The Tuning Slide 3.16- Avoiding the Extremes

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Happiness is not a matter of intensity

but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.

-Thomas Merton

We’re thinking about musician etiquette this month. Really, it boils down to being a good musician. Remember the four things we are to focus on - in this order…

• The music.
• Other musicians
• The audience
• Ourselves.

"Etiquette" is being a good colleague who displays “musicianship”. That brings all four into play on a regular basis. Last week I looked at how our actions and behaviors in both rehearsals and performances can get in the way of all these things. If we do not practice good musical etiquette in general:

• The music will suffer. It won’t have the quality we want it to have.
• Our colleagues will suffer. They won’t be able to count on us to be equal members of the group.
• The audience will suffer. The performances won’t have the zip and fun that they want to hear.
• In the end we will suffer. We will get fed up with what is happening, especially if we blame it on others, and give up.

Having set that as the foundation of what we are aiming at, here are some of the things that we trumpet players do to others- and to ourselves.

Item #1- and at the top of our list of trumpet player sins.
Wanting to get to that great and wonderful Double High C.

It is the goal, the aim, the end of all being in the great trumpet room in the sky! For most of us it is summed up in one word:

Maynard! (For non-trumpet players, that would be Maynard Ferguson- the trumpet screamer to beat all trumpet screamers.)

To be a great trumpet player we all think we have to play high and loud. Like Maynard. Our hero!

Which of course means that if we can’t play the way-up-in-the-stratosphere register, there is something wrong with us as trumpet players. Many of us have fought that internal self-esteem killer most of our lives. Then we work- and overwork- our embouchure to reach those rare heights and we end up playing hurt, which only makes it worse. I have a hunch that is why, in the end for many of us, our true icon of trumpet playing is Miles Davis who personified for many years the good solid sound of a trumpet- and even played with a Harmon mute! It was almost like he was saying to the world:

I can play loud; I choose not to.

One of the great solos of his was the solo on the classic cut- “So What”. It doesn’t go anywhere near the stratosphere; it has a solid, almost reserved sound. Looking at a transcription of it you might say, “What’s so hard about that?”

Until you try to play it. Most of us could spend a lifetime practicing that and still not get it as solid as Davis does.

Herb Alpert is in the same field as Davis. Davis was once quoted as saying that all he had to hear was a couple notes and he could tell it was Alpert. Which brings me to the lesson for all of us in trumpet- and musical- etiquette. It was one of the items on the Trumpet Camp reflection list. One of our goals is to

Have the same “sound” for everything I play

Davis, Alpert, Chet Baker, Lee Morgan, and any of the greats always have the same “sound”, the same quality and tone no matter what they play. It is their sound. And they don’t have to scream to make it heard. But for my money, the greatest at doing that today - and for most of the past 60+ years - is Doc Severinsen. Here is one of his best examples of not screaming yet managing the complete range of the horn. He plays in that stratosphere as if it were just your every day middle of the staff music.

Item # 2: Equipment
Trumpet players always seem to be playing around with equipment, looking for the perfect piece that will make us into the next great star. Usually it starts with the mouthpiece itself. Get two trumpet players together and they will have at least six opinions on mouthpieces, the advantages and disadvantages, why they use- or don’t use this one or that one. Not that there aren’t differences and different ones allow you to do different things. Not to mention that each of us has a slightly different physiology which may mean that certain mouthpieces work differently.

But in general my research seems to show that most people start with a “beginner” mouthpiece that usually comes with the horn. Eventually most move to the good, old, reliable Bach 3C (or equivalent) and stay with that for the rest of their lives or careers, whichever comes first. Should we look at other mouthpieces? I guess. But the thought that comes to mind is “If it seems too good to be true, it probably isn’t.”

