Klarinet Archive - Posting 000574.txt from 1995/04

From: "Donald B. Kinghorn" <don@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: "Jazz" Technique
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 1995 00:39:20 -0400

I haven't read my mail for a couple of days (very busy).
This discussion of jazz and classical musicality is great! I must
make some comments.
Back in the 70's when I was making a living as a
"jazz/rock/classical/new age" musician we would occasional get a
bunch of players together without their instruments and just gather
up anything we could find that would make interesting sounds, beer
bottles, mic stands, things to bang on etc. and just see what would
happen. We usually wound up making some interesting music, and always
had great fun (especially if we emptied the beer bottles ourself).
(You can get some awesome sounds out a mic stand with one of those
bendable extensions on it.)

I believe a good musician plays the sound not the instrument.(If you
know what I mean)
I used to go into this keyboard store and play this nice sampler, it
was great I could play all of these wonderful sampled sounds. I
played several instruments at the time so when I played oboe on the
sampler I was thinking oboe! This piano player would come over and
show me these new sounds but he always sounded like a piano player
regardless of the sample, he just didn't connect with the sound.

I am trying to make a point. Players often become nothing more than
technicians, they don't even here what they play, but they play it
"correctly".
A good musician, classical, jazz, rock or whatever, plays the sound
and that sound comes from within the player. An instrument merely
inspires a musician to make music by the sound that it allows him/her
to produce.
-Don

Donald B. Kinghorn
Dept of Chemistry
Washington State University
Pullman WA 99163-4630
(509) 335-0958
don@-----.edu