Jazz 5: Adding to the Music

Life is a lot like jazz.

It’s best when you improvise.

-George Gershwin

I’m going to start today with some thoughts from the book, Improvisation for the Spirit: Live a More Creative, Spontaneous, and Courageous Life Using the Tools of Improv Comedy by Katie Goodman. (Sourcebooks, Inc. 2008.) It is NOT about jazz, but rather a book on living a spontaneous life based on improv comedy. But, hey, improvisation is improvisation. So here are her suggestions for skills needed in living a spontaneous life.

1. Be Present and Aware
2. Be Open and Flexible
3. Take Risks
4. Trust
5. Surrender and Non-Attachment
6. Gag Your Inner Critic
7. Get Creative
8. Effortlessness
9. Desire and Discovering What You Want
10. Authenticity
11. Allowing Imperfection and Practice, Practice, Practice

As I look at these I see a number of the themes that I have covered in the past here on the Tuning Slide.

• The “be present and aware” touches easily on the mindfulness we have talked about. 
• “Gag your inner critic” is certainly a variation of the discussions of Self 1 and Self 2 in the Inner Game of Music posts. 
• “Desire and discovering what you want” and “authenticity” tie in with finding your story and song.

But as I pointed out last week with my improvisation stories, it is all easier said- or thought- and done. It takes work and determination to do it. It takes hours of practice. (That’s another whole series to think about for the next year!) One cannot want instant gratification - or instant expertise in improvisation or in life as a whole. So as I look at those 11 suggestions I want to simplify it. I want to make it sound easier than it is, live in my fantasy world that it is easy, or just throw my hands up in surrender. Which is NOT what surrender and non-attachment above mean. So maybe there is more to be learned in that skill than I am giving it credit for.

Surrender and non-attachment, as Goodman defines it on page 92 is about

…learning to let go of your attachments to expectations, goals, and perfectionism. … to cultivate a sense of humor, and to lighten up. [We] surrender the controls and allow life to unfold in a more joyful, free-flowing, and perhaps, unexpected way.

This does not mean giving up and going home. I have heard several times in the past few weeks that the #1 rule for improv comedy is the “Yes, and…” rule. That means you affirm what has come before you, the line or theme that has preceded the hand-off to you. Never negate it- that brings everything to a stop. Instead, accept it as an important bit of information or an unfinished sentence. What do you have to add to it? How can you give added value to the “musical conversation”? In order to do that use those skills of mindfulness, creativity, and giving Self Two the direction to go ahead and play.

Now, in order to do that you have to believe you have something to say. At first, all it may be in your improvisation is to hit the note of the chord with a certain rhythm. Remember, jazz is about rhythm. Then you might want to think about the structure of the song, blues, classic standard, funk. Keep those same chord notes and rhythm but give them a little something extra here and there. Don’t be shy. That doesn’t mean play fortissimo when the song is a nice quiet ballad. Remember, you are adding to the conversation, not stopping it or hijacking it. There are then legato and staccato passages, slurs and marcato. How do they fit together?

Now, don’t expect to go onstage in a public performance and know how to do this. Improv comedy troupes practice. Then they practice some more. Improv does not mean off-the-cuff with no thought or training. It means learning the words and sounds of jazz and making conversation with other musicians. I wish I was able to do this as easily as I write about it. But I am a slow-learner. I still have an inner critic that freezes when he hears that “sour” note. I still have the perfectionist that says he has to do it right or don’t do it at all. I still have the ADD dude who gets distracted by a a lot more than squirrels and then loses mindfulness, flow, rhythm and creativity.

So I go back to the practice room. I pull out the scales or find a song on iReal Pro and try to get the feel for it. I listen to Miles Davis’ solo on “So What” and feel the movement of an easy-flowing improvisation. I take a walk and refocus my mindfulness skills. I do some breathing meditation that gets me back in touch with me. Then I work on it some more. It is a much slower process than I want it to be. I can tend to get too busy. I have too many things to write or too many concerts or gigs to prepare for. So the hard stuff, like learning to talk jazz with my trumpet is set aside.

In other words I am writing these posts as much for me as for you. I am working on my Inner Game. I am reminding myself that I have a story and a song. It is mine and I have been writing it for many years. Back at that very first jazz camp I went to in the 90s one thing did become clear to me. I improvise all the time in my daily life. Things happen that I have to react to. As a preacher for years I would regularly “ad lib” in the middle of a sermon. All that was was just improvising. I pulled in all my knowledge and experiences, all the sermons I had written and preached, all the people I had talked to, all the books I had read. Then came the inspiration and I shared it when it happened. I can still do that. It is almost as easy as falling off a bike for me. I couldn’t do that when I started, of course. I wrote down every word of every sermon. I still work from a manuscript (the score of the music?) and take off when and where appropriate.

That’s all I need to learn to do with my trumpet. It is getting better. I am learning. I don’t believe I will ever be done.

Kind of like life!

You have to practice improvisation,
Let no one kid you about it.
-Art Tatum

Jazz 4: Creating Something New

There's a way of playing safe and 

then there's where you create something 

you haven't created before.

-Dave Brubeck

Many have called it “mysterious.” Some will say there’s magic in it. Others might criticize it for being “too far out” or “odd.” No matter what is said about it, it is undeniably the center point around which jazz congregates.

Improvisation.

I had been listening to jazz for a number of years before I realized that so much of what I was listening to only existed once in the studio or venue where it was performed. In that moment jazz went from being a great form of music that I loved to something far more profound. It was alive in a way that no other music could claim in my awareness. Sure there have been many great improvised solos in other genres; even the classical greats like Bach were known to be excellent improvisers. But no other music called forth improvising; no other music seemed to breathe the life of the music in the moment.

I was in awe.

About 20 years ago, I had my first jazz camp experience. I knew very little music theory and couldn’t have played in many of the keys if my life depended on it. But the time came to improvise. As I sat down that evening I wrote in my journal:

My first solo. Just the basics of course, but an improv solo on the simple concert B-flat scale.

"Play a melody. Write a song with it, Barry."

And I did.

It fit, too. It made some sense. You have to try to listen to what is going on around you. Hear the rhythm, devise the melody, watch the harmony. It wasn't polished. It was kind of stiff and boring, but no one started out as a virtuoso.

The instructors this morning emphasized that. The scales are to the instrumentalist what the gym is to Michael Jordan.

The same could have been said about my solo at last summer’s Big Band Camp. It wasn’t polished; it was kind of stiff and boring. One of my problems is that I get stuck on “bad” notes. A “bad note” is one that could be a great “blue note,” a note moving from one place to another. But it turns into dissonance and discord because I stop for too long. No movement, more like a crash into a brick wall. My mind blanks, I forget what I’m thinking and nothing of interest comes from the instrument. It made some sense for a little bit, a few measures, but that’s about it.

What a challenge then in this past year when, following the Big Band Camp and then Trumpet Camp in 2015, I decided I was going to do an improv solo this year. And not get stuck! It was one of several goals I set for myself, and the one that looked most challenging. Wikipedia’s entry on improvisation in jazz points out some of the problems.

