[Dixielandjazz] Question revisited

[TCASHWIGG at aol.com]

In a message dated 7/12/03 8:13:44 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
charliehooks at earthlink.net writes:

> 
> >Seems to me, proper instruction has more advantages.  But there
> >are amongst us some terrific self-taught musicians.
> >Ken Gates
> 
>   I'm self taught, and would love to think I'm one of those terrific ones.
> But I'll never know now, will I, nor will the rest of the world ever know,
> just how good I might have been with proper lessons....bless 'em!
> 
>   ...way it goes...
> 
> Charlie 
> 
> 
> 

No doubt it does Charlie:

I have several Jazz Professors and High School Music teachers who play in my 
band, it is sometimes although not always easier to tell them how to play what 
I want them to play without the benefits of a chart,  they often have 
difficulty in hearing what I am talking about, so the rest of the self taught guys 
just start to play it and they seem to figure it out and play pretty well with 
us or get awfully embarrassed if they don't.

It's all about musical communication and improvisation either you can do it 
or you can't and the only thing you have to rely upon is your ears like us self 
taught guys had.

What do the chart readers do in the wind when the charts blow away????  the 
best way to learn improvisation I would imagine.


If I had listened to my first professional unemployed music teacher, I would 
no doubt still be trying to audition for a fourth chair trumpet position with 
the Pacheco symphony orchestra.

:)   and I do not by any means mean this to belittle any teacher or their 
efforts, Bless you all for your efforts even if they are sometimes strictly 
theoretical and only what you have been taught to teach, before you actually went 
out and tried to play that way and earn a living.

Lawyers have the same problem folks, years of Law school and then they go to 
court on their first case and greet reality and find that almost nothing they 
learned in school means anything in the real world of Law and Courts.  Ask 
Steve Barbone or George Thurmond, I am sure they have some great off list stories 
about court cases.

Cheers,

Tom "Still learning every gig" Wiggins