When I go to work, I generally leave my bow at home. When it’s time to make the low notes, I don’t bring rosin, a music stand, a music folder or pencils either. I am always the only bass player on the gig – it’s a beautiful thing.
Let me say it straight – I don’t enjoy orchestral playing. I love to listen to orchestral music, chamber music, solo recitals, etc. But playing in a section rubs me the wrong way and I am not good at it.
Playing in a bass section, to me, is like a factory job. Five or eight or ten players all attempting to execute the same music precisely at the same time, using the same bowings and articulations is my version of Dante’s Inferno. Section playing is so authoritarian; the principal player dictates all the bowings. It’s so hierarchical; one must obey the conductor, obey the principal, everybody has their assigned seat and stand. And it is so impersonal; individuals do not have the opportunity to be expressive. It is all about execution, and that is that part of music that interests me the least. I guess I have way too big an ego to be a good section player. I have problems with authority, too, which makes the situation even worse.
Sure, there’s power in all those strings vibrating together, especially on some double forte note low on the E string. I’ll grant you that. But it is not enough. What if I don’t feel like playing that particular passage the “correct” way. What if I want to play the “C” up an octave so I can actively support the second flute part? Nope, sorry. Not in the contract. Do it the “right” way and do it that same way every time or you’re out on your buttinski.
What I enjoy is being able to intimately influence the tempo, dynamics, texture, harmony, and articulation at any given point in the music. Sure, the chord changes and melody are a “given”, but I can interpret that information any way I see fit in the moment. So what if my job consists mainly of playing a steady stream of quarter notes with the occasional solo chorus or two? It feels really good to lock into the groove with the other members of the band, especially drums and piano or guitar. I like the feeling of being the glue that holds the key (no pun intended) to both the harmonic and rhythmic underpinning of the song. People stay out of my sonic way, too. Most of the time I am the sole inhabitant of the lower couple of octaves – they are mine to handle as I wish.
I also like being able to hear myself, something that I was never able to do playing in a section. I find it demoralizing to have spent years working on playing in tune, getting a good sound, and so on, and then going to work and not being able to even hear if I’m accomplishing those goals.
Hey, props to you section players! More power to you, especially if you dig doing that. As we say on my side of the street, that’s just not my bag.
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Fascinating! You could reverse everything in that post and it would then be true about me. I love listening to jazz music, but playing it does not really satisfy me and I’m not a great jazz player.
I like rules and tradition, and that aspect of orchestral playing suits me very well. Further yet, the rigid structure of an orchestra is something I really appreciate – I like big band jazz more than a combo because everyone has a written part and a particular chair they occupy.
I’m glad there’s both sorts of people out there so we have all this music to listen to. The folks who can play both well are the ones who really impress me.
Next week’s poll: Jazz or Classical?
Good idea for next week’s poll. What a great post–thanks, Bill!
How funny. I agree with Jeff, but for different reasons. Jazz–to me–doesn’t satisfy my desire for absolute perfection; you can get away with a lot. True, you can get away with a lot in classical music, too, but NOT in a chamber or solo setting, that’s for sure.
I heartily disagree with Bill’s assertion that playing in a large orchestra limits your expressive ability. You can do whatever you want. The conductor is only there to help you interpret the huge cantankerous amalgamation that the composer came up with. You can crescendo, speed up, slow down, change articulations, whatever. The point is–as in a lot of jazz–to be an ensemble. It just _tends_ to be more complicated than jazz, and I find that immensely appealing.
Don’t get me wrong, randomness and improvisation are great things, but realizing the fantastic expression of a composer like Rimsky-Korsakov, Mahler, Joan Tower, or whatever, means more to me than playing jazz. If you can get emotional fulfillment through jazz, that’s awesome, but it ain’t gunna work for me!
I have to disagree with Kontrabass Violin. I’m not sure what you mean by being able to “get away with a lot” in jazz. Maybe you can with less knowledgable listeners, but the same is true in classical music. In jazz, you can’t get away with bad notes, bad rhythm, poor improvisations, poor or no feel and unsatisfying shape of a performance. Playing jazz at the highest level requires great skill, many skills as required in classical music, and some, such as improvisation, the heart and soul of jazz performance, different.