That doesn’t mean that a change won’t work well at times. I had that happen starting about a year and a half ago. I tried one of the new Bach Commercial mouthpieces at a workshop. It was a modified “v” cup. It seemed to allow me some freedom at the upper register and an extended endurance. The problem was all they had was a “5mv” and I was nervous about moving from the “3” size. So I didn’t get it. Earlier this year I had a chance to try the “3 MV”. I gave it quite a workout. It was as good, or better than the “5 MV” I had tried earlier. I bought it.

This new mouthpiece has allowed greater dynamic and sound range, higher register, and endurance. Was it a mouthpiece version of the “placebo” effect? I don’t think so- for two reasons. When I first played it for my wife she heard the difference in tone and dynamic immediately. Then, a few months later I accidentally pulled the “3C” out of the bag without noticing. Since the rim size was the same I didn’t feel the difference- until I realized my range and dynamic was off. At first I thought it was because I had been playing too much and was just tired. Then I realized it wasn’t the new mouthpiece. I switched and all the things that felt off went away.

But that alone isn’t what did it or allowed me to do it. What does it is another from the Trumpet Workshop list:

Learning to hear

By allowing me to hear a cleaner sound with greater dynamic and range I began to know what those notes should sound like. I like the sound of the “3MV” for me. I like hearing it and how it feels on my lip. It did not solve my “problems” and perhaps it gave me some new ones. (See next item.) But it did improve my ability to hear and that will always bring about an improvement in musicianship! The equipment we use is there to help us, it won’t do it for us.

The final item of trumpet sinful activities for this post:
Item #3: Balance.

Actually it’s the lack of balance that plagues us. It’s wanting to be a screamer the first time we pick up the horn. It’s wanting to be able to sound like Miles, or Maynard, or Doc without the years of practice. It’s wanting to be able to play loud for hours on end and getting pissed when we get tired- or worse- hurt. It’s wanting the equipment to save us or take us someplace we are still unable to go. Sure, if your valves don’t work smoothly you may never be able to play some of those amazing arpeggios. But a new horn may not be the problem- your present horn may be too dirty, your valves clogged, springs not working right.

Take the time to take care of the equipment and it will probably do what you need it to do. Sure, if you move into a new level of musicianship and career building you may need to upgrade the horn. But probably not. You are the musician that produces the sound. The horn or the valves or whatever doesn’t do it for you. Learn to balance your sound and work.

From our workshop list, this brings up:

Being efficient in playing

Efficiency is balance. If you strain and push constantly, you are not in balance and something will happen to your playing. If you want everything to happen yesterday, it won’t come tomorrow. Balance is taking care of your instrument so it doesn’t get so gunked up that its sound is compromised. Ignoring the basics of say the Arban’s first couple sections will put us out of balance with the whole range of what we want to do. Again, back to the video from Doc (above) the ability to play equally across the whole range of the horn is the result of balance.

Next week I’ll talk about personal balance and self care as it is part of our musicianship. That will get us into the greater aspects of what we can learn from being a “compleat musician”.

Until then, look for the balance, don’t only push to the extremes, but build the solid foundation and middle in order to support the greater sounds and range. Be efficient in order to be effective. Finally, nothing can do it for you.

The Tuning Slide: Swing

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

It Don’t Mean a Thing

(If It Ain’t Got That Swing)

-Duke Ellington

You may remember the old joke about the comedian who asks, “What’s the secret of a good joke?” and then answers the question without a moment’s break. “Timing.”

Until Einstein, “time” was seen as a constant. It was always the same. Then relativity came along and suddenly time was a “changeable” dimension. (Don’t ask me to explain THAT!) Time became, to put it way too simply, relative. As we get older we can agree with that idea. Time sure moves faster when you have more time behind you. (Where did this year go? It’s the end of April already!)

Another way of describing this is to say that “time” is how we perceive it. If we are bored, it hardly moves; if we are having a great time, it ends too soon. Music depends on time- and timing. Music is guided by a “time signature.” In jazz, the idea of “time” can take on another dimension. Time becomes the movement of the notes in a unique and special way. From there that movement is what musicians often call “the groove” or the interaction of musicians, time and melody into something everyone can feel.

