sight reading - not

Hi all, I'm a jazz player and have been for 10 years or so - am now 25. I've been asked to do a concert thing though I'm a poor sight reader. I'd like to get this skill up so I can do some classical tunes and also do some of my own arrangements of famous pop tunes. I can read and right music fine, but I get this terrible ill feeling when I have to play as written. I guess it's the years of playing solo or with a band I only play what I feel best or what I feel like playing - my fingers think a lot for me. So the idea of robotically playing dots on a page has no appeal whatsoever, in fact, it clashes with me. Sure, I read phrases of arrangements and write down parts for other instruments but the idea of doing a written otu piece from start to finish feels like an offence to me. I've tried and it's not workign. I pick up some Beethoven thing and it turns into some avant garde hard bop line, or some classical theme turn into some stride piece: you can recognise what I'm playing for the first few bars and that's it: I just go off. The crowd is going to go psycho if I do that. So the real question is: How do I detach myself from the music? And my only answer is: I can't. So what do I do? Or is it just not meant to be...

Rookas,

Don't take this wrong - it isn't meant to be anything more than an honest response to your question.

If you want to be a professional, if you want to earn the respect of other pros, and if you want to improve as a musician, you must learn to respect the music.

This means that just as you would expect a classical player to respect jazz, you must do the same in return. A true pro will put in the work necessary to learn to play a style of music correctly, and will try to have a broad range of styles he can pull from. If he finds that a certain style is just not something he can master, he will respect it by staying away from it.

Mastering at least some classical piano will benefit you in other areas of performance. But you must give it the respect it deserves. For instance, you mentioned stride. Have you really put the work into learning to play stride piano accurately, or are you simply referring to left hand octave/chords as stride? If you are going to play stride piano, you must respect it enough to learn it play it correct to style. Only after you have mastered the proper basics of a style correctly can you afford to add your own twists to it or 'let your fingers think for you'.

Again, this is all meant constructively, not as a slam. But 'just going off' is the work of an amateur who is impressed with where he is and is satisfied with that, not the work of a pro. So to answer your last question, it is not the music you must detach yourself from. It is your view of yourself and your playing skills you must face.

Get serious about broadening your range as a musician, and get serious about the music. If you do, you will improve in every style you have at your disposal. If you don't, you will stagnate.

Larry Fletcher Pianos Inc Atlanta GA Dealer/technician

Doing the work of three men.....Larry, Curly, & Moe Http://www.pianosinc.net

Wow! Larry...that's a powerful lesson.

I really disagree with Larry's opinion. I especially disagree with the idea that you can improve as a musician by worrying about what others, even other 'professionals', think about your playing. I think you improve as a musician by listening to your own internal musical sense, and learning to follow it wherever it leads you. If it leads you to a place where other 'professionals' are sneering at you, so be it.

Personally, I would be much more interested in a concert where someone plays the first few bars of Beethoven and the 'goes of with it', as Rookas said, rather than hearing someone play it straight. I can hear a recording any time I want. Very few players are motivated to take the music and do their own thing with it....why should we stop Rookas from showing us what he has come up with?

Having said that, I also have to question what Rookas said about going off on his own after 'the first few bars'. It does seem like he's not giving Beethoven much of a chance, which makes me question his open-mindedness. I'd feel a lot more sympathetic with what he's doing if he said he got through the first page or so before starting to improvise. As it is, I wonder if he's not letting his self-indulgence get the best of him.

Martin Green http://www.onforeignsoil.com Teach yourself Yiddish while you read the exciting autobiography of Falk Zolf.

Classical music such as Beethoven is not really 'designed' for open improvisation. However, many many people find the art in the interpretation of the written score. Listen to two different people play the same written piece note for note. It doesnt sound the same because each person has their own feel for the piece. It certainly isnt 'robotic' unless you make it so. Even improvisation can be 'robotic' and unimaginative if you are only satisfied with what you know. Just like one would read a novel, so could one read music.

I am a hacker who can sight read anything in the sense of rendering a piece at sight off a melody line and chord changes, and/or improvising on it. Unfortunately, I'd have difficulty playing most real scores precisely as

Absolutely! TS

There is a story, probably urban legend, that Picasso was once present at an exhibition of his works. A woman came up to him, and said, 'Mr. Picasso, I am sure that you're an important artist, but to be honest, all of your paintings look like they could have been painted by my twelve year old!'

'Madame,' Picasso replied, 'when I was twelve, I could paint like Raphael. It took me thirty years to learn to paint like this.'

[snip]

If you feel playing what the music says is rote playing, that's fine.

If you don't feel like playing that way, don't do it. Let someone else do it.

Good luck

Aren't there accounts of Bartok playing his own piano concertos in concert and 'going off with it...' because he felt like it, I mean he really started improvising in the concert, leaving the orchestra miles behind?

Probably a troll, nevertheless.

I had an additional thought yesterday, but after hearing people express suspicion about the original poster being a troll, I deleted the thread.

However, just in case the poster is sincere and is staying back for fear of criticism, I'll go ahead and say what I want to say anyway.

Beethoven doesn't have to be everyone's cup of tea. What type of jazz do you like to listen to? What is your jazz repertoire? If we knew, maybe we could suggest classical pieces that would appeal to your taste.

Maybe you're picking pieces that are too hard or too lengthy. Do you have any control over the material?