I agree with Bill Harrison that playing in an orchestra limits one’s expressive ability, at least compared to jazz! The conductor is there to guide the orchestra in achieving his vision of how the composer’s music should sound. The individual musicians must follow his interpretation. You cannot “do whatever you want”, at the risk of losing your job.
I find it funny that you link “randomness” and “improvisation” together. It leads me to believe that you don’t understand what it means to successfully improvise in a given jazz setting. Please listen to some of the jazz masters. Their playing is anything but random. Their improvisations relate harmonically and rhythmically to the structures of the piece being played, and the best players do it in ingenious ways, with great emotion and story telling. If you were to transcribe these solos, I think it would be more obvious to you the high level of accomplishment of these musicians in creating incredible melodic material, on the spot, something classical musicians are rarely called upon to do.
Thanks for the good vibe Eric. For those of you who don’t know, Eric is one of the heaviest jazz players around.
KV, I have to say that I find your characterization of orchestral music as “more complicated” than jazz and your equating randomness with improvisation rather…offensive.
Also, please don’t think that jazz musicians don’t strive for perfection just as much as orchestral or chamber players do. We just do it in a different way. I agree with Eric – go check out some of the masters (Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Bill Evans, Sonny Rollins, just to name a few) and see if you can’t hear the complexity, logic, and extremely high level of both craft and creativity.
I don’t think you’ll hear musicians at that level “getting away” with anything!
I must agree with Bill and Eric on their defense of Jazz. Like I said, I do love listening to it, and I even play it in the most amateur sense, but it’s just not for me as a player.
Improvisation is hardly randomness (with good players) and I’d sort of agree that classical music is no “more complicated”. The thing with classical music for me is that you know what you’re getting from the start – you can’t be sure of the result in jazz until it happens, even with the the greats – that’s just the nature of improvisation and why it doesn’t speak to me in the same way.
I’ll reiterate my above closing statement: I’m very glad both styles exist for me to listen to!
My time is pretty well split between playing improvised music and classical music. I would never characterize one as being more complicated, more difficult, or inherently better than the other. Saying so can only come from ignorance. I love and am fully invested in playing and listening to both. However, I can’t understand how one could see orchestral section playing and small group improvsation as equally expressive. I love orchestral playing, but it is patently not about personal expression, its about playing in perfect unity with one’s section and the larger orchestra as directed by a conductor.
I don’t think it really has to be a competion. Like a lot of bassists I took private lessons with many great teachers – nearly all of it was classical study.
I play improvised music but study classical solos, etudes and even excerpts daily to keep my technique sharp.
I love the classical tradition and studying it has made getting my ideas out with a lot less trouble it than it would take otherwise.
Nearly all the great jazz players such as Mingus, Jimmy Garrison, Red Mitchell, Ray Brown and many others worked out of Simandl and classical training.
I don’t like leaving my bow at home and in fact I never have. Love for the bow is one thing that kept me away from straight ahead jazz and steered me to more free jazz and improvised music.
My girlfriend is the grant writer for the SF Symphony, so I get to see them a lot.
Those guys sound great in that section – nothing factory like about it.
As occasionally happens, I feel the need to chime in as the guitarist interloper. Calling classical music more “complicated”, as well as associating improvisation with randomness, is just ridiculous. It is as intellectually sophisticated as someone suggesting that classical music is easy because the notes are already there for you! While I find the structure of the orchestra rather autocratic, I secretly wish I could enjoy the feeling of large group unity that I imagine occurs in a good concert.
My own journey had me attempting to quit jazz during my school years in order to focus on just classical, leading to a form of musical depression. Now I play classical, jazz, and rock professionally. I would hate to live without an improvisational outlet, but I would also hate to live without the chance to interpret such great pieces as Bach suites. One could argue that I will progress less in the various styles because I divide my practice time, particularly given the vastly different techniques used for electric and nylon string guitar, but I sincerely hope that I never have to choose.
Yeah, I see your point about section playing. It takes alot of discipline, and you never get to show off. I’m still trying to figure out how not to show my displeasure when I’m told to use a bowing I don’t like.
However, there is no substitute for hearing orchestral masterworks, or even light compositions, from the inside.I think the bass section is the best seat in the house, if you really love the music.
Thanks for the article!
Good comments, however, I feel like my post was misinterpreted. I tried to make it clear enough that I posted opinions and not facts, and give everyone the benefit of enjoying what they enjoy without directly attacking anyone. : ) Sorry if my wording caused offense.