Basically, improvisation is composing on the spot, in which a singer or instrumentalist invents solo melodies and lines over top of a chord progression played by rhythm section instruments (piano, electric guitar double bass, etc.) and also accompanied by drum kit. While blues, rock and other genres also use improvisation, the improvisation in these non-jazz genres typically is done over relatively simple chord progressions which often stay in one key (or closely related keys.) …Jazz improvisation is distinguished from other genres use of this approach by the high level of chordal complexity…

Problem #1: Composing on the fly.
Saxophonist and composer Steve Lacy once said,

In composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in 15 seconds, in improvisation you have 15 seconds.

It takes time to learn how to do that. A lot more than a year. It takes a certain amount of courage to do it in public. It takes a certain amount of insanity to even want to do it in the first place.

Problem #2: Chordal complexity
Most of us want to sound professional when we do our improvising. That means the complexity of chords and chord changes. We don’t want to sound like some newbie just playing the blues scale over the changes. It may fit, but that’s baby stuff. To think that one can get to that point in one year would be the height of grandiosity- or blindness.

Problem #3: Learning the language
This is all about a language and developing an understanding of its meanings. It is no different than having a conversation with a friend- except we have all learned how to use words in conversations one little bit at a time. We didn’t do that in any great way until we developed a vocabulary, the experience of talking with others, and the experiences of our lives to have something to talk about. If you have 15 seconds to say something, you better have the language ready to be accessed at the right time and place.

A daunting task, to be sure. But I did have a few things in my favor.

• I have a rudimentary understanding of the language. I have a decent ear for jazz, jazz forms, and jazz licks. I have been an intense jazz listener for 50+ years. It’s kind of like being somewhat able to understand, say Spanish, when it is spoken, even though my brain trips over itself when I try to speak it.

• I am also a decent musician. I understand a lot more about music from simply playing it than I realized before this year. That means I have a basic understanding of chord progressions and the blues scale.

• And, I now have the time, in my semi-retirement, to spend time learning.

While I didn’t have a set plan for learning jazz, I first spent a lot of time really getting to know my musical skills- the basics, just the basics. Day in and day out there were those long notes and chromatics. Then there was Arban (always good old Arban!) and Concone and others. Finally I decided I would learn the 12 major keys. Yes, after 50+ years I was doing one of those basic things.

The result was I got to Big Band Camp and I was ready. No getting stuck this year. Let it happen!

It did! No it wasn’t a great solo, but it didn’t get stuck, it didn’t suck, and it wasn’t stiff. I even think there might have been some swing it it. At least I was swinging. Since then I have done some more improvising with the one big band I play in. Nothing fancy. But I now have the courage to at least try. I have done it and I know I can do it again.

What then does all this mean?

#1. It takes time and effort. Just a year of work doesn’t do it. But it’s a start.

#2. Appreciate jazz when other people do it. Listen. Then listen some more. Finally, listen again.

#3. Have courage. Take the opportunity to improvise. In the privacy of your practice room and in public.

#4. Be good to yourself and appreciate what you have done and what you can do.

#5. Push yourself. Don’t stop where you’ve been. Look at where you still want to go.

Now that I have more of the basics down, it is time to move into the advanced beginning stage. (Trying to keep that trumpet ego in check!) That means more of the 5 things above. It means enjoying the practice and challenge. And it means seeing how improvisation has already made and can make a difference in my life.

That will be next week.

The genius of our country is improvisation,

and jazz reflects that.

It's our great contribution to the arts.

-Ken Burns

Jazz 3: Swing

It Don’t Mean a Thing

(If It Ain’t Got That Swing)

-Duke Ellington

You may remember the old joke about the comedian who asks, “What’s the secret of a good joke?” and then answers the question without a moment’s break. “Timing.”

Until Einstein, “time” was seen as a constant. It was always the same. Then relativity came along and suddenly time was a “changeable” dimension.  (Don’t ask me to explain THAT!) Time became, to put it way too simply, relative. As we get older we can agree with that idea. Time sure moves faster when you have more time behind you. (Where did this year go? It’s the end of July already!)

Another way of describing this is to say that “time” is how we perceive it. If we are bored, it hardly moves; if we are having a great time, it ends too soon. Music depends on time- and timing. Music is guided by a “time signature.” In jazz, the idea of “time” can take on another dimension. Time becomes the movement of the notes in a unique and special way. From there that movement is what musicians often call “the groove” or the interaction of musicians, time and melody into something everyone can feel.

When you are in that groove with the movement leading you, holding you and the music together-
That’s Swing!

Wikipedia starts the definition of swing this way:

In jazz and related musical styles, the term swing is used to describe the sense of propulsive rhythmic "feel" or "groove" created by the musical interaction between the performers, especially when the music creates a "visceral response" such as feet-tapping or head-nodding.

Got it? It sounds simple.
    1.    There’s the movement (propulsive rhythm).
    2.    That movement is created by the interaction the performers themselves are feeling.
    3.    There is a “visceral response,” perhaps because of that interaction, responses like tapping your foot or nodding your head.

If that’s all it takes, I have seen many performers “swinging” in some of the dullest ways possible. In some ways it sounds like a small group of people doing their thing in a way that moves them.

Wikipedia continues:

While some jazz musicians have called the concept of "swing" a subjective and elusive notion, they acknowledge that the concept is well-understood by experienced jazz musicians at a practical, intuitive level. Jazz players refer to "swing" as the sense that a jam session or live performance is really "cooking" or "in the pocket." If a jazz musician states that an ensemble performance is "really swinging," this suggests that the performers are playing with a special degree of rhythmic coherence and "feel."

In other words, if you don’t understand it, that’s because you aren’t an experienced jazz musician. It takes a “practical” and “intuitive” understanding to know when it’s “cooking.” That just adds a bit of snobbery to the first part of the discussion. You have to be with the “in crowd” to really know what swing is or even how to make it happen. How about that attempt at paradox- practical AND intuitive.

Do you get the idea they can’t describe it any better than anyone else? All they are saying is that they know it when it happens. When it’s not happening, well, it “just ain’t swingin’ man.”

The crazy thing is that this is as good as it gets trying to nail it down without some time listening to the music. We have all had an experience of the essence of “swing” whether it is in jazz, or any other kind of music. It may have been the Sunday the organist at church nailed a Bach prelude or the praise band’s hallelujah touched the depth of your soul. It might have been at the rock concert when your favorite band never sounded better and every note was right where they (and you) wanted it to be. Those are the same as “swing,” just in a different musical genre. They are peak experiences when music and time come together and meld into Einstein’s four-dimensional universe.

Okay, enough of this. We can wax and wane poetic, prosaic, or scientific night and day and never quite get to that kernel of truth about swing. We know swing because it moves us. We know swing because something in us responds to it. As musicians, we know we are “in the groove” when we come to the end and realize you were simply carried along.

In jazz, we call it swing. Swing always is an interaction in time and musical movement. On a very simple technical level swing is that dotted-eighth/sixteenth combination of notes. But Latin jazz doesn’t do that, yet it can swing as hard as any other jazz.

