Originally I had planned to be an arranger of instrumental groups. I was inspired by my high school band teacher, Mr Tillman Buggs. He was from Indianapolis, Indiana and was one of the fastest arrangers of notation I have ever seen. He could write out parts for an 18 piece big band and hear something he didn't like and collect the parts and make corrections on multiple parts and hand the charts back to us in less than 15 minutes. I started taking private lessons from him when I was a Freshman in high school. The lessons were informal. I bought a manuscript book and he told me to write out all of the major scales and the three forms of the minor scales reserving each pitch it's own individual measure. Next he wanted me to harmonize each individual pitch starting with minor seconds, then major seconds, then augmented seconds, then minor thirds, major thirds and augmented thirds ect...... So I would continue to make the intervals larger and larger until I was up to one octave and then two octaves up to the Perfect 15th.
My regular piano teacher did not like Mr Buggs and he was highly opinionated so he told me so. He said this after I told him what I was doing with Mr Buggs. My regular piano teacher who I paid $3.00 for a half hour lesson once a week was Dr Granuel Whittemore. He was a local legend in music. Whittemore had graduated from Roosevelt University or Chicago Musical College for his undergrad degree and then Julliard in Manhattan for his Master's and Doctorate in Fine Arts. He had been a Warrant Officer in the segregated US Army during WW2. Now at home in the late 50's and going into the early 1960's he was a choir director and male chorus director for First AME church. However he did not teach me what I wanted to learn. My mother had asked him to teach me chords or harmony so I could learn how to understand harmony/counterpoint and be able to play piano by ear and teach people how to sing by rote using their ears. Whittemore never did do that. He wasted my time a lot and had me learning to be a concert pianist which was very unrealistic. I played for his recitals every year at his church. It was a showcase of how great of a teacher he was. Hardly anyone was a lover of classical music in the working class town of Gary, Indiana. What we were playing was way over the heads of the audience were were performing for. I was one of his most advanced students but not his most advanced. He had about 5 who were more advanced than me. I was the silver medal winner among the boys. Billy Foster who was about three years older than me was the gold medal winner. The rest were girls. The girls were usually more disciplined and several were older than me. I quit or was asked not to come back when I performed part of my piano composition and added some improvisation to stretch it out a little more. I can't remember the piece. It was some master-work. I was way past the graded books and was performing the actual works written by master serious composers. The only people who knew I had improvised was a girl who was older than me. I believe her name was either Estes or Eskew. I can't remember since this was nearly 50 years ago. I often wondered what happened to all of those kids who put countless hours into practicing the piano. None of them were ever successful in music so far as big names. Billy Foster and I were the only ones that I know who continued to pursue music as undergrad and grad music students. We were the only ones out of that generation or group who were professional performers and professional music teachers on the public school and college level.
I had trouble finding musicians who could read music. Most of the cats around Gary could not read or were very poor readers. The older generation were pretty good readers but most were retiring or had retired from playing their instruments and had gotten jobs in the steel mills. Only a few still played but that was mostly by ear and only tunes they already knew. They were not conducive to learning anything new or reading music. So my writing skills got stunted. I never developed as an arranger of instrumental music.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
My Musical Life Z to A
I think I am going to tell this story in descending chronological order. I am going to start at the end and work my way back to the beginning. This is my musical life Z to A rather than A to Z.
I am working on two songs for a church program coming up on 9/9/2012. They are "I Believe" by Kathy Taylor, and "He is a Mighty God" and I am sure who wrote that song. These songs are presented to me on the spot without any preparation. So I have adapted to being very flexible and have learned how to improvise on the spot.
I can play thousands of songs. I really do not know how many songs I can play, but I know it's a lot more than a few hundred. I have pretty equal facility in all the keys so I am thinking in what I now call "The Big Key". I can adjust and adapt so quickly until the lead singer can be singing in one key and the choir in another key and I can follow both of them where it sounds okay. I can start following either a choir or a lead in one key and they can change keys and I can instantly transpose to the new keys as they appear. I never thought that was humanly possible.
I have learned how to listen to a song one time and play a reasonable facsimile of it instantly. In some cases I don't even get a chance to hear a song all the way through and I can figure the song out as the song goes along. Since the choir director does not know that it is humanly impossible to do she forces me to do it all the time and I have gotten good at it. Another impossible thing I was doing is playing a generic vocal part by rote without even knowing the tune of the song. However I had to tell her I can't really teach vocal parts without knowing the tune or melody. How can you give parts to others in the play when you don't know the play? See it does not make sense. I really don't understand how she thought I could give alto and tenor their parts without knowing what the soprano is. So as she would be teaching and explaining the soprano part and words she would be asking me what is the alto part, and what it the tenor. Unless I can hear the soprano pitch or line I can't develop a harmony. Usually I would first hear her soprano but sometimes she would stop before even saying the words or singing the soprano pitch and ask me what is the harmony. See that does not make sense. You must first have a soprano line. Then you can find harmony lines. The lines are usually under the soprano in pitch although not necessarily. It depends on how you arrange the voices. The melody can be in the alto or tenor with soprano singing a harmony part on top of it.
The Tragedy Of Duke Ellington, The ‘Black Prince Of Jazz’by John Hammond — 11/1/1935
A Musician of Great Talent Forsakes Simplicity for Pretension
Of all our native popular composers Duke Ellington is probably the most gifted and original. For more than ten years, he has been producing, with the aid of the most accomplished orchestra in America, songs and arrangements quite unlike those of any other musician, black or white. His work has been received with international acclamation, in some cases, less than it deserved and in a few, considerable more.
Unlike so many of his contemporaries, Ellington is a hard-working, ambitious individual. Confronted with the undiscriminating praise of critics like Constant Lambert, he felt it necessary to go out and prove that he could write really important music, far removed from the simplicity and charm of his earlier tunes. “Daybreak Express,” and “Rude Interlude.” were the first signs of this, but even they could not prepare us for the pretension of his new 12-minute work, “Reminiscing,” which Brunswick has just seen fit to release on two ten-inch records. The saddest part of the tale is that the composer considers it his most important contribution to the field of music.
The reasons for the complete sterility of this new opus are so numerous that it is difficult to know exactly where to begin. The most logical place would be with the Duke himself, since his life during the last eight years is almost the ideal example of what the modern composer, Negro or white should avoid at all costs.
As a person, Ellington is one of the most completely charming I have ever come across. His disposition is without rival among artists, for he has never been known to lose his temper or do conscious ill to anyone. He suffers abuse and exploitation with an Olympian calm and fortitude, never deigning to fight back or stand up for even his most elemental rights. Unpleasantness of any sort he flees from. He would greatly prefer not seeing the seamier side of existence and has spent most of his recent years in escaping from the harsh reality that faces even the most secure among negroes.
The Duke has been exploited in a way that is absolutely appalling to anyone not thoroughly conversant with the ethics of Broadway. Although he and his orchestra have earned between $5-and-$10 thousand a week consistently for the last eight years, he has received disgracefully little himself. His living habits are exceedingly modest for one in his position, and yet he has accumulated nothing.
Ellington is fully conscious of the fact that Broadway has not treated him fairly, knowing many of the sordid details. And yet, he did not lift a finger to protect himself because he has the completely defeatist outlook which chokes so many of the artists of his race.
It is easier to accept abuse without fighting back than to go through the unpleasantness of rows with associates. As a result, Duke has no time for rest and contemplation. He must be steadily on the run, hopping from one spot to the other in grinding out one night stands, picking up work when it can be had in theaters, and never getting down to any sustained labor. Since his music is losing the distinctive flavor it once had—both because of the fact he has added slick, un-negroid musicians to his band and because he himself is aping Tin Pan Alley composers for commercial reasons—he and his music are definitely losing favor with a once-idolatrous public. And unless there are definite changes very soon, he will be in a very precarious position.
Shuts His Eyes to Abuses
But the real trouble with Duke’s music is the fact that he has purposely kept himself from any contact with the troubles of his people or mankind in general. It would probably take a Granville Hicks or Langston Hughes to describe the way he shuts his eyes to the abuses being heaped upon his race and his original class. He consciously keeps himself from thinking about such problems as those of the southern share croppers, the Scottsboro boys, intolerable working and relief conditions in the North and South—although, he is too intelligent not to know that these all do exist. He has very real fears as to his own future, and yet, he has never shown any desire of aligning himself with forces that are seeking to remove the causes of these disgraceful conditions.
Consequently, Ellington’s music has become vapid and without the slightest semblance of guts. His newer stuff bears superficial resemblance to Debussy and Delius without any of the peculiar vitality that used to pervade his work. The Duke is afraid even to think about himself, his struggles and his disappointments, and that is why his “Reminiscing” is so formless and shallow a piece of music.
There is one extremely significant factor regardless of whatever worth there still exists in Ellington’s orchestra. the majority of the musicians do not accept unfair dealings with the equanimity of their leader. Within the past year, they have struck together twice in my knowledge and won their demands from an unwilling manager. Even the most highly paid among Harlem musicians do not forget the fact that they come from a race that has been traditionally exploited and that a determined fight has to be waged to preserve even their present status.
