How would you repond to this quote?

[pies]

"Don't play what's there, play what's not there."
 --Miles Davis

[ihatepop]

"Don't play what's there, play what's not there."
 --Miles Davis

I'd say, "But how do you play with whats not there if its not even there?" (Sticks tongue out )

ihatepop

[pies]

I am looking for more of an intellectualish response rather than a clever one.

[ihatepop]

I am looking for more of an intellectualish response rather than a clever one.

Then how bout " You dreamer, you." (Sticks tongue out a second time )

Sorry, I'm not made for the funnies.....

ihatepop

[wishful thinker]

The thing is that it is there, it just might not be obvious to the untrained/untalented 

[mephisto]

Many musicians have talked about the extreme importance of pauses in music; silence.

[henrah]

Being able to control silence is a wonderous gift, and music can be heard through silence. During a drama documentary on Stephen Hawking at university discovering the big bang, there was someone who was talking about a piece of music carrying on after it ended. I think it was M someone, maybe Mozart or Mahler. Mozart more probably.
Henrah

[timothy42b]

"Don't play what's there, play what's not there."
 --Miles Davis

Miles is not talking about silence or pauses.

He is talking about playing improvised melodic phrases that are not cliched "licks."  In other words, composing something new while playing live, in real time. 
Miles had contempt for people who played licks.
 
He also had contempt for audiences in general, and wasn't that nice of a person.  But he was certainly an inventive and creative improviser. 

If you think in terms of figure ground, he (I think) was trying to raise the percentage of figure. 

[pies]

If you think in terms of figure ground, he (I think) was trying to raise the percentage of figure. 

Can you elaborate on this? I don't understand the figure ground part.

[jpianoflorida]

could be used as an excuse for someone who doesn't want to READ the music.....someone who wants to do it their own way.

[gyzzzmo]

'Play the piano, not with words.....'

[prometheus]

could be used as an excuse for someone who doesn't want to READ the music.....someone who wants to do it their own way.

Uuh... He is probably the most famous jazz musician...

[jpianoflorida]

Uuh... He is probably the most famous jazz musician...

exactly..he is! butg that doesn't mean he reads music,maybe he does , maybe he doesnt' and i wasn't saying that about him..i was saying anyone could use that statement for an excuse..think about it.

[jas]

could be used as an excuse for someone who doesn't want to READ the music.....someone who wants to do it their own way.

I wouldn't have thought a musician of Miles Davis's calibre would need to make excuses not to read the music. He probably felt it was restricting.

[jpianoflorida]

I wouldn't have thought a musician of Miles Davis's calibre would need to make excuses not to read the music. He probably felt it was restricting.

   

why yes..i agree!   jazz is full of improvising anyway..not all about "reading"....   again, my point wasn't  about Miles himself....of course it didn't come across that way.      Relating to my own students who like to do things "their own way" I'm saying many of them would like to use that statement because they dont' want to have to work at reading the music.

[pianistimo]

i see playing what's not there - as connecting the dots.  many times we sight read through pieces - but don't see a whole.  the more you practice, it seems that suddenly one day a light goes off and you say - 'aha - this is what the piece says or seems to say. '  sometimes it is slowing down here - or speeding up there - or connecting the phrasing to mean a longer group of sentences instead of word by word.

also, intuition.  there's some really intuitive musicians that can speak through the music without changing it dramatically.  i think this is better than changing notes or dynamics or phrasing to suit what we think the composer meant.  most composers know what they mean.   

[pies]

I have an essay to write about this quote and, despite the suggestions, I'm still not sure where I'm going to go with it. 

[pianistimo]

i used to try to come up with good ideas off the top of my head, too.  now, i realize it's a lot of hard hours in the library.  usually the periodicals come off as the most helpful and up-to-date.  go looking in the piano mag's that you can find.  pedagogy.  etc.

at the back of each essay or article will be the sources of information and where it was gleaned.  this is 100% helpful.  you can then go to that source (usually a lot more primary sources - which teachers tend to like).  there are many 'opinions' but few papers come up with hours of meditated thought and putting together of others ideas and then adding your 'thesis' of what it all means.  sometimes it is as simple as adding it all up.  othertimes - it is a 'sitting on the fence' and leaning one way. 

