Natural Players

[dcav]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CQua31BNR0

I love Jazz, and all who play it. Do any of you consider yourselves "natural" players? I read that Jimmy is considered a natural player, and I totally agree. Especially in his young years. He was so free in his young playing.....he had no inhibitions then. Life changes everything of course, but this natural ability is in him. Do any of you have this innate ability? or do you have to work like hell to achieve your music?

I don't have it myself.....but I'll work like hell to sound a few natural lines.

[dcav]

I think this is an interesting clip of Jimmy, because he knew what the public wanted.......they wanted it fast......they want it fast. He could play it fast, but from the heart as well.....but the heart didn't matter. Musicians right......some of you know I mean.

[dcav]

I don't want to sell you anything by the way. I just want to hear some good Jazz.

[Jess L.]

Do any of you have this innate ability? or do you have to work like hell to achieve your music?

Depends on who's doing the assessment.

From *my* point of view, I've had to work like hell to achieve anything at all in music.

But from some family members and old friends' perspectives, they think it's just some sort of natural talent that comes easy. They don't see the 3+ hours per day that I put in practicing especially in my earlier years, the struggle I had for several years to try to play with a relaxed easy-going rhythm (did *not* come natural!) instead of sounding all tensed up & rushed, later on the countless hours of meticulously disassembling tunes at half-speed to try to figure out how the masters achieved their sound, the literally hundreds or even thousands of times I might listen to a particular piece to get it in my memory so I could 'hear' it and get a better idea of how (or how not) to sound when I later tried playing the tune myself.

Although, that super-detailed study phase was a few years later in my musical development. To start with, when really young, I occasionally just thumped around on any ol' instrument I found sitting around the house, probably making a bunch of godawful racket that I doubt anyone would consider to be "music". Later on I had certain sounds that I wanted to emulate, so I started taking it all more seriously in order to try to make some progress there.

[dcav]

It's like admiring a great painting. I've admired great paintings of the sky.....the clouds.... the colors and the textures....especially in old paintings.....these painters knew how to capture the sky, and not particularly on a sunny day....they knew what they were painting, and people should know what they are looking at.

[dcav]

We are brothers JL......and we type at the same time as well.

[dcav]

I'm still trying to hear it too JL. This is the key I believe. It's the book of hearing the changes that will be the best seller. That's what should be taught first....straight up.

[dcav]

These paintings were not sky specific by the way, the sky was merely a back round.......a magnificent back round.

[dcav]

One more thing....this medium.......this..... what you see, and what we type,.....this media....be very careful. This power....is huge...and they know it. This is the power that can drive your thoughts......if you get my drift. Be very cautious of this power. Be Aware of it......and make up your OWN minds of what you read......and what you hear, in this media driven world of ours.

[Jess L.]

I'm still trying to hear it too JL. This is the key I believe. It's the book of hearing the changes that will be the best seller. That's what should be taught first....straight up.

Yep I agree, hearing the sound, IMO that's what it's all about. After a person has the sound in their head, then it's just a matter of figuring out the physical technicalities (makes it sound a lot easier than it is! lol) such as how to make the fingers go to the right places at the right times.

I think of it like how little kids first learn to speak a language, they hear it and mimic it, then years later they might learn some analytical things such as which parts of sentences are called nouns, verbs, and so forth. One would surmise that there probably aren't too many educational systems where babies are taught to diagram sentences before they even learn to speak.

Although, just for the record, I'm in no way opposed to theory, in fact I've found that learning music theory (as much as I can understand and find a use for, anyway) is a great help in understanding *why* certain things work the way they do, in music. Seems that in the long run, everything that a person learns, in some way helps with learning everything else.

[dcav]

I think we will write this book together JL. The title being.......knowing what you hear. This is the key. If someone steals our Idea?......there's no telling what may happen? This is America.....

[Charles E.]

I am not a natural player but I wish I was.

People like Jimmy Rosenberg, Chris Thile, Sierra Hull and countless others are born with a natural talent and it shows.

[Bill McCall]

I'm sure thousands of hours practicing has little to do with their ability to play

There certainly may be variation in a person's ability to hear a melody and repeat/sing/whistle it, but the mechanics of working whatever instrument they play is a function of focused practice.

[Charles E.]

When one sees videos of young players who have not racked up thousands of hours, totally shredding it, one has to admit that they have an innate ability not afforded to the rest of us.

[Bill McCall]

When one sees videos of young players who have not racked up thousands of hours, totally shredding it, one has to admit that they have an innate ability not afforded to the rest of us.

No, I don’t have to concede that. The young learn faster but I’ll bet their practice time is still in the >1000 space, 2 hours /day for 3 years is >2000 hours.

[Marty Jacobson]

I don't. I can play some stuff, but only after basically 20 years of practicing.

My 8 year old son, though... oh my word.
Got him a ukulele, and in about 4 months he knew all the chords. All the chords. Had no sense of rhythm, but I worked with him and now he can make music instead of noise.

I said, "Hey bud, did you know that guitar chords are the same as ukulele, just end up being in a different key"? He picked up an electric guitar (well, EVERY SINGLE guitar in the house), and now he knows every major chord on guitar, after about a month of messing around. If Johnny Cash recorded it, he can play it. He has pretty small hands still, so barre chords are a challenge, but he's so dedicated I think he'll get them pretty quickly.

He'd been eyeing the mandolin on the wall, and I finally let him play a beater. He sounded awful for a week, and I thought his tiny hands would have trouble. But again, he learned all the chords, and he just played the riff to "Day Tripper" for me this evening, no lessons or anything. I think if I get him some lessons he'd be flying.

Then again, maybe I shouldn't get him lessons, to keep him on par with normal humans... :-)