playing, hearing, django story

manoucheguitars

For me it quite simply has become... set aside 1 or 2 hours a day for practice.

Elliot

blindjimmy wrote:

i can't completely agree with the assessment of someone who was at home in the right side of his brain. c'mon, these people at that time had no use for science, psych, whatever, i dont even think he was making that statement intuitively, thinking that his mind was attuned to music. this is a superstitious culture, and i always read that statement as meaning that the muse of art and music came to him, and spoke to him, through him., opened up her legs for him. where he lived in the moment, we sit around with our feeble analyzations and petty attempts to show off how much we know. frank was so on the money when he said shut up and play your guitar

Back then, and for time memorial prior, they referred to 'the muse', 'the gods', etc. What is interesting was that whatever they regarded as the source of their inspiration, they all share the common feature that it was considered somewhere beyond but accessible to their normal consciousness, and that it turns out they were right and much more literally than they could have imagined. I like that better than 'right hemisphere' which robs it of its power - I wouldn't mind if they called the sun the Eye of God either. For all we know it could be. The point is that they are both the same thing.

As for Frank, yeah, it is much easier to shut up and play ones guitar if you're only dealing with a one or two chord vamp. Not much to discuss there.

HCPhilly

"can't completely agree with the assessment of someone who was at home in the right side of his brain. c'mon, these people at that time had no use for science, psych, whatever"
I'm not sure what you mean by that. The right-brain/left-brain
stuff has nothing to do with how much science someone knows or doesn't know, or how much science was known at the time.
Spatial visualization, for one thing is a right brain activity, for the most part, where as math skills are more left brain, [simplified for the sake of discussion].
To put it another way, I suspect that the left-brain dominance of say an accountant, would probably make for a rather pedestrian jazz player.
the ability to "see" the progression at an intuitive level is probably more right brain. I can recommend some cool books on the subject if you like. As I said, I'm really not sure what you mean. It's all conjecture anyway.
Barry

Bones

HC

Some book recommendations would be great.

Thanks

Elliot

Here at least is something: http://www.rense.com/general2/rb.htm

I know, you can Google, too. Split-brain research has to be among the most fascinating. They've barely even touched on the nuances and connections that would account for the example Barry gives. Most of the heavy jazz cats I've met are certainly very abstract thinkers, and jazz itself has to be the most language like musical form, which to me speaks of bilaterality (literally). It takes a bit of abstract thinking to even comprehend some of it, like bebop.

Of course, for many left brain oriented people abstract = advanced, which is where we always get the 'better than Django' observations of people new to the genre, and 'better than GJ' observations of others who consider it anachronistic. A mistake Zappa never made - hence his reference to 'gnat notes', describing overly dense clusters of bebop.

Elliot

HCPhilly

I'm not sure if this link will work;
Click here: Amazon.com: Sally P. Springer: Books

As Elliot said, you can google split brain info.
BTW, that was a good post Elliot, well said.
The whole issue of what's involved in becoming a better player
is pretty involved, and most of what we know is really based on our own experience and the guidance of other players.

Wirralgitane

high five HCPhilly!

All this talk puts me off abit.
I've forgot how good it was just jumpin in and jammin and enjoyin it.
i find you'll learn the most by just playing and listening, which ever side of the brain is playing with you.
I shake me head when i'm playing anyway, so am sure i go abit skitzo in parts because the other side of me ed starts taking control, then the other, then the other then another....