That’s where the idea of time really comes into play. Wynton Marsalis describes it this way in his book, Moving to Higher Ground:

Jazz is the art of timing. It teaches you when. When to start, when to wait, when to step it up, and when to take your time- indispensable tools for making someone else happy….

Actual time is a constant. Your time is a perception. Swing time is a collective action. Everyone in jazz is trying to create a more flexible alternative to actual time

We are back to our perception of time, and again that perception is grounded in a collective sense of time in the interaction of the musicians, the rhythm, and the music.

Wynton Marsalis applies all this to our daily lives. Swing helps us in:

    1.    Adjusting to changes without losing your equilibrium;
    2.    Mastering moments of crisis with clear thinking;
    3.    Living in the moment and accepting reality instead of trying to force everyone to do things your way;
    4.    Concentrating on a collective goal even when your conception of the collective doesn’t dominate.

Change happens. It is a constant. Sometimes it is expected and not jarring. It is in time. Sometimes it knocks us off our balance. That is when the understanding of swing, staying in the groove, going with the flow comes in handy. The moments of crisis, times of change, when we can lose our ability to make healthy decisions is when we move back to the basics. The forms of life that keep us moving.

Remember that jazz is made up of forms and when you have an understanding of the forms you can adapt. If you know the forms of your life, you can begin to trust your Self 2 instinct as discussed in the Inner Game of Music. It’s the muscle and mental default mode that keeps us standing when it would be easier to fall.
From there we accept what is- staying in the moment- accepting the things we cannot change, changing what we can, and knowing which is which.

Another way to describe swing is that it’s how you accent the music, what you emphasize, what you want people to hear. Any jazz musician knows the forms for accents, for what to emphasize and what not to. That can change from performance to performance, within the basic forms of course. Tonight the musician may want to emphasize the upbeat feel of a chorus; tomorrow, after a difficult day, the emphasis may take more of a bluesy style.

What you accent in life can become your song or story. How you do that can change the rhythm of your life.  That’s your perspective. We all know the analogies of looking at the doughnut or the hole; the cage of horse manure with the optimist seeing the possibility of a horse amid all that. Even the old "is the glass half-empty or half-full" can add a new dimension- the glass is refillable.

Accentuate the positive. Assume positive intent.
Or not.
It’s your choice.

But you are not alone. With few exceptions jazz is a truly collective music. We have to listen to each other, not fight each other in a jazz performance. It is a cooperative action of attempting to make more than any one of us can make on their own. If I accent the upbeat and you slur through them it might sound unique, but will it sound appropriate? Will it sound like one of us is trying to one-up the other? The music will often suffer as a result. It can easily descend into chaos. Some might call that “free-form” but it takes amazing concentration of collective action to produce good “free-form” jazz.

In the end, Wynton Marsalis says, swing demands three things:

    1.    Extreme coordination- it is a dance with others inventing steps as they go;
    2.    Intelligent decision making- what’s good for group
    3.    Good intentions- trust you and others want great music.

Swing is worth the effort. We grow in relationships- and we learn how to develop relationships. We learn how to listen to others and, in the end, ourselves. That will lead us into the next two weeks’ posts on what may be the heart and soul of jazz- improvisation, the ultimate in going with the flow.

Until then, keep swinging.

I don't care if a dude is purple with

green breath as long as he can swing.

-Miles Davis

Note: All Wynton Marsalis quotes are from the book:
    •    Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life by Wynton Marsalis and Geoffrey Ward. 2008, Random House.

Jazz 2- What Makes Jazz Jazz?

Jazz does not belong to one race or culture,
but is a gift that America has given the world.
-Ahmad Alaadeen

I remember a discussion I had with a teenager in my church youth group some 30+ years ago. We had been listening to some live rock song that had a great guitar solo. We started talking about different styles of music and came up with a question.

What makes jazz jazz? Why isn’t it rock or vice versa?

Neither of us had an answer, although we did, in general, agree that we knew it when we heard it. Here, then, decades later, I am going to attempt to answer that question from my experiences. As I said in the previous post, I have been enthralled by jazz in all its forms for over 50 years. I’m not out to give an in-depth analysis of jazz and what makes it what it is. There are countless books that do that. Some are history like Ted Gioia’s History of Jazz, a remarkable story of how jazz got to be what it is. Some are on video like Ken Burns’ mini-series documentary, Jazz, from PBS. Barry Kernfeld’s What to Listen For in Jazz has informed this particular post. All three of these are 16 - 20 years old, but capture the story that has become jazz.

Since one of my goals is to relate the music and the experience of jazz to my life and experience, musicology is not my goal. Living jazz is. So, I found in Kernfeld’s book seven things that are essential ingredients to understand about jazz. These, I think, give a little more to work with than just saying “I know it when I hear it.” While all of them can be found in most other musical genres, how they apply to this genre begins to answer the greater question of what makes this music what it is.

First comes rhythm. This should come as no surprise. Jazz started as music for movement. It was street music, dance music, walking and marching music. The power of the “beat” is unmistakable. It is almost impossible to call it “jazz” if it doesn’t have rhythm. It must constantly be supported and carried by the rhythm section- drums or bass, piano or guitar. I know that sometimes that rhythm is pretty hard to find, especially in more free-form jazz, but if you ask the musicians they will say there is something there. It will go nowhere without a living, breathing pulse.

All music breathes. The rise and fall of dynamics, crescendo and decrescendo, are the active elements that make it something more than a one-level sound. In jazz, that breath becomes a rhythm. Some of this is what is called articulation. When you emphasize what note, how you flow from one section to another. But it is always alive, always moving.

When jazz musicians say the music is “in the groove” this is part of what they mean. It is alive and moving. The two most common rhythms can be described as

• Swing and
• Duple.

Swing is a movement of triplets enhanced or bounded by accentuations. Duple is doubles, also enhanced and defined by accentuations. While recognizing that there are numerous variations and exceptions, we can take Dixieland and “big band” traditional jazz as the best examples of “swing.” Duple is more straightforward and can be seen in Latin jazz. I will talk more about rhythm, especially swing, in the next post.

The connection of rhythm and breathing with living is obvious. Drumming has been one of those human endeavors most likely since the first time an ancient relative hit a hollow log with a stick. In so doing they were mimicking the action at the center of our lives- the heartbeat. Rhythm is more than primitive in its origins. It is primal. It is basic, essential. A heart arrhythmia can be fatal- it is out of rhythm.

Second is form. With tens of thousands of possible songs to play, a jazz group and its musicians would be hard pressed to memorize everything out there. That would clearly limit their repertoire and challenge the skill of even the greatest among them. What has developed to make this job relatively easy is the form of jazz music. The most common of these was adapted from the basic “song” form- the music of the Great American Songbook. Very simply this form is the beginning theme, the “head”, the first description of which is usually done twice, the chorus in the middle and then closing with the theme. This often referred to as the AABA form.

