Jake Baynes Quarter Two Blog

For my final project, I decided that I would take what I learn from the musicians that I read about and attempt to apply their ways, to my music. I picked four musicians that are musicians that have really inspired me in the last half year. I figured that since my last blogs have been more genre specific, I would break from that and get even more personal. By doing this, I hoped that I would be able to answer a few of my own questions. Some of these questions included, how should I mix Jazz and Blues together without it being "Incorrect" The first step to adjusting my musical mindset to what my inspirations had to say was literally changing the way that I approach music. In the last few years, I have been really hard on my playing. I have been trying to perfect two totally different voices in my music. To be more specific, I have been working really hard on developing my blues roots and my jazz roots just like Miles and the earlier musicians I read about had suggested. Howe...

0-112 Glass Slide (1) - What Duane was known for using. Glissando (2) - The term used to describe the technique/sound of the glass slide. Session Musician (25) - Before starting The Allman Brothers, Duane was a session musician. This meant that Duane was called to play on certain songs from other bands as a stand in guitarist. The Allman Brothers (27) - The band Duane Started with his brother Greg Allman. Greg Allman (27) - Duane's brother, southern rock legend. Coricidin (41) - The medicine that came in the bottle that Duane ended up using to make his glass slides. Eric Clapton (47) - A large influencer of the Allman Brothers. Fillmore East (57) - A venue that the Allman Brothers were famously known for playing at. Cream (48) - A band that largely influenced The Allman Brothers. Eat A Peach (77) - One of the most famous albums ever produced, made by the aleman brothers. titled after a quote that Duane had said before he died about eating peaches in georgia for peace. I...

23-74 Limits are something that I have seen with a lot of the musicians that I have read about. However, none have directly spoken about them. So far in Duane's biography, there has been some mention of limitation. Growing up as a musician, Duane became a popular session musician. This was due to the large demand of session musicians at the time in his area. People like Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett and more were in need of guitarists to play over their recorded albums. According to Duane, the money was good, but the freedom of what he could play was extremely limiting. Being a session guitarist means that you are hired to play exactly what the boss wants you to play. Since Duane was sick of playing with limitation, he called a group of his favorite musicians and started his own band, The Allman Brothers. This, I believe is a huge statement, especially with how popular The Allman Brothers still are. Looking at all of the musicians that I have studied over the past twoish seme...

Here is one of my favorite videos of Duane Allman. This is from quite a few years ago. The video features Duane Allman and Derek Trucks having a guitar battle. Derek is 13 in this video!! It goes to show that anything is possible! Fun Fact! Mr Soule, the Marine Bio teacher actually saw Derek play when he was 13!

As I have finished all three of my books, I have been asked to read another 100+ pages of reading this week. I have chosen to read "Skydog - The Duane Allman Story" By Randy Poe So far I have read 23 pages of this biography. I chose to look into the life of Duane Allman since he was the largest inspiration to my favorite player Derek Trucks. When Derek was 13, he would get on stage with Duane often to sit in with the Allman Brothers. This was all thanks to his uncle, Butch Trucks, who was the drummer for the Allman Brothers.  The early musical influences of Duane Allman were very interesting as they were heavily mixed between the slide blues musicians of the time such as Muddy Waters and the finger style musicians such as BB King. Both of these musicians had extremely different tonalities and stylistic approaches to playing the guitar. The thing with Duane was that he had developed a sound that he wanted to develop in his head. Duane had started playing the guitar a...

Stevie Wonder Cornea (311) - transparent layer that forms the front of the eye instrumentalist (314) - one who plays numerous instruments prematurity (314) before puberty Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (314)  - Awarded to Wonder in 1996 after winning 24 Grammy awards (321) - awards given to musicians synthesizer (323) type of instrument that is puerly electronic and allows for interesting sounds. elegance (331) - the way one presents themselves. commision (331) - getting pay from doing a certain chore. humanitarian (325) - to promote human wellfare Pivitol (326) - crucial importance in relation to development or success of something else Bestowed (341) give something to someone

Finished All Books Now that I have read three more books about the different musicians that inspire me from a day to day basis, I feel as though I have really learned a lot about what makes a great musician. Each of these musicians talked about a lot of different aspects to their lives and the music scene that they pulled from and used in order to achieve success. The most common threads between all three musicians was location, persistence and determination. Stevie Ray showed location and persistence the most out of the three traits. He showed these through constant gigging. When comparing Stevie to Coltrane and Wonder, he definitely out gigged all of them in his early career. When Coltrane gigged in his early career, there was a definite gain in popularity and the ability for him to gain more success in the music industry. As for Stevie Ray, a lot of his early gigs were just at restaurants and bars near his house. Thought these gigs he expanded his love for music and gave him a lot...

Here is one of my favorite Stevie wonder videos. Here is Stevie improvising on the piano over John Coltrane's "Giant Steps" what a collision of two worlds!

322-352 (finished) Now that I have finished the Stevie Wonder "Signed Sealed Delivered" biography, I feel as though I have a new understanding on all of the different mentalities that different musicians have. For Stevie, It was making a strong point in all of his music. Coming from his time, being blind and black proved to have somewhat of a challenge. However, he pushed past that and became a successful musician. As I had mentioned in previous blogs, Stevie's live was very difficult as it was full of accidents and hardship. One of the things that surprised me throughout the book was how modest he was about his extreme success. When talking about his gift and all that he had done for the music industry, he would always revert to saying that he was blessed that god gave him the ability to do what he wanted with his life, that being music.  He also talked about how everyone has the ability to do something with their lives, this is where I got the quote below. I think t...

236- 322 Pretentious  (220) - attempting to impress by having greater talent. Groove (231) - the center of a song. Stevie Wonder found that groove was one of the most important parts of music. Motown (232) - Record Company that recorded Marvin Gay Pop music (245) - Music of the present that is loved by the general public. ghetto (248) - Part of a city, the slum area Donny Hathaway (250) - Major influence in soul music through the 70s. Signed Sealed Delivered (253) - A very large album in Stevie's career. Superstition (253) - One of the most popular Stevie Wonder Songs. Stevie Ray Vaughan (351) - Covered Superstition causing many others to do the same. "Whats Going On" (369) - One of the songs that Stevie said to have strongly influenced his career. Marvin Gaye (340) - Strongly influenced Stevie's career. Grammy Award (377) - An award awarded to recognize musical accomplishment in the music industry. Harpsichord (411) - An old english instrument that is s...

195-236 When looking at all of these different musicians, there are many factors that go into their success and musicianship. I think that the largest factor is their personality and determination. These factors seem to always come from an early life experience or childhood. This is relating to my essential question of how does childhood influence ones musical abilities. In the cases of Stevie Ray and Coltrane, it was drive that had developed at a young age that pushed them to success later on in their careers. Though childhoods seemed to provide music with the outlet for these people to express themselves and get themselves away from their hardship. In Stevie Wonders case, he was famous from the age of 11. Also, Stevie was born blind. These two factors seemed to be have strong influences on Stevie's mentality as a person and a musician. Being bind is a huge handicap for someone who wants to play music as they will inevitably have a hard time figuring out where they are suppose...

I posted this video because I found it really inspiring. I think that a lot of people my age tell themselves that they could not be extremely good at something due to their age. I have heard people say may times, "oh so and so is good because they have been doing that thing for the past 40 years" It really comes down to determination. If you are determined to be good at something and you hold yourself to a really high standard, you can do anything. 

Stevie Wonder 0-195 Jazz Fusion - The combination of Jazz with another style of music. Diverse (14) - Showing a great deal of variety Prolific (16) - Artist who produces many works Contemporary (17) - Living or occurring at the same time. A lot of Stevie's music was contemporary. Multi-instrumentalist (27) - One who can play more than one instrument Retinopathy (27) - Stevie was blind because he suffered from retinopathy at birth. What furthered this was over oxigenization at birth. exacerbated (31)- To make a problem worse. Harmonica (33) - One of the many instruments that Stevie could play. Prepubescent (34) - Pre puberty. Stevie was a multi instrumentalist at a very young age. Little Stevie Wonder (40) - The name given to stevie before he turned 18. Fervent (67) - display of passionate intensity. Idiom (86) - a characteristic of displaying passion in music or art Reminiscent (111) -  Reminding one of something Constrained (122) - Compel or force Rousing (132) - E...