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Improvisation Ears, Styles, and chops was RE: Loop Jams vs. JazzJams
-- random thoughts while procrastinating on doing my taxes --
It seems to me that improvisers who pay attention to each other
should be able to play together regardless of differences in
instruments, styles, techniques and musical knowledge, by bringing
big ears to the session and responding at some level to the essence
of what each other is doing.
IMO Big ears beat big chops any time, and big chops (and musical
knowledge in the traditional sense) are a tool, not an end in
themselves.
I don't listen to much high energy techno any more, but when I did, I
often imagined a high energy jazz saxophone improvisor wailing over
the beats, with the DJ responding in turn to the sax. The same could
be true of looping music.
I confess I have a few DAT's sitting around of complex looping
sessions with horn playing friends in which I (or they) were
processing their sound and looping synths on top and the whole thing
turned to mud on listening -- big ears can be challenged when our
machines are doing things so complex we can't pick them out,
--
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two
opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the
ability to function."
F. Scott Fitzgerald
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