When you are in that groove with the movement leading you, holding you and the music together-
That’s Swing!

Wikipedia starts the definition of swing this way:

In jazz and related musical styles, the term swing is used to describe the sense of propulsive rhythmic "feel" or "groove" created by the musical interaction between the performers, especially when the music creates a "visceral response" such as feet-tapping or head-nodding.

Got it? It sounds simple.
1. There’s the movement (propulsive rhythm).
2. That movement is created by the interaction the performers themselves are feeling.
3. There is a “visceral response,” perhaps because of that interaction, responses like tapping your foot or nodding your head.

If that’s all it takes, I have seen many performers “swinging” in some of the dullest ways possible. In some ways it sounds like a small group of people doing their thing in a way that moves them.

Wikipedia continues:

While some jazz musicians have called the concept of "swing" a subjective and elusive notion, they acknowledge that the concept is well-understood by experienced jazz musicians at a practical, intuitive level. Jazz players refer to "swing" as the sense that a jam session or live performance is really "cooking" or "in the pocket." If a jazz musician states that an ensemble performance is "really swinging," this suggests that the performers are playing with a special degree of rhythmic coherence and "feel."

In other words, if you don’t understand it, that’s because you aren’t an experienced jazz musician. It takes a “practical” and “intuitive” understanding to know when it’s “cooking.” That just adds a bit of snobbery to the first part of the discussion. You have to be with the “in crowd” to really know what swing is or even how to make it happen. How about that attempt at paradox- practical AND intuitive.

Do you get the idea they can’t describe it any better than anyone else? All they are saying is that they know it when it happens. When it’s not happening, well, it “just ain’t swingin’ man.”

The crazy thing is that this is as good as it gets trying to nail it down without some time listening to the music. We have all had an experience of the essence of “swing” whether it is in jazz, or any other kind of music. It may have been the Sunday the organist at church nailed a Bach prelude or the praise band’s hallelujah touched the depth of your soul. It might have been at the rock concert when your favorite band never sounded better and every note was right where they (and you) wanted it to be. Those are the same as “swing,” just in a different musical genre. They are peak experiences when music and time come together and meld into Einstein’s four-dimensional universe.

Okay, enough of this. We can wax and wane poetic, prosaic, or scientific night and day and never quite get to that kernel of truth about swing. We know swing because it moves us. We know swing because something in us responds to it. As musicians, we know we are “in the groove” when we come to the end and realize you were simply carried along.

In jazz, we call it swing. Swing always is an interaction in time and musical movement. On a very simple technical level swing is that dotted-eighth/sixteenth combination of notes. But Latin jazz doesn’t do that, yet it can swing as hard as any other jazz.

That’s where the idea of time really comes into play. Wynton Marsalis describes it this way in his book, Moving to Higher Ground:

Jazz is the art of timing. It teaches you when. When to start, when to wait, when to step it up, and when to take your time- indispensable tools for making someone else happy….

Actual time is a constant. Your time is a perception. Swing time is a collective action. Everyone in jazz is trying to create a more flexible alternative to actual time

We are back to our perception of time, and again that perception is grounded in a collective sense of time in the interaction of the musicians, the rhythm, and the music.

Wynton Marsalis applies all this to our daily lives. Swing helps us in:

1. Adjusting to changes without losing your equilibrium;
2. Mastering moments of crisis with clear thinking;
3. Living in the moment and accepting reality instead of trying to force everyone to do things your way;
4. Concentrating on a collective goal even when your conception of the collective doesn’t dominate.

Change happens. It is a constant. Sometimes it is expected and not jarring. It is in time. Sometimes it knocks us off our balance. That is when the understanding of swing, staying in the groove, going with the flow comes in handy. The moments of crisis, times of change, when we can lose our ability to make healthy decisions is when we move back to the basics. The forms of life that keep us moving.

Remember that jazz is made up of forms and when you have an understanding of the forms you can adapt. If you know the forms of your life, you can begin to trust your Self 2 instinct as discussed in the Inner Game of Music. It’s the muscle and mental default mode that keeps us standing when it would be easier to fall.
From there we accept what is- staying in the moment- accepting the things we cannot change, changing what we can, and knowing which is which.

Another way to describe swing is that it’s how you accent the music, what you emphasize, what you want people to hear. Any jazz musician knows the forms for accents, for what to emphasize and what not to. That can change from performance to performance, within the basic forms of course. Tonight the musician may want to emphasize the upbeat feel of a chorus; tomorrow, after a difficult day, the emphasis may take more of a bluesy style.

What you accent in life can become your song or story. How you do that can change the rhythm of your life. That’s your perspective. We all know the analogies of looking at the doughnut or the hole; the cage of horse manure with the optimist seeing the possibility of a horse amid all that. Even the old "is the glass half-empty or half-full" can add a new dimension- the glass is refillable.

Accentuate the positive. Assume positive intent.
Or not.
It’s your choice.

But you are not alone. With few exceptions jazz is a truly collective music. We have to listen to each other, not fight each other in a jazz performance. It is a cooperative action of attempting to make more than any one of us can make on their own. If I accent the upbeat and you slur through them it might sound unique, but will it sound appropriate? Will it sound like one of us is trying to one-up the other? The music will often suffer as a result. It can easily descend into chaos. Some might call that “free-form” but it takes amazing concentration of collective action to produce good “free-form” jazz.

In the end, Wynton Marsalis says, swing demands three things:

1. Extreme coordination- it is a dance with others inventing steps as they go;
2. Intelligent decision making- what’s good for group
3. Good intentions- trust you and others want great music.

Swing is worth the effort. We grow in relationships- and we learn how to develop relationships. We learn how to listen to others and, in the end, ourselves. That will lead us into the next two weeks’ posts on what may be the heart and soul of jazz- improvisation, the ultimate in going with the flow.

Until then, keep swinging.

I don't care if a dude is purple with

green breath as long as he can swing.

-Miles Davis

Note: All Wynton Marsalis quotes are from the book:
• Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life by Wynton Marsalis and Geoffrey Ward. 2008, Random House.

Another Birthday Celebration for This Week

Miles Davis

May 26, 1926 - 

September 28, 1991

I'm always thinking about creating.
My future starts when I wake up every morning...
Every day I find something creative to do with my life.

The Last Miles

One more post from my recent reading and experience of Miles Davis. It was part of what molded him into the kind of artist he was- and what earned him some of the disdain of others who found him aloof and not willing to engage.

It is the issue of racism- and, as recent months have seen, it is an issue that is still very much with us.

Davis had a deep and abiding anger at the American racist foundations. He speaks of returning from Europe in the 1950s and 60s where he was accepted on a different level- as a human being. He speaks of the way white musicians took what the black musicians developed and earned more money doing the same type of thing.

He did not begrudge the great white Birth of the Cool, Kind of Blue and Sketches of Spain, among others. But he always was aware of the racial divide in the country.
jazz musicians, composers, etc. He welcomed them into his groups, even when black colleagues didn't like him to do that. His ongoing work with composer Gil Evans, for example, produced

He recalls the time when he was arrested outside the NYC club where he was headlining because he reacted to the white policeman who didn't think a black man should be hanging around there. He knows he was often treated as less than the whites even though he grew up in an upper-middle class life in East St. Louis, IL, the son of a successful dentist. He refused to "perform" on stage in ways that would reinforce the old stereotypes of the black musicians. He had great love for Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie, but regularly took them to task for their racially stereotypical grinning. It is hard to find official pictures of him that show him smiling. He refused to give white America that satisfaction.

