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2009-05-03 - 3:22 a.m.
The pity is I should have learned to play bass 20 years ago. But I got stuck in the music school mode. There you get two choices: Jazz, or classical. Both schools attempt to make the player a virtuoso, which is apparently all that matters.
Jazz wants you to play endless fucking scales so you can "improvise". Meaning you end up playing ridiculous high-speed scales when it's "your turn to solo". The goal is to play music so complex that only other jazz players can appreciate it. To the rest of us, it sounds like noise, unless you spend countless hours studying it and listening to it. Masturbatory ego stroking.
Every time I hear one of those cats noodling away on a sax I wanna pull out the taser and shut him the fuck up. With prejudice.
Classical music wants you to be an historical juke box. That's right, let's play some ridiculously complex ditty written a hundred years ago. But we'll need about 30 people for it to sound decent. We can't improvise, but we can "interpret". That is, the conductor can interpret. The musicians are basically organic robots following their programming, also known as the score.
"That's great, Ludwig, but can you dance to it?"
"Jah, jah, see how zey are dahncing?"
"You call that dancing?"
I dunno, maybe I'm glad I didn't get involved in music back then. A lot of musicians have insanely fragile egos. In fact, most "artists" seem to have fragile egos. What's up with that?
Again, I'm against complexity for complexity's sake. I'm pro-pragmatism.
It was a joke in Amadeus when Emperor Joseph II complained there were "too many notes". It was meant to show he was stupid and unimaginative. Maybe I am too, but "too many notes" is my musical mantra. Let the guitar players and drummers have all the notes, I'll just concentrate on the one.
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So, how do you like them apples?