[LAU] A Bach in appology and completeness :-)

[david]

Julien Claassen wrote:
> Hi Jack!
>   You're welcome. I sometimes wonder: Is it so strange for a musician to 
> know these facts? Might be, that I'm just used to it, on the other hand 
> it's such a simple method of learning. Not very self-reliant, but I 
> wouldn't say rare. Or am I wrong here? I suppose this method is 
> especially appealing to jazz musicians, as they have to learn, not to 
> play by sheet music, but to improvise. The most important thing for some 
> kinds of jazz is - as I believe - grasping the basic theme, taking it up 
> and then working with it. Well, this type of workflow is not so common 
> among classical musicians, I daresay. Hm...

Kind of sad, if true. In Bach's day, musicians were EXPECTED to be able 
to take a melody whistled or sung by anyone in their audience - a melody 
they might have never heard before - then sit down and improvise 
contrapuntal pieces on it. Even including 4-voice fugues.

My piano instructor taught me that - I used to be able to improvise 2-3 
part contrapuntal pieces that same way.

If many modern classical musicians can't do the same thing today, it 
says more about the inadequacy of musical training these days than any 
difference between jazz or classical musicians.

-- 
David
gnome at hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community