Author: Low_Reed
Date: 2006-01-10 02:10
I hear you loud and clear, Fred! I am a bass clarinet hobbyist, back at it for a few years following a three-decade lapse after high school and college band. I play solo jazz, ballads, and classic rock -- all from sheet music, which I spend a lot of time transposing from piano/voice arrangements.
I would love to be free of the tyranny of the written tune! It will take a lot of work, I know. My New Year's resolution is to pay more attention, in my lessons and practice, to scales, intervals, patterns, and improvisation. My heart is well-informed emotionally; if only my mind and mouth and fingers were as well-informed about what feels/sounds right!
Fun-damentals and fun: the former enables the latter, for sure. I'm grateful that I could already read music and play the BC when I decided I wanted to play again. But for me, it's the inspiration and the fun of making music that keeps me going. I think that I stopped playing in 1970 because there was a real disconnect between the music I played and the music that I listened to. And even when I came back to BC, my first forays were in community bands. It has taken a leap of faith to realize that, with some creative shedding of stereotypes, and a lot of woodshedding, I can use the instrument I know to play the music I love.
It's possible that I may have come to that realization sooner, and may not have had such a long dry spell, had I learned directed spontaneous combustion - improvisation - in my formative years.
**Music is the river of the world!**
-- inspired by Tom Waits and a world full of music makers |
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