Post AtrKaALRTMZGhFBVmi by mcmullin@musicians.today
(DIR) More posts by mcmullin@musicians.today
(DIR) Post #AtrKa0pCrqR1Af28n2 by mcmullin@musicians.today
2025-05-06T00:06:51Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
This thread from @elsemusic brings to mind a bunch of things that interest me, about the value of music theory, authenticity originality and image.https://musician.social/@elsemusic/114451300013942554
(DIR) Post #AtrKa1JL3oXOg78Cky by mcmullin@musicians.today
2025-05-06T00:12:05Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@elsemusic It wouldn't surprise me at all if Kurt Cobain didn't know much music theory.As a sometime professor of music theory, I don't believe it can ever hurt you to know more. But I also think you should always be free to do what you can with what you've got. Lots of great music has been made by people who just went ahead and made it because they weren't hindered by what they were afraid they didn't know.
(DIR) Post #AtrKa1jZUHWNzTP9e4 by mcmullin@musicians.today
2025-05-06T00:18:18Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@elsemusic On the other hand, it also wouldn't surprise me if Cobain knew more music theory than he found advantageous to acknowledge in interviews like the one referenced. Admitting to any kind of artifice would have undercut his presentation as the embodiment of inspired, tortured authenticity and raw unmediated feeling. However sincerely held or true that idea of him may have been, it was also a very effective branding strategy, and he must have been aware of that.
(DIR) Post #AtrKa2Nd5LZ1zi995E by mcmullin@musicians.today
2025-05-06T01:43:59Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@elsemusic (This reminds me of stories I’ve heard about the big band era, when some black bands learned complicated written arrangements in rehearsals, but hid the charts and played from memory in gigs because white patrons liked to think they were “natural” musicians just playing by instinct alone.)
(DIR) Post #AtrKa3F9sKNkfjBtWC by nigelharpur@musicians.today
2025-05-07T15:24:45Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mcmullin @elsemusic whereas I used to play with the chord chart to each tune in front of me, but in reality be playing completely from memory 😂. In tunes like Stella By Starlight, where the chord sequences are ridiculously long (and all properly 'jazz' too), if I had a momentary blank the worst thing I could do was actually look at the sheet cuz I hadn't the faintest idea 'where' I was in it!? 🤣
(DIR) Post #AtrKa3fOInMjz5SqPI by mcmullin@musicians.today
2025-05-07T17:16:47Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@nigelharpur @elsemusic That reminds me of my first attempt to play a jazz solo, in my high school jazz band when I was about 14 or 15. One day in rehearsal the band director picked a medium up-tempo swing chart and just went around the whole band giving everyone a chance to try improvising a solo. A couple of the guys, the usual featured soloists, had some experience and were pretty good. Most of us had no idea… 1/n
(DIR) Post #AtrKa4E8Dd9fipiaYa by mcmullin@musicians.today
2025-05-07T17:21:09Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@nigelharpur @elsemusic When my turn came, someone put the chord sheet in front of me. I had never seen one before and had no clue what it meant, so I just ignored it. I knew we were in B-flat major, so I played whatever came to mind in B-flat, and threw in the occasional blue note. I don’t know what I played, but it couldn’t have been brilliant. Come to think of it, I’d only even been playing trombone for 2 or 3 years at that point.2/n
(DIR) Post #AtrKa53t7CYUJLvvEG by nigelharpur@musicians.today
2025-05-07T17:30:38Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mcmullin @elsemusic ha! Love it. My 'apparent' jazz playing is generally 95% a mixture of modal and blue minor pentatonic with 5% 'hit and hope'!
(DIR) Post #AtrKa5mYR8HgXspaqm by mcmullin@musicians.today
2025-05-07T18:35:49Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@nigelharpur @elsemusic “If you make a mistake, make it again and it’s jazz.”
(DIR) Post #AtrKa87BlNyhmSV6I4 by mcmullin@musicians.today
2025-05-06T02:00:35Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@elsemusic As to the “all major chords” idea, it’s already been pointed out that open-fifth power chords with no 3rd aren’t necessarily major. But aside from that, it also wouldn’t have been such a novelty to use all major chords: a bajillion folk, rock, punk and other musicians have made whole careers with just major triads I, IV and V.
(DIR) Post #AtrKaALRTMZGhFBVmi by mcmullin@musicians.today
2025-05-07T17:27:01Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@nigelharpur @elsemusic But what I played was clearly better than anyone expected, including myself. I noticed other players exchanging looks, like, “where is this coming from”? The director turned toward me and made a face I’ll never forget, with his mouth hanging way open. When the tune was done, he said “I think we found our new soloist” and for days afterwards people asked me when and how I learned to do that. I didn’t know, and still don’t.3/n
(DIR) Post #AtrKaDV7jp5wU8jmnA by mcmullin@musicians.today
2025-05-06T02:01:37Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@elsemusic But if you go much farther afield than that and maybe V/V (major II), music made from all major triads starts to sound pretty strange. (One of David Rakowski’s piano etudes is based on that idea, I think.)
(DIR) Post #AtrKaFjjQTy5Q1aTq4 by mcmullin@musicians.today
2025-05-07T17:32:07Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@nigelharpur @elsemusic But now that I was actually going to be playing solos in public, I learned to read the chord sheets.And this did not make me better at all. On the contrary, by the time I figured out what this chord was, and what notes were in it, and what scales would fit with it, that chord would be a few bars behind us already. I had no understanding of why one chord would follow another, just that they all went by in milliseconds. 4/n
(DIR) Post #AtrKaLtWWzMkW8DNw0 by mcmullin@musicians.today
2025-05-07T17:37:13Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@nigelharpur @elsemusic Now I understand a lot more, but I’m still impressed with even just the basic skills it takes to think that fast.And now I also understand that what we played that day was a rhythm-changes tune, and that despite all those chords on the sheet (diminished 7ths! major 13ths! altered dominants!) coming every 2 beats, all they’re all doing is elaborating the tonic. So you can in fact just play in B flat the whole time and that’ll sound fine.5/5