Bilbo

It is subjective in some ways but much more objective than we may realise in others. First (only?) question; are you good enough to do what is required of you? If you needed to slap and you can't, you don't get the gig. If you need to read and you can't, you don't get the gig. If you are needed to jump around and strike a pose and you stand there like John Entwhistle on Mogadon, you don't get the gig. If you can play all the Bach Cello Suites in all the keys but are not able to improvise, you don't get the Jazz gig. If you play Bach Cello Suites over everything and it's a Country gig, you don't get the gig. In my experience, praise and criticism come from many quarters and some is utterly unreliable. I have been called both solid and fluid in the media. Is this because the person writing the review only heard one song, one recording, one gig or is this because the writer lacks the language or insight necessary to properly described what it is that defines your playing? Evaluating your own playing is a continuous process that is determined in no small part by the experiences you have as a player. If you never move out of your comfort zone, you will never find yourself challenged and will have a distorted view of your own competence. If you have never heard great players (which is often the case in young players), you may have a distorted view of your own capabilities (which is often the case in young players). Until you have played with great players, you cannot properly evaluate your playing. Outside of London, being asked to do a gig is as much to do with how bad everyone else is as it is a measure of how good you are. It can also be about availability. Great players are busy players and can be unavailable. I KNOW I often get gigs because the 19 other guys the bandleader generally uses are busy. Put it this way, how would Geddy Lee fare in Level 42? (Have you heard Neil Peart with a big band? Ouch!!!). How would Mark King cope with a Motorhead set? How would Percy Jones do in the pit orchestra of Jesus Christ Superstar? Horses for courses but does failure indicate incompetence? Yes or no? I play a weekly gig with some of the UK's greatest players and I am reminded weekly of my shortcomings (one of which is I don't really know tunes, a source of shame in the Jazz community) but, at the same time, I find out things about myself and my playing that give me considerable hope e.g. my knowledge and competence in Latin grooves is much greater that one of the best piano players I use. Also, my reading is better than his. Curiously, I have also noticed that I am a 'better' player when I have rehearsed/practised the material. In short, we all have strengths in our playing and we all have weaknesses. We can play to those strengths of have our weaknesses revealed at the moment we least expect it. The joy of achieving competence in our chosen instrument is in the journey not in the destination.

I watched this and found it inscrutable. I don't really get the point of it. What point is being made? I find Collier's stuff over produced, overly cerebral and lacking in beauty but I accept that he knows what he is doing and understands harmony in ways I couldn't dream of. It goes to show that knowledge and wisdom are very different things.

I completely agree. I think he's a comedy genius. I also love the fact that his slightly effeminate bearing is countered by the fact that he was in the Army as an officer and was instrumental in effectively prevented World War Three by refusing an order. This from Wikipedia 'Having been sponsored through university on an army bursary, Blunt was committed to serve a minimum of four years in the armed forces. He trained at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, in intake 963,[10][15] and was commissioned into the Life Guards, a reconnaissance regiment. He rose to the rank of captain.[16] The Life Guards, part of the Household Cavalry Regiment, were primarily based in Combermere Barracks. Blunt was trained in British Army Training Unit Suffield in Alberta, Canada, where his regiment was posted for six months in 1998 to act as the opposing army in combat training exercises.[17] In 1999, Blunt volunteered to join a Blues and Royals squadron deploying with NATO to Kosovo.[18] Initially assigned to carry out reconnaissance of the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia–Yugoslavia border, Blunt's troop worked ahead of the front lines locating and targeting Serb forces for the NATO bombing campaign. On 12 June 1999, the troop led the 30,000-strong NATO peacekeeping force from the Macedonia border towards Pristina International Airport. However, a Russian military contingent had moved in and taken control of the airport before his unit's arrival. American NATO commander Wesley Clark ordered that the unit forcibly take the airport from the Russians. General Mike Jackson, the British commander, refused the order, stating that they were "not going to start the Third World War".[19][20] Blunt has said that he would have refused to obey such an order. During Blunt's Kosovo assignment he had brought along his guitar, strapped to the outside of his tank, and would sometimes perform for locals and troops. It was while on duty there that he wrote the song "No Bravery".[21] Blunt extended his military service in November 2000,[22] and was posted to the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment in London, as the Queen's Guard.[6] During this posting, he was featured on the television programme "Girls on Top", a series highlighting unusual career choices.[23][24] He stood guard at the coffin of the Queen Mother during her lying in state and was part of the funeral procession on 9 April 2002.[25] A keen skier, Blunt captained the Household Cavalry alpine ski team in Verbier, Switzerland, becoming Royal Armoured Corps giant slalom champion in 2000.[26] He left the army on 1 October 2002 having served six years.[27' His responses to offensive Tweeting is legendary. https://www.buzzfeed.com/robinedds/james-blunt-twitter-comebacks?utm_term=.qg3bRrG5q#.pcNBbDXm2

It's meeeeee (holding on for dear life behind (WAY behind) saxophonist Alan Barnes! (seen here on baritone))

I guess it's a personal thing. As a Probation Officer, I long since learned to judge behaviour and not individuals. One of the things about GG is that he has never, to my knowledge, undergone any form of treatment intervention. I would love to see him doing the Thames Valley Sex Offender Treatment Programme and monitor his reactions to challenge. As for his music, I think it is s shame that those associated with him have lost their income stream at exactly the point where they need it. If hearing the music brings associations to mind, best leave it alone. If not...

