From jake92028@yahoo.com Fri Aug 04 21:07:32 2006
Subject:Re: ABB's version of "Stormy Monday" - what's Gregg playing? AND THE ANSWER IS.....

I suppose I am a heretic that should be taken out and burned at the
musical stake, but after many years of playing, I just see white
keys and black keys. For some odd reason in my case all the black
keys are flats to me except for F#. There is an alternate universe
of players 'out here' - smaller maybe (?) but still significant. I
haven't needed to read music for so long, playing blues and rock and
originals and 'original covers' and improvising, I've forgotten how
to read, which makes theory a moot point and also of little
interest. This doesn't make me 'cool' and 'you' silly or foolish or
whatever - it just is what it is, neither negative or positive to me
= just two (or more) different ways of going about playing. If
there's a song I haven't heard much before and need to be able to
play now, I do use simple chord 'cheat sheets' or Nashville numbers
on 3x5 cards until I know the song after a few passes - and I'm
improvising from the get-go. That's how I play.

I really don't want to copy another player's exact instrumental
version of a song, note for note and chord for chord, although I do
want to play the song well, and can; and generally also hear most of
the same notes that were played - and other notes I feel like
playing that sound good too. There's no offense meant when I don't
care what the perfect correct notes were somebody played on a
particular recording. It sounded good and I made an unconcious
mental note of it I'm sure. I still hear some Jimmy Smith riffs here
and there in my organ playing from carrying his albums around to
listen to with my portable stereo record player when I played clubs
as a much much younger musician.

To perform, I hear what to play and play it, but try not to play the
same exact chord voicings even during one performance of Stormy
Monday. Each section can be similar but different every time I play
it. A particular player's fame - the famous part - means nothing to
me vs my playing = we all put our pants on the same way. I'm just
glad some good musicians were sucessful and are up on a stage or on
record, tape, or CD to listen to and enjoy - and of course
unconciously pick up notes from that go in the memory banks and pop
out later. I truly believe there are countless undiscovered and
equally talented players that simply were not in the right place at
the right time in the right circumstances ..and there's some right
on this list. Note - If you can copy it, then you're talented enough
to play it. Thus: Perhaps you could just as easily have been the one
who wrote and invented the riff, and been the first one to play it?

When I was a kid junior musician and noted all the 'old fogey' jazz
and standards musicians that wanted to get every note exactly right,
carrying briefcases full of charts and stacks of 78's, tripping over
their music stands, I was struck by how odd and maybe even a little
sad it was that a talented musician would restrict their own playing
to copying note for note what someone else - famous - had played. I
thought it was 'square,' the popular catch phrase of the time. I was
wrong in how I first perceived it = brass and reeds etc had to learn
some basic performance skills, like I was with my classical piano
lessons, and be able to play their axe well in a band-with-charts
format which was the structure to play in then. I think I hoped they
would learn to drop the props and just get into playing it. When I
saw jazz trio's, quartets etc, just improvising later I realized
some did learn to just improvise ..and the ability for some did come
from 'square' roots, but not all of them. However, sure as the sun
kept coming up, some of those more famous improvised notes and
chords are in chart form now for some musicians to copy playing.

Now when I see older musicians, many younger than me (and I'm
getting kind of 'long in the tooth), wanting to copy note for note
what someone else played, I am still struck by that same odd, maybe
a little sad, feeling again. Two generations gone and some musicians
still doing the same thing. When they already know how to play, they
want to play the same notes as someone else. I don't get it, and I
know I'm the 'odd man out' here ..I'm the guy that's wrong/weird.
But I know there are other players besides me, that used to know how
to read and write, that now just play the black and white keys and
improvise. And I do miss out on things, like if I want to learn bits
and pieces of the good stuff in B3 Player magazine, I'd have to know
how to read. But I don't have the time or energy to put into it. And
I'd really much rather listen to one of these guys play than play
like them.

The bands and players we listened to that got famous, and some want
to copy their keyboard parts didn't get famous (enough to copy?)
because they were what 'we' think of as better musicians than 'us' -
but because they sounded and looked 'cool' enough personally, and
were in the right place at the right time to get discovered and
become famous. When you're famous, you have more time to maybe
practice and get even better! So ..Errm.. Some will play and copy a
little, some will play and copy a lot, some will only copy, and some
will do none of the above - it seems to all work out okay -
something musical for everyone.

Friday AM $0.05 cents (no more pennies!) Walter j