Re: To those who make a living off of music

["k3zz21@gmail.com" <k3zz21@gmail.com>]

haha i like the happy c explaination that just literally made me laugh. 
its funny you said that its a life long thing because i just gave a short 
speech in history class about how musicians will never reach that point 
where you're finally "there" in terms of skill because it just goes on and 
on. 
-----Original Message-----
Date: Friday, February 17, 2012 10:00:17 am
To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
From: "Daniel Thomas" <danielthomas4@mac.com>
Subject: Re: To those who make a living off of music

> Making harmonically complex music without knowing the
> principles would not be possible, so there's a difference.

There are folks musics that are harmonically complex but the maestros who 
play these styles know not one thing about the language of western 
harmony.  For instance, slack key guitar master Led Kaapana hilarioulsy 
refers to the I, IV, and V chords as Happy C one, Happy C two and Happy C 
3.   And the other chords in the scale are Sad C1, Sad C2 and Sad C3 -- 
for the diminished and half diminshed, he says Ugly Chord 1 and Ugly Chord 
2.  

His use of the western harmonic principles is complex (Perhaps not Mahler 
complex or bebop complex but it certainly has a lot skillful tension and 
release in it) while his knowledge of the principles is incredibly 
limited.   

lots of ways to approach music, huh?  Thats why I am not personally put 
off by music education.  Music is just to beautifully integrated to ever 
be completely demystified by my tiny brain.  As soon as one trick becomes 
apparent to me, I perceive a new and more fascinating musical illusion 
that I must come to understand. IMO- Its a life long learner pursuit, 
being a musician, whether or not you go the Happy C 1, 2, 3 route or the 
Pencil driven theory route.

For my own part..  I want it all.

Daniel



On Feb 17, 2012, at 8:53 AM, Per Boysen wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 5:27 PM, k3zz21@gmail.com <k3zz21@gmail.com> 
> wrote:
>> I noticed Im much much more of the harmony type than ambient. However I 
>> definitely want to get in to ambience too because i want to break my 
>> mind free of harmonic jail haha. Its like when it comes to chord progs 
>> i can think of melodies quite easily to fit with them but every time i 
>> tried anything remotely ambient sounding i just feel like "what the 
>> heck am i doing right now?" i have now idea what the principles of 
>> ambient music are.
> 
> 
> One could say that "there are no principles in ambient but a hell of a
> lot of taste required". But that wouldn't be all true because there
> really are principles in ambient. It's just that you really can get
> away with making interesting ambient music even if not being aware of
> the principles. Making harmonically complex music without knowing the
> principles would not be possible, so there's a difference.
> 
> When you are playing the harmony style music, don't you sometimes get
> hit by the though "do I really play something that makes sense now -
> or do I just play according to the book?" That sometimes happens to
> me. It's kind of the reversed fear-for-fail-factor ;-)
> 
> A method to learn to come up with instant musical content ("ambient")
> is to pick a monophonic instrument and go to a location where there is
> a fantastic sound. Like a church or something. Play one note and
> listen. The rest will come to you and then you just play it.
> 
> Another method can be to search for and identify other variables in
> music than those based on melody and harmony. Two obvious examples are
> Tension and Release. You may think of many others, but they all flow
> in music like waves in an ocean, like a question-and-answer game.
> 
> Greetings from Sweden
> 
> Per Boysen
> www.perboysen.com
> http://www.youtube.com/perboysen
>