DB
|  |
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
- Copy and place where you want your heart to show.
- Copy and place anywhere after the code from step 1.
- Copy the script tags and place them inside and at the end of your "head" tag.
- Want to see what the mad scientists are cookin'? Follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook!
The Tragedy Of Duke Ellington, The ‘Black Prince Of Jazz’by John Hammond — 11/1/1935
A Musician of Great Talent Forsakes Simplicity for Pretension
Of all our native popular composers Duke Ellington is probably the most gifted and original. For more than ten years, he has been producing, with the aid of the most accomplished orchestra in America, songs and arrangements quite unlike those of any other musician, black or white. His work has been received with international acclamation, in some cases, less than it deserved and in a few, considerable more.
Unlike so many of his contemporaries, Ellington is a hard-working, ambitious individual. Confronted with the undiscriminating praise of critics like Constant Lambert, he felt it necessary to go out and prove that he could write really important music, far removed from the simplicity and charm of his earlier tunes. “Daybreak Express,” and “Rude Interlude.” were the first signs of this, but even they could not prepare us for the pretension of his new 12-minute work, “Reminiscing,” which Brunswick has just seen fit to release on two ten-inch records. The saddest part of the tale is that the composer considers it his most important contribution to the field of music.
The reasons for the complete sterility of this new opus are so numerous that it is difficult to know exactly where to begin. The most logical place would be with the Duke himself, since his life during the last eight years is almost the ideal example of what the modern composer, Negro or white should avoid at all costs.
As a person, Ellington is one of the most completely charming I have ever come across. His disposition is without rival among artists, for he has never been known to lose his temper or do conscious ill to anyone. He suffers abuse and exploitation with an Olympian calm and fortitude, never deigning to fight back or stand up for even his most elemental rights. Unpleasantness of any sort he flees from. He would greatly prefer not seeing the seamier side of existence and has spent most of his recent years in escaping from the harsh reality that faces even the most secure among negroes.
The Duke has been exploited in a way that is absolutely appalling to anyone not thoroughly conversant with the ethics of Broadway. Although he and his orchestra have earned between $5-and-$10 thousand a week consistently for the last eight years, he has received disgracefully little himself. His living habits are exceedingly modest for one in his position, and yet he has accumulated nothing.
Ellington is fully conscious of the fact that Broadway has not treated him fairly, knowing many of the sordid details. And yet, he did not lift a finger to protect himself because he has the completely defeatist outlook which chokes so many of the artists of his race.
It is easier to accept abuse without fighting back than to go through the unpleasantness of rows with associates. As a result, Duke has no time for rest and contemplation. He must be steadily on the run, hopping from one spot to the other in grinding out one night stands, picking up work when it can be had in theaters, and never getting down to any sustained labor. Since his music is losing the distinctive flavor it once had—both because of the fact he has added slick, un-negroid musicians to his band and because he himself is aping Tin Pan Alley composers for commercial reasons—he and his music are definitely losing favor with a once-idolatrous public. And unless there are definite changes very soon, he will be in a very precarious position.
Shuts His Eyes to Abuses
But the real trouble with Duke’s music is the fact that he has purposely kept himself from any contact with the troubles of his people or mankind in general. It would probably take a Granville Hicks or Langston Hughes to describe the way he shuts his eyes to the abuses being heaped upon his race and his original class. He consciously keeps himself from thinking about such problems as those of the southern share croppers, the Scottsboro boys, intolerable working and relief conditions in the North and South—although, he is too intelligent not to know that these all do exist. He has very real fears as to his own future, and yet, he has never shown any desire of aligning himself with forces that are seeking to remove the causes of these disgraceful conditions.
Consequently, Ellington’s music has become vapid and without the slightest semblance of guts. His newer stuff bears superficial resemblance to Debussy and Delius without any of the peculiar vitality that used to pervade his work. The Duke is afraid even to think about himself, his struggles and his disappointments, and that is why his “Reminiscing” is so formless and shallow a piece of music.
There is one extremely significant factor regardless of whatever worth there still exists in Ellington’s orchestra. the majority of the musicians do not accept unfair dealings with the equanimity of their leader. Within the past year, they have struck together twice in my knowledge and won their demands from an unwilling manager. Even the most highly paid among Harlem musicians do not forget the fact that they come from a race that has been traditionally exploited and that a determined fight has to be waged to preserve even their present status.
DB
| |
Monday, March 14, 2011
Serenity Now
Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I can't change. The courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.
in reference to: Yahoo! (view on Google Sidewiki)Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Scott Free
Scott was promised freedom but was denied it in the end. Dred Scott was a slave to a white man in the South during slavery times in America. The man said that he would write papers indicating that upon his death Dred would be a free man. But when the man died his wife demanded that Dred remain a slave. Dred got a lawyer to represent himself and claim his freedom. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court where the court ruled that a balck man had no rights and Dred became the property of the man's wife. Scott Free is a lie.
in reference to: Investment Research - Zacks.com (view on Google Sidewiki)Monday, November 22, 2010
Nice Book to introduce kids to Science Fiction
Children of Morrow Science Fiction for kids.
in reference to: Missionaries Of St John (view on Google Sidewiki)Just Coolin: Places and Spaces
Just Coolin: Places and Spaces
www.justcoolin.com
Pannonica De Koenigswarter (Rothschild)
(aka: The Jazz Baroness) Patron and supporter of live Jazz Music had a photo collection that has just been released in book form. Some of it is in frames and on display in a gallery.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Monday, August 9, 2010
Newer Concept
Doggone it. I put two posts on Original Man and the second one should have been over here at Gospel Music School. I was explaining circular permutations and follow suite teaching vocal parts. I will explain it it more detail now, If soprano is singing voice one of a particular chord then the soprano will move to voice three on the next chord and then to voice five on the next chord after that the cycle starts over with voice one ect..........
The alto in this case would start with voice three and then move to voice five and then voice one, where after that the cycle starts over with voice three ect.....
The tenor in this case starts with voice five and goes to voice one and then voice three and then after this the cycle starts over.
I have to figure out a way to draw a graphic of this to explain it, because words only confuse it. It needs to be shown as a circle with three numbers on it and arrows pointing either clockwise or counter clockwise.
The alto in this case would start with voice three and then move to voice five and then voice one, where after that the cycle starts over with voice three ect.....
The tenor in this case starts with voice five and goes to voice one and then voice three and then after this the cycle starts over.
I have to figure out a way to draw a graphic of this to explain it, because words only confuse it. It needs to be shown as a circle with three numbers on it and arrows pointing either clockwise or counter clockwise.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Musical Influences
1/1/2009 6:46:11 PM
FORE AND MORE
The record album ‘Four’ and More, recorded at a benefit performance for the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE), catches the Miles, Herbie Hancock, George Coleman Ron Carter and Tony Williams band virtually at the point of Miles’s transformation. While much of the old repertoire is performed, it is rejuvenated by the new style of playing. From the bite of Mile’s opening solo on “So What” it is clear he means to dig in. Many of Miles collaborative compositions exhibit a contemplative strain in their music, as if they were stepping backward, bemused by their own creations; but on this occasion their virtuosity is clearly on its toes, pitches forward. The rhythm section powered by Tony Williams’s exuberant fills, crackles beneath Miles on every track. As Davis biographer Bill Cole recalls the concert, “The total energy level between the performers and the spectators sets sparks flying.”
Miles is a new man on trumpet. He boasts a bold, sometimes harsh, slashing tone. His new technical mastery allows for lines requiring greatly increased agility. The “So What” solo remains aloft in the upper register, a thrilling expressive area for Miles, where he would not (and could not) have ventured a few years earlier. He seems at last to use his technique with complete confidence, prompting more abstract, faster moving interpretations of material that had become second nature. Herbie Hancock has developed a completely personal style as he had been imitative of Bill Evans prior to this date. His strength has been accompaniment, which emerges here most vividly on “Four”, in which his intuitive rapport with Williams and his crashing chords supply powerfully timed accents beneath Miles’s solo.
Early in 1969 Miles Davis began a new transition toward a jazz/rock fusion with In a Silent Way, an experimental album, which was followed by the controversial Bitches Brew. In this final innovative period, Miles would more than triple his audience and at the same time, stun and alienate many of his oldest fans.
JOHN COLTRANE
John Coltrane has had a greater impact upon jazz since 1960 than any other musician, including Miles Davis. His quartet from 1960 to 1965 has probably been the most influential small combo since the Parker-Gillespie quintet of 1945. Coltrane’s music defies a summary description. Coltrane’s enormous influence is based on:
1. his tone and technique on the soprano and tenor saxes;
2. his lengthy, developmental modal, or scalar, improvising; and
3. his wholehearted dedication to music as a moral and spiritual force.
By 1959 Coltrane had reached a plateau of sorts He had played successfully with Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk and on his own Giant Steps, but he was not well known to the public. Sonny Rollins was the most revered tenor saxophonist that year and Ornette Coleman, the most controversial. Coltrane needed his own band to further his career and more important, to advance his music’s evolution.
