Analytical Blog
Essential Question: How does listening to different types of music affect one as a musician?
This question I formed due to the large amount of musician friends that I have who only listen to one style of music. One thing that I have noticed about a lot of people is that they find one style of music and only listen to that style and nothing else. I personally have no problem with that, but it makes me wonder how it effects their musicianship. There are a few jazz cats that I play with who only listen to jazz and nothing else. In their playing, I rarely hear anything but jazz. Which sounds awesome except for when I am looking to hear some out sounding stuff! With the huge degree of talent that these people have, I wonder what they would be like as musicians if they also learnt how to play some other styles of music, if their approach to playing jazz would change at all.
In Herbie and Miles were the best people to read about when it came to answering this question of mine. Throughout his career, Herbie played a lot of different styles of music, from funk, soul, rock, jazz to classical. This is really shown through his different compositions. My favorite is a song of his titled "Tell Me A Bedtime Story". This song is technically falls under the category of jazz due to its structure and approach. The one thing that this song has that a lot of standard jazz does not have is the accents of many different styles of music incorporated. In the bridge of this tune, there is a sequence of chords that fall in odd places throughout the 5 or so bars that it is contained in. This type of chordal movement is not usually seen in jazz. Especially when the chords have no key specific relationship to one another. How Herbie used them was genius. He pulled from his knowledge of classical music and made it work. Due to the way that the melody is written and how the chords fall throughout the circle of fifths, the chords work beautifully together. The use of funk is later heard from Herbie's compositions when he wrote Chamelion and Cantaloupe Island. A Jazzy approach is used when improvising over this tune, yet the accompaniment is approached with a funky RnB thing in mind. When it comes to Miles, his change can be seen throughout his entire career. When Miles began listening too Jimi Hendrix, he ended up writing Bitches Brew, an album that featured the aspects of rock and space that Hendrix produced.
I think this applies to my jazz playing. My favorite style of music is blues and soul music. When playing jazz, I like to go between a jazz approach and a blues approach. Especially over key specific tunes like Alice In Wonderland and Someday My Prince Will Come. It adds a really nice contrast when the majority of what is heard is vertical jazz approaches. I love playing music with people who know how to play jazz but are mostly blues fans. I got to experience this when I spent a week at Berklee last year. I met a kid named Jon Hay who is a monster when it comes to blues, but also spends a lot of time listening to Jazz. Due to this, the both of us were able to play the blues and take it places that most blues musicians were not able to take it due to the lack of jazz in what they listen too.
Tell me a bedtime story
Here is tell me a bed time story! great song!
This question I formed due to the large amount of musician friends that I have who only listen to one style of music. One thing that I have noticed about a lot of people is that they find one style of music and only listen to that style and nothing else. I personally have no problem with that, but it makes me wonder how it effects their musicianship. There are a few jazz cats that I play with who only listen to jazz and nothing else. In their playing, I rarely hear anything but jazz. Which sounds awesome except for when I am looking to hear some out sounding stuff! With the huge degree of talent that these people have, I wonder what they would be like as musicians if they also learnt how to play some other styles of music, if their approach to playing jazz would change at all.
In Herbie and Miles were the best people to read about when it came to answering this question of mine. Throughout his career, Herbie played a lot of different styles of music, from funk, soul, rock, jazz to classical. This is really shown through his different compositions. My favorite is a song of his titled "Tell Me A Bedtime Story". This song is technically falls under the category of jazz due to its structure and approach. The one thing that this song has that a lot of standard jazz does not have is the accents of many different styles of music incorporated. In the bridge of this tune, there is a sequence of chords that fall in odd places throughout the 5 or so bars that it is contained in. This type of chordal movement is not usually seen in jazz. Especially when the chords have no key specific relationship to one another. How Herbie used them was genius. He pulled from his knowledge of classical music and made it work. Due to the way that the melody is written and how the chords fall throughout the circle of fifths, the chords work beautifully together. The use of funk is later heard from Herbie's compositions when he wrote Chamelion and Cantaloupe Island. A Jazzy approach is used when improvising over this tune, yet the accompaniment is approached with a funky RnB thing in mind. When it comes to Miles, his change can be seen throughout his entire career. When Miles began listening too Jimi Hendrix, he ended up writing Bitches Brew, an album that featured the aspects of rock and space that Hendrix produced.
I think this applies to my jazz playing. My favorite style of music is blues and soul music. When playing jazz, I like to go between a jazz approach and a blues approach. Especially over key specific tunes like Alice In Wonderland and Someday My Prince Will Come. It adds a really nice contrast when the majority of what is heard is vertical jazz approaches. I love playing music with people who know how to play jazz but are mostly blues fans. I got to experience this when I spent a week at Berklee last year. I met a kid named Jon Hay who is a monster when it comes to blues, but also spends a lot of time listening to Jazz. Due to this, the both of us were able to play the blues and take it places that most blues musicians were not able to take it due to the lack of jazz in what they listen too.
Tell me a bedtime story
Here is tell me a bed time story! great song!
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