Category: c) Musicianship
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Smoke Gets in Your Ears
or Being Yourself Interesting experience recently. I spent a fair bit of time working on live sound and recording for a band with another pianist (a really very good one), then went straight out to do a gig of my own… Well I rather struggled to click somehow. It was only halfway through the gig…
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Quite Frankly My Dear…
I was chatting to a musician the other day about nerves. She was horribly afflicted (visibly quivering) and eyeing the awaiting stage with a sense of dread. The conversation ranged a bit, but ultimately boiled down to a rather glib sounding piece of pep talk. In my view, the secret to a good performance is……
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The Amazing Disappearing Jazz Student
A Suggestion for Practice It won’t come as news if I say that the best way to really get your jazz chops together is to transcribe. Nor would you be surprised to hear that playing along with the original recordings is also a good idea. But some of the most powerful practising I’ve ever done…
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Fame – What You Like is in the Limo
I don’t mind karaoke in its place – it can be great fun. But the ubiquitous TV talent formats have swamped the gigging circuit with too many wannabe warblers, and everyone suffers – the audiences, the venues, the musicians… Sorry, but while I’m all for ambition, for every one who can carry a tune in…
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I Could Read a Book
Heard occasionally on the bandstand: “Oh come on guys, surely you don’t have to read THAT one?” Well, in theory we should all know just about every tune by memory. But this isn’t the ’50s and not even the busiest musicians gig every night anymore – and even when they do, it’s not always jazz…
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The Jazz Waltzer
Nope. It’s not about the age-old argument about swing feel in 3/4 or 6/8. (Incidentally, Oscar Peterson once said he didn’t care about the distinction – he reckoned jazz musicians interweave the two all the time.) It’s a reference to a childhood memory. In my youth, long before the multi-million Disney extravaganzas, there used to…
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Cueing at the Alphabet Soup Kitchen
Yup, that’s spelled correctly. Cueing. I’m not talking about the delightful British pastime of standing in line for something and drawing a perverse comfort from covertly bitching about how ugly and stupid the people ahead of you are. Nope. Cueing musical parts. It’s more an issue in extended classical pieces than in jazz, but some…
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Foxtrot Oscar Mic…
Bad mic technique is a real bugbear of mine. Sigh – the wedding speaker, the gobbler, the cupper, the wanderer, the human hurricane, the yoyo champ… Never mind those people who insist on using cheap “vintage” toys because they “look good”… Thank you for this, hairy sweary dude… (this stuff doesn’t just apply to metal and…
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Don’t Screw with the Crew
I rather doubt that it’s made international headlines, but there’s a furore over a fracas going on here in the U of K over a certain TV presenter being suspended for alleged abusive behaviour towards an assistant producer while out on shoot. Jeremy Clarkson is a celebrity star and the show he presents, Top Gear, is a…
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Just Give Me What’s Going Out Front…
These are the seven words a live sound engineer really doesn’t want to hear. I used to be guilty of saying it myself… So why doesn’t Darth Fader want to hear you say this? Because what you’re asking is practically impossible. I’m all for bands in small and medium venues playing “mostly backline” or “as…
Jason Lyon Music 