During 1960 two fortuitous events combined to launch Coltrane’s career commercially. One was his introduction to the Rogers and Hammerstein show tune “My Favorite Things,” which a customer had brought into the Jazz Gallery in sheet-music form, thinking John might like it. Second, by fluke he discovered the soprano sax, an instrument Coltrane would soon make extremely popular. It came into his life on a drive home from a job in Washington, D.C., with two passengers, one of whom, an unnamed saxophonist, sat in the back seat. “He was being very quiet,” Coltrane recalled,
“At Baltimore we made a rest stop, then got back in the car and 30 minutes later realized that the guy in the back wasn’t there. We hoped he had some money and drove on. I took his horn and suitcase to my apartment in New York. I opened the case and found a soprano sax. I started fooling around with it and was fascinated. That’s how I discovered the instrument.”
My Favorite Things, the new band’s first album, was a remarkable success for both Trane and the soprano sax. Coltrane had planned on hiring pianist McCoy Tyner with whom he had played in Philadelphia between stints with Miles. But McCoy was already working for Benny Golson’s Jazztet and Trane was reluctant to interfere until his wife Naima and a friend trumpeter Calvin Massey persuaded him to hire McCoy. McCoy was also a religious Moslem which stimulated John’s spiritual interests. He needed an expansive drummer. He hired Elvin Jones who was a mature, muscular and polyrhythmic drummer, with whom he had jammed frequently. The title track is transformed into an intense chant by extensions of the opening E minor scale and the closing E major scale to several choruses each. The modal or scalar, approach to improvising allowed Coltrane to pack in his own chord changes if he chose, or to pursue a thematic melodic idea, thus providing both vertical and linear development. The swaying waltz rhythm is hypnotic and the exotic sound of the soprano sax was haunting. It fascinated the public and was the first track on which his band found a distinctive sound of its own.
Although Giant Steps was a great individual achievement for Trane and a study for all musicians, it did not carry the influence with the public of My Favorite Things.
That recording did more than give Coltrane the exposure he needed; it became his theme for the next two years. He would often improvise on it for up to twenty minutes in concert, bringing audiences to their feet. Within a year he was voted the best tenor sax player in Downbeat magazine’s Readers’ and Critics’ Polls. The soprano sax became the most popular alternative horn in jazz, a status it still maintains.
At this point in his career, Coltrane was immersed in a whirlwind of ideas and influences. Ornette Coleman’s free soloing without regard to chords encouraged him to take more chances. Eric Dolphy’s great intervallic leaps between registers had a similar effect. Coltrane was also listening earnestly to the nearly atonal solos of John Gilmore in Sun Ra’s Arkestra. Indian music was central to his development at this time. He devised his own scales on which to improvise which were in effect, hybrids of Indian and Western modes. The sitar player Ravi Shankar, whom the Beatles helped to popularize in America, came to hear Coltrane in 1961 and the two discussed making an album together. There had to be mutual admiration because in 1966 Coltrane named his second son Ravi. He and Eric Dolphy both listened to the music of the African pygmies. Books about theory and scales piled up on his living room floor.
The composer of What A Wonderful World Bob Thiele allowed Trane to follow his muse anywhere, and produced Live at the Village Vanguard which featured a sixteen-minute solo on “Chasin’ the Trane,” one of his best performances on record, perhaps revealing the liberating influences of Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy and John Gilmore. Elvin Jones comes into his own on this recording as he helps Trane to build intensity with a wide range of dynamics. This recording demonstrates the qualities which made John the most exciting horn player of the 1960’s. He leaves nothing unsaid has his tone is searching and urgent, with a climax that erupts into vocal cries bubbling up over the horns normal range in squeaks and partial harmonics. The endeavor is earnest, demanding, satisfying and ultimately exhausting. Miles asked him a long time before, “Why do you play so long, man?” Trane replied, “It took me that long to get it all in.” Beyond its emotional catharsis, Coltrane’s lengthy soloing showed improvisers that--with sufficient ideas and stamina—more than the obligatory one or two choruses was possible.
The album’s remaining two tracks show the diversity of his interests. “Spiritual,” another waltz on the order of “My Favorite Things,” reveals Trane’s solemn, incantatory strength on tenor (also soprano, as he uses both horns). The music is a modal piece based upon an actual spiritual John found in the book 200 Negro Spirituals. Dolphy joins him on this track on bass clarinet. Dolphy’s solo, not one of his best, is noticeably soft around the edges, suggesting the influence of Trane’s less angular melodic style. “Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise,” however does reveal an increasing flexibility and a firmness of sound on soprano, on which he achieves a furious, chord-change-based climax. McCoy opens the track with one of his best solos of the early 1960’s.
RELIGIOUS AWAKENING
His interests turned decidedly religious by 1963, reaching their first full musical expression in the album—length “humble offering to God” A Love Supreme. His religious awakening had begun in 1957 when Naima introduced him to the ideas of Islam. McCoy Tyner, also a Moslem, reinforced her influence. But Coltrane’s spiritual quest quickly became self-motivated, perhaps surpassing in intensity that of any other jazz musician. He read often from Krishnamurti and the cabala, yet steadfastly remained a Christian in the tradition of his grandfathers, both well-known ministers. One of them, the Reverend William Blair, was especially active in black politics and a pillar of the community. John’s father and grandfather died within a year of each other.
Coltrane now spoke of his playing as meditation or prayer.
The events of the year prior to A Love Supreme must have been a severe test pf Coltrane’s faith. In 1963 the bombing of a black church in Alabama that killed three children deeply saddened him. His “Alabama,” on Live at Birdland, was written as a memorial; it was set to the speech rhythms of the Reverend Martin Luther King’s eulogy for the youngsters. Then his wife Naima left him. Then in June 1964 Eric Dolphy, John’s closest friend and musical confidant, died suddenly in Europe of diabetic complications (heart attack). They had been so close that it was John to whom Eric’s mother gave his flute and bass clarinet after his death, when she began having nightmares that Eric was practicing on them in the family garage.
In light of these losses, A Love Supreme, recorded in December, is a remarkably warm, hopeful and energetic outpouring. Coltrane was explicit about the religious inspiration of the music in his poem which serves as the album’s liner notes. John once told his mother that he had experienced visions of God while preparing this music, which was ominous to her because she felt that “when someone is seeing God, that means he is going to die.”
The music opens with the shimmering peal of a gong, indicating the seriousness of what is to follow. Then comes Coltrane’s full majestic tone in a rhythmically free prelude to “Acknowledgement” sets the mood. Then the bass plays a four-note-motif: a-LOVE-su-PREME, a-LOVE-su-PREME, which is a perfect unison of words and music. He displays a dazzling variety of tonal colors on his tenor from a newly adopted vibrato to climactic, harmonic “screams” and cries in the horn’s highest register. For the human voice there is chest resonance, throat resonance, mouth resonance, nasal resonance and head tone resonance.
Perhaps the music takes on the Indian notion that scales and sound can be used to convey specific emotional meanings. The gong for example generally signifies an exalted presence, the “One” to whom Coltrane addresses his music. Maybe the free-time opening to “Acknowledgement” and the closing of “Psalm” symbolize the transition into and out of the devotional state. Perhaps the instrument’s “screams” are ecstatic releases. The clear strong middle-register “call” is the energetic offering of the music itself. Who knows what Coltrane had in mind? All of this is conjecture.
Although the four-part suite is admirably integrated, each part is independent and self-sustaining. The music swings yet it the momentum is in now way inconsistent with Coltrane’s solemn intentions. Tyner takes fleet, compelling solos on both “Pursuance” and “Resolution”; and Elvin guides his awesome power and all-encompassing rhythms with flawless control, contributing a compact solo on “Pursuance.” Coltrane’s theme to “Resolution” exudes simplicity, elusive rhythmic strength and completeness. It is perhaps his finest composed line, save for “Naima.”
Coltrane was in no mooed either to rest or repeat himself after A Love Supreme, although his income approached a quarter of a million dollars (in 1960’s money). He was practicing even harder than ever, playing ninety-minute nightclub shows and then disappearing into the back room to practice until the next set. At home in the early morning hours, he would finger the keys without blowing the horn to avoid waking the household. John continued to seek out new influences, inviting young players to sit in with the band to hear their ideas. He searched incessantly for the perfect mouthpiece, a quest he had been engaged in since 1962. He had dental problems and his embouchure was such that he bit into his lips a lot from his jagged teeth and his mouth would bleed from playing so hard and long.
In 1966 Coltrane began to suffer from a liver ailment, which may have resulted from his earlier drug addiction and alcoholism during the 1950’s. His stringent health-food diet did not improve matters significantly and working himself to exhaustion aggravated his condition. Nevertheless, his manner was marked by serenity Coltrane’s thoughts turned increasingly to religion and he considered it a mission “to uplift people” through his music. He lived by his credo. When club patrons, shocked by his overblowing, split notes and screeching in his music after 1965, criticized him abusively, an ordeal he endured with increasing frequency, he did not attempt to silence his detractors. He looked at them calmly with his large eyes, said nothing and walked away. In all the biographies I have read on him there is only one account of him raising his voice in anger—He was provoked by a club owner who did not pay the band as promised. His goals became simple and profound. In the summer of 1966, he told an interviewer: “I know that there are bad forces, forces put here that bring suffering to others and misery to the world, but I want to be a force which is truly for good.” One year later on July 17, 1967, Coltrane died in a New York hospital. Although his own life had been short, he left music of sufficient beauty and originality to inspire others for generations to come. Most of my classmates wherever I have taken group studies in music have been influenced by his music.
