[Harp-L] making sense of jazz?

[JON KIP <jon@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I think the point is being missed....

There is really no need to "make sense" of music in one's mind.....you can CHOOSE to try to make it make sense, to learn more about it, but there's really no need to understand it to enjoy it, or, for that matter, to not enjoy it.

The way you personally see..hear... the balance between predictable and unpredictable phrases, random and not random, rules how you react to it. 

Like the rest of Life, too much randomity and you get the rubber-lined room and (as I remember) a nice, really form-fitting white coat with long arms, too little, and you die from boredom....

I liked Zanzibar just fine. She doesn't play lines that I want to steal, but, then again, I play mostly sax lines on chromatic harmonica, and steal mostly from The Deceased.

That said, her playing is good, and I don't feel compelled to add "for a chromatic harmonica player" to that sentence, like I do with almost everybody else who attempts jazz on chromatic harmonica, including (for sure) myself.

Like playing without thought, listening without thought can be a good thing.


On May 21, 2015, at 9:46 AM, harp-l-request@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Example: While I admire Herminie Duerloo to the heavens and love her playing, the tune (Zanzibar) that she was doing wouldn't make any sense to anyone not used to that genre of music. It was just notes. Disjointed unstructured, no bridge(s) note sequences. Done masterfully by everyone involved, to be sure, ..but mish mosh nonetheless.