapping posts


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Bach's chromatic fantasia, Mozart's fantasia in C minor, K. 475, Liszt's 12 grand etudes published in 1837 (later revised into the _Transcendental Etudes_ published in 1852).


If only recording devices existed back then we could compare the improvs to the reworked and finished pieces.
Anyway, a few great keyboard works by a few great composers is not enough to make the claim that composition_ is_ improvisation.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Harold in Columbia said:


> My sources of course do support what I wrote, and in the last instance I even took the trouble of transcribing relevant passages (you're welcome). The slightly interesting question here is why you so obviously feel threatened by what I wrote.


Harold - you enjoy posting in what I'm sure you consider acerbic little witticisms, and sometimes I enjoy them too. But in this case you were badly mistaken and when called on it, you went Googling for whatever references you could find linking Sousa to jazz. I know it and you know it.

Now the references you found are there for anyone to read, and they say what they say. There's no further argument.

I would guess that in your own mind, you're fighting some kind of romanticized idea that jazz came straight from the heart of Africa, but that's your problem.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Petwhac said:


> Anyway, a few great keyboard works by a few great composers...


They're few in the case of Bach and Mozart - not in the case of Liszt, which is to say, the case of probably the greatest pianist ever - only because, for obvious reason, composers don't necessary write down their improvisations. Composers who can play an instrument well improvise. It would be strange if
they didn't.



Petwhac said:


> is not enough to make the claim that composition_ is_ improvisation.


Why are you so fixated on that remark? (Which I've already said was hyperbole - as I thought would have been obvious, but then nothing ever does seem to be obvious here - as opposed to improvisation being composition, which is just a fact.)


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

isorhythm said:


> Harold - you enjoy posting in what I'm sure you consider acerbic little witticisms, and sometimes I enjoy them too. But in this case you were badly mistaken and when called on it...


You didn't "call me on it," you contradicted me because you didn't like it. (You still haven't addressed why you dislike it so strongly.)



isorhythm said:


> you went Googling for whatever references you could find linking Sousa to jazz. I know it and you know it.


Well, now I know that that's likely something you've done and you're projecting it onto me.

Maybe you even did it for this very conversation. The connection of jazz with march music seems to actually have been a novelty to you at the beginning of this conversation. Maybe you're now wishing you'd used Google _before_ posting your first reply instead of after.

I did use Google - first to find the relevant passage in Schuller's book, which I've read (and you haven't), second to find something that would save me the trouble of writing a history of early jazz in my own words and responding to the inevitable disingenuous demand for sources that would have followed, which ended up being Meeder's book.



isorhythm said:


> I would guess that in your own mind, you're fighting some kind of romanticized idea that jazz came straight from the heart of Africa, but that's your problem.


Well, no, my problem is that people have long since learned to keep that idea but say it more slickly.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Why are you so fixated on that remark? (Which I've already said was hyperbole - as I thought would have been obvious, but then nothing ever does seem to be obvious here - as opposed to improvisation being composition, which is just a fact.)


Ah, you're like the creationist who, when faced with radio carbon dating and DNA, now claims that the Bible is not actually to be taken literally!


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Petwhac said:


> Ah, you're like the creationist who, when faced with radio carbon dating and DNA, now claims that the Bible is not actually to be taken literally!


I'm like a relatively normally developed person in a room full of Asperger's patients.

And plodding literalism isn't going to make you look correct in this case anyway, because you're also objecting to calling improvisation a kind of composition, and that _is_ literally correct.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

It's a beautiful day in the Northeast. Go outside. I am.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Harold in Columbia said:


> I'm like a relatively normally developed person in a room full of Asperger's patients.
> 
> And plodding literalism isn't going to make you look correct in this case anyway, because you're also objecting to calling improvisation a kind of composition, and that _is_ literally correct.


A classic case, we see it all the time! 
It is you who are the patient but you haven't yet realised it.


