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Jeff Berlin asks - Why Do Some Object to My Educational Views
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Maybe I'm confused because this sounds like you've decreed what qualifies as art and what doesn't.
So now, I "think" that I understand the point of all Jeff's musings, i.e. a more formal/academic musical education will yield better information/results than a groove/tab/feel, etc type education.
OK, so do I need this academic education to learn "Gimme 3 Steps" and play a bunch of similar songs in the local watering hole for a bunch of people I already know. Not in the slightest. If Fender and the rest of the bass building/amp community relied on selling to people who thought that they needed formal education to play, they would have gone out of business about 40 years ago.
Do I need an academic/university level education to teach in college, or maybe tour with Chick Corea? Absolutely.
Am I allowed to choose to pursue a more formal education even though I only plan to play "Gimme 3 Steps" in a local watering hole? Absolutely.
Everyone already knows this. So which part of these painfully obvious points am I supposed to glean some type of insight from? Ultimately, it seems as though most of the "controversy" stems from an general unwillingness by the OP to acknowledge peoples varying personal goals and bass desires...
OK, so do I need this academic education to learn "Gimme 3 Steps" and play a bunch of similar songs in the local watering hole for a bunch of people I already know. Not in the slightest. If Fender and the rest of the bass building/amp community relied on selling to people who thought that they needed formal education to play, they would have gone out of business about 40 years ago.
Do I need an academic/university level education to teach in college, or maybe tour with Chick Corea? Absolutely.
Am I allowed to choose to pursue a more formal education even though I only plan to play "Gimme 3 Steps" in a local watering hole? Absolutely.
Everyone already knows this. So which part of these painfully obvious points am I supposed to glean some type of insight from? Ultimately, it seems as though most of the "controversy" stems from an general unwillingness by the OP to acknowledge peoples varying personal goals and bass desires...
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I think that your comments are marvelous.
A lot of people get my thoughts and aren't offended or put off by them. This doesn't mean that I can't improve my thing by trying to communicate in a better manner. Thanks to people here for trying to make me aware of this. I will try to pay attention to how I comment and will stop criticizing bass educators. It is time! People know how I feel.
One can apply music to any instrument, of course. I guess that was the OPs original point, for whatever it was worth.
Bryan R. Tyler
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This is actually not the case in two separate ways. There’s actually very few schools that focus on the classical mechanical elements that go into creating representational art. It may have changed greatly since I graduated, but at the time I chose my college it was one of I believe 3 or 4 colleges in the country that focused on classical figurative training. Drawing took a major backseat for about a century- lots and lots of art teachers are probably worse draftsmen than you.
The other part is that you really don’t need any technical mechanical elements to create art. Children for example are some of the greatest artists. You hasve kids, as do I and most others. Nearly every parent has been given a drawing that made them tear up. With no training they can still find a way to pass on real emotional expression. You don’t learn the technique in order to be able to make art- you learn the technique in order to better express yourself.
You have made references to the teaching of lots of other professions when comparing them to the teaching of bass, so I simply use painting as an example because I’ve found it far more similar from my own experience. As I was getting my BFA I was teaching myself to play bass; as I had no formal training in the latter, I found applying a lot of the lessons I learned in art worked well (my senior yearbook photo was of me playing my bass
)There are some notable differences though. I know you advise a strict separation of learning the instrument and context/the creation of “art”- this is not the case at all with either classical or modern visual art. It may be a difference due to the ephemeral nature of music. I agree that you should set your mind to the fact that you will simply not be good for years while learning how to paint or draw. However, even when doing a completely technical attempt at drawing a portrait that no one but you will see, the image will still be there in front of you and convey an expression. Very few subjects convey no emotion or context at all-even a still life can look “sad” even if the intent to convey emotion was not there when creating the piece. The expression of “art” is inexorably connected to the technical aspect of learning or creating it, so context is taught right along with technique.
Music by its nature however can be gone the moment after it’s been played if you’re not recording it. This is particularly true for bass as we don’t tend play large ringing chords that can express an emotion on their own. A lot of people though also hear the word “music” and find the expression aspect of it inexorably linked to the technical aspect, just as “art” is. Do you think that maybe “Instrumentation education” would be a more fitting title for the music education you propose, as it immediately cuts out the expression/performance aspects that you believe should come later?
nutdog
when I'm a good dog they sometimes throw me a bone
I think you may have just made Jeff's point for him.
If you learn and practice musical content that require certain techniques, as opposed to abstract techniques/scales etc for their own sake, you have context. Musical content might be scores handed to you by an instructor or a set list handed to you by a band leader - it's still content and context so you learn about music as well as the execution and delivery of music.