[pianistimo]

if you are quoting miles davis - you probably will start with what he believed he was saying.  if i were you - then i would add a few others interpretations and start the paper with the idea that 'what is not there' - might be considered by a musician - not to play robotically or metronomically. 

i don't know why - but little richard is coming into focus.  perhaps this is the 'enthusiasm' of a performer.  elvis.  you know.  the ones that add something into the music that is unexplainable.  you can't imitate it.  you can only watch in a sort of awe. 

also, for me, ricardo muti - among other musicians, seems to express a very profound understanding of music.  to be able to express this to others is much different than simply playing an instrument yourself and being able to be an artist.  a conductor has to relay the information and get people excited about practicing and performing the piece to a very high level.  and, to expalin to each of the instrumentalists HOW to do it.

now, with teaching - you have a similar thing going on.  if you told you students, 'don't play what's written' - they would probably think a million and one thoughts that you weren't intending.  many good teachers are very detail oriented and fudging too much this way or that on the what is written might result in a bad jurying at competition.

perhaps you should do a versus - regular performances vs. competition performances.  great performances may not always be at competition.  people are worried about the event perhaps more than they would be at a regular performance?  jitters?  judges.  what they can get away with?  what they can't.  past history of  performers that won (and what they did?)  this could be a topic.

[pianistimo]

maybe some kind of book about 'great performances' would give some insight.

[leucippus]

"Don't play what's there, play what's not there."
 --Miles Davis

I don't know what Miles Davis meant, but I personally see written musical score as nothing more than a guide.  No composer ever took the time to actually write score out precisely the way they wanted it to sound.  In fact, if they actually did that they would be using dotted 6th notes and rests all over the place.  Musical score would become a nightmare to even try to read.

As far as I'm concerned written musical score is only a means of writing things down to convey the general idea of how the music might be played for future generations and other people who can't hear the original piece.   Moreover, if someone actually did play from ear they would most likely play it quite differently from how they actually heard it.

I've been learning some pieces and I use CDs of various performer to see how different people play a piece.   No one plays it precisely how it is written.  NO ONE!   If they did they would sound like a MIDI player because MIDI player play score precisely as it's written.

Case in point, I noticed on once piece that I'm learning there is a dotted quarter note at one place.  The MIDI files plays it precisely as a dotted quarter note.   Professional pianists all play it differently.  Some hold it as long as a whole note, other play right through it almost as if it's a semiquaver or lesser value.

So I would take Miles Davis quote to simply mean, play it how you feel it should be played, and free yourself from becoming a robotic slave to sheet music!

[arensky]

I wouldn't have thought a musician of Miles Davis's calibre would need to make excuses not to read the music. He probably felt it was restricting.

He could read just fine.

I think he's challenging others to be original, to be daring and to take that step away from the tried and true and predictable into the unknown.

He did, he was constantly reinventing himself, looking for new ways to say what he wanted to say.

[timothy42b]

Can you elaborate on this? I don't understand the figure ground part.

It may not be correct.  It seems to be an original theory of mine.  I'll explain it and you can see what you think.  First the basics.

Figure-ground is a basic concept of perception and you will find enormous amounts of theory and data, most of which I probably don't understand.  Very simply, things (figure) either fade into the background (ground), or are enhanced by their contrast with the background.  This is true of musical motifs, artwork, dandelions on your lawn, etc.  There are implications for your neural processing, apparently making it a good field to study. 

Now jazz.  Miles and others who play jazz don't read off sheet music when they improvise.  They listen and hear the harmonic structure so they can fit into it, then they compose their part on the fly, carefully avoiding the named melody while at the same time trying to express the essence of it.  But it's hard to write your own part, always being creative while filling a 3 hour gig with music.  Some people do it by using a lot of standard licks, either their own or quoted from great players, occasionally finding their own creative voice in the middle.  Others rigorously avoid "licks," Miles was famous for disdaining anyone who used licks.  Some just run scales while they wait for inspiration.

It is my theory that nobody can compose high quality original melody fragments continuously in real time.  So what most workaday improvisers do is produce a lot of (back)ground, interspersed with a few fragments of figure.  Most of the background is scales or modal scales, and the figure usually follows the rules of melody.  The greats produce a higher ratio of figure to ground than the rest of us.  But if there is not some distinction between figure and ground, the figure gets lost in the noise and the audience tunes out.  Miles was not as busy as some players, so he played some figure that was set off by silence instead of low demand running the changes. 

What he might have meant by the quote is play more figure and less ground.  But I'm not sure.  He was not really an intellectually oriented person, he was a performer rather than a thinker. 

[ihatepop]

" Ohhhh....Icky poo!"