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## tortkis (Jul 13, 2013)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Jazz is extrapolated from John Philip Sousa and a rudimentary vestige of West African music (that had no more to do with Africa by the time Louis Armstrong got his hands on it than Roger Wolfe Kahn's violin has to do with Beethoven).





isorhythm said:


> Just in case anyone young and impressionable is reading at home, I need to note that this is deeply, comically wrong.





EdwardBast said:


> The part about Sousa (except for the fact that he helped make band instruments ubiquitous.)


Scott Yanow described the beginning of jazz as following, and mentioned _Sousa Marches_ as one of the essential Prejazz Recordings in his _Jazz on record: the first sixty years_.

_When asked when jazz was born (as if it were a specific moment), I entertain the theory that it began when brass band musicians in New Orleans, who often played lengthy versions of songs while marching, began to improvise a bit, infusing their music with blue notes, melodic variations, and new ideas. But we will never know for sure._

I don't know if "extrapolate" is an appropriate word, but it seems to me that Sousa's march music was one of the important predecessors of early jazz.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

tortkis said:


> Scott Yanow described the beginning of jazz as following, and mentioned _Sousa Marches_ as one of the essential Prejazz Recordings in his _Jazz on record: the first sixty years_.
> 
> _When asked when jazz was born (as if it were a specific moment), I entertain the theory that it began when brass band musicians in New Orleans, who often played lengthy versions of songs while marching, began to improvise a bit, infusing their music with blue notes, melodic variations, and new ideas. But we will never know for sure._
> 
> I don't know if "extrapolate" is an appropriate word, but it seems to me that Sousa's march music was one of the important predecessors of early jazz.


Your conclusion does not follow from the quotation. How would playing improvised variations on _songs_ while marching make _Sousa marches_ a significant precursor? The author does not mention Sousa. Sounds like the marching band merely provides the social conditions under which a way of doing things is applied to, according to this quotation, non-march music. The songs are grist for the mill. What does Sousa have to do with it? Do New Orleans street bands relate in some way to Sousa style marching bands?


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## tortkis (Jul 13, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> Your conclusion does not follow from the quotation. How would playing improvised variations on _songs_ while marching make _Sousa marches_ a significant precursor? The author does not mention Sousa. Sounds like the marching band merely provides the social conditions under which a way of doing things is applied to, according to this quotation, non-march music. The songs are grist for the mill. What does Sousa have to do with it? Do New Orleans street bands relate in some way to Sousa style marching bands?


The authour is guessing that the beginning of jazz might be when brass band members started improvising. It is hard to believe that musicians had no influence from the music they had been regularly playing. You hear no similarity in marches and early jazz? To me, for example, James Reese Europe sounds like marching music with bluesy flavor, kind of a transition from marches to early jazz.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

Keith Jarrett recently released his performances of Bartok's 2nd piano Concerto and Samuel Barber's 1st he recorded in the mid 80's.

His performances of these extremely difficult pieces are pretty convincing. 

As my friend (a Jarret fan and a Julliard grad) said after he heard these, "he's much closer to their (classical) world, than they are to his". He was referring to Jarrett's otherworldly improvisation skills.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

An inappropriate post and several responses were deleted from the thread.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Simon Moon said:


> As my friend (a Jarret fan and a Julliard grad) said after he heard these, "he's much closer to their (classical) world, than they are to his". He was referring to Jarrett's otherworldly improvisation skills.


But he isn't closer to their world than they are to his. Leaving aside the notion that classical musicians don't improvise, which has been addressed far past the point of exhaustion in this thread, not that people who want it to be so care, his world is dead and theirs isn't.


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## tortkis (Jul 13, 2013)

This seems interesting, though I have not watched it.

Marsalis on Music - Sousa to Satchmo with Seiji Ozawa

_Did jazz just happen, or is it part of an older tradition? Wynton Marsalis shows how Sousa's European-style orchestra was transformed into an American band. Once ragtime and raggin' changed its beat, collective improvisation turned it into New Orleans jazz. Rousing performances of Sousa, Joplin, and Armstrong demonstrate this evolution._

Performers: Seiji Ozawa, conductor; The Liberty Brass Band with Eric Reed, piano; The Tanglewood Music Center Wind Band with Mark Inouye, cornet.


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