There can be many variations on how long these individual sections can be. The song form would, in general, be 32 bars, 8 in each section. Other variations can have a repeating pattern of measures and chord changes such as the 12-bar blues which can be adapted to 8- or 16-bars. Chord changes are often sort of standardized with the 12-bar blues being the grandaddy of them and the progression of the chords of I’ve Got Rhythm (referred to as “rhythm changes”) being another.

One other form is the march and ragtime form. These are usually 16-bar phrases with two, three, or four themes as the song progresses.

Now, in general, a jazz musician can pick up a book of songs and all it might have are the head, chord changes, and the closing. When you understand the basic form of these songs, you have the greater possibility of playing more music and not being completely lost.

Third is arrangement. This is the first of three elements of jazz that are about “writing” the music. Arrangement is taking something that already exists and adapting it. Arrangers can do it note-for-note adding embellishments with their group playing as close to the original as possible. They can also take the original and add embellishments to it to change the patterns around the original. The third is to orchestrate the song differently. Having a saxophone-based combo play a song will give a very different experience from a piano-based one. For example taking a Lennon-McCartney song and arranging it for a big band would take all these into account. What instruments do you want to play when? How close to the original will it be? Will you divide it into sections that build on or riff on the theme?

Fourth is composition. Simply put this is basically writing new music. You are composing a new song. It can be based on the chord progressions from another song, such as the many on the changes of I’ve Got Rhythm or the 12-bar blues. It will be a new melody, a new song.

Fifth is improvisation. Improvisation is so essential to what call jazz in all its forms, I will take at least two posts to deal with that. Suffice it to say here, that being able to improvise is what can help all of us succeed in the ups and downs of life. It is not simply flying by the seat of ones pants. It is the ability to call on our knowledge, experiences, hard work, and creativity to solve problems and enhance our lives. Kernfeld called improvisation the “most fascinating and mysterious” element of jazz. It will be featured prominently in all that we do in jazz.

Sixth is sound. This is where orchestration comes in. Different instruments sound different. Different combinations sound different. How you put them together can make a huge difference in what you hear- or don’t hear. It is also the tuning of the notes and how they fit together. Miles Davis famously said that “there are no wrong notes in jazz: only notes in the wrong places.” Thelonius Monk added to that sentiment. "There are no wrong notes; some are just more right than others.”

The ultimate in the jazz sound is what has been called the “blue note.” Simply put the “blue note” is a note that is played or sung a half-step off from what would be expected. Blue notes add a sense of tension, surprise, or worry to the sound. It comes from its use in the blues progression. The “sound” of jazz is what has led many to say they may not know what jazz is, but they know when they hear it.

Finally, the seventh element of jazz is style. Jazz is not one style of music- it is a genre made up of these elements and then flowing into numerous styles. Kernfeld, in What to Listen for in Jazz, leaves the idea of style to an epilogue. That way he could look at the elements that can be found in one way or another in different styles. Here are some of the styles that have developed in jazz, and are still breathing life into the genre:

• New Orleans Jazz
• Big Band
• Bebop
• Hard Bop
• Fusion
• Free Jazz
• Latin Jazz
• Acid Jazz
• Jazz Rock
• Kansas City Jazz
• Modal Jazz
• West Coast Jazz

And Wikipedia goes on to list another 30 sub-genres.

Talk about diversity. Talk about having an abundance of opportunities. Talk about a perfect music to have developed in a little more than only 100 years in the United States.

That’s jazz. That’s all there is to it. In 2000 words or less.
The details, are in the hands of the musicians- and of you and me as listeners. That’s where we will go in the next six posts, seeing how these are good metaphors for life and how, when we learn jazz, we are also learning how to live.

Jazz is the type of music
that can absorb so many things
and still be jazz.
-Sonny Rollins

Jazz 1- What About Jazz?

Eight weeks on jazz. Ah, where to begin?

-Me

I could start with a dictionary definition, but that would be almost antithetical to the whole idea of jazz. I could find a quote from some famous jazz musician and place it at the top of this page as an introduction. I could find a video of someone explaining the basics of jazz. But jazz is much more than any of those and far beyond any ability to explain it easily, quickly, or purposefully.

So instead I will do what jazz might encourage. I will riff on the theme. I will answer my own question: What do I want to say about jazz? Here goes:

1. It moves me- just like many forms of music. It moves me internally- I feel good when it hits me. It moves me externally- I physically cannot sit still when listening to jazz. My family will tell you that I direct music when listening to it. Jazz inhabits me and makes me move like no other music.

2. It is a dialogue in sound that occurs through the interaction of different instruments- just like many forms of music. I’m not even talking about improvising at this point. Just the sonic mix of instruments does it. Again, all music requires some sense of interaction in sound, but jazz has taken it and made it into a musical art and craft.

3. It is alive. Even when it is a studio recording there is a sense of a living form that most other types of music may only get through a live concert performance. This is where improvised solos play an important part, but because the music of jazz has grown out of live experiences, it seems to capture that in ways other genres do not.

4. It is almost infinitely adaptable. That is another aspect of jazz being “alive.” Jazz - combo or big band - can play an arrangement of Jim Croce or Lennon-McCartney as easily as it can play the music of the Great American Songbook or the classic music of jazz and Dixieland. On top of that, composers can write music that is new and exciting and it will be jazz.

5. It can stand up with other genres and styles as well as anything. There is Preservation Hall Jazz Band recording with Bluegrass icon, Del McCoury. You can hear Wynton Marsalis in concert with Eric Clapton or Willie Nelson.

6. It is our American music. It is part of the very roots of our American heritage. It describes so much of who we are and the potential of who we can be.

I have been enthralled by jazz for well over 50 years. Jazz has been involved in all of my adult life, moving me, challenging me, inspiring me. It started with Al Hirt’s Java. Herbie Mann’s Memphis Underground kicked me up the side of the head. Les McCann and Eddie Harris with Compared to What gave me more insights. Doc Severinsen, Buddy Rich, Maynard Ferguson, and, above all, Louis Armstrong all contributed even before I graduated from college! I want to share what this has done and why.

You see, above all else, I think jazz is the best musical paradigm for how to live day in and day out. Life is an improvisational exercise. Life is finding the rhythms, harmonies, dialogues, hopes, fears, and emotions to make it through another day. All of that is what jazz does in ways that no other single genre of music can- at least for me.

Sadly it has been reported recently that, as far as music sales go, jazz has become the least popular musical style. That is a long way down from the heights of the big band era when some would argue that Glenn Miller’s In the Mood helped us win World War II. It is a sad departure from the incredible all-time best-selling Miles Davis and Kind of Blue. There are no doubt many cultural factors involved in that, but it still is depressing to think that this rich musical heritage is an endangered species.

So what I will do in the next seven installments of this Tuning Slide series is talk about jazz as I see it. I will explore how it has enlivened me, what it can teach us, and how it can give us all a sense of movement and unity.

Let me close this with a video. Well actually it is a You Tube video of what many consider the greatest jazz solo Louis Armstrong ever made. Way back in the mists of jazz history, Satchmo and His Hot Five recorded West End Blues. It set the standard on which just about everything else is built.

39. Letting Go- A Reminder

The key to change... is to let go of fear.

