Myths

Musical education

Knowledge is always a good thing. But whether musical education is necessary to become a musician, is a different question. They say that classical players feel horror by the thought of playing the wrong notes, and the worst for a jazz musician is to have no individuality. All I can say is, do your thing, whatever it is, and hone your uniqueness. Being the You number 1 is more important than becoming John Coltrane number 1012. Copycats may impress their audience at their best, but they may be forgotten as people leave the venue.

Autodidacts are quite common out there, at least in non-classical music. Very many have had minimal knowledge or none at all when they started out. I am one. Some others: Jimi Hendrix, Prince, Eric Clapton, Dave Grohl, the list is soooo looooooooooooong.

Some of these guys also played several instruments and were quite good at all of them. Teachers, if present at all, became useless at a certain stage.

Frank Zappa was also self taught, but he took some courses after a while to be able to write music. Some of his brilliant musicians could not read it and had to learn Zappas complicated arrangements by heart. Not an easy task, but possible.

Technique and theory are major advantages. The more musical tools you control, the less barriers you’ll have to work your way through. Without the language, you are unable to communicate. I have always envied those who master both worlds and are able to improvise as well as read music on the fly. But those who think being technical is utterly important, may run into a blind ally. It is only useful as far as it enables you to do what you want to do, it is not important in itself. To move an audience, emotional presence and musicality matter most. Be blunt, let your energy flow. Don’t hide behind virtuosity.

Handicapped?

I read a little 50 page booklet on sax playing to find the finger positions for the notes in a chromatic order when I was 18. There I also read that if you don’t have perfect teeth, you had better just forget about the saxophone. One of my front teeth is out of position, and the rest are not perfect either, but I never bothered. My teeth have a tendency to dig a groove in my mouthpieces, but then I repair them.

Clarence Clemons, the saxophoner in Bruce Springsteens E Street Band, also had funny foreteeth as he joined Springsteen into stardom. At some point he had them replaced (nice teeth obviously mean a lot to americans), but that had no impact on his sax sound.

So not having perfect teeth cannot be much of a handicap. But what if you are left-handed? If you play keyboard, this may give you advantages playing bass notes, and on saxophone you theoretically have disadvantages in the lower register if your right hand is not as «clever» as the left one. In real life, it is usually no problem. But what if you are a guitar player?

Left-handed Jimi Hendrix played a right hand guitar and swapped the low and the high strings. Then every cord had to be played in an inverted way. Many left-handed guitar players do this. But then there are others who keep the strings at their original place so everything is turned upside down as they put the guitar to the «wrong» side. They have to figure out the cords for themselves. Some bass guitar players also do this. I have seen several of them doing terrific performances. Again: Doing things different does not mean doing things wrong. And individuality is not a drawback.

But what if you have only one hand? Odd Stangeland was a promising Norwegian guitar player who suddenly had a brainstroke at the age of 26, leaving him paralyzed on the right side of the body. After a couple of years he came back on the scene, then doing all the guitarplaying with only his left hand, and was seen limping around with the guitar case in his left hand and the right one hanging straight down along his side. He developed his own technique, hitting the strings in a cord pattern, as well as playing solos. I had the pleasure of joining with him in several band projects. He could be real fast, and sometimes I thought he was even overplaying.

Richard John Cyril Allen, the drummer of the English rock group Def Leppard, lost his left arm in a car crash after playing with the band for 7 years. He kept on performing after some adjustments in his drumset lineup.

Blind musicians

For those with an urge to play, even blindness sometimes is not enough to hold them back. The list of blind and famous musicians is long. We have all heard of Ludwig van Beethoven, who despite becoming blind and dumb played the piano as well as composed great music until his dying day. Andrea Bocelli is another, Stevie Wonder a third, both of them able to play several instruments. Search on the web, and you’ll be amazed how many blind musicians there are.

Then: Is being handicapped really a handicap?

Of course, but it is not crucial. Musical instruments are the tools to enable you to perform, and you need limbs to operate these tools. But obviously the gift of being safe and sound is not enough to become successful, and the restrictions of a serious handicap is not enough to hold back brilliant musicianship. Why? Again: Content is more important than format. Good music is not defined by complexity. Listening to a naked voice is sometimes enough to give us an otherworldly experience.

Musicality is not about education, physical abilities or virtuosity. It is an independent, intangible, devine force occuring within musicians in a varying degree, working its way through the means available, whether it be one or two arms, full eye vision or no sight at all. It may also come out by mere feet tapping or dancing among the audience, a warm feeling or an adrenaline rush. It is a potent, harmless and healthy drug, the best there is.

Be blunt. Dare to expose your emotions, don’t be shy. Let your message come through.

What is the correct way?

Before doing a sax session in a studio, I usually don’t know in advance anything about the task I am facing. I just play along with the track and fool around before ideas appear in my head. When telling the recording engineer that I am ready, I sometimes get the answer: «Recording is already done, but go on if you want to». I say «What? I just got to know this piece!» Then I am invited to listen. Sometimes phrases that I thought were over the hill, added a somewhat strange, but interesting approach that the producer thought was too good to be wasted. To sound good in the context, judged in a highly subjective way, is more important than following keys, chords and rules. Music is not mathematics.

Jazz, like any musical style, has its conventions and rules that students are being taught on colleges. But again, those musicians who stand out are the ones that go against the grain. Some say that Jimi Hendrix reinvented how to play the guitar, and that John Coltrane reinvented the tenor saxophone. Both had a strong personal presence in their performance. To stand out, at some stage you may have to ditch your teacher, invent new rules for yourself, based on your own taste, and let listeners think whatever they please.