Hacker News Reader

Comment by tiahura | Hacker News Reader

So jazz isn’t random with rhythm, it’s pseudorandom with rhythm you can’t dance to. