Analytical blog
313-355 John Coltrane
The way that Coltrane practiced as well as what and how he learned was a huge factor throughout his life. Compared to other musicians, Coltrane definitely practiced the most. Not only did he practice the most, but he also practiced in the most diverse way to all other musicians of his and current times. Coltrane was known for practicing in hotel rooms, taxi cabs, bathrooms and in the dressing rooms before shows. In one interview Coltrane had said that an interviewer told him that his music sounded angry and conflicted. Following this, Coltrane responded that he just had so many ideas going on from all of the practicing that he was doing, that when he played, he attempted to fit in all of his new ideas so that he could wrap his ears around them. This all relates to an essential question that I had, "how does the way in which someone practices, effect their overall playing as a musician?" In Coltrane's case, it seems that the excessive playing and practicing lead to his playing to have many different ideas all happening at once. I think this best relates to one of my favorite quotes that Coltrane stated about starting his sentences in the middle and going both ways.
With the huge amount that Coltrane practiced through the 60s until he died, a lot of ideas were formed and many different songs were written. I think that with this type of practice regime, one can definitely develop a style that is completely alienated from all other styles within the genre over time. When looking at some of Coltrane's tunes like "My Favorite Things" and "Afro Blue" where Coltrane would take 10+ minutes of pure improvised solo, one can notice that Coltrane never runs out of ideas to play. I think that this is one of the things that definitely made Coltrane the legend that he is today. Most musicians can not improvise for over 5 minutes without sounding repetitive due to the fact that us musicians do not work on knowing hundreds of different ideas at a time. Coltrane on the other hand did, allowing him to be able to take us places through 10 min of solo time!
To apply this lesson to my own life, I want to tweak the way that I practice. Currently, I work on learning jazz vocabulary and working on technical things first when I begin to practice. I then move away from this and work on the things that I would like to practice. After this, I usually play for fun, what ever I am thinking of at the time. After learning about how Coltrane practiced and what gave him such a unique sound, I would like to add something to my practice schedule. I would like to start dedicating some time to playing only ideas that I have never played before. In order to achieve this, I need to take Coltrane's approach of starting somewhere on my instrument that I have never played from before and then playing something in a rhythm or scale that I have not used a lot before hand. I am very interested to find out what happens to my playing when attempting to do this!!!
The way that Coltrane practiced as well as what and how he learned was a huge factor throughout his life. Compared to other musicians, Coltrane definitely practiced the most. Not only did he practice the most, but he also practiced in the most diverse way to all other musicians of his and current times. Coltrane was known for practicing in hotel rooms, taxi cabs, bathrooms and in the dressing rooms before shows. In one interview Coltrane had said that an interviewer told him that his music sounded angry and conflicted. Following this, Coltrane responded that he just had so many ideas going on from all of the practicing that he was doing, that when he played, he attempted to fit in all of his new ideas so that he could wrap his ears around them. This all relates to an essential question that I had, "how does the way in which someone practices, effect their overall playing as a musician?" In Coltrane's case, it seems that the excessive playing and practicing lead to his playing to have many different ideas all happening at once. I think this best relates to one of my favorite quotes that Coltrane stated about starting his sentences in the middle and going both ways.
With the huge amount that Coltrane practiced through the 60s until he died, a lot of ideas were formed and many different songs were written. I think that with this type of practice regime, one can definitely develop a style that is completely alienated from all other styles within the genre over time. When looking at some of Coltrane's tunes like "My Favorite Things" and "Afro Blue" where Coltrane would take 10+ minutes of pure improvised solo, one can notice that Coltrane never runs out of ideas to play. I think that this is one of the things that definitely made Coltrane the legend that he is today. Most musicians can not improvise for over 5 minutes without sounding repetitive due to the fact that us musicians do not work on knowing hundreds of different ideas at a time. Coltrane on the other hand did, allowing him to be able to take us places through 10 min of solo time!
How do you get the ideas of something that you've never played before? From other people? Or just from making stuff up in the moment?
ReplyDeleteI am starting to feel like someday this class is going to get a shout out from a stage or a book you write about your career since it's given you a guided amount of time to really throw yourself into learning about these musicians and their styles! :)
I think that the ideas that people create in music come from things that they have seen or heard before. Yet most times, we can't recall where we may have heard the idea. As it goes to the back of your mind and mixes with other ideas, suddenly it comes forwards as a new idea! ------ It would be very amazing if I could get to that point in my life! I can only continue dreaming! Thank you very much.
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