D'Addario Woodwinds Blog: Tim Price Blogging For Rico-Reflections,Living and learning.

When I listen to great music, not just jazz but great music I hear expression. Take for example Johnny Hodges. ANYTHING... Hodges played by the way! Expression, deep internalized emotional depth that brought the listener in.Stravinsky, Bach, John Lennon and thousands of others. No a bunch of flurries of fast notes.No matter what,technique must always serve an expressive idea. If you listen to Coltrane play " Russian Lullaby " there is a great example of what I just talked about. To use another example, Ernie Watts with Charlie Haden.( Charlie Haden Quartet West with string orchestra) as much horn as Ernie can play, you never hear how the chops are in the way of the artist.Great jazz players know that all they have is themselves. Doing what everyone else is doing is not an option.In the jazz community you don't get significant points for chest pounding every solo. Entry into the pantheon of great jazz is strictly reserved for those who play "who they are,". Internalization through performance is also suggested to get expression together- everything can NOT be gained in the practice room.You need to play and play more than just the cream gigs. Play the small out of the way spots to get your ideas to relax and meet new players. I would workshop my bands at the now defunt " Puppets" a great jazz bar in Brooklyn NY on off peak hours. Mid-day to get players together and to get things going. Often, I'd find a lot out. It was a beautiful place to, Jamie who ran it was a great guy and beautiful drummer. On peak hours I'd bring in bands like my " T.P.'s Kosmik Incubator" and we'd have a ball.Everything does not happen in the practice room!

An artist is a person who attempts to be in touch with the inner self in order to communicate in an abstract endeavor (i.e. music). An artist’s body of work is autobiographical and, at the same time, a means by which the artist communicates both individual and universal experiences that people will share. Of course there's your craft. Examples are numerous such as Getz’s bop period or Steve Lacy’s stream of consciousness. Both are major breakthroughs. In their given period. John McLaughlin, Cecil Taylor and Lester Young pushed the technique forward on their respective instruments and contributed to the evolution of the entire music as an art form. For a beginning artist, technique can lead to more knowledge and advances, but it has to be there. So in essence it's a matter of balance mixed with control and freedom. The challenge is to use both aspects at the right moments. As in life, it goes via art -constant search for balance between opposite tendencies; the ultimate yin-yang paradigm. I have great respect for the "tradition," the rules, and playing it within context and everything, I think it's great, but…what are YOU creating as an offering. Try to think the term "syntax" , which means a vernacular, a way of speaking. This music is speech and dialect. And there is a way of speaking.With all the grace and beauty of Cinderella's debut,creativity must exist.Far from the noise and lights of the city, when verbal communication seems unnecessary, knowingly inadequate.Acknowledge your deep need and desire to create. So in jazz, the art form itself says you're supposed to individualize it , that's the point . All that's understood, but your goal is not to repeat or to objectify this thing. It's to take it and have it be a living thing that you put your personality on. I feel that the music speaks absolutely louder than any dogma, any words can speak at all. And in the end, the music is connected.It's about how music ties into the "realms" and everything like that. It's just an understood, it's a given. In my thinking it is an artist's duty is to try to get in touch with that vibe through his work. It's the work and it's the art that will do. SO.. it's freedom, individual creativity. It is obviously possible, as many do, to improvise within certain stylistic or other constraints. While this is perfectly valid, and while it transcends such constraints, such as simplicity vs complexity, tonal vs atonal, intellectual vs intuitive, and so on. A step towards music-making where all possibilities can be genuinely embraced.There is a strong sense in which this really is playing music. This is a very liberating experience and is often found to be therapeutic as well. It feels good to start from zero, or just be you.

In my thinking it is an artist's duty is to try to get in touch with that vibe through his work. It's the work and it's the art that will do. SO.. it's freedom, individual creativity. It is obviously possible, as many do, to improvise within certain stylistic or other constraints. While this is perfectly valid, and while it transcends such constraints, such as simplicity vs complexity, tonal vs atonal, intellectual vs intuitive, and so on. A step towards music-making where all possibilities can be genuinely embraced.There is a strong sense in which this really is playing music. This is a very liberating experience and is often found to be therapeutic as well.It feels good to start from zero, or just be you.