-Rosanne Cash

Letting go means taking risks.
Letting go is taking action, not resisting
Controlling comes from fear - if I am not in charge, things will fall apart.

From Bill Ferguson's Mastery of Life:

Fear is a state of mind and is created by resisting a future event. For example, if you have a fear of losing someone, you are resisting the future event called, “losing the person.” The more you resist losing the person, the bigger your fear. The bigger your fear, the more you feel threatened. The more you feel threatened, the more you hang on and push the person away. By resisting the future event, you tend to make the fear come true.(How to let go and flow with life)

In a business organization book, Yes to the Mess, Frank J. Barrett relates being part of a jazz combo to successful business practices. Letting go is part of it:

Jazz musicians... often speak of letting go of deliberation and control. They employ deliberate, conscious attention in their practice, but at the moment when they are called upon to play, this conscious striving becomes an obstacle. Too much regulation and control restricts the emergence of fresh ideas. To get jazz right, musicians must surrender their conscious striving...

We're back to the practice room again. A natural place to start the process of letting go. We strive in practice and let go in performance. He is of course talking about improvising, but for most of us this letting go begins with any public performance.

In the words of saxophonist Ken Peplowski, "You carry along all the scales and all the chords you learned, and then you take an intuitive leap into the music. Once you take that leap, you forget all about those tools. You just sit back and let divine intervention take over."

I'm not sure about "divine intervention" in my trumpet playing. I'm not sure that God cares that much about what I play. My interpretation is that when I get in touch with the "spiritual" aspect of playing music, I can more easily let go and allow the music to flow.

But there is another aspect of all this letting go. Unless we are in a solo recital, we do not play alone in public performance. Whether it is a duo or trio, a combo or a wind band, our music has to fit into what the others are playing. Hence the statement I saw on Facebook one day:

Practice is to learn your part;
Rehearsal is to learn the other parts
and how your part fits in.

Wisdom.

But the letting go is really in the next step, the actual public performance. The time when nerves and stage fright, performance anxiety and just plain old "blanking out" takes over.

Here I have to make a confession: I have a very difficult time practicing what I preach when I get into a solo performance. I know I have talked about this before, but it has raised its ugly countenance again. I had some pieces down cold- in my practice room. I got to rehearsal psyched to play- and it was like I had never seen the piece before.

Damn!

Now, to be good to myself, I have made progress. I can play in the quintet and not get that fear. I can play in the concert band and, for the most part, allow my part to sing out. But the solos are still bugging me.

I do know that the techniques of letting go work. They have worked for me. I know from from experience that letting go can move me to new places. I also know that what Frank Barrett talks about above are the problems:

• Striving-
    which means working hard instead of relaxing
• Regulation and control-
  wanting to remain in charge and not trust the flow of the music
• Tense muscles-
  caused by the inner tension and growing unceretainty
• Shallow breathing-
  when we are tense we don't take the time to deeply breathe. We react and the fear cycle of fight or flight kicks in.
• Losing attention-
  and then we are in full time crisis mode.

I have talked about all these things in the past. But they bear repeating and relearning. The need to "Let Go" at those moments is essential. Taking a deep breath, realigning yourself (easier to do if you're not in the middle of a solo!), focus on what is in front of you.

This is simple. I wish it were as easy!

With time, it may be.

From the movie Frozen:

It's time to see what I can do
To test the limits and break through
No right, no wrong, no rules for me I'm free!

Let it go, let it go
I am one with the wind and sky
Let it go, let it go
You'll never see me cry!

Here I stand
And here I'll stay
Let the storm rage on!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Sidenote: I know when all this started for me and I'm going to tell that story in a Tuning Slide extra next Monday. By telling the story I may be able to do some exorcising of that demon instead of continually exercising it.)

24. Assimilate - Practice, Practice, Practice

We are what we repeatedly do. 

Excellence, then, is not an act, 

but a habit. 

—Aristotle 

Last week I mentioned Clark Terry’s three important bits of learning to improvise: Imitate, Assimilate, Innovate.These are also important in growing as a musician in any genre, even if we never have to improvise.

I discussed listening as basic to imitating. In our listening we pick up on things that are going on in the music we are listening to. We pay attention to what is going on within the music and even within our own emotions and responses to the music. Imitation, in Clark Terry’s thought, is learning by ear and then absorbing the feel, articulation and time of whatever you are listening to.

Well, in that absorption something else begins to happen- the second of Clark Terry’s bits: Assimilate.

I looked up the general definition of assimilate before digging into what he meant by it. Here is a little from the Free Dictionary online:

Assimilate means:
1. to learn (information, a procedure, etc) and understand it thoroughly
2. to become absorbed, incorporated, or learned and understood
3. to bring or come into harmony; adjust or become adjusted to
4. to become or cause to become similar

To learn and understand thoroughly, in the case of musical listening is not just saying, “Oh, I get the theory behind what is being played!” It goes beyond understanding what is happening. It is hearing the theory applied. It moves from getting the theory to hearing, feeling, catching hold of what the theory sounds, feels, and perhaps even looks like.

Assimilation then moves to allowing what we learn and understand thoroughly to become absorbed and incorporated in what we are doing. Remember, we are imitating Clark Terry, Miles, Coltrane, or Herb Alpert. Imitation is beyond aping or mimicking- it is absorbing the style so it becomes yours. As a result we ourselves can move into harmony, become adjusted to whatever it is we are listening to and imitating. That is an important step that cannot be overlooked, or short changed.

On the Jazz Advice website where they talked about these three things of Clark Terry’s they described some of this step this way:

Assimilation means ingraining these stylistic nuances, harmonic devices, and lines that you’ve transcribed into your musical conception… truly connecting them to your ear and body. This is where the hours of dedication and work come in.

• Get into the practice room and repeat these lines over and over again, hundreds of times, until they are an unconscious part of your musical conception. 
• Take these phrases through all keys, all ranges, and all inversions. 
• Begin slowly and incrementally increase the speed until you can easily play them. 
• Don’t feel satisfied until you can play these lines in your sleep. 

 This is not an easy step to complete.

Yeah- I know.

So what now?

You are what you practice most. 

---Richard Carlson

Well, the basic answer is go and do it. That phrase above, connecting them to your ear and body, is really the goal.  But can I really do that? Do I have the motivation to do what needs to be done to become a better trumpet player? What about those days when that trumpet looks like it weighs a ton and the mouthpiece seems to have all kinds of nails sticking out before I even pick up the horn?

At this stage of the learning, we are working at being similar in our style to whatever we are listening to. So we just have to keep at it. Maybe we are working on a difficult passage in a classical wind band piece. The notes run by too fast. Keep playing it. Build it up in your head. Listen to a recording of it. (Much gratitude to You Tube on this one!) I have been doing that with that first characteristic study from Arban's book. I found a recording by Paul Mayes of it at full speed and listen time after time to it. What are the nuances? I watch his fingering and see if he uses any alternates. I even watch how he moves the trumpet on his lips. It is the whole process of imitating- hearing, feeling, seeing.

