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Is the making of music an expression of the joy you feel inside you, and if so, where do you find what you need inside you, to do it, given today's developments? If it's not an expression of joy, to you, what is it?
The Making of Music
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Sax, Flute, Keyboard, Vocal
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If I'm playing keyboard its a puzzle and a race to see if my mind can figure it out. If its on flute, it exploring tone and doing it different everytime adding something special. If its on sax I space out and then wait for the applause ? I really always thing of my audiance. I'm there to help them through whatever they are going through. I do alot of convalecent work so when I play a song and an 80 year old reacts in a good wayk I'm happy. K
The music is the music. Playing it and listening to it help the player and the listener to forget about troubles for a little while. For me, whatever might be going on in the world has no bearing on my music. I'm not into interpreting current events or history in song. If you can't let go of the negativity in today's world when it comes time to play, you are in serious trouble as a musician.
Music for the sake of music . I've always loved to play so that's what I've done my whole life .
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For me, as a self-taught player, music as we teach and learn it is full of negativity. It asks an intensely abstract and austere logic of us. Until we reach the level of pure sound, music is mostly just rules, and those rules must be learned and drilled for themselves, out of context.
The negativity comes because what you might do, learn, or discover on your own, outside of that system, is worth very little. It might be hugely inspiring - in fact it might be why you do music at all - but it is basically one giant bad habit. If you do it right but learn it wrong, you're doing it wrong.
Ooof. Now I'm depressed. If it's that bad for you why not do something else with your time? Take up golf. Heh!
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Golf puts me to sleep. Music keeps me alive.
I just have to approach it as a gift I have been given which has problematic aspects, and sometimes those aspects can't be dealt with - they just have to be accepted.
I was joking about golf. It is the most frustrating game in the world. A game of rules and drills and a game where you will never, never, ever achieve perfection. Even the best players on the planet putt the ball into the hole on the first try about 10% of the time. Like music, so much of it is about native talent, something you are either born with or not. I was reading about Justin Rose and how he first shot under 70 when he was eleven years old. I started playing at about that age and nearly 60 years later I've never broken 80. I rarely break 90. And yeah, I've spent thousands of dollars on lessons to no avail. I actually got worse after the last round of lessons.
Music is the same for me. So much of it is neuro-muscular. You either have it or you don't. I was above average in junior high and high school, making 1st chair clarinet for a while. But there was always that kid who just stood out. Someone who was 12 or 13 and played and sounded a cut above everyone else. I've taken the lessons and practiced for hours at a time but I've never reached a professional level and never will. Some of it's lack of total commitment and some of it's not attaining proper study habits. But I believe a lot of it is inborn talent. Nobody can help you if you don't have it. I still like to play but I go through times when I just don't feel like it because it's frustrating. I've gone years without picking up an instrument and I've gone years where I try to practice some every day. I've finally learned to accept my limitations. That makes it a lot easier to enjoy what I can do.
Music is the same for me. So much of it is neuro-muscular. You either have it or you don't. I was above average in junior high and high school, making 1st chair clarinet for a while. But there was always that kid who just stood out. Someone who was 12 or 13 and played and sounded a cut above everyone else. I've taken the lessons and practiced for hours at a time but I've never reached a professional level and never will. Some of it's lack of total commitment and some of it's not attaining proper study habits. But I believe a lot of it is inborn talent. Nobody can help you if you don't have it. I still like to play but I go through times when I just don't feel like it because it's frustrating. I've gone years without picking up an instrument and I've gone years where I try to practice some every day. I've finally learned to accept my limitations. That makes it a lot easier to enjoy what I can do.
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yeah, sorry that I missed the golf analogy. 
coming up loving classic jazz on records, I always felt that learning to play in those days was like being a potato chip. (lol - but hold on for the analogy) you might come out of the fryer various shades of brown, but you were going to be a different shape than others, and that was more or less accepted, because there was room in the bag.
nowadays it's more like Pringles. you need to go thru more thorough, uniform processing than just getting sliced and fried. and you can be many different flavors, but you have to be the same shape, because the bag is now a can, and there's no extra room.
and nobody will help you if you do. they'll try...but you both will lose patience. because expectations are rigid, and so is the method. there's little negotiating with it.
coming up loving classic jazz on records, I always felt that learning to play in those days was like being a potato chip. (lol - but hold on for the analogy) you might come out of the fryer various shades of brown, but you were going to be a different shape than others, and that was more or less accepted, because there was room in the bag.
nowadays it's more like Pringles. you need to go thru more thorough, uniform processing than just getting sliced and fried. and you can be many different flavors, but you have to be the same shape, because the bag is now a can, and there's no extra room.
