Category Archives: Random Notes

Feb 10 0 comments
Random Notes

ghoti, ghrench lessons, and notation

I’ve been reviewing French for the past few weeks, in preparation for a trip later this year. I’m following this course, French in Action, which offers a few tips in learning a foreign language that I think are 100% applicable to becoming a jazz musician. One in particular:

Give priority to what you hear

The author, Pierre Capretz, argues that the writing systems of French AND English are merely attempts at capturing the actual sound of a language. As an example of the limitations of written language, he cites George Bernard Shaw’s jest that “fish” should instead be written “ghoti” – the “gh” as in “enough”, the “o” as in “women”, and “ti” as in “nation”.

Part of the point, here, is that inflection, accent, and a hundred other dimensions are simply squeezed out when we reduce living language to the printed word. In reading a novel, or even a newspaper story, we have to “rehydrate” the original intent in some fashion, lest the dry letters and typeset sentences betray the best intentions of the author as surely as a computer-generated voice would in reading Shakespeare aloud.

When you first play the melody, or “head”, to a jazz standard, such as “Stella By Starlight”, it’s tempting to think that your first reading of the music is definitive – that every subsequent performance of the melody, either in private or in public, must necessarily closely match your first rendering of the tune. It’s only as (much) time has passed that I’ve really begun to internalize the notion that the notes on the page capture at best 0.01% of the true meaning of the actual music. Just as you can stretch out words, or hurry through them; drawl or speak with a Yankee-ish accent; raise your voice, or drop your inflection, and so on, the true meaning of notes on the page seems ever more elusive.

Viewed from this perspective, it doesn’t seem interesting at all that in jazz you rarely play a melody the same way twice. It would seem amazing, given the almost infinite variations embedded in the almost-too-sparse language of musical notation, if you ever managed to truly duplicate a single rendition.

Jan 31 0 comments
Random Notes

Music – Sheet and Otherwise

Last night’s gig was productive in all sorts of ways. First, I got to play for the first time with  Marcus Graf. Actually, last night was the first time I’d ever met Marcus. This is a circumstance which is not unusual at all on a jazz bandstand, though if this were a “social” gig, it’d be very bad form to walk up at a private gig, in plain sight of guests at a party, and introduce yourself to to another musician in the band for the first time. Sao Paulo’s is, thankfully, not nearly so picky on this point. Anyways, it was great playing with him, though honestly I will ask him to turn more towards me next time he plays so that I can hear him. What I could hear sounded great, though.

Another nice thing – for only the second time in my life, I had the bass player – Jon Blondell – ask to grab a copy of the sheet music for one of my tunes. This is quite flattering, since everyone knows that the only person on the bandstand guaranteed to know what’s going on is the bassist. Especially if it’s Jon. Jon wanted to grab a copy for his band on Tuesday at the Elephant Room, to play and maybe record. Totally cool with me. My only demand is 50% on every dime past $500K in profit that they make on that record (please note that the song in question –  ”I Don’t Know, I Don’t Care” – has actually already been recorded, and is available on the album “Who I Am” Central Time Jazz Collective - David Chao (p), Russell Haight (ts), Kory Cook (d), Brad Taylor (b) - Who I Am in Napster, on iTunes, and at Amazon.com, Cheapo Discs, and Waterloo Records).

Finally, as a very nice surprise, after we finished and I dropped off our sax player, Philipe Vieux, he asked me to hang on a sec while he ran in to grab something from his apartment. It was a very cool reharmonization – in C# – of Fifteen Miles on the Erie Canal – an old work song that he was working on with Wakie in lessons. He’d promised Wakie he’d transcribe the tune so that I could try it out with my band, and here it is – a really crazy (in the good sense of the word) looking version, titled “Twenty Three Kilometers”; I guess Philipe was stopping just short of a literal transcription.

Sorry about that, I couldn’t resist.