I think this subject needs some more depth of thought. I’ll make an attempt. Here we go!
Eric said…
> I’m not sure what you mean by being able to “get away with a lot” in jazz.
I was referring not to sloppy playing, but to performing something in any way, shape, or form, and no one would be the wiser to if you messed up. Your phrase could have been excecuted with the utmost precision, but ultimately was not what you had planned to do, so it–in a sense–was a mistake…and the audience could have loved it to death. You could have even liked it yourself! Much great music begins with a “mistake.” So many people know every note of Mozart, that–to me–it demands so much more perfection than jazz ever could.
> Playing jazz at the highest level requires great skill, many skills as required in classical music, and some, such as improvisation, the heart and soul of jazz performance, different.
Indeed! I couldn’t have said it better myself, and I never said anything to the contrary. Thanks for emphasizing this point.
> I agree with Bill Harrison that playing in an orchestra limits one’s expressive ability, at least compared to jazz!
I find this a rather limited view of orchestral playing. We need to re-define “expressive abililty” into two categories: personal expression and audience-perceived expression. Both jazz and classical have both of these abilities, however, it is my opinion that classical music provides a greater range of expression–both personal an audience-perceived. Note that I chose the word “range.” Classical music simply explores a greater range of timbres, dynamics, articulations, etc… It even delves into the jazz world. This extended palette is what appeals to me most. (Aside: I’d say that the umbrella of classical music didn’t originally include jazz, but now it does. It even contains rock now. These days, we define “classical music” as much more than Mozart.) On the flip side of “range,” _amount_ of expression is completely individual. Some people are not moved at all by the moonlight sonata, some people are not affected by pork pie hat, either.
> I find it funny that you link “randomness” and “improvisation” together.
I never did any such thing! Haha. I merely used the conjunction “and” between the two words–not the word “is.” I mentioned randomness because it has an important function in jazz music. Imagine if the saxophones didn’t squeak unpredictably during a solo… You can’t make me believe that every one of those is planned. : ) But the crowd likes it (usually). Unpredictability and randomness ARE linked, but are not the same. Please read carefully–I try to choose my words carefully, though we all make mistakes!
> I think it would be more obvious to you the high level of accomplishment of these musicians in creating incredible melodic material, on the spot, something classical musicians are rarely called upon to do.
I find it much easier to make incredible melodic material on the spot than to represent a dead composer’s wishes when he or she is not there to tell you that’s what his or her vision was. YOUR vision is in your head while you play, and it is much more _possible_ that no one has any pre-conceived notions about it–even highly educated jazz masters–therefore the probability of excecuting it perfectly, or at least satisfactorily, is much higher. I’m pretty sure that’s a fact. People may have their opinions about how Mozart should go, but ultimately, he’s just not here to tell us. Every time I play the same piece, it’s different. Nothing can be done about that (that’s what CDs are for, and even then it’s not always the same, different speakers, different room, different thought-patterns affecting what you hear, etc.) So, making great melodic material is fine and dandy, but PLAYING that great melodic material with such a bonzai interpretation that people cry or scream is something different entirely–and that dead composer had THAT in his head, refining it, maybe for years, before he or she wrote it down and gave it to us. I know this is not always the case, but sometimes it is. I’ve heard some jazz that is like this, but it seems to me that jazz just has different priorities, and those priorities don’t speak to me as eloquently, nor directly, as classical music does.
Perhaps we have different ideas on what “showing off” and “complicated” means. If “showing off” means you get your time in the spotlight, so be it, but you can show off in your shower in the morning if you like…someone might be listening. : D You MUST have personal expression in an orchestral setting, and so must everyone else in the orchestra. Without it, you’ll get some very bland music. As far as “complicated” goes, I suppose that depends on who’s doing the interpretation. Some people find hardly anything in this world all that complicated, some people find everything complicated. However, we can all agree on the level of detail put into an auditory work. If that’s the new topic, I’d still wager that more classical works have more level of detail, if only because they have a large palette to work with. However, it may be the case that the time period the majority of classical works were written in has a lot to do with how much detail they contain–worth a muse or two, no?
Thanks for reading! I hope it all made sense and we avoid more misinterpretations. Please feel free to express your own opinions or contradict this opinion in any way. I hope I didn’t make any glaring errors in my logic…!