4 ms·
Totally agree. The practice is what's important. My teacher won't let you look at sheet music for songs at first, he'll make you listen to Donna Lee 1000 times,
by mtalantikite 4y ago
Totally agree. The practice is what's important. My teacher won't let you look at sheet music for songs at first, he'll make you listen to Donna Lee 1000 times, sing it and work it out yourself before you check your work with the sheet music.
Which reminds me of an anecdote in Hampton Hawes' autobiogrophy [1] where some famous teacher convinces him to take a lesson, after which Hampton writes he didn't really care for all of that theory stuff, he learned from playing with people like Mingus and Charlie Parker.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_Hawes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_Hawes
- analog31 4y agoI'm a jazz musician, and have likewise learned very little theory. On the other hand, there is a lot of attrition in jazz, so watch out for survivor bias. And it depends on what you want to do. Everybody I know who is active in composition and arrangement is fluent in theory. Being able to create original material is super cool and valuable. And there were certainly theory experts among the greats.
- mtalantikite 4y agoOh absolutely, there's always the anecdotes of Coltrane carrying around Slonimsky's thesaurus, or George Russel claiming Miles used his lydian chromatic concept. But personally I find none of it really makes much sense until I sit down with the theory and practice it on my instrument. Memorizing theory with flash cards, like the OP mentioned, I don't find to be all that helpful.