Don't overlook singing the music as well. Part of the assimilation is to get it into your head. Sing it. Then sing it again. Get the feel. I can usually sing something closer to the full tempo sooner than I can play it. But they work together.

These tricks work. They help me pay attention to the music and how I feel as I'm playing. But more than that, they also introduce me to a way of playing that I may not have known before. When I try to improvise, for example, I tend to be more melodic, Miles Davis in "Birth of the Cool" or even Al Hirt in "Java." I have not been able to think fast to do some of the bebop licks. But I have been listening to them and even singing some of them.

What I continue to be amazed at is that this is all taking place for me now- 55 years after I first learned the trumpet. It is possible- and exciting- for an old dog to learn new tricks. Some of it is common sense. Some of it is just the old line- practice, practice, practice. What do I want to become as a musician? Well practice that.

And usually all it takes is to pick up the horn and start those long tones and my mind and body begin to come together. It's about the music.

23. Observe and Imitate

Try to find the best teachers,

listen to the finest playing, and

try to emulate that.

Be true to the music.

-- Wynton Marsalis

I have been reading Words Without Music, an interesting memoir/autobiography by modern American composer Philip Glass. It is a good insight into the creative process of one remarkable composer and how he developed into the person he has become. Reading it with an openness to seeing creativity develop is worth the time. At one point he is describing his working with sculptor Richard Serra. Glass spent several years working with Serra as a "day-job" to support his composing. He expressed to Serra one day that he would like to learn how to draw to which Serra replied that he could do that by teaching glass how to "see" and then he would be able to draw.

That was an eye-opening insight for Glass. He reports the following thought that flowed from it:

Drawing is about seeing, dancing is about moving, writing (narrative and especially poetry) is about speaking, and music is about hearing. I next realized that music training was absolutely about learning to hear - going completely past everyday listening. p. 223 [emphasis added]

This reminded me of an article about Clark Terry on the Jazz Advice website. Terry's three steps to improvising are:

Imitation, Assimilation, Innovation.

That simple. (Yeah. Right!) They define imitation this way:

Listening. Learning lines by ear. Transcribing solos. Absorbing a player’s feel, articulation, and time.

The same as Glass's insight- learning to hear. Paying attention.

We've all heard someone say (or have said it ourselves) that they just don't "get" or "understand" that music.The first time you hear music from a completely different culture based on scales and rhythm that is "foreign" to us, we scratch our heads in wonder. What that means on some level is that we are not listening or able to listen to the music as it is meant to be heard. Our own brains don't expect it to sound that way.

Learning to hear. Paying attention.

But we can keep working at it.  We can keep listening. We can train ourselves to listen differently. Too often we expect things to be just like they have been before. Or in a way that we are used to. Glass himself faced a great deal of criticism and even hatred for the type of "odd" music he was writing. When he started in the 50s and 60s "modern music" was considered the music of the 1900s- 1920s or so. People came on stage and attempted to stop his concerts! They weren't able to hear- and therefore made a judgement about its quality and even its definition as music.

I would go beyond listening to learn to improvise. I think it is essential to being a musician of any type of music. Hearing what it sounds like; hearing what it feels like. Then picking up our instrument and trying to imitate it. The more we listen, the more we are open to hearing, the greater our musical skill will become and the deeper our understanding of music will go.

What this boils down to is going beyond the music theory and an intellectual understanding. The website Brain Pickings has a post from the 1982 book by author and composer Elliot Schwartz Music: Ways of Listening. The book outlines seven essential skills of learning to listen in this age where, he believes, we have been “dulled by our built-in twentieth-century habit of tuning out.”

The first skill is:

• Develop your sensitivity to music. Try to respond esthetically to all sounds, from the hum of the refrigerator motor or the paddling of oars on a lake, to the tones of a cello or muted trumpet. When we really hear sounds, we may find them all quite expressive, magical and even ‘beautiful.’ On a more complex level, try to relate sounds to each other in patterns: the successive notes in a melody, or the interrelationships between an ice cream truck jingle and nearby children’s games.

It's all about hearing. The other six skills Schwartz explains help us guide our learning and our hearing, going deeper and broader.

• Time is a crucial component of the musical experience. Develop a sense of time as it passes: duration, motion, and the placement of events within a time frame.

• Develop a musical memory. While listening to a piece, try to recall familiar patterns, relating new events to past ones and placing them all within a durational frame.

• If we want to read, write or talk about music, we must acquire a working vocabulary.

• Try to develop musical concentration, especially when listening to lengthy pieces.

• Try to listen objectively and dispassionately. Concentrate upon ‘what’s there,’ and not what you hope or wish would be there.

• Bring experience and knowledge to the listening situation. That includes not only your concentration and growing vocabulary, but information about the music itself: its composer, history and social context. Such knowledge makes the experience of listening that much more enjoyable.

This isn't just about music, of course. The relation to writing, or cooking, or being good at your job can be easily made. From the Brain Pickings post:

Perhaps most interestingly, you can substitute “reading” for “listening” and “writing” for “music,” and the list would be just as valuable and insightful, and just as needed an antidote to the dulling of our modern modes of information consumption.

Go for it. Listen!
Then, really hear.
Then imitate.

21. Be Crazy- Crazy Good!

Those who dance were thought to be insane 

by those who could not hear the music.

I know- I ended last week's post with that same quote. Well, consider it the theme, the phrase that ties last week to this week. It is a segue into what is like a coda to last week. For when I was finished typing it for last week, I could hear the unmistakable voice of camp director, Mr. Baca:

Are you crazy?

and the response, as always

Yeah- crazy good!

Not sure what to say about that I Googled the phrase "crazy good" and ended up at the online Urban Dictionary where I found:

a. Awesome, amazing, cool, stunning, super cool

Knowing the humility for which we trumpet players are so well known (?), that made sense. Hey- this is about being "crazy good." Awesome, amazing, etc. It is beyond just plain good. Man, it's crazy good!

But that's not what the quote is about. It's more than being especially good, talented or stunning. And sure enough, right after that first definition was another:

b. The feelings following an enlightenment; typically in creative work (elevation of work of art, idea, ability, level of happiness), where one is playing with and extending further. As the paradigm has shifted, others may express the genuine feeling you have actually gone crazy, however the opposite could be true and the path to awesomeness is being cemented.

Wow. Now that I have had happen. A moment of enlightenment, that old "Aha!" moment, leads down a path that you had never thought you would be following. The idea or ability or level of happiness is beyond what we have thought to be "normal." And that can feel like crazy!

Isn't that what musicians are looking to do- go beyond the "normal," find the new idea, the new experience, even in the song you have played hundreds or more times?  You finish playing that exercise in Clarke or the Etude in Concone and you find yourself sitting in silence. Something has just happened. You can't explain it, but you know it is real. People may look at those hours of practicing studies from the 19th Century and look at you and say,

What? Are you crazy?

and you smile and say,

Yeah- Crazy  good!