I suppose there's lot to that, especially if you're talking in terms of a formal music education. That's something I never had. I looked into taking some music classes while in was in college studying bio/sci/biochem. They weren't allowing non-music majors to take classes at all. It would have been fun to get away from the grind of science education.
There's no reason a person can't be self taught. All the masters of 60-70 years ago were self taught. My main problem with the whole jazz scene today is that guys are still playing songs our grandparents were listening to. I'm not that much into it but as far as I know there isn't a lot new coming out in the jazz world. It's all new takes on old standards that guys 60 years ago were doing. Yawn. I did attend a concert two or three years ago by a big name in the jazz world and all his stuff was new but for me it was nearly unlistenable. The word cacophonous came to mind. Or maybe discordant. Noise.
There's no reason a person can't be self taught. All the masters of 60-70 years ago were self taught. My main problem with the whole jazz scene today is that guys are still playing songs our grandparents were listening to. I'm not that much into it but as far as I know there isn't a lot new coming out in the jazz world. It's all new takes on old standards that guys 60 years ago were doing. Yawn. I did attend a concert two or three years ago by a big name in the jazz world and all his stuff was new but for me it was nearly unlistenable. The word cacophonous came to mind. Or maybe discordant. Noise.
Well, as a combination of old hippie and old jazzer I basically reject the idea that everyone has to do it a particular way. I'm sure that'll lose me some gigs, but I think it's gotten me some too.yeah, sorry that I missed the golf analogy.
and nobody will help you if you do. they'll try...but you both will lose patience. because expectations are rigid, and so is the method. there's little negotiating with it.
coming up loving classic jazz on records, I always felt that learning to play in those days was like being a potato chip. (lol - but hold on for the analogy) you might come out of the fryer various shades of brown, but you were going to be a different shape than others, and that was more or less accepted, because there was room in the bag.
nowadays it's more like Pringles. you need to go thru more thorough, uniform processing than just getting sliced and fried. and you can be many different flavors, but you have to be the same shape, because the bag is now a can, and there's no extra room.
All of my real musical heroes went their own way.
Hendrix
Rahsaan
Coltrane
Garcia
Beiderbecke
Parker
Coleman
Fripp
and so on.
If people don't like what I'm doing, it's not really any skin off my neck. I avoided the jazzo-pedagogico-industrial complex as a young musician and I really don't feel like I've been unduly scorned for doing so.
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Form, intonation, harmony, memorizing tunes, idiom...there's a lot of techniques that require a lot of work. None of this is music. These are tools. Amazing tools but music is sound. Within the sound ls a universe of potential vulnerabilty, creativity, and accessing if the unconscious. Moreso if the focus is on improvising. It can be incredibly difficult to make the focus be not on the techniques but on the unknown. For me, this struggle is well worth it. The OP asked about playing cettain feelings. I think that's a profound thing to focus on. My focus is more on disappearing into the music. Focus and concentration are at the center of this. Often, nothing exists but the music. This has led me to have less and less inteterest on "me" and more on "it". Our conscious minds are puny. Our access to a stream of intelligence that is unplanned is endless.
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I work at music ( listening, practicing, transcribing, reading) and I can "hear" something I want to create. To paraphrase an author who was asked if he loved writing : "No, I don't love writing.I love 'having written'".
I get pleasure from having worked at the music. I feel much better after I've done my work.
I get pleasure from having worked at the music. I feel much better after I've done my work.
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"Today's developments" don't do anything to ruin music for me (leaving aside the sad fact that gigs are not presently available). But playing music focuses my mind to the point that the outside world pretty much disappears. It requires that level of concentration. And yes, overall it brings me joy. But it's also very cathartic, especially playing blues! Both joyful and sort of letting it all out. If keeps me sane, for the most part.
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This post comes the closest. I think it might be some endorphin related thing, related to a similar feeling after exercise. And other feelings; performing spoken works, creating paintings and drawings, being moved to dance, feeling a shared group camaraderie, reaching an audience, achieving clarity from meditation --- music contains all of these and its own something also. When we extemporize, my bass player exclaims, "Let's light up both sides of the brain!"
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