--Apple-Mail-3-543487171
charset=ISO-2022-JP;
format=flowed
Hi Jason,
Music is a language of sorts, so it's helpful to have a vocabulary if
you want to improvise. All of the great improvisors have some sort of
musical vocabulary to draw upon to form their spontaneous compositions.
John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman have a jazz vocabulary, organists
(the most habitual improvisors in Western classical music) have a
classical vocabulary, Hendrix had a blues and rock vocabulary, Ravi
Shankar plays ragas, Watazumi improvised around a combination of
honkyoku and pure sound exploration. But Watazumi wouldn't have been
able to make those sounds if he hadn't already learned sound production
through the traditional music.
In terms of improvising on shakuhachi one of the most interesting
aspects is that learning the traditional music forces you to develop
techniques and pitch relationships that nobody (Japanese or Western)
would develop "naturally". It is not easy or particularly natural to
play the microtones for example. The natural scale of the shakuhachi is
the minor pentatonic but it's not the most common one used in
traditional music. There are plenty of end blown flutes in the world.
They all sound pretty much the same if you just pick them up and play
whatever comes to mind. The specialized and very counterintuitive
techniques developed through difficult shakuhachi study are what give
it that beautiful and mysterious sound that differentiates it from a
quena or whatever. The reason the sound is mysterious is because the
techniques used to produce that sound are not obvious.
Spontaneity, risk taking, and intuitive leaps are required for good
improvisation, but with no musical vocabulary to back it up people tend
to stick to whatever is easy to produce given the mechanics of the
instrument they are playing. If you look at the great improvisors they
always take the instrument beyond what it was originally designed to
do. If you're improvising around any kind of chord, chord changes,
scale, mode, or key you have to at least understand what they're made
up of before you can do anything interesting with them. Without
exception the people who excel at total free improvisation without
traditional structure (John Zorn, Eugene Chadbourne, Derek Bailey,
Cecil Taylor are some names that come to mind) all know how to play
some kind of trained music at a very high level. And they all know
their scales.
I think what you're saying is valid in terms of therapeutic value. And
it's good for everybody to play music on whatever level they are
comfortable with. But it's invigorating to get outside your comfort
zone on an instrument and the only way to do that is to challenge
yourself. And on the shakuhachi there's no greater challenge than
learning the traditional music. After that you can improvise on a much
higher level.
Regards,
BR (Tairaku)
> JASON CASTNER WROTE:
>
> if you dont like to play scales, then play whatever
> your heart desires. i think that playing your flute
> to make others happy is not as good as playing your
> flute to make yourself happy and if others listen and
> like it then thats cool too. i think the most
> important thing is to just play your flute and not
> worry about exercises. just play play play. if you
> cant just play for a long time then probabaly the
> flute isnt for you. i could make a flute with no
> finger holes and still amuse myself for hours on one
> note. so the flute is definetely for me... dont try
> and sound like another flute player, just try and
> sound like yourself as best as you can. feel inner
> emotion strong so that your spine tingles and let it
> out the flute... or feel nothing but play and let
> your body go on auto pilot. .... these techniques
> work best for me.. to practice playing on auto pilot
> i used to read interesting articles on the internet
> and play my flute at the same time. or listen to
> someones conversation and play background music for
> them at the same time.
太
楽
--Apple-Mail-3-543487171
charset=ISO-2022-JP
Hi Jason,
Music is a language of sorts, so it's helpful to have a vocabulary if
you want to improvise. All of the great improvisors have some sort of
musical vocabulary to draw upon to form their spontaneous
compositions. John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman have a jazz
vocabulary, organists (the most habitual improvisors in Western
classical music) have a classical vocabulary, Hendrix had a blues and
rock vocabulary, Ravi Shankar plays ragas, Watazumi improvised around
a combination of honkyoku and pure sound exploration. But Watazumi
wouldn't have been able to make those sounds if he hadn't already
learned sound production through the traditional music.
In terms of improvising on shakuhachi one of the most interesting
aspects is that learning the traditional music forces you to develop
techniques and pitch relationships that nobody (Japanese or Western)
would develop "naturally". It is not easy or particularly natural to
play the microtones for example. The natural scale of the shakuhachi
is the minor pentatonic but it's not the most common one used in
traditional music. There are plenty of end blown flutes in the world.
They all sound pretty much the same if you just pick them up and play
whatever comes to mind. The specialized and very counterintuitive
techniques developed through difficult shakuhachi study are what give
it that beautiful and mysterious sound that differentiates it from a
quena or whatever. The reason the sound is mysterious is because the
techniques used to produce that sound are not obvious.
Spontaneity, risk taking, and intuitive leaps are required for good
improvisation, but with no musical vocabulary to back it up people
tend to stick to whatever is easy to produce given the mechanics of
the instrument they are playing. If you look at the great improvisors
they always take the instrument beyond what it was originally designed
to do. If you're improvising around any kind of chord, chord changes,
scale, mode, or key you have to at least understand what they're made
up of before you can do anything interesting with them. Without
exception the people who excel at total free improvisation without
traditional structure (John Zorn, Eugene Chadbourne, Derek Bailey,
Cecil Taylor are some names that come to mind) all know how to play
some kind of trained music at a very high level. And they all know
their scales.
I think what you're saying is valid in terms of therapeutic value. And
it's good for everybody to play music on whatever level they are
comfortable with. But it's invigorating to get outside your comfort
zone on an instrument and the only way to do that is to challenge
yourself. And on the shakuhachi there's no greater challenge than
learning the traditional music. After that you can improvise on a much
higher level.
Regards,
BR (Tairaku)
<excerpt>JASON CASTNER WROTE:
if you dont like to play scales, then play whatever
your heart desires. i think that playing your flute
to make others happy is not as good as playing your
flute to make yourself happy and if others listen and
like it then thats cool too. i think the most
important thing is to just play your flute and not
worry about exercises. just play play play. if you
cant just play for a long time then probabaly the
flute isnt for you. i could make a flute with no
finger holes and still amuse myself for hours on one
note. so the flute is definetely for me... dont try
and sound like another flute player, just try and
sound like yourself as best as you can. feel inner
emotion strong so that your spine tingles and let it
out the flute... or feel nothing but play and let
your body go on auto pilot. .... these techniques
work best for me.. to practice playing on auto pilot
i used to read interesting articles on the internet
and play my flute at the same time. or listen to
someones conversation and play background music for
them at the same time.
</excerpt>
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--Apple-Mail-3-543487171--
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