FORE AND MORE
The record album ‘Four’ and More, recorded at a benefit performance for the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE), catches the Miles, Herbie Hancock, George Coleman Ron Carter and Tony Williams band virtually at the point of Miles’s transformation. While much of the old repertoire is performed, it is rejuvenated by the new style of playing. From the bite of Mile’s opening solo on “So What” it is clear he means to dig in. Many of Miles collaborative compositions exhibit a contemplative strain in their music, as if they were stepping backward, bemused by their own creations; but on this occasion their virtuosity is clearly on its toes, pitches forward. The rhythm section powered by Tony Williams’s exuberant fills, crackles beneath Miles on every track. As Davis biographer Bill Cole recalls the concert, “The total energy level between the performers and the spectators sets sparks flying.”
Miles is a new man on trumpet. He boasts a bold, sometimes harsh, slashing tone. His new technical mastery allows for lines requiring greatly increased agility. The “So What” solo remains aloft in the upper register, a thrilling expressive area for Miles, where he would not (and could not) have ventured a few years earlier. He seems at last to use his technique with complete confidence, prompting more abstract, faster moving interpretations of material that had become second nature. Herbie Hancock has developed a completely personal style as he had been imitative of Bill Evans prior to this date. His strength has been accompaniment, which emerges here most vividly on “Four”, in which his intuitive rapport with Williams and his crashing chords supply powerfully timed accents beneath Miles’s solo.
Early in 1969 Miles Davis began a new transition toward a jazz/rock fusion with In a Silent Way, an experimental album, which was followed by the controversial Bitches Brew. In this final innovative period, Miles would more than triple his audience and at the same time, stun and alienate many of his oldest fans.
JOHN COLTRANE
John Coltrane has had a greater impact upon jazz since 1960 than any other musician, including Miles Davis. His quartet from 1960 to 1965 has probably been the most influential small combo since the Parker-Gillespie quintet of 1945. Coltrane’s music defies a summary description. Coltrane’s enormous influence is based on:
1. his tone and technique on the soprano and tenor saxes;
2. his lengthy, developmental modal, or scalar, improvising; and
3. his wholehearted dedication to music as a moral and spiritual force.
By 1959 Coltrane had reached a plateau of sorts He had played successfully with Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk and on his own Giant Steps, but he was not well known to the public. Sonny Rollins was the most revered tenor saxophonist that year and Ornette Coleman, the most controversial. Coltrane needed his own band to further his career and more important, to advance his music’s evolution.
During 1960 two fortuitous events combined to launch Coltrane’s career commercially. One was his introduction to the Rogers and Hammerstein show tune “My Favorite Things,” which a customer had brought into the Jazz Gallery in sheet-music form, thinking John might like it. Second, by fluke he discovered the soprano sax, an instrument Coltrane would soon make extremely popular. It came into his life on a drive home from a job in Washington, D.C., with two passengers, one of whom, an unnamed saxophonist, sat in the back seat. “He was being very quiet,” Coltrane recalled,
“At Baltimore we made a rest stop, then got back in the car and 30 minutes later realized that the guy in the back wasn’t there. We hoped he had some money and drove on. I took his horn and suitcase to my apartment in New York. I opened the case and found a soprano sax. I started fooling around with it and was fascinated. That’s how I discovered the instrument.”
My Favorite Things, the new band’s first album, was a remarkable success for both Trane and the soprano sax. Coltrane had planned on hiring pianist McCoy Tyner with whom he had played in Philadelphia between stints with Miles. But McCoy was already working for Benny Golson’s Jazztet and Trane was reluctant to interfere until his wife Naima and a friend trumpeter Calvin Massey persuaded him to hire McCoy. McCoy was also a religious Moslem which stimulated John’s spiritual interests. He needed an expansive drummer. He hired Elvin Jones who was a mature, muscular and polyrhythmic drummer, with whom he had jammed frequently. The title track is transformed into an intense chant by extensions of the opening E minor scale and the closing E major scale to several choruses each. The modal or scalar, approach to improvising allowed Coltrane to pack in his own chord changes if he chose, or to pursue a thematic melodic idea, thus providing both vertical and linear development. The swaying waltz rhythm is hypnotic and the exotic sound of the soprano sax was haunting. It fascinated the public and was the first track on which his band found a distinctive sound of its own.
Although Giant Steps was a great individual achievement for Trane and a study for all musicians, it did not carry the influence with the public of My Favorite Things.
That recording did more than give Coltrane the exposure he needed; it became his theme for the next two years. He would often improvise on it for up to twenty minutes in concert, bringing audiences to their feet. Within a year he was voted the best tenor sax player in Downbeat magazine’s Readers’ and Critics’ Polls. The soprano sax became the most popular alternative horn in jazz, a status it still maintains.
At this point in his career, Coltrane was immersed in a whirlwind of ideas and influences. Ornette Coleman’s free soloing without regard to chords encouraged him to take more chances. Eric Dolphy’s great intervallic leaps between registers had a similar effect. Coltrane was also listening earnestly to the nearly atonal solos of John Gilmore in Sun Ra’s Arkestra. Indian music was central to his development at this time. He devised his own scales on which to improvise which were in effect, hybrids of Indian and Western modes. The sitar player Ravi Shankar, whom the Beatles helped to popularize in America, came to hear Coltrane in 1961 and the two discussed making an album together. There had to be mutual admiration because in 1966 Coltrane named his second son Ravi. He and Eric Dolphy both listened to the music of the African pygmies. Books about theory and scales piled up on his living room floor.
The composer of What A Wonderful World Bob Thiele allowed Trane to follow his muse anywhere, and produced Live at the Village Vanguard which featured a sixteen-minute solo on “Chasin’ the Trane,” one of his best performances on record, perhaps revealing the liberating influences of Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy and John Gilmore. Elvin Jones comes into his own on this recording as he helps Trane to build intensity with a wide range of dynamics. This recording demonstrates the qualities which made John the most exciting horn player of the 1960’s. He leaves nothing unsaid has his tone is searching and urgent, with a climax that erupts into vocal cries bubbling up over the horns normal range in squeaks and partial harmonics. The endeavor is earnest, demanding, satisfying and ultimately exhausting. Miles asked him a long time before, “Why do you play so long, man?” Trane replied, “It took me that long to get it all in.” Beyond its emotional catharsis, Coltrane’s lengthy soloing showed improvisers that--with sufficient ideas and stamina—more than the obligatory one or two choruses was possible.
The album’s remaining two tracks show the diversity of his interests. “Spiritual,” another waltz on the order of “My Favorite Things,” reveals Trane’s solemn, incantatory strength on tenor (also soprano, as he uses both horns). The music is a modal piece based upon an actual spiritual John found in the book 200 Negro Spirituals. Dolphy joins him on this track on bass clarinet. Dolphy’s solo, not one of his best, is noticeably soft around the edges, suggesting the influence of Trane’s less angular melodic style. “Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise,” however does reveal an increasing flexibility and a firmness of sound on soprano, on which he achieves a furious, chord-change-based climax. McCoy opens the track with one of his best solos of the early 1960’s.
RELIGIOUS AWAKENING
His interests turned decidedly religious by 1963, reaching their first full musical expression in the album—length “humble offering to God” A Love Supreme. His religious awakening had begun in 1957 when Naima introduced him to the ideas of Islam. McCoy Tyner, also a Moslem, reinforced her influence. But Coltrane’s spiritual quest quickly became self-motivated, perhaps surpassing in intensity that of any other jazz musician. He read often from Krishnamurti and the cabala, yet steadfastly remained a Christian in the tradition of his grandfathers, both well-known ministers. One of them, the Reverend William Blair, was especially active in black politics and a pillar of the community. John’s father and grandfather died within a year of each other.
Coltrane now spoke of his playing as meditation or prayer.
The events of the year prior to A Love Supreme must have been a severe test pf Coltrane’s faith. In 1963 the bombing of a black church in Alabama that killed three children deeply saddened him. His “Alabama,” on Live at Birdland, was written as a memorial; it was set to the speech rhythms of the Reverend Martin Luther King’s eulogy for the youngsters. Then his wife Naima left him. Then in June 1964 Eric Dolphy, John’s closest friend and musical confidant, died suddenly in Europe of diabetic complications (heart attack). They had been so close that it was John to whom Eric’s mother gave his flute and bass clarinet after his death, when she began having nightmares that Eric was practicing on them in the family garage.
