In my profession, it no longer surprises me to find an artist or a musician who can’t wait to stay and learn a few basics and hit the ground running. These people believe that execution is more important than learning the skills to properly execute the idea.
These people want to rush things and pass on things that are somehow “insane” and “time consuming”. There were even some musicians I know that even skipped completely over the basic chord patterns and progressions that were all necessary for them to progress and grow as an artist, in the hopes of “becoming the rock star of tomorrow”.
Everything takes time to grow and nurture. It is impossible to plant the seeds today and get the tomatoes tomorrow. This rule of nature applies to almost everything in the world. However, that basic law of nature can simply be overlooked because our modern society pushes the idea of “do THIS instantly!”
If you believe this hype, you might just lose a couple of pound in 7 days, learn Yoga in three days, and get your Master’s degree after 6 weeks. When you look at these things in a slower pace, what is the quality going to be like? Thinking at a slower pace, what is the quality that you will have? How many exercise routines can you actually learn in a week? How many moves can you remember by heart in 7 days? Can you do a Head-stand without killing yourself if you rush Yoga?
A lot of musicians can’t wait to learn to play the bass guitar and form immediately a rock band. They get the latest equipments, start making noise, and find themselves hitting a brick wall.
What I learned from Dave Frank’s workshop last week when he showed us the very entertaining and equally talented Marx Brothers, is this: you have to learn he rules first before you can break them. Yes the techniques of Chico Marx were no way learned from a conventional piano lesson, but the point is, he learned the basics at the very least. Chico fired the wrong notes intentionally to entertain, but the piece still was great – he hit the “perfect wrong notes”. Of course, there is no other way of learning which notes to miss if he did not know which ones he was supposed to hit, in the first place.
The rules should be learned before they can be bent. As a musician, it is imperative that you learn proper scales and chords before you can begin to improvise.
If you have heard about him he is not just any jazz piano school owner and musician.. Dave Frank is one of the hottest solo jazz pianists music educators on today’s jazz scene, the man behind Hal Leonard’s best-selling book series Joy of Improv.
The Dave Frank Marx Brothers Master Class is on Youtube. To watch it just check out that link.
Below you will find part 1.
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