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> For them it is about playing pieces perfectly regarding their technique and adding personal expression. Therefore, the choice of fingering is crucial. Jazz pi
by stuffedBelly 9y ago
> For them it is about playing pieces perfectly regarding their technique and adding personal expression. Therefore, the choice of fingering is crucial. Jazz pianists, on the other hand, concentrate on the "What". They are always prepared to improvise and adapt their playing to create unexpected harmonies
I minored in music at college and studied both jazz and classical composition/theories. One key takeaway I had from my education is that notes that may considered to be dissonant in classical music are in many cases acceptable in jazz, given the chordal context and how a player chooses to resolve it as progression goes.
I'd even expand a bit further and say that not only musician's brains work differently, but also brain activities of the audiences might differ when listening to jazz and classical pieces. Typically a classical audience might be a bit uncomfortable hearing a dissonant note and treat it as a "wrong note" while a jazz audience might think a dissonant note as being temporarily "out of box" to create tension and expect it to be resolved later.
- the_cat_kittles 9y agogood point. what constitutes a mistake is very different in each genre. and YES, there are mistakes is jazz.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y agoOnly if the "mistake" wasn't afterward incorporated into the improvisation does it become an actual mistake.
- the_cat_kittles 9y agothere lots of ways to recover, and varying degrees of mistakes, sure.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y agobut after "recovering", what would have been a mistake is no longer a mistake.
- the_cat_kittles 9y agosure, some of the best shit happens when recovering.
- analog31 9y agoWith skill, yes. But if you're at my level as an improviser, it's possible to play notes that sound like mistakes, followed by additional notes that don't sound like recovering. ;-) Sometimes, the whole passage just sounds like it didn't work, or that I was lost, which I probably was. There are also chord changes that are too complex for me to interpret in real time. Adding to my woes, between any two wrong notes, there are infinitely many wrong notes on my instrument.
- sjclemmy 9y ago“If you play a bum note, play it a couple more times and it sounds like you meant it” Eric Clapton, I think.
- stuffedBelly 9y agohence it's important to have a good understanding of the chordal context when performing jazz. Outside notes that are too far away from the progression would likely be mistakes, but then there is this exception of atonal music. The more I studied harmony and theories, the more I'm overwhelmed by the possibilities when it comes to composition and improv.
- melq 9y agoI've studied jazz for many years, and my experience supports your points in your third paragraph. I've heard a lot of questions about the 'wrong notes' when introducing someone to a recording or something. I've also heard a lot of people express the sentiment that they aren't sure a jazz pianist isn't just playing random notes, which I think is in line with the way of thinking you mentioned.
- agumonkey 9y agoSomething funny I noticed in me. I was pretty much into funk and jazz harmonies all my life. But lately when life became harsh. Classical music harmonic fluidity and lightness appealed to my mind a lot more. Also because I got less thrilled by microlevel effects and paid more attention about larger movements which seems prevalent in classical music. Jazz feels like forever tripping without ever falling. Everything is twisting and tilting, and somehow the goal is almost to make it the most daring move (after all syncopation is about that) that keeps the rotation going.
- stuffedBelly 9y ago> Everything is twisting and tilting, and somehow the goal is almost to make it the most daring move (after all syncopation is about that) that keeps the rotation going haha, this is an appropriate description about playing from free jazz pioneers like John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman
- petre 9y agoI've tried Coleman in every way but he just pushes it too far. Coltrane is entirely a different thing.
- UncleMeat 9y agoLate Coltrane is as out there as the most out that of Coleman's work. Ascension and Science Fiction are both going to be tough sells to people without some familiarity with free jazz.
- disantlor 9y agolikewise Lonely Woman by Coleman, at least to my ears, fits in alongside more “normal” jazz, except maybe for the plastic sax tone
- golergka 9y agoWhat about modern academic music, which often sounds even more dissonant?
- beat 9y agoI was going to mention that in my comment, but forgot. If you define "classical" as composed, academic music, then much of its 20th century output is just as dissonant as jazz, sometimes more so.
- stuffedBelly 9y agoAre you referring to atonal music using composition systems such as the Scheonerg method? In that case, even if most of it sounds dissonant, it's still composed through a systematic approach, meaning notes/harmony are carefully choosen and left little room for 'out-of-box' improvisation
- beat 9y ago(Improvising musician porkpie hat on) All music based on western harmony is about dissonance. Or more to the point, the movement of dissonance to consonance, tension to resolution. I once had an excellent lesson that explained it to me. Movement around the Circle of Fifths is a measure of increasing tension - each step becoming increasingly dissonant, until you hit the halfway point (the tritone) and start resolving back toward consonance. So even a simple fifth is "dissonant". It creates tension and demands resolution. It's not perceived as "dissonant" because it is "normal". It's only when you push out of the listener's comfort zones that it becomes weird and wrong. In other words, the perception of dissonance isn't musical, it's cultural. Jazz music pushes harmonic dissonance a lot farther than "classical" does, so jazz listeners are much more accustomed to it. It doesn't sound wrong to hear tritones, or minor seconds, or diminished and altered triads, or stacked fourths. Dissonance is welcomed and encouraged. Even resolutions are often decorated with dissonance.
- stuffedBelly 9y ago> the perception of dissonance isn't musical, it's cultural This is a good point.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- TheOtherHobbes 9y agoAnd historical. Some of the intervals in this Frescobaldi piece sound dissonant to modern ears, but a lot of the effect comes from a pre-equal-temperament scale tuning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R24hEh5c5g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R24hEh5c5g
- mushishi 9y agoI liked this explanation of harmony using different levels of musical comprehension (by Jacob Collier, featuring Herbie Hancock) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRkgK4jfi6M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRkgK4jfi6M
- yesenadam 9y ago>notes that may considered to be dissonant in classical music are in many cases acceptable in jazz It sounds like you're assuming Mozart vs Coltrane or something. Stockhausen vs Lester Young and it's entirely the other way round.
- dizzystar 9y agoYet Prokoviev is among them most played orchestral music in the USA, and he was definitely not someone who played in consonance. Quite the opposite, actually.