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Be Yourself!"
I'm slowly (and even so, it's still it's a treat) evolving as a "musician." Yeah, why not! If I can't call myself a musician after over sixty years of playing, I'm either a lunatic or a musician, and (contrary to what you may have heard) I ain't a lunatic! Honest! :o) I realize that I don't "listen to" (as in study) any of the "Jazz Greats" that most musicians know all about. (Heck, I don't even know their names!) Like I mentioned the other day; I don't have a favorite Muddy Waters album cuz I can honestly say that I never even knew who Muddy Waters was! (or is) Same thing with Chet Baker or Coletrain or any of them for that matter. Don't know what they look like, or how they play. Howzatt? (Heck, I only know the names cuz I heard you guys talking about them) So as an aficionado, I'm as ignorant as a stump! Now, I can recognize Toots when I hear him as well others who try to sound like him. Somehow, I'm sure Toots never tried to sound like anyone. I recently heard a disk jockey mention that Nat King Cole was a great jazz musician, so I listened to some of his keyboard work. The guy was right; he was good, but I never would have known it on my own.
I'm almost ashamed to admit that I seldom ever listen to jazz on purpose; if it shows up on my local "OFRS" (Old Farts Radio Station) I listen to it, if not; I really don't go looking for it. Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm bad! However, even with that shortcoming, I'm starting to see what I can only describe as "jazz" progress when I just noodle around, in spite of the fact that I don't "study" anyone. Yeah, I know it will take longer, but up till now I didn't think I'd ever get it at all, so the fact that it's starting to click at 70+ years is quite a thrill. Hopefully, before I croak I'll be a "better than an entry level" jazz player, but the real satisfaction for me is that what folks who care to listen, hear will be all me, and I can live with that. I think we all could. Take your time. No one has a gun to your head. One of the flat-out best (no, not the easiest) things you can do is to get away from the ball and chain of the tonic key (the one stamped on your Chromatic) I now realize that until I "launched out into the deep" a couple years ago, I never really went anywhere. Whatta zippo! I'm now convinced that you'll never even scratch your potential till you take off the training wheels and challenge yourself, and that's when the magic starts to happen. Make a Joyful Noise! A.J.Fedor |
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