4.23.13
In his book "What to Listen for in Music," composer Aaron Copland put it this way:
"Music expresses, at different moments, serenity or exuberance, regret or triumph, fury or delight. It expresses each of these moods, any many others, in a numberless variety of subtle shadings and differences. It may even express a state of meaning for which there exists no adequate word in any language." So, what is Jazz?
WHAT IS JAZZ?
Difficult to define, wikipedia offers one point of view. "Because it spans music from Ragtime to the present day – over 100 years now – jazz can be very difficult to define. Attempts have been made to define jazz from the perspective of other musical traditions – using the point of view of European music history or African music for example – but jazz critic Joachim Berendt argues that all such attempts are unsatisfactory. One way to get around the definitional problems is to define the term "jazz" more broadly. Berendt defines jazz as a "form of art music which originated in the United States through the confrontation of blacks with European music"; he argues that jazz differs from European music in that jazz has a "special relationship to time, in some cases defined as 'swing' ," "a spontaneity and vitality of musical production in which improvisation plays a role"; and "sonority and manner of phrasing which mirror the individuality of the performing jazz musician".There is no doubt that the resultant music depends on the musician.
THE PROBLEM WITH INFINITE SOLUTIONS
Music and mathematics are deeply related; comparing math & jazz improvisation, it is all combinations and permutations (melodies, harmonies, riffs, hooks, bridges...), modeled on assumptions (the head: the main melodic device, music style: blues, swing, etc. & rhythm) with infinite solutions (solos: born anew with each new play). My son informs me that in the standard soloing procedure, wherein several members of the band take turns improvising solos (accompanied sparsely by the rhythm section), each musician must craft a unique solo on each performance. I wonder aloud if professionals work towards that 'perfect' solo, building toward it each time. He says maybe in some developing way, but practicing a solo is akin to cheating. Beyond transcribing (committing to written sheet music) a famous solo for teaching purposes, you must be original, always. Any given recording takes note of one particular moment in time, a one-time artistic expression. Add to that, in improvisation you must reflect off of and incorporate the head (main melody), complementary pieces of your band-members' afore-played solos, all keeping in perfect time, with respect to the current key and music style. For me, this seems like the unsolvable math problem or the problem with infinite solutions, some more elegant than others, the perfect one in the eye of the beholder, or ear of the listener.
YOUR BRAIN ON JAZZ
The specific parts of a Jazz Chart are: the Head: the main melody, usually also the first & last chorus
the Style: Ragtime, Bebop, Swing, Blues, Fusion...
the Meter & Tempo: the organization of strong and weak beats of time and the rate at which they are played
the Changes: the chords of a tune, also called Rhythm Changes
the Solo: improvisation during a chorus or unaccompanied during the Break, many musicians may solo on the same chart
Declarative Knowledge: plans, ideas and concepts; schemas that direct the form and flavor of a piece. Facts stored in declarative memory stay in a part of the brain known as the medial temporal lobe (part of the hippocampus) and after they have become firmed-up facts, they shift to the temporal and frontal cortices.
Procedural Knowledge: explicit knowledge of the overall form of a piece; memorizable; highly practiced habits that allow seamless, lightning-fast scales and riffs. Concerned with 'automatization', this information is encoded in a loop that centers on structures in the brain such as the cerebellum and the basal ganglia.
Formal musical knowledge is treated by the brain in different ways. Declarative knowledge has been optimized for instant use as conscious knowledge, whereas procedural knowledge is more concerned with fine motor skills, optimized for rapid reflexes, used somewhat unconsciously, when they become known.
As we master any skill, our brains get better at two things: recognizing the pieces of the whole (known as chunking) and knowing where to look (known as attention). Melodies and riffs are just random combinations of notes until they are recognized and categorized. Then, they become useful blocks of information, part of the student's ever expanding musical lexicon.
Many music theory concepts that began as innovative, improvisational ideas become part of the musical canon; declarative becomes procedural once it is mastered. Much of jazz blends the declarative with the procedural. The best jazz often uses a mixture, a blend of style with expected features and a kind of natural, automatic playing in the moment.
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Procedural Knowledge: explicit knowledge of the overall form of a piece; memorizable; highly practiced habits that allow seamless, lightning-fast scales and riffs. Concerned with 'automatization', this information is encoded in a loop that centers on structures in the brain such as the cerebellum and the basal ganglia.
Formal musical knowledge is treated by the brain in different ways. Declarative knowledge has been optimized for instant use as conscious knowledge, whereas procedural knowledge is more concerned with fine motor skills, optimized for rapid reflexes, used somewhat unconsciously, when they become known.
As we master any skill, our brains get better at two things: recognizing the pieces of the whole (known as chunking) and knowing where to look (known as attention). Melodies and riffs are just random combinations of notes until they are recognized and categorized. Then, they become useful blocks of information, part of the student's ever expanding musical lexicon.
Many music theory concepts that began as innovative, improvisational ideas become part of the musical canon; declarative becomes procedural once it is mastered. Much of jazz blends the declarative with the procedural. The best jazz often uses a mixture, a blend of style with expected features and a kind of natural, automatic playing in the moment.
*****
Jazz. Wikipedia, 23 April 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz>.
Marcus, Gary F. Guitar Zero: The New Musician and the Science of Learning. New York: The Penguin Press, 2012.
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