Or you are sick and tired of that piece your band plays every gig. There isn't even a place of solos or improvising. Sure, the group plays it well. You should after how many times you have played it. But then there's that moment when the audience stands and applauds and you realize you have just played it in a way that you never remember before. Sure, same notes, same rhythms. But the groove? The expression? The tightness of the group? You smile to yourself and say,

Yeah- Crazy good.

Or there's that memory of that place on the west facing lookout at the park. There's room for maybe 20 or 30 people- and the place is full. It is almost sunset on a perfect day. People are chatting and discussing everything from the weather to politics to how to keep the kids quiet long enough for you to see the sun set.

You didn't need to worry. As the sun sinks into t he western horizon and the colors begin to grow and deepen, the crowd speaks more softly. Even the children are entranced by this every day event as daylight lessens and shadows lengthen. You realize that the whole group is now silent. Adults and children in awe of one of the most common events on the planet. In awe as if there has never been one like it- and never will be again.

Try to explain that to someone who may not be able to get it, who doesn't hear the music of the sun or the birds in the forest behind you. Try to describe what it means to one of those overly logical-types who want answers.

What? Are you crazy or something?

Yeah- crazy good!

The past few weeks I have written about the language of music and the ability to speak it, live it, understand it, play it. It is a wordless language that makes no sense to someone who has never experienced it. It is tough enough for most of us on those days when the lip won't stay on the right note, the brain forgets how to play a "G major" scale, and you run out of breath half-way through every phrase.

But we keep coming back because we know the language and we know it works. Not every time, not every day, but when it happens, we are transformed.

So, I will end by again quoting Mr. Baca:

Let's get crazy!
Crazy good!

20. Sing, Play, and Dance

Everything in the universe has a rhythm,

everything dances.

― Maya Angelou

Last week I wrote about Joshua MacCluer and a post he wrote titled "10 Principles for Learning Music for Beginning and Amateur Musicians." Just to put this week into context, here are the first five:

1) Start with the “Why?”
2) The goal is to learn to speak music, not to learn how to play an instrument.
3) At the beginning, there are no mistakes or rules.
4) All hail the groove! Find and feel the groove before you play.
5) Don’t worry about the notes! Make it feel right!

Where does he take this list? Let's follow him...
(Note: that the italicized text is from MacCluer's post. The others are my thoughts.)

6) Listening is at least as important as playing.

• We must develop the ability to listen to others and play at the same time. We must also learn what to listen to at what time. ...For example, one technique is listen to a song several times, each time listening to a different instrument or element of the music. First listen to the bass line. Then the groove. Then the feeling. Then the drums, the woodwinds, the keyboard, the violins, then the dynamics. The choices are unlimited. The most important step at the beginning is developing the ability to move our ears away from our own playing to other players or elements of the music.

I will have more to say about this one in a later post. Music is meant to be heard, just like language. It is communication. What have others had to "say" in their music? Listen to it. What does Arban's 1st Characteristic Study sound like when it is played well? You will find it on You Tube. Sometimes if you are having trouble finding a groove- find a performance and listen for it. Then find it in your playing.

7) Don’t practice, jam!

• Jamming is the way to learn any language.... [T]he way to learn any language is to listen, imitate, and jam.... we don’t recite speeches, we have improvised conversations. Every conversation we have with other people is an improvisation! Jamming in music is playing improvised music with other people, trying things out and learning to play with others in a way that works.... Learn to listen, reach and find new things, feel the groove together and talk about the same thing musically, in an improvised and relaxed setting.

One of the interesting things I experienced last summer at the big band and trumpet camps was practicing with another musician. One of us would play the exercise, then the other would. It accomplished a couple of things, First it helped each of us hear the piece or exercise from the other side of the horn. We pick up nuances and phrases that way. Second, it keeps us from rushing through our practice. We pay better attention. It is only a small step from that to "jamming" together.

8) Play with other music as much as possible, even when practicing. Always keep a musical context when playing.

• If there is no one to jam with you today, it’s best to find some music to play along with. Even if you are playing your scales, having a groove to play with is very helpful. Playing with recordings or drum tracks or loops is much better than playing alone.  It is also super fun and very educational to play along with recordings by great musicians of your favorite songs. Make it feel right when you play along with pros on the recording, and it will feel right when you play with people in real life.

This goes back to the listening- and moves it further. Sure, you may do this when trying to transcribe a song, but what about just to play along with Miles Davis or the Canadian Brass? I have learned many wind band and quintet pieces that way over the years. I can feel their groove and find my place in it. And, as MacCluer says above- it really is "super fun."

9) Sing!

• The ideas we want to express [in our music] live inside of us, waiting to be expressed in the real world. However, the connection between our inner world and the outer world must be developed. The best way to do this is through singing. It removes our technical limitations and allows us to find our inner voice and ideas much more easily. Singing should be a daily practice for all musicians.... Once we know what we are hearing or trying to play, it is much easier to produce that in real life.

I don't do it as often as I should, but singing a piece should probably be a standard of playing new or difficult pieces. Someone said at camp last summer that if you have already sung the piece, you are no longer sight-reading. Amazingly- it works. Sometimes I will sing the exercise before playing it a second time. Again, that slows me down (resting as much as playing!) and helps me get the groove a little more firmly established in my head.

10) Learn to move with the music.

• Along with finding our voice another primary goal of music is to feel and live in the groove. The groove does not live in our heads but in our bodies. Therefore, dancing and playing drums is also very helpful. If we dance and feel the music in our bodies or maybe with a small percussion instrument, we will truly be in the flow of the musical experience and the music will flow easily and happily through us....Dancing gets the music in our whole body, and makes for much closer connection with the musical energy. So dance! It’s fun and feels great. If you’re embarrassed, do it in private, and dance your way through the music you want to play. The rhythm and groove you get from that will make the instrumental playing much easier.

Dance. Move. Let the music express itself in your body language. At a recent concert one of my friends commented on the musicians on stage. They had no energy. As you watched them you almost expected them to fall asleep mid-note. Now, there are professionals and top-notch musicians who may not move much in their performance. (Bob Dylan comes to mind, but then his musical and verbal language is so rich, he lives the movement!) So moving when practicing (or singing or listening) does make sense.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That groove thing keeps coming back, doesn't it? Well, after writing last week's post on these 10 principles, I was doing my daily practice. After I got warmed up, etc. I pulled out one of the Concone Lyrical Studies, #7 to be exact. I have had this problem that these "lyrical" studies have not felt all that lyrical. They are a collection of notes, one after the other, on the page. In language terms, they are words strung together in a foreign language that I haven't been able to understand. I have also found it more difficult to give slow, lyrical pieces the emotion they deserve.

Well, earlier last week I had found a You Tube recording of #7 and listened to it. It was okay, but it didn't move me. So I did what MacCluer has talked about. I sang it, then started to play it listening and feeling for the "groove." Surprise, surprise. There really is a groove in Concone #7! The next thing I knew I was playing in that groove.

I liked it enough to play it again. I found myself moving with the music as I played it. I can't say I was dancing, but the music sure was.