In light of these losses, A Love Supreme, recorded in December, is a remarkably warm, hopeful and energetic outpouring. Coltrane was explicit about the religious inspiration of the music in his poem which serves as the album’s liner notes. John once told his mother that he had experienced visions of God while preparing this music, which was ominous to her because she felt that “when someone is seeing God, that means he is going to die.”
The music opens with the shimmering peal of a gong, indicating the seriousness of what is to follow. Then comes Coltrane’s full majestic tone in a rhythmically free prelude to “Acknowledgement” sets the mood. Then the bass plays a four-note-motif: a-LOVE-su-PREME, a-LOVE-su-PREME, which is a perfect unison of words and music. He displays a dazzling variety of tonal colors on his tenor from a newly adopted vibrato to climactic, harmonic “screams” and cries in the horn’s highest register. For the human voice there is chest resonance, throat resonance, mouth resonance, nasal resonance and head tone resonance.
Perhaps the music takes on the Indian notion that scales and sound can be used to convey specific emotional meanings. The gong for example generally signifies an exalted presence, the “One” to whom Coltrane addresses his music. Maybe the free-time opening to “Acknowledgement” and the closing of “Psalm” symbolize the transition into and out of the devotional state. Perhaps the instrument’s “screams” are ecstatic releases. The clear strong middle-register “call” is the energetic offering of the music itself. Who knows what Coltrane had in mind? All of this is conjecture.
Although the four-part suite is admirably integrated, each part is independent and self-sustaining. The music swings yet it the momentum is in now way inconsistent with Coltrane’s solemn intentions. Tyner takes fleet, compelling solos on both “Pursuance” and “Resolution”; and Elvin guides his awesome power and all-encompassing rhythms with flawless control, contributing a compact solo on “Pursuance.” Coltrane’s theme to “Resolution” exudes simplicity, elusive rhythmic strength and completeness. It is perhaps his finest composed line, save for “Naima.”
Coltrane was in no mooed either to rest or repeat himself after A Love Supreme, although his income approached a quarter of a million dollars (in 1960’s money). He was practicing even harder than ever, playing ninety-minute nightclub shows and then disappearing into the back room to practice until the next set. At home in the early morning hours, he would finger the keys without blowing the horn to avoid waking the household. John continued to seek out new influences, inviting young players to sit in with the band to hear their ideas. He searched incessantly for the perfect mouthpiece, a quest he had been engaged in since 1962. He had dental problems and his embouchure was such that he bit into his lips a lot from his jagged teeth and his mouth would bleed from playing so hard and long.
In 1966 Coltrane began to suffer from a liver ailment, which may have resulted from his earlier drug addiction and alcoholism during the 1950’s. His stringent health-food diet did not improve matters significantly and working himself to exhaustion aggravated his condition. Nevertheless, his manner was marked by serenity Coltrane’s thoughts turned increasingly to religion and he considered it a mission “to uplift people” through his music. He lived by his credo. When club patrons, shocked by his overblowing, split notes and screeching in his music after 1965, criticized him abusively, an ordeal he endured with increasing frequency, he did not attempt to silence his detractors. He looked at them calmly with his large eyes, said nothing and walked away. In all the biographies I have read on him there is only one account of him raising his voice in anger—He was provoked by a club owner who did not pay the band as promised. His goals became simple and profound. In the summer of 1966, he told an interviewer: “I know that there are bad forces, forces put here that bring suffering to others and misery to the world, but I want to be a force which is truly for good.” One year later on July 17, 1967, Coltrane died in a New York hospital. Although his own life had been short, he left music of sufficient beauty and originality to inspire others for generations to come. Most of my classmates wherever I have taken group studies in music have been influenced by his music.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum Performed by Freddie Hubbard&\\D E .3 O . -# . EO 7D7/#9. . O 3 .G7G7G7G7mO . . . 3 D EAO 77AO 7m 3. . B.m# Qa7.GD D FD7. . Q .&.# .D7D7D7D7m. . . . . .G7. .!Q . . .3 EEO 7. O .Q .#3.D7/#9GD&F.G7G7G7G7m. . O . . . . O . O .AO ma7. . O . P . O . O . O .FQ7. . -3O .F7O . .3& .DBO 7. O . . . O .# .EO 7. E O . O . 3 . . O 0 0#3. O . O . .BO 7. O 0 .&F . O . P . O . . O . . O .# .EO 7O . . . O 0 0 0F. . O . O . O .#D&E O .BO 77BO 7m. O . O . . O . .EOO7.. . O . . P . O . P . . .A7A7A7A7m. . Q . . . Q . P . .D7. . . .#&E EEO 7O3. . .# . GED7/#93. . .# . G EG7G7G7G7m 3. . .# . GEAO 77AO 7m.3 O . .# O .G E!BPm.aQ7.# DP .7 ..&. . D7D7D7D7m Q . P . . . .G7. . . Q . P . . O .EO 7O . O . .3 D ED7/#9".O .".# ."C7. . . O .Bma7/#11O . -#& -# O . O . .http://www.grahamenglish.net. O . .EO 7!Q . .D
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Business and Music
Saturday, December 27, 2008
LEARNING ABOUT THE BUSINESS SIDE OF MUSIC
There are many good books devoted to the business of music and there is plenty of information on the internet. Read this information and study it so that you can protect your rights in making business deals and signing contracts. Don’t leave these details to chance and get “ripped off”. When I got past the 6th grade in school and knew how to count my money so people could not take advantage of me I was ready for simple business dealings. Read all contracts thoroughly including the fine print, before submitting them to your lawyer(s). Then go over the contract line by line with your lawyer so you can decide whether to sign or revise the contract. Look for someone who you can trust to help you handle your affairs successfully and then maybe hire someone to look at their books as well. I have been excited about offers I have received offers from people and thought that they were offering me good things to help my career only to find out that these people were not honest and were trying to take advantage of me. Be a great musician and know your craft and at least be a good businessman.
WHAT KIND OF LIVING CAN I EXPECT TO MAKE IN CHURCH MUSIC AS AN EMPLOYEE?
In order for a man to be truly happy and at peace with himself, he needs to have a sense of fulfillment. God has provided me shelter and given me a purpose in life through a ministry in music. The criterion for a happy life is not money, but the fulfillment of mans heart’s desires. This means the cultivation and use of his talents. These things should be placed above the importance of money in order that you live a truly happy life.
God and music have always been very kind to me. I have never had to go without basic survival things for long. I am actually not as well off financially now as I was a decade ago when I was teaching music in public school as well as working for churches, soloists, groups and bands. Although more commercial forms of music provide larger and more immediate finances, church music can be financially rewarding for those who negotiate a fair deal for themselves. Both the church and the musician must be satisfied with the arrangement of the individual contract between the musician and the church. Some churches do not care much about the music in their church and they provide compensation accordingly. However there are other churches that are interested in developing their music departments to the best that they can possibly be. Hopefully you will find a church to work for that is interested in developing its music. The ranges in compensation are quite broad and vary between volunteer musicians who work for free to musicians who make as much as $50,000 a year or more. If you are a member of The American Federation of Musicians, you will get their monthly newspaper, The International Musician. Every year around income tax time they usually publish a listing of deductions that musicians may claim. If you have to report income each year to the IRS, here are some deductions that you can claim.
1. Cost of brand new or newly purchased used instruments; I know some musicians who buy their own keyboards in addition to the instruments provided by the church.
2. Sheet music, music study books, music manuscript paper and music score paper.
3. Prerecorded music in any media format as well as unrecorded cassette tapes.
4. Cost of food, laundry and dry cleaning when out of town on business for the music department.
5. Cost of taxi or bus fare to and from your hotel when you are out of town on business for the music department.
6. Cost of transportation when traveling out of town on business if it is paid by you and not by the church. I went to a convention for black Catholics in Dallas, Texas a few years ago for the purpose of familiarizing myself with black Catholic music under Vatican II of the late Pope John Paul.
7. Cost of robes and/or uniforms if paid by you and not the church.
These are all legitimate deductions that are related to your work.
Be sure to save all of your receipts in case of an audit. Keep a daily diary of all your expenses while out of town on business.
A PLEA FOR NEW YOUNG CHURCH MUSICIANS
There are many openings for choir directors, pianists, organists, keyboardists and good vocal soloists. In addition there is a demand for good instrumentalists on all kinds of other instruments. At this date my son has not shown any interest in following in my footsteps. No child has shown interest or even asked me about taking lessons or learning any thing about music where I work at present. I had one woman who expressed an interest in learning some things from me and she was a senior citizen of who graduated high school around the time I was born in 1950. By the way she didn’t show up for the lesson and has never tried to reschedule or get in touch with me to continue. So these jobs go unfulfilled, often and then sometimes the local “church folk” insult these beginners, intermediates and new journeymen so badly they quit, never returning to music ministry.