I hope he wasn't using a music stand!

Having improved my reading, I am now finding dozens of books that I have had for years are now accessible in ways they were not before. I guess it must be the same as learning to read later in life and all of literature becoming available.

My point was that progress is more systematic, quicker and more strategic. I wouldn't want to wait for happy accidents.

This guy didn't make it because, from what I can see, he is only OK. The standards required to get to the top are very high, even for bands and artists we don't rate personally. The pr required to promote a new artist nowadays is expensive so you need to convince people to invest in you. You need to be exceptional. I know I am not and never have been so, much as I enjoy doing this, there are no pipe dreams involved. The art is it's own reward.

There is no ramming going on (I don't teach so there is no opportunity to ram anything anywhere), I am just saying how marvellously helpful it is as a learning tool over and above the 'sight reading on a gig' idea. Obviously, there are great players who don't read. Good for them. They found another way.

I think we can have an unrealistic expectation of ourselves where reading and learning are concerned. Classical soloists often work on individual pieces for months to perfect them. We think a couple of run through should be enough.

This is about the ACTUAL flat notes as opposed to the key signature. If there is one flat (F major), the flat is a B. If there are two flats (Bb major), the flats are B and E and so on. I learned that 4 sharps is E major years ago but struggled to remember which four sharps whilst reading.

Invent a key signature acronym. Flats = Boys Eat And Drink Guiness Crisps Freely Sharps = Frank Carson Gets Dad An Elephant Bugle ...or whatever sits easily in your mind.

You have to teach yourself. The 'learning how' is quite simple: notes, note values, accidentals, key signatures and rhythm. Could teach it in a couple of sessions. Learning to actually DO it is just sitting at home in a room banging away for years!.

It certainly isn't a put down. It's just like Marcus Miller said, 'why wouldn't you'?

If your budget can stretch a little, those Paul Brett parlour guitars have a great press (I am thinking second-hand prices). They are quieter but not massively but, of course, you can play them quietly. What you really need is a Yamaha silent guitar but they are a lot more expensive.

Yes, I know. Here we go again. There is, however, a point to this. I have been trying to work on getting a wider musical perspective recently as I am finding that my composing is suffering from a significant lack of useful and effective knowledge of harmony. I also play a lot nowadays with people who are a lot better than me and I am trying to 'catch up' as it were. I know the basics but I was finding that most of my tunes were following a very narrow pattern in terms of harmony and I wanted to find some other places to go. I also find my solos on gigs are clumsy and full of clinkers. In an effort to address these shortcomings, and knowing that there is no such thing as a quick fix, I have spent a lot more time playing guitar recently and, more to the point of the thread, learning to read treble clef so that I can look at music which is fully formed instead of just bass lines. I have been at this for a few months now, using a few 'how to read guitar music' books and, intermittently, dipping into transcriptions by people like Pat Metheny, Al DiMeola and Ralph Towner (books of transcriptions that are, for me, quite challenging). As a result of this, I am seeing a considerable improvement in my guitar playing, my knowledge of the fretboard and the ways in which these master musicians put their tunes together. This concerted study has resulted in improvements in playing and understanding that I have not seen since I was able to practice more consistently when I was a kid (I am 54). I cannot sight read treble clef yet and my reading is still slow but I am beginning to find that I can find my way around pieces much more quickly than I used to without the hassle of playing things back and forth on a transcribe software interface. My technique is improving as well which is entirely a peripheral and unlooked for benefit. I have said this before on here; for me, reading the dots is not about sight-reading on gigs. I need that occasionally but not often. For me, it is about being able to access vast quantities of study material quickly and effectively and learning to be a better more rounded musician.

This was during my Charlie Haden phase

I am ready for my close up....

Gig last Friday at Fleece Jazz in Stoke By Nayland

I think it depends on what you mean by 'listen'. Most of my listening is an ipod on shuffle but I do always listen to any album I buy all the way through without skipping. After that, it is all on shuffle again. I am also mostly listening whilst doing other things so am rarely paying as much attention as I did when I was younger and had more free time. I could listen to all of the Yes catalogue without skipping anything until, say, 90125 but even that is not that bad. All of Genesis would be easy. All of Al DiMeola and Weather Report would be a breeze to.

Works for me.

Hate: For me, it's Prog tunes with guitar solos based around two chords a whole tone apart. Awful. Have they no shame? Nostalgia Jazz. Loath it. Completely misses the point. Circumstances occasionally force my hand but I am deeply uncomfortable with the approach. Also not a massive fan of the Increasingly Tedious American Songbook. Love: French Horn. Always have since I was a kid.

Seems to me that there are a lot of folk around the 45 to 55 mark. It would be interesting to do some work on demographics. Do young guys gig more than older people etc. Pay rates for the gigs we all have, sizes of bands etc. There is a dissertation in there for someone.

They are from a cd called Blues In A Hotel Room by a guy called Andy Fernbach. He recorded them at Jacobs Studios in Farnham in the late 1990s.