mr dave

you can't have one without the other.

just like you need to learn the rules before you can break the rules - you need to learn technical chops before you can forget them.

anyone who tries to tell you different has either never actually picked up an instrument or sounds like a combination of every single sample they've ever managed to get their hands on and absolutely nothing of their own voice.


as for the current 'find me jazz that's exciting, and metal that isn't boring' crap, stop whining about being covered in crap if you refuse to stop crawling. they aren't styles meant to be spoonfed to passive listeners. either you step up and find what strikes your soul or you get the hell out of the way.

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Dayvan Cowboy

the best part is, fritter's the guy that told me that I listen to too much bizarre hipster crap.

fritter

I don't mind it but it always bores me. Since I've heard jazz songs outside that album and they always bore me, why wouldn't I assume the entire genre would bore me? I know enough about jazz in general to make that sweeping assumption. I was in school band playing percussion in MS and HS, and I went to a few Jazz Band practices in 9th grade then realized it was all boring me so much I didn't want to be a part of it.

I didn't ask to find me "metal that isn't boring." I wasn't talking about metal in general, I was talking about progressive metal with lots of technicality and complex instrumentation. One of my friends shows me enough of it for me to have an informed opinion about it. It's really annoying you're assuming I'm a passive listener just because I expect music to get my attention without me forcing it to.

There's no contradiction caused by what I've said here and how I said you listened to too much bizarre hipster crap. Maybe I should have said "weird hipster stuff." Is that better?

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Dayvan Cowboy

Just all of the things you say make you sound more ignorant by the second.

OctaneHugo

Because, git, when you're hearing 14-year-olds playing jazz music it doesn't represent fu‎cking Coltrane, Davis or Kirk. And if you think it does, kindly keep your braindead opinions out of your posts. Of course, there's also the matter of age - if the last time you actually listened to jazz was 9th grade and you're now 24-years-old, you're just being a stubborn a‎sshole. You might know some names but you don't know the music.

What you consider an informed opinion would probably be considered very little knowledge by many people. When your only contact with a genre is 10th grade jazz band or a friend showing you songs they like, you don't have an "informed opinion". Until you go out and actively fu‎cking participate, you know sh‎it about music. Go find some jazz or some prog metal and give it a listen, if you like it find more of it, read about it. Soak up information. Don't rely on outside sources for your musical opinions because then you're not bloody better than someone who listens to everything except rap and country.

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Janszoon

Because it's a massively diverse genre that's been around for nearly a century.

A couple 9th grade jazz band practices isn't any kind of meaningful exposure to jazz.

What you're saying here is basically like saying you've heard one Beatles album and covered a couple Elton John songs in a high school marching band so you're well informed in your opinion that rock music is boring.

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Ska Lagos Jew Sun Ra

Personally, I don't honestly think this is always the case. If you give a man or woman a noise making machine for long enough, and he or she has the right heart for it, and time, he or she will produce something that you can call music. Sometimes, with time, and experience, technical itself can be redefined. There are plenty of brilliant self taught musicians who don't play things by the book.

In fact, we wouldn't have the blues a good majority of modern American music genres are created from if we didn't have slaves freed who didn't need have access to knowledge of the white world of music, and needed to create something new with their spirit. Sure, with the communal value eventually a rule set was built, yet in the end, it was created simply from experimentation.

Furthermore, Tons of musicians learn to play simply from taking their instrument and imitating things. Eddie Van Halen used to sit at home all day with his guitar trying to play along with what he heard on the radio. Some could say that's learning your technical chops in a way but really, it's more getting a feel of your instrument to ear.

I mean, to this day, Van Halen is pretty much considered one of the most influential guitarists ever, and when you think about it, his technique is incredibly improper and incorrect compared to ten or twenty years before him.

Fact of the matter is, proper technique helps, but no matter how you chose to learn, they're all just roads to the same place.

mr dave

from the top, you could also keep throwing poop at the wall all day every day and eventually someone might walk by an proclaim that it looks exactly like La Guernica. that doesn't mean you've somehow channeled Picasso or accomplished anything more substantial than the average 2 year old.

Blues comes from Gospel, who do you think forced the slaves to worship their Gods? it also wasn't created from experimentation it was created from the need for expression.

Furthermore, sitting on the edge of your bed trying to play along to everything you hear on the radio is the EPITOME of polishing your technical chops. it's all about mimicry. EVH's influence extends through every single poofy haired cheeseball that we all had the benefit of having to suffer through in the 80s. thanks. to say his technique was considered 'improper and incorrect' prior to him denies people like Jimmy Page, Chuck Berry, and JIMI FREAKING HENDRIX their rightful places as actual innovators who eschewed tradition once it ceased to benefit them.

what EVH brought to the table was speed and.... wait for it... TECHNICAL virtuosity within the confines of popular music. he does deserve credit for that, but he didn't break a single rule, he just leaned on the line for his whole career.

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Dom

I don't believe it's necessary for a good song, but it like having better tools. It allows you to do a better job, but it doesn't mean you will do a better job. On top of this, I find hearing immense technical skill in a song has its own charm. For example, if I hear an amazing guitar solo I always have that extra feeling of awe at the skills involved, which adds to enjoyment of the song. However, I also know many songs which I love but aren't technically difficult. Often great songwriting can make up for a lack of technical skill; and occasionally vice versa.

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Ska Lagos Jew Sun Ra

Blues is an incredibly different beast than gospel. It may have been based of Gospel but you cannot say they are all that similar. The biggest thing is Blues came from the fact that African Americans were introduced to a new variety of instrumentation that they've never seen before, and had to make up new rules for it. They may have loosely based it off the gospel/African tribal music but there's no way you can simply shift that to guitar without completely rewriting the book.

Hendrix is another good example of somebody who learned entirely outside the confines of traditional rule(Where as Page being an experienced studio guitarist is the opposite. Even if he did opt to break the rules when he had the opportunity). However, there are a few things Van Halen did differently. He had that little finger tapping thing. As for people influenced by him, couldn't give a ****. I myself believe that Van Halen as a band was extremely hit and miss. However, I think he was well more an inventive guitarist than you give him credit for. I mean, the way he introduced speed in itself I would say is creative.

My point is, he learned his technical chops but not be necessarily learning the rules. Suppose the phrase "You have to learn the rules before you break them" can't be taken too literally. But If eel it's kind of too easy of a phrase for elitist instrumentalists to toss onto self taught instrumentalists. The fact that Technical virtuosity was brought to the table is kind of enforcing my point that they're all roads to the same place. That you can break the rules very well before you learn them, or that you can very well break the rules entirely and make up your own.

Van Halen might not have been the best example but he's really the only mainstream figure I could think up to where I know how he developed his technique and how unconventional it was. Hendrix probably would have been a better example because he was very much an incredibly rule defying self taught musician.