In many ways he refused to be anything but Miles Davis, as he understood himself. His continued openness to white musicians throughout his career was as much a part of that as his unwillingness to be a sideshow clown or black version of the black-faced expectation of many whites. He paid little attention to most white critics who he felt were judging his (and most black jazz music) on white standards that were irrelevant.

Remember- he lived the 50s and 60s and all the preceded them. His racism-radar was finely tuned. He put up with no BS, especially when racially based.

Let's be willing to admit that some of this was Miles' personality. It was what made him who he was, and what made his music so exciting, innovative and never the same from year to year. He did not suffer fools- nor was he willing to wait for what he saw he should be doing. The jazz world - and all of us even these many years later - continue to reap the benefits.

In this ongoing time of renewed racial tensions, challenges and counter-challenges in the United States, reading Miles' words reminded me that no matter how hard I try, I will never be able to get inside the feelings of racism from the black person's experience. I blend in; I am white; I don't know that pain that has been deeply planted in the souls of those who have been slaves. I believe there is such a thing as "racial" or "ethnic" memory. We know much more about genetics today and we believe that the experiences of our ancestors makes "epigenetic" changes in genetic coding that can be passed on to future generations. While I have always been a strong advocate for civil rights, reading Miles' thoughts and hearing his anger from 50-60 years ago, opened new awareness and reflection.

While it may not be at the level it was in the 50s and 60s, we still face it, we still must be on guard for the subtle and not so subtle ways that racism plays out in our national American psyche. None of us is immune to it. Perhaps Miles Davis can also have something to teach us about our racial relationships that may be even more profound and important than his music.

That would be quite an accomplishment.

More Distance of Miles

I have obviously been thinking a great deal about the legacy of Miles Davis this past few weeks. I read his autobiography and have been digging into the making of his seminal album, Kind of Blue. He died in 1991 after making more innovations in jazz music than anyone except maybe Louis Armstrong. Even Ellington did not go as far as Davis went in changing the music. His influence on jazz (and hence American music) in the 2nd half of the 20th Century is beyond description.

Underneath all the change and innovations and legacy lie several pieces that are of interest as well. The first is his up and down wrestling with addiction. He was a heroin addict, used cocaine and pain pills for many years, even long after kicking heroin. He had alcohol problems but they were pale in comparison to the broader addiction issues. He was not alone in the heroin habit, of course. It was epidemic in the jazz world he inhabited. He fought it; he was clean and then he would do the things that addicts often do, believe they could handle it. So he would keep on drinking or using cocaine, "socially" of course. It never worked as he would spiral backwards.

Perhaps it is amazing that he managed to accomplish as much as he did. Unlike many of the others so hooked, he did not die young. He lived out his potential, although I wonder what it might have been like if he had managed to completely kick the addictions? He never said that his drugs helped him be creative. He was not stupid; he was an addict in a time and place that did not understand the disease and its ability to control the brain. I began working toward my addiction counseling license the year Davis died and we knew next to nothing compared to what we know today.

The second part of Davis' compulsive side was his inability to maintain healthy relations with women. He was not monogamous and probably never even tried. He kept looking for something that he was unable to experience, love and stability. Some of that was his endless curiosity and creativity that encompassed everything. He was guided, even imprisoned by his sexual needs and searching. This, we know today, as having the same roots as addiction. The process of the human brain is biochemical, regulated- and dysregulated- by neurochemicals that carry everything from memories to pleasure, fear to ecstasy. Davis' relationships were almost as controlling of his life as his addictions. He admits that his use of drugs did get in the way of his sexual drive. Not a surprise.

This side did not have the kind of periodic impact on his creativity that addiction did. Addiction is powerful, overwhelming, and ultimately in complete control. That did prevent him at times from performing to the level he could have.

In that way, Davis' story is a cautionary tale. There are those who, in spite of incredible personal dysfunction, can change the world. (Steve Jobs' narcissistic, even anti-social personality comes to mind.) As I have been reading these different accounts of his music and accomplishments I have at times been in awe of what he was able to do. He was a genius who heard what he wanted in his head and moved with it. He was able to pick out people who would work within the framework he dreamed of. He turned many of them into music leaders in their own right.

