Myths

Musical education

They say that classical musicians feel horror by the thought of playing wrong notes, and the worst for a jazz player is to have no individuality. Knowledge is always a good thing, but it should not restrain musical people. Theoretic education of course is crucial to bring written music into life, as well as superior technique to master any demand from a composer.

For those who create and produce instead of reproduce, it is important to hone ones uniqueness as well as to master the instrument. 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, and maybe there is not so much of a point in buying their records if there is nothing special about them.

History has proved that education is not strictly necessary to become a musician, nor an artist, nor a star. Autodidacts are quite common out there 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 played several instruments and were quite good at all of them. Teachers, if present at all, became useless at a certain point.

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

Therefore: Theory is a major advantage. 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. Being technical and knowing theory are useful as it may enable you to do better what you intended to do in the first place. But to move an audience, emotional presence and mere musicality matter even more. Be blunt, let your energy flow. Don’t be a chicken and 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 an advantage 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 chord 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 chords 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. He was frequently 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 chord pattern as well as playing solos. I had the pleasure of joining him in several band projects. He could be real fast, and sometimes I thought he even was 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.

Deafness

The incredible Ludvig van Beethoven was deaf most of his life. He was as a youngster known to be a brilliant piano player and improviser, but in his late twenties deafness started to appear. Somehow isolation because of decreasing conversation abilities brought him into a state of even more creativity as he grew older. When he died at the age of 57, he left an unforgettable musical legacy. He will always keep his position as one of the greatest composers ever, despite being unable to hear what he made in later life.

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. Andrea Bocelli and Stevie Wonder have in common that they play several instruments. Search on the web, and you’ll be amazed how many blind musicians there are.

Handicap as a limit

Sometimes physical limitations are not crucial. Musical instruments are the tools to enable you to perform, and you need limbs to operate these tools, as well as good ears. But obviously the restrictions of a serious handicap is not enough to hold back brilliant musicianship and strong personalities. as the gift of being safe and sound is not enough to become successful, and 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 outlandish experience.

Musicality is not about education, physical abilities or virtuosity. It is an independent, intangible, divine force occurring 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. Open up, 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. So I just play along with the track, try out ideas and fool around before 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 some strange but interesting contributions that the producer thought was too good to be wasted. To sound good within a 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 own clichés, conventions that students are being taught on colleges. But those musicians who stand out from the crowd 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.