When I was a youngster in the 50’s and 60’s there were many of us who took music lessons outside of our regular school classes if our parents could afford it and make the sacrifices for us. I paid for my own lessons after I became a teenager because I was making enough money from playing and teaching students to pay for my lessons which I continued all the way through college. The generations have changed over the years. I once had as many as 15 students when I was in high school and used to have an annual recital for my students at the church where I was playing. My home town of 115,000 people has got 50 different denominations of churches printed in the 2003-2004 Yellow Book. The church community continues to grow since those days. The reason I know this is true is because I just buried my mother back in that town this past November 2008 and saw new churches in several places in addition to the ones that were there when I left there. The controversial Reverend Jeremiah Wright has a new church there since the Barack Obama miracle occurred. Most of these local churches need help in their music departments. They need musicians and can’t get them. They put ads in the local paper and on the local talk radio stations but the positions go unfilled.
One has to study ear training and harmony and know these two aspects of music very well. Some have a natural gift for this but others don’t. However all who pursue it must spend a great deal of time in study and practice. The world needs a new supply of musicians to help keep the music alive and moving forward.
If you have some desire in this direction and you feel you have the natural ability, then you should make a commitment in this direction and dedicate yourself to the highest cultivation of this art that you can possibly bring forth through yourself. May this music continue to survive and bring forth blessings to the public and to those who perform it.
HOW MUCH ARE YOU WILLING TO SACRIFICE FOR MUSIC?
Do you love music enough to make a sacrifice in order to play it? Are you willing to wrestle with the angel and not let go until He blesses you? Sorry to say it is not the music of the masses. We pray that one day it will be, because we who love and perform it make financial as well as other sacrifices in order to perform the music we love and have the privilege of performing.
Do you love gospel music enough to “go through changes”? All of the great masters of this music made great sacrifices! Their names have gone down in history and their contributions to our music will always be remembered.
I notice that the record industry still does not know what to call this music. I have started to see it called “soul” on the internet.
Do you have the courage and daring to become a great exponent of this music? You cannot play it safe and have courage and be willing to take some chances. What kind of “guts” do you have? If you truly love this music, be willing to make any necessary sacrifices. I challenge you to forge ahead to become one of the innovators of this music. The rewards may take a little time coming, but they will definitely be there if you are willing to make those sacrifices for the music we love. The rewards will be three fold: spiritual, mental and material.
LEARNING ABOUT THE BUSINESS SIDE OF MUSIC
There are many good books devoted to the business of music and there is plenty of information on the internet. Read this information and study it so that you can protect your rights in making business deals and signing contracts. Don’t leave these details to chance and get “ripped off”. When I got past the 6th grade in school and knew how to count my money so people could not take advantage of me I was ready for simple business dealings. Read all contracts thoroughly including the fine print, before submitting them to your lawyer(s). Then go over the contract line by line with your lawyer so you can decide whether to sign or revise the contract. Look for someone who you can trust to help you handle your affairs successfully and then maybe hire someone to look at their books as well. I have been excited about offers I have received offers from people and thought that they were offering me good things to help my career only to find out that these people were not honest and were trying to take advantage of me. Be a great musician and know your craft and at least be a good businessman.
WHAT KIND OF LIVING CAN I EXPECT TO MAKE IN CHURCH MUSIC AS AN EMPLOYEE?
In order for a man to be truly happy and at peace with himself, he needs to have a sense of fulfillment. God has provided me shelter and given me a purpose in life through a ministry in music. The criterion for a happy life is not money, but the fulfillment of mans heart’s desires. This means the cultivation and use of his talents. These things should be placed above the importance of money in order that you live a truly happy life.
God and music have always been very kind to me. I have never had to go without basic survival things for long. I am actually not as well off financially now as I was a decade ago when I was teaching music in public school as well as working for churches, soloists, groups and bands. Although more commercial forms of music provide larger and more immediate finances, church music can be financially rewarding for those who negotiate a fair deal for themselves. Both the church and the musician must be satisfied with the arrangement of the individual contract between the musician and the church. Some churches do not care much about the music in their church and they provide compensation accordingly. However there are other churches that are interested in developing their music departments to the best that they can possibly be. Hopefully you will find a church to work for that is interested in developing its music. The ranges in compensation are quite broad and vary between volunteer musicians who work for free to musicians who make as much as $50,000 a year or more. If you are a member of The American Federation of Musicians, you will get their monthly newspaper, The International Musician. Every year around income tax time they usually publish a listing of deductions that musicians may claim. If you have to report income each year to the IRS, here are some deductions that you can claim.
1. Cost of brand new or newly purchased used instruments; I know some musicians who buy their own keyboards in addition to the instruments provided by the church.
2. Sheet music, music study books, music manuscript paper and music score paper.
3. Prerecorded music in any media format as well as unrecorded cassette tapes.
4. Cost of food, laundry and dry cleaning when out of town on business for the music department.
5. Cost of taxi or bus fare to and from your hotel when you are out of town on business for the music department.
6. Cost of transportation when traveling out of town on business if it is paid by you and not by the church. I went to a convention for black Catholics in Dallas, Texas a few years ago for the purpose of familiarizing myself with black Catholic music under Vatican II of the late Pope John Paul.
7. Cost of robes and/or uniforms if paid by you and not the church.
These are all legitimate deductions that are related to your work.
Be sure to save all of your receipts in case of an audit. Keep a daily diary of all your expenses while out of town on business.
A PLEA FOR NEW YOUNG CHURCH MUSICIANS
There are many openings for choir directors, pianists, organists, keyboardists and good vocal soloists. In addition there is a demand for good instrumentalists on all kinds of other instruments. At this date my son has not shown any interest in following in my footsteps. No child has shown interest or even asked me about taking lessons or learning any thing about music where I work at present. I had one woman who expressed an interest in learning some things from me and she was a senior citizen of who graduated high school around the time I was born in 1950. By the way she didn’t show up for the lesson and has never tried to reschedule or get in touch with me to continue. So these jobs go unfulfilled, often and then sometimes the local “church folk” insult these beginners, intermediates and new journeymen so badly they quit, never returning to music ministry.
When I was a youngster in the 50’s and 60’s there were many of us who took music lessons outside of our regular school classes if our parents could afford it and make the sacrifices for us. I paid for my own lessons after I became a teenager because I was making enough money from playing and teaching students to pay for my lessons which I continued all the way through college. The generations have changed over the years. I once had as many as 15 students when I was in high school and used to have an annual recital for my students at the church where I was playing. My home town of 115,000 people has got 50 different denominations of churches printed in the 2003-2004 Yellow Book. The church community continues to grow since those days. The reason I know this is true is because I just buried my mother back in that town this past November 2008 and saw new churches in several places in addition to the ones that were there when I left there. The controversial Reverend Jeremiah Wright has a new church there since the Barack Obama miracle occurred. Most of these local churches need help in their music departments. They need musicians and can’t get them. They put ads in the local paper and on the local talk radio stations but the positions go unfilled.
One has to study ear training and harmony and know these two aspects of music very well. Some have a natural gift for this but others don’t. However all who pursue it must spend a great deal of time in study and practice. The world needs a new supply of musicians to help keep the music alive and moving forward.
If you have some desire in this direction and you feel you have the natural ability, then you should make a commitment in this direction and dedicate yourself to the highest cultivation of this art that you can possibly bring forth through yourself. May this music continue to survive and bring forth blessings to the public and to those who perform it.
HOW MUCH ARE YOU WILLING TO SACRIFICE FOR MUSIC?
Do you love music enough to make a sacrifice in order to play it? Are you willing to wrestle with the angel and not let go until He blesses you? Sorry to say it is not the music of the masses. We pray that one day it will be, because we who love and perform it make financial as well as other sacrifices in order to perform the music we love and have the privilege of performing.
Do you love gospel music enough to “go through changes”? All of the great masters of this music made great sacrifices! Their names have gone down in history and their contributions to our music will always be remembered.
I notice that the record industry still does not know what to call this music. I have started to see it called “soul” on the internet.
Do you have the courage and daring to become a great exponent of this music? You cannot play it safe and have courage and be willing to take some chances. What kind of “guts” do you have? If you truly love this music, be willing to make any necessary sacrifices. I challenge you to forge ahead to become one of the innovators of this music. The rewards may take a little time coming, but they will definitely be there if you are willing to make those sacrifices for the music we love. The rewards will be three fold: spiritual, mental and material.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Thursday, December 25, 2008
DEDICATION:
How dedicated are you? Have you dedicated your life to music? If you wish to make any kind of music that is improvisational and not written down as your strength, then you must dedicate your life to it. You have to marry this music. It must come first above and beyond everything else. With this kind of attitude and perseverance, your success will be assured. There will be mountains to climb, but with your aspirations to succeed, those mountains are surmountable. If you take care of music, then music will take care of you.
If you make your decision to dedicate yourself then move forward. Then your life will be one of fulfillment, contentment and happiness.
SPIRITUALIZING THE SENSES - MENTAL AND PHYSICAL PLAY
The roots of improvisational music stem from African tribal music frequently used in the performance of religious rituals. This music was brought to America by slaves and eventually evolved into Negro Spirituals, and black gospel music. These styles of music are folk music. That is common people created this music and it was passed on to others in the community and to the coming generations by word of mouth rather than by media. Blues, jazz, Soul, Rhythm and Blues, Hip Hop, Rap and other Popular American Commercial music including Rock and Rock and Roll have borrowed from this original music. Essentially all good music has a spiritual quality. This inherent quality is capable of uplifting the soul of man. The listeners as well as the performer are both blessed spiritually. We, who have worked to cultivate the gift of music, love our instrument and dedicate our life to the cultivation of the music and our instrument. The true musician puts musical integrity, love and dedication to his art above fame and fortune. All the love he puts into his music is synonymous with the spirituality that will come out of it.