I was also deeply saddened by many aspects of his story. Some of it- perhaps even most of it- was beyond his control. That's the old idea of powerlessness found in the recovery community. He was unable to ever see that. But that was also why he was as creative and innovative as he was. He refused to be told that something wasn't possible- that it was beyond his ability or control.

The paradox of a person like Miles Davis, then, is that tension that for many a lesser person will drive them into an early grave. He was who he was and for that the world has been given insights and music that the lesser person would never have been able to give.

More Miles and Miles

I have been a fan of Miles Davis for years. His "understated" style of trumpet playing stood in marked contrast to the screamers like Maynard Ferguson or Doc Severensin. That of course made it okay for a middle-range player like myself to feel like trumpet playing isn't just the high notes.

But reading his autobiography for the first time in the past few weeks, I have come to appreciate even more of his amazing ability and the revolution in jazz he created and took to fruition, even as he was moving on to the next thing- a sign of a truly revolutionary and creative person.

So I went digging for quotes from Miles. Some are from the book. Others from interviews and other places. They give a broad-stroke picture of his thinking and music. They also give some good advice for all of life, not just the music.

Miles saw all that he did as part of the creating:

• I'm always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning... Every day I find something creative to do with my life.

He would never be done with it, never resting on what had
happened:

• I know what I’ve done for music, but don’t call me “a legend”.(…) A legend is an old man with a cane known for what he used to do. I’m still doing it.”

He started playing in the clubs when bebop was new and exciting and young. But he knew that bebop, like everything else, has to keep growing:

• Bebop was about change, about evolution. It wasn't about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change.

"There are no wrong notes in jazz" is a truism he brought forward. It's what you do with it:

• If you hit a wrong note, it's the next note that you play that determines if it's good or bad.

Which leads naturally to:

• Do not fear mistakes - there are none.

All of us are "works in progress." We are never finished growing until we stop- and then we're gone. Find yourself. I would add, keep finding yourself as you evolve.

• Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.

Miles Davis
(1926 - 1991)

Immersed in Miles

Following a conversation with a fellow trumpet player a few weeks ago, I was inspired to pick up the book, Miles- The Autobiography by Miles Davis. No, surprisingly I had never read it. It is an amazing course in jazz history of the mid-20th Century. Davis, of course, is one of the greatest jazz innovators, ever. He is right there with the pantheon of Armstrong, Ellington, Parker, Powell. Few beyond those four have had the kind of influence that Miles Davis had on music.

Son of a dentist from East St. Louis, IL, Davis was powered by music. He started at Julliard but left after one year- it was too confining. It is clear from his music and his writing though, that Julliard helped unlock the knowledge and awareness that Davis utilized so effectively over his musical career.

The book is interesting for the history and how Davis fit into the milieu of the era. It is also interesting in the language, which is far more than even an "R-rating" at times. Quincy Troupe is the co-author, and it is obvious that in many places he simply transcribed the unique Miles voice allowing us to feel the emotion and inspiration that Davis wanted to portray.

But perhaps most importantly for a jazz-fan is the insight that Davis gives to how and why he did what he did. He talks about the changes in his style, where they came from and sometimes even a little music theory about them. He talks about many of the famous names he played with and who played with him. He spends quite a few paragraphs on the ideas behind one of my favorite albums of his, Sketches of Spain. Intriguing and interesting as he describes the background of the haunting "Saeta".

He clearly had a very strong ego and a need at times to justify himself. It has been a journey into a musician's heart and soul.

Davis's album, Kind of Blue is often rated as the greatest jazz album of all time and is most likely the best-selling jazz recording of all time. All the cuts are remarkable, but here's the one that has a light, comic touch, "Freddie Freeloader".