QUESTIONS:
Have you heard of other musicians that one might otherwise judge as being musically “incorrect” that have nonetheless gained renown?
Example: Billy Holliday
Have you heard of professional musicians that don’t know how to read music?
The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Stevie Wonder, Eddie Van Halen, Michael Jackson
Ear Training & Intuitive Theory: Musicians who don’t read music often possess an extraordinary sense of relative pitch and intuitive music theory—they understand how chords and scales function together by sound and feel, even if they don’t use standard classical terminology.
Alternative Systems: Guitarists and bassists frequently use tablature (tabs), which displays fret numbers and strings instead of musical pitches. Studio musicians in non-classical genres often use the Nashville Number System or simplified chord charts.
Audio Recorders & Collaborators: For large orchestral or multi-instrumental projects, non-reading composers often record demos or play their ideas on an instrument, collaborating with trained arrangers and transcribers to write out the formal scores for orchestras.
What other old, high-quality television programming are you familiar with, like Leonard Bernstein’s Omnibus (Music Education)
COMMENTS
“No composer ever had that, even Mozart to that degree... where everything is so unpredictable and yet so right.
It all checks.
It all works out.
You can rely on it.
You know the next note has to be THE next note, and the ONLY next note that could come.”
- Leonard Bernstein talking with Maximilian Schell about Beethoven
He was a genius on a technical level, like Mozart. But music is ultimately about emotion, and the most powerful emotions are often created through simplicity used in the right way. Ironically, that’s one of the hardest things to achieve.
“It’s all wrong ….but it’s perfect!”
Beethoven didn’t compose melodies. He composed themes. But, boy, did know how to make something of those themes. The Ode to Joy theme is borderline childish, yet the finale of the 9th symphony a masterpiece.
He basically said: Beethoven misses his punctuations, messes up his paragraphs, lexis and structure is mid, grammar...meh. But the story is divine
There are no wrong notes in jazz. It all depends on the next note.” - Miles Davis
He was a genius on a technical level, like Mozart. But music is ultimately about emotion, and the most powerful emotions are often created through simplicity used in the right way. Ironically, that’s one of the hardest things to achieve.
As Zappa said -- it’s the connections.
For someone who never write a ‘good fugue’ the fugue in opus 110 is pretty decent...
The fugue entrance of his 9th Symphony Mvt 2 is phenomenal.
Beethoven’s monitor was his heart,
he tried every chord variation until he was emotionally moved. I’m quite sure his piano keys were stained with tears of soulful bliss after carefully experimenting to find the perfect chord for the mood at hand.