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Not to be dramatic but I really think this vid is potentially life changing. I’ve had ideas/feelings floating around and this concept reifies it so perfectly. Thank you for sharing this.
I find it often difficult but immensely worthwhile to talk to people who feeling-love music as someone who tries to action-love music. If it were anything else, wouldn't the natural impulse - when you do love something - be to learn more about it? Follow in the footsteps of people you think are great at it? Be patient and grind it out, make it work? If you love music as much as you say you do, why wouldn't you do as much as you could? Or just be honest about what you want out of it? Sometimes I would respect the person who tells me "I like and support what I listen to as much as I can, but I have to stop because I have other priorities" more than the person who loves the art but hasn't transcribed a single recording, or remembered the last time they really sat down and unpacked a concept to make their playing/composition/songwriting better. Of course, you can't action-love too many things in love. Many of my friends in the scene where I live are great at relationships and are great catches, but ultimately make the choice to love music. It is respectable, but it is also a tragedy of our limitations as people. For these friends, I wish they could have their cake and eat it too.
This is super valuable. Despite practicing a lot of bebop recently to develop improvisational chops and flow, I think my strength is chords. I’ve been really tuning into the sound that I love the most, Glasper, Yussef, Rob Arujo, Kiefer, and I’m like … damn, I actually love Neo Soul and beats/groove playing. I think I’ve gotta lean into that, produce more grooves, focus on developing my style instead of virtuosity.
Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed the video. Just remember to work hard on the music that you really love and don't feel pressured to make music that isn't your bag. That said, if you did want to play music like mine like you mentioned, I just wanted to jump in real quick with an asterisk and say that bebop melodicism is extremely important to how I play, so if you did want to dig on that I'd highly recommend getting into that stuff. But again, what's most important is that you seek to understand and play the music that matters to you most, whatever that is.
Learn from the past but play in the present. Learning Bebop and Straight Ahead Jazz builds a foundation you can do anything with. You want to play Funk and Groove go listen to Roy Hargrove album Hard Groove. Roy is a master of feel and Hard Groove is funky as hell, then go listen to Roy's other albums and he's a master of Straight Ahead Jazz and Latin that stuff built his foundation. Learn from the past and play in the present. Take that Bebop assignment from school and make it into the Groove music you like you're going to learn a lot from that process. Miles, Herbie, and other as said to of said this doesn't matter who actually said it, but it is truth.... Learn everything you can then forget it all and just play. Learn from the past play in the (your) present.