Do artists learn colour theory so they can continually regurgitate all reds known to man or so that the quality of their painting might improve? Can we not make a parallel comparison between scales and melody?
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I don't disagree with the idea that practicing musical content that require certain techniques is a good way to help develop those techniques, and improve as a musician.
I do disagree with the idea that practicing musical content that require certain techniques is the only way to help develop those techniques, or that technique development outside a musical context has no value.
This is a question I made for Mr. Berlin in the last thread of his this morning before seeing this new one.First, I haven't read anything of yours with which I disagree. I picked up bass 28 yrs ago and I'd be much better if I learned your way.
People can attack your ideas for many reasons, most likely reason is because you present things in absolutes, or it comes across as absolute. Your ideas may very well be absolute facts if an Average Joe (not gifted with a great ear) wants to attain a certain level of play in the most efficient way possible.
It is easy for people to disagree for a number of reasons. 1) They just want to be a functional bassist that lays down a groove in simple, diatonic music. 2) They can't comprehend the depth possible in music so they actively dismiss anything that they see no reason to know. 3) They are gifted with great ears and can't understand that other people will need to learn some theory/harmony to open up their ears. I can't emphasize this one enough as they will cite that the world is littered with "masters" past and present who can't read a note or explain the content of a C Dom 7.
So writing off groups 1 and 2 who will argue with you is relatively easy because they don't need/want to go further. The trick is convincing group 3 who are so gifted that they can't even relate to those who don't hear music, particularly advanced music, as well as they do. Maybe some in group 3 even have an interest in teaching in a way that is "less good" than yours- They can nefariously keep students longer for more money or, more likely, keep students around longer doing more fun stuff, more immediately gratifying stuff. "Hey, Kid, would you rather learn to slap or learn YYZ or 24K Magic or should we learn some theory, harmony and reading?" You get the idea. I don't think you will change the minds of group 3 either.
Let me turn the tables on the guys who want to learn to groove and be "tight" or who are proponents of that stuff before learning music generally:
LEARN TO GROOVE? Ha. Are you kidding me? That's the easy part. Music is generally divided into nice, convenient, concrete beats and subdivisions thereof. Usually no worse than 16th notes- that's only 4 different places within a beat. How hard is that to learn? Even with all of the permutations, it's not that hard once you can see/feel/hear a few combinations of note/rest patterns that you can teach yourself extremely quickly. It is very concrete stuff. Google Cliff Engel Sight read for bass and you can see. On the other hand, any one pitch can go to any one of 11 other pitches at any time. Notes can be added on top of any other note and each of those notes can go to any one of another 11 notes. It is orders of magnitude more complex than learning rhythm or slap or fast plucking. Yeah, people have been inventing, implying, playing crazy harmony forever, self-taught, even. However, it is much easier to "reinvent" the slap/speed/rhythm wheel at home by yourself and with some recordings than it is to reinvent for yourself the wheel of theory and harmony. Therefore, if you want to be great like that, which would you be better off paying a teacher to teach you- mechanics or music?
And to those who say "oh, if grooving is so easy why do so many suck at it?" Maybe the answer is lack of time spent playing, listening and/or serious contemplation of those 4 subdivisions within any beat? "What about 'feel?' You know playing precisely on the beat all of the time is so sterile and boring?" I guarantee that something as nebulous as that comes with time spent playing, or you naturally have it. Keith Richards and Ron Wood laid down slinky lines because they feel it in themselves. And playing on the beat is no more boring to a good ear than is playing the same old harmonically-boring, diatonic/pentatonic-with-added-blue-note crap all of the time. Regardless, it's a false premise to resort to saying groove and feel are more important than learning music (remember monster-ear guys we are talking about people who don't have a god-given great ear- most of us) if one wants to do much more than rock and roll.
The summary, Jeff, is that the average person is average. 49.99999% are below average. Many of the rest are not very much above average. None of them can even fathom the depths of music that are possible. An other many know that there is more but they don't care to even wander outside I ii iii IV V vi and that other one notated with the circle with the slash thru it and a 7
Simply make your case (repeatedly even) and do not engage with naysayers- the naysayers either don't understand or they don't need to understand. Nobody can LOGICALLY argue that you are wrong. Some of them probably readily agree with you to a large degree but their feelings may be hurt that you are somewhat dismissive of their methods, their methods which put food on the table- teaching paying customers what the customer wants to learn- remember who their average customer is. Average and aims for nothing more.