MENTAL PLAY
To perform this kind of music requires intellect. To listen and really hear this kind of music requires intellect as well. You are challenged to concentrate on it to get the most out of it. You are required to let the music into you without filters. This allows the music to get into your spirit. You absorb the music by letting the music consume you. This kind of music stimulates the minds and uplifts the souls of those who perform it as well as those who listen to and immerse themselves in it. As the mind is stimulated and the soul uplifted, the bodies of the producers and listeners reflect this uplifting in improved mental health and well being.
There is a possibility that you have experienced times when you were totally absorbed and moved as you listened to a great performance of music and realized that your physical aches and pains were gone, but returned after the music had ceased. This is an example of the uplifting, stimulating, mind altering, blessing and healing aspects of good music.
Good music is dedicated to truth, purity and principles that line up in harmony with nature and foster a holistic approach to life and can tap into the universal consciousness of humanity.
PHYSICAL PLAY
Some music is for moving your body and some is for listening. Patting your feet, clapping your hands and moving your body are entertainment and healthy exercise for the body. Some music brings joy and happiness to the soul and mind which in turn reflects in the body.
In order to maintain consistent great performance of music, you are required to put all of your spiritual, mental and physical energies into the music. Your love, intellect and strength have to be projected whole heartedly “in and through” the music. You are challenged to give your all! You are required to hold nothing back. Do not accept halfway is good enough in your own musicianship or those musicians which whom you are making music. Try for an A+ every time. B+ effort is not acceptable, so you have to develop, spiritual, mental and physical discipline. Stay in shape and never allow your intellect or physical energy to become dull or lazy. Never allow yourself to become complacent about your art. Always strive to do better. Keep seeking to experience more. Search more and give more. This is SERIOUS PLAY.
EGOTISTICAL MUSIC
If you are a composer of music then you have a great deal of freedom in how to manipulate the elements to create your music, as performers or interpreters we have less freedom, but still have enough freedom to ruin or improve upon the music the composer has written. Egotistical music has no thought of gratification for the listener. It sounds vibrations and frequencies only for self-gratification. It says “see how smart I am and what I can do”.
Strive to develop unselfishness in your music. You have been given a talent to share with the world, that all may be gratified by it. You may have a great talent, but your ego will not permit you to consider the gratification of your listener. Your career may suffer. Your destiny may be unfulfilled. The unfulfilled creator of music suffers a terrible inner pain. Frankly in my opinion Contemporary, Abstract or Modern Serious Music of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries lost its audience because of ego.
Make your music with a conscious desire to gratify the listener, and not as a sell-out or commercial artist seeks out slick music business people to be exploited so as to make the most money he can by dumbing down his music to as simple as he can get it. There are countless Rock Stars who have done this over the years as they use the media to brain wash the unsuspecting public with low quality music. People like this are not musicians they are exploiters of most people’s lack of knowledge about what they are hearing in music.
The conscious desire to gratify the listener will become subconscious and part of your natural way. Think of yourself as a channel through which God strives to uplift mankind. What a privileged and honored position you have been placed in. Become aware of the good that you can do through your talents. Once you become aware of and accept this responsibility, there won’t be any room left for your ego to get in the way of your music. With the right attitude your music will expand to gratify and uplift the listener and lead you to the total fulfillment of your destiny. Strive to make music in such a manner that others may be gratified and that you may be fulfilled.
THE LIE OF DRUGS AND ALCOHOL
Some would have you believe that drugs and alcohol help a musician to perform better. All of the great musicians that I have had the honor of working with who were into drugs and alcohol performed greatly not because of the drugs and alcohol, but in my opinion, in spite of the handicap of having used them. Drugs and alcohol are no substitute for talent, hard work and practice.
True there were many of the old-timers in years past that were like that, but times have changed. Those musicians gave us clear examples of what not to do, as we have seen how drugs and alcohol have distorted the minds, wrecked the bodies and taken the lives of some of the musical icons over the years.
Drugs and alcohol is a crutch that men use to cope with certain situations in life, or they are used for temporary pleasure which ends in displeasure, discomfort, bad health or death over time. Learn to cope with all situations by having faith in God and in yourself and you won’t need drugs or alcohol.
MUSICAL DISCIPLINE
Music requires dedication, but dedication is of little use without discipline. Unless you discipline yourself and your study habits, your progress will be slow.
You must discipline yourself to practice some things that may seem trivial and boring to you sometimes. You need to concentrate on the effect you are trying to achieve regardless to whatever it is. If you let your mind wander and do not focus then you are wasting your time. You might as well stop practicing and go do something else, because that kind of practice is not going to help you achieve your goals in music and may in fact teach you some bad habits that you will need to unlearn because you have now set yourself further back than if you had never even tried to practice.
Study with a disciplined schedule, so that your energies are focused and you will find that you will make progress. You will be delighted in your progress and you will realize just how important discipline is and start to apply it to other aspects of your life.
GROUP UNITY AND DISCIPLINE
“Do not shuck and jive” when you are singing or playing your instrument. Music is serious business and demands your intensity, concentration, energy and feeling coupled with listening to what is going on around you. Try to blend your sound in with the rest of the sounds you are hearing. As that blending becomes a thing of great beauty. There is no time for ego trips here. Teamwork is the name of the game. If you have section leaders work on your breathing so that your section sounds like just one blended sound. Rehearse group phrasing until it is uniform. The people with whom you perform either add to or detract from your level of performance to some degree. That is why you should always strive to associate yourself with the best musicians; however this is not always possible. Strive to sound your best and give 100% of yourself and your talents always, no matter what the caliber of the musicians with whom you find yourself performing.
CONDUCT
Your conduct should uplift the image of the group. I think I have a good sense of humor and like a good laugh and a joke just like many other people. However rehearsal and performance are not the places to try out your comedic skills. You and all the fellow members of your group should regard the group as your musical family and strive for teamwork and togetherness.
PUNCTUALITY
Business is business. Tardiness on your part can wind up costing responsible people serious cash money. Chronically tardy musicians end up being fired by whomever is paying them, or if they are the leader they go out of business. If it is a non-profit group they loose their audience.
TAKING DIRECTION FROM YOUR LEADER
As a member of a musical group, always remember that your purpose is to perform the music you are to perform to the very best of your ability, and in the manner in which the leader directs. If you are a person who cannot take direction, you have no business being a musician.
GROUP EFFORT AND SELF-DETERMINATION
When performing in a group, you must unify and harmonize with the group and with all of their concentrated efforts in order to project that group in its most favorable light. The audience is watching and listening to the soloist as well as the performance of the group. You as a soloist must rise above every limitation and press on to build your own reputation as a soloist, regardless of any limitation. You cannot blame others for your lack of projection. A great soloist accepts no limitations and blames no one for his lack of projection, because he is determined to overcome all obstacles and rise above the situation to project himself and build his reputation. The acceptance and utilization of these principles helps to change the amateur into the pro and the mediocre into the great.
Don’t bring your personal problems to rehearsal or a performance. Leave them at home. When you come to work, be prepared to take care of the business at hand, which is to produce great music.
Become the great soloist you want to be. No other person can detract from your greatness if you are determined to rise above each situation and project yourself as a soloist who demands attention. Change your attitude. Don’t be a “musical leech,” waiting to be inspired by other great performers in the group. You must inspire yourself, project yourself and seek to make yourself one who will inspire others. Quit blaming others for your lack. Get with it and project yourself.
CONSISTENCY
Beyond the beginner, apprentice and master of a craft lies the artist professional. A true artist always maintains a level of consistency. In my opinion consistency comes from constant determination to keep your art at the highest level possible at all times. There will be those rare moments when your art rise above the highest level of consistency that you have set for yourself. In those moments you will experience a sense of great self-satisfaction. However don’t allow yourself to linger too long with this self-satisfaction lest you get an inflated head and think that this greatness is coming from you rather than through you.
Then we have the contrary rare moments when your art sinks far below any level of consistency that you have set for yourself. In those moments you will experience great despair. Don’t allow yourself a pity-party. Sing to yourself, read inspirational literature, search for internal and external sources and condition your mind to rise up and find your way back to the channel through which love, beauty and solace may be beamed forth to humanity.
DEDICATION:
How dedicated are you? Have you dedicated your life to music? If you wish to make any kind of music that is improvisational and not written down as your strength, then you must dedicate your life to it. You have to marry this music. It must come first above and beyond everything else. With this kind of attitude and perseverance, your success will be assured. There will be mountains to climb, but with your aspirations to succeed, those mountains are surmountable. If you take care of music, then music will take care of you.
If you make your decision to dedicate yourself then move forward. Then your life will be one of fulfillment, contentment and happiness.