This is why, at age 67, I am still a student and still learning. There is always something new in the next piece, in the middle of the old Arban's or Concone, or waiting in an unexpected phrase on the next page, around the corner of tomorrow, or even as I take a moment to pay attention to the groove of my own life and the music I make. I call this blog series reflections on life and music. If it works in the practice room, it will work in all our relationships.

• Sing.
• Play.
• Dance.

And one of my favorite all time quotes:

Those who dance were thought to be insane 

by those who could not hear the music.

19. Why?

Music is a language that doesn’t speak in particular words.
It speaks in emotions, and if it’s in the bones,
it’s in the bones.

― Keith Richards, According to the Rolling Stones

In some of my surfing this past week I came across the website of Joshua MacCluer, trumpeter, educator, performance coach. One of the links was to a post he wrote titled "10 Principles for Learning Music for Beginning and Amateur Musicians." While most of us are probably well past the "beginner" level, I found the list a good refresher of what we are all about as musicians. It also reminded me that even if I am not a professional musician or music educator, many times it is in the ensemble work of learning from each other that we can make a lot of progress. This blog has been for me a way to concretize my own learning and practice as a musician.

Back to MacCluer, though. Here are his first five principles. Comments in italics are from his explanation:

1) Start with the “Why?”

• If we forget our real “Why?” while we are playing we might start thinking the answer is something like, “I want to not make mistakes” or “I want to get it right” or “I want to not embarrass myself” or “I want to win this audition” or one of many ego-based desires that make music making much more difficult. Instead, we should figure out our real personal “Why?” and remind ourselves regularly, especially while we are playing music. This is very important.

What is your real "Why?"

Several of mine- I can't stop making music. My life without it would be dull. The performance is one of the ways of sharing joy. My mind is expanded, skills developed, joy embodied. It's been happening for almost 55 years now.

2) The goal is to learn to speak music, not to learn how to play an instrument.

• Music is a language. Therefore, like any language, the foremost goal is communication. If we want to learn how to communicate with music, it is much more important to learn what music is and how it works and how to express ourselves with it... I believe a lot of music can be more easily learned away from the instrument, or using other instruments like our ears, imagination, voices, hands, feet and bodies.

I discovered this several years ago when I started playing in a Big Band. Almost all of my trumpet playing for decades was "concert" material- the great repertoire of wind bands. While I had listened to jazz and Big Band for just as many decades I had little experience playing it. I found it was a whole new world. I struggled. A lot! Fortunately I was 4th trumpet and could easily drop back (or out) when it got to the tougher parts without being missed. While I "knew" the language of jazz and big band, I couldn't "speak" it with my horn. I still had the wind band to play in and there, even with new numbers, I could drop back into a style and language I knew. It kept my chops up and helped me technically while I was learning to speak "jazz."

I am now able to do a lot more with that 4th trumpet part. Last summer at Shell Lake Big Band I learned I know the language and can even play some of the improvising. I am becoming more multi-lingual.

3) At the beginning, there are no mistakes or rules.

• Self judgement closes down the mind and kills learning... The principle here is don’t worry about mistakes. It’s not about “getting it right” it’s about expression. Just play and have fun, and learn quickly and easily like a child

I will be doing a lot more with this one over the next couple months with the Inner Game ideas. Suffice it to say, this is important!

4) All hail the groove! Find and feel the groove before you play.

• The groove is where the magic lives in the music.... The first step of playing music is to connect to the groove. How to do that? Quiet your mind and try to feel it. Focus on the feeling of the music and getting that feeling into your body. You will know you have found it when your body starts to want to move with the groove.

This can be an important part of learning the language talked about above. I know, almost instinctively, the "groove" of a Sousa march, a Holst Suite, an Alfred Reed or Samuel Hazo arrangement. I read over the piece, even if I have played it before, and my body wants to move with it.  That's the groove. With jazz I have felt the groove through decades of listening. Now I am learning how to express that movement through the horn.

5) Don’t worry about the notes! Make it feel right!

• Here’s a secret about music: people don’t listen to music, they feel it. If a song has all the right notes but doesn’t feel right, it doesn’t work.... Right notes with bad rhythm are wrong notes... Victor Wooten’s Rule #1, “Never lose the groove to find a note.” ... If you play a wrong note with perfect rhythm, in most cases most people will not even notice. It will slide right past their ears because the feeling is right.

Naturally this doesn't mean play whatever you want. That is the language of gibberish, the mumbling and noise of pre-language. But it does mean that it is more than just the right notes, the technically correct but lifeless string of notes. Remember in a language that the same words are available to the high school student essayist and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author. It's more than using the words, it is how and why (!) you use them. It is the passion and emotion embodied in them. Feel the music- let the feeling flow.

 I am excited by these principles. They lay more of that foundation that is essential to the continuing growth of my music. I will explore more of these in the next five of MacCluer's principles next week.

What are your reasons "Why?" Let me know.

16. Making It a Story

Where words fail, music speaks.

― Hans Christian Andersen

Who knows what Frank Foster had in mind when he wrote the wonderful Blues in Hoss' Flat or what Count Basie thought as he put together the band playing the number? It is a fine tune with lots of style, flair and pure joy. Most of us don't think much about the meaning behind the songs we hear or play, especially if they are instrumental. It is just a song.

But don't say that too loud. Music has probably been telling stories since the first cave dweller pounded in some sort of primitive time. Last year at the Big Band Camp at Shell Lake we did the Blues in Hoss' Flat. But first we watched this video- a classic by Jerry Lewis from his movie, The Errand Boy. Take a couple minutes and enjoy it.

Lewis is, of course, pantomiming a "chairman of the board" leading a meeting. Does it help to know that the original Basie album was titled Chairman of the Board? Even if it doesn't, Lewis' interpretation is a wonder to watch. I can never hear the number without this pantomime playing in my head as well.

My first real introduction to "serious" music appreciation was back in junior high (dates me, huh?) when the music teacher dropped the needle at the start of an instrumental piece. She gave us the simple instruction, "What do you hear?" No name, no introduction, just that question. Through the speaker came the opening bars of one of the great works of American music of the 20th Century, An American in Paris. It didn't take me long, even with my 7th grade ears, to hear a street scene, car horns and soon I saw people scurrying to and fro. After a few minutes, she stopped and asked what we heard. I don't remember what anyone else said. I'm not sure I even said anything myself. But when she told us the name and what Gershwin was doing I was blown away.

I had heard the story in the music. I had heard what the composer was trying to tell me without having words get in the way. That one day in class 55 years ago changed my life. I don't always hear stories in the music I listen to. Sometimes I look at the name a composer gave to a song and try to put it to the music. For example, I don't know what Miles had in mind when he titled one of his numbers, Solar. But I hear the sun and energy, light and bright skies when I listen. But then Bruce Hornsby, Christian McBride, and Jack Dejohnette put a different arrangement of the same song on their album, Camp Meeting. Now the sun and light and energy are placed in a different context. I still see the power and light, but now it's in the spiritual context of a tent or camp meeting. Same notes, same basic song - but now a whole new story is being told.

Isn't that what we try to do when we play? More on this sometime in the new year. For the next few weeks spend some quality time listening to instrumentals, stories without words, and find the stories they tell you.