I wish I learned your way. I should be a much better bass player after 20+ years but my foundation has holes in it because I learned too much technique and song-learning rather than music-learning.
You are probably a tortured-genius, or something akin to that. Remember that when you try to change the world the world usually changes you. You have all of the respect of the people who matter to you. Enjoy it. Keep putting your word out but don't engage the naysayers. The right students will continue to find you.
First off, though, this is such a well written statement! Something I'm sure that those like me wanted to (or at least wished that they could) state. And, more importantly, what a lot of people need to read. Whether or not you agree with someone is not important, it's what you take from them and how you let it affect your views and actions. If you disagree with a certain information leave it. But, if you agree, implore it!
For someone with a general understanding of theory and harmony (Basic understanding of circle of fifths, can construct altered/extended chords and use them in a basic context, can improvise over most "standard" progressions (ii-V-I, I-VI7-ii-V, etc.) and standard song forms, can analyze a fair portion of "jazz standard" pieces (something like Giant Steps is certainly a little over my head), and posses a basic understanding of reharmonization) what may you consider the "next step" in learning theory? I'm currently reading into a book on arrangement and composition for jazz big bands (Not something I'm planning on pursuing anytime soon, but has some great information nonetheless) and continuing to analyze and transcribe various songs. I've been thinking about researching more into the circle of fifths and it's functions related to harmony and also more on arranging (I feel there's something before big band arrangement I should be looking into). There seems to be so many paths to pursue at this point I'm kinda feeling paralyzed not knowing what the next logical step in education would be.
Thanks for the kind words.
It sounds like you may be ahead of me in musical understanding so I can't tell you where to go next. Like I said, I'd be much better if I learned Jeff's way. You can stop here, Quinn.
To be sure, before I am trounced upon by trolls who might claim that I have just disqualified myself from a valid opinion of which form of study is better, it doesn't take deep musical knowledge, only a reasonable and open mind to recognize that Jeff's way is more efficient and valuable in the long run of a person who wishes to be truly great as opposed to only really cool. Just like I know almost nothing about astronomy, I can still reasonably say that Copernicus' ideas are better than those of anyone who thinks that the Earth is flat. Plus, in my youth I did, indeed, learn a classical instrument "the right way" and was much better at that instrument after 9 years (And probably after only 5 years) than I am at bass after well over 20 years... even though I played my clarinet for no more than 30 minutes per day as opposed to countless hours on bass. There is definitely something to be said for reading/playing well-crafted materials specifically designed for learning (if one doesn't have a god (or universe, if you prefer)-gifted ear). It is a better way to build your foundation. Victor Wooten, to give only one example, and since people cite his Groove Workshop video which I own and love, isn't great only because he grooves. The guy who played on Bowie's "Fame" grooved one note like a mofo, and largely on the 1 only. Most people can probably do that very quickly without lessons. Hey, if that's all YOU want, cool but Jeff is speaking to those who want much more. Wooten is a monster because he knows music not because some dude charged him 50 an hour to learn to slap and run modes.
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Bryan R. Tyler
TalkBass: Usurping My Practice Time Since 2002
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Content and context in painting are generally terms used to describe either the story you’re trying to tell or the idea/expression you’re trying to convey- from everything I gather he prefers separation of those from learning the instrument.
Yes, but in what proportion? This is an extract from an introductory book on cello thumb position...
It is easy to distinguish the technical from musical content, and the average ratio throughout is about 5:1. It might be reasonable to assume a student practice ratio of 50:1 (each piece 10 times for one run of the scale). Unfortunately most bass literature contains almost exclusively just the technical bit, so one could draw an inference that 98% of the practice resource is missing.
YMMV.
I'm originally an upright player - my instruction was generally about 1:1 between Simandl book 1 (basically all technique) and "music"
My wife is a percussionist - her experience as a student was more like 2 or 3:1 in favor of technique.
My oldest son is a trumpet player - his lessons are probably 3:1 in favor of music over technique.
My youngest son plays piano - and every week he is assigned a music selection, a technique selection, and a theory selection.
My wife is a percussionist - her experience as a student was more like 2 or 3:1 in favor of technique.
My oldest son is a trumpet player - his lessons are probably 3:1 in favor of music over technique.
My youngest son plays piano - and every week he is assigned a music selection, a technique selection, and a theory selection.
Because "Discussion of Music Education" compared to "Jeff Berlin Asks..." is quite a bit more enticing to me, I must say. The former would draw less attention for reasons I don't need to explain.
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