SPIRITUALIZING THE SENSES - MENTAL AND PHYSICAL PLAY
The roots of improvisational music stem from African tribal music frequently used in the performance of religious rituals. This music was brought to America by slaves and eventually evolved into Negro Spirituals, and black gospel music. These styles of music are folk music. That is common people created this music and it was passed on to others in the community and to the coming generations by word of mouth rather than by media. Blues, jazz, Soul, Rhythm and Blues, Hip Hop, Rap and other Popular American Commercial music including Rock and Rock and Roll have borrowed from this original music. Essentially all good music has a spiritual quality. This inherent quality is capable of uplifting the soul of man. The listeners as well as the performer are both blessed spiritually. We, who have worked to cultivate the gift of music, love our instrument and dedicate our life to the cultivation of the music and our instrument. The true musician puts musical integrity, love and dedication to his art above fame and fortune. All the love he puts into his music is synonymous with the spirituality that will come out of it.
MENTAL PLAY
To perform this kind of music requires intellect. To listen and really hear this kind of music requires intellect as well. You are challenged to concentrate on it to get the most out of it. You are required to let the music into you without filters. This allows the music to get into your spirit. You absorb the music by letting the music consume you. This kind of music stimulates the minds and uplifts the souls of those who perform it as well as those who listen to and immerse themselves in it. As the mind is stimulated and the soul uplifted, the bodies of the producers and listeners reflect this uplifting in improved mental health and well being.
There is a possibility that you have experienced times when you were totally absorbed and moved as you listened to a great performance of music and realized that your physical aches and pains were gone, but returned after the music had ceased. This is an example of the uplifting, stimulating, mind altering, blessing and healing aspects of good music.
Good music is dedicated to truth, purity and principles that line up in harmony with nature and foster a holistic approach to life and can tap into the universal consciousness of humanity.
PHYSICAL PLAY
Some music is for moving your body and some is for listening. Patting your feet, clapping your hands and moving your body are entertainment and healthy exercise for the body. Some music brings joy and happiness to the soul and mind which in turn reflects in the body.
In order to maintain consistent great performance of music, you are required to put all of your spiritual, mental and physical energies into the music. Your love, intellect and strength have to be projected whole heartedly “in and through” the music. You are challenged to give your all! You are required to hold nothing back. Do not accept halfway is good enough in your own musicianship or those musicians which whom you are making music. Try for an A+ every time. B+ effort is not acceptable, so you have to develop, spiritual, mental and physical discipline. Stay in shape and never allow your intellect or physical energy to become dull or lazy. Never allow yourself to become complacent about your art. Always strive to do better. Keep seeking to experience more. Search more and give more. This is SERIOUS PLAY.
EGOTISTICAL MUSIC
If you are a composer of music then you have a great deal of freedom in how to manipulate the elements to create your music, as performers or interpreters we have less freedom, but still have enough freedom to ruin or improve upon the music the composer has written. Egotistical music has no thought of gratification for the listener. It sounds vibrations and frequencies only for self-gratification. It says “see how smart I am and what I can do”.
Strive to develop unselfishness in your music. You have been given a talent to share with the world, that all may be gratified by it. You may have a great talent, but your ego will not permit you to consider the gratification of your listener. Your career may suffer. Your destiny may be unfulfilled. The unfulfilled creator of music suffers a terrible inner pain. Frankly in my opinion Contemporary, Abstract or Modern Serious Music of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries lost its audience because of ego.
Make your music with a conscious desire to gratify the listener, and not as a sell-out or commercial artist seeks out slick music business people to be exploited so as to make the most money he can by dumbing down his music to as simple as he can get it. There are countless Rock Stars who have done this over the years as they use the media to brain wash the unsuspecting public with low quality music. People like this are not musicians they are exploiters of most people’s lack of knowledge about what they are hearing in music.
The conscious desire to gratify the listener will become subconscious and part of your natural way. Think of yourself as a channel through which God strives to uplift mankind. What a privileged and honored position you have been placed in. Become aware of the good that you can do through your talents. Once you become aware of and accept this responsibility, there won’t be any room left for your ego to get in the way of your music. With the right attitude your music will expand to gratify and uplift the listener and lead you to the total fulfillment of your destiny. Strive to make music in such a manner that others may be gratified and that you may be fulfilled.
THE LIE OF DRUGS AND ALCOHOL
Some would have you believe that drugs and alcohol help a musician to perform better. All of the great musicians that I have had the honor of working with who were into drugs and alcohol performed greatly not because of the drugs and alcohol, but in my opinion, in spite of the handicap of having used them. Drugs and alcohol are no substitute for talent, hard work and practice.
True there were many of the old-timers in years past that were like that, but times have changed. Those musicians gave us clear examples of what not to do, as we have seen how drugs and alcohol have distorted the minds, wrecked the bodies and taken the lives of some of the musical icons over the years.
Drugs and alcohol is a crutch that men use to cope with certain situations in life, or they are used for temporary pleasure which ends in displeasure, discomfort, bad health or death over time. Learn to cope with all situations by having faith in God and in yourself and you won’t need drugs or alcohol.
MUSICAL DISCIPLINE
Music requires dedication, but dedication is of little use without discipline. Unless you discipline yourself and your study habits, your progress will be slow.
You must discipline yourself to practice some things that may seem trivial and boring to you sometimes. You need to concentrate on the effect you are trying to achieve regardless to whatever it is. If you let your mind wander and do not focus then you are wasting your time. You might as well stop practicing and go do something else, because that kind of practice is not going to help you achieve your goals in music and may in fact teach you some bad habits that you will need to unlearn because you have now set yourself further back than if you had never even tried to practice.
Study with a disciplined schedule, so that your energies are focused and you will find that you will make progress. You will be delighted in your progress and you will realize just how important discipline is and start to apply it to other aspects of your life.
GROUP UNITY AND DISCIPLINE
“Do not shuck and jive” when you are singing or playing your instrument. Music is serious business and demands your intensity, concentration, energy and feeling coupled with listening to what is going on around you. Try to blend your sound in with the rest of the sounds you are hearing. As that blending becomes a thing of great beauty. There is no time for ego trips here. Teamwork is the name of the game. If you have section leaders work on your breathing so that your section sounds like just one blended sound. Rehearse group phrasing until it is uniform. The people with whom you perform either add to or detract from your level of performance to some degree. That is why you should always strive to associate yourself with the best musicians; however this is not always possible. Strive to sound your best and give 100% of yourself and your talents always, no matter what the caliber of the musicians with whom you find yourself performing.
CONDUCT
Your conduct should uplift the image of the group. I think I have a good sense of humor and like a good laugh and a joke just like many other people. However rehearsal and performance are not the places to try out your comedic skills. You and all the fellow members of your group should regard the group as your musical family and strive for teamwork and togetherness.
PUNCTUALITY
Business is business. Tardiness on your part can wind up costing responsible people serious cash money. Chronically tardy musicians end up being fired by whomever is paying them, or if they are the leader they go out of business. If it is a non-profit group they loose their audience.
TAKING DIRECTION FROM YOUR LEADER
As a member of a musical group, always remember that your purpose is to perform the music you are to perform to the very best of your ability, and in the manner in which the leader directs. If you are a person who cannot take direction, you have no business being a musician.
GROUP EFFORT AND SELF-DETERMINATION
When performing in a group, you must unify and harmonize with the group and with all of their concentrated efforts in order to project that group in its most favorable light. The audience is watching and listening to the soloist as well as the performance of the group. You as a soloist must rise above every limitation and press on to build your own reputation as a soloist, regardless of any limitation. You cannot blame others for your lack of projection. A great soloist accepts no limitations and blames no one for his lack of projection, because he is determined to overcome all obstacles and rise above the situation to project himself and build his reputation. The acceptance and utilization of these principles helps to change the amateur into the pro and the mediocre into the great.
Don’t bring your personal problems to rehearsal or a performance. Leave them at home. When you come to work, be prepared to take care of the business at hand, which is to produce great music.
Become the great soloist you want to be. No other person can detract from your greatness if you are determined to rise above each situation and project yourself as a soloist who demands attention. Change your attitude. Don’t be a “musical leech,” waiting to be inspired by other great performers in the group. You must inspire yourself, project yourself and seek to make yourself one who will inspire others. Quit blaming others for your lack. Get with it and project yourself.
CONSISTENCY
Beyond the beginner, apprentice and master of a craft lies the artist professional. A true artist always maintains a level of consistency. In my opinion consistency comes from constant determination to keep your art at the highest level possible at all times. There will be those rare moments when your art rise above the highest level of consistency that you have set for yourself. In those moments you will experience a sense of great self-satisfaction. However don’t allow yourself to linger too long with this self-satisfaction lest you get an inflated head and think that this greatness is coming from you rather than through you.
Then we have the contrary rare moments when your art sinks far below any level of consistency that you have set for yourself. In those moments you will experience great despair. Don’t allow yourself a pity-party. Sing to yourself, read inspirational literature, search for internal and external sources and condition your mind to rise up and find your way back to the channel through which love, beauty and solace may be beamed forth to humanity.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
