Analytical Blog
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 semesters, there has been a common trait between all of them. That trait is that they all did what they wanted to do in music. None of them held themselves to any type of limiting factor. There are a lot of less successful musicians that I know of around these people that I have studied. A lot of these musicians were limiting themselves to a specific genre. For example, Miles Davis broke the genre of jazz and redefined it over 5 times throughout his career. When people think of jazz, they often think about Miles Davis. When people think of Southern Rock and Soul they think of The Allman Brothers.
For me, reading this was like a huge awakening. Ever since I began playing jazz, I started limiting myself to what ever genre I was playing. It is a good thing to be able to control depending on the situation, however, when improvising one should not limit themselves to think Genre specific. The issue that I have had was that when I focused on jazz, I eliminated all forms of blues from my playing and vise versa. This meant that I was attempting to sound like two totally separate musicians. Something that I am proud of is that I have been told that when I play the blues, people can tell that it is me playing the blues and that I do not sound like other musicians. The same can't be said about my jazz playing. I believe that this is because I eliminate my main voice as a musician from my playing, that being the blues.
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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 semesters, there has been a common trait between all of them. That trait is that they all did what they wanted to do in music. None of them held themselves to any type of limiting factor. There are a lot of less successful musicians that I know of around these people that I have studied. A lot of these musicians were limiting themselves to a specific genre. For example, Miles Davis broke the genre of jazz and redefined it over 5 times throughout his career. When people think of jazz, they often think about Miles Davis. When people think of Southern Rock and Soul they think of The Allman Brothers.
For me, reading this was like a huge awakening. Ever since I began playing jazz, I started limiting myself to what ever genre I was playing. It is a good thing to be able to control depending on the situation, however, when improvising one should not limit themselves to think Genre specific. The issue that I have had was that when I focused on jazz, I eliminated all forms of blues from my playing and vise versa. This meant that I was attempting to sound like two totally separate musicians. Something that I am proud of is that I have been told that when I play the blues, people can tell that it is me playing the blues and that I do not sound like other musicians. The same can't be said about my jazz playing. I believe that this is because I eliminate my main voice as a musician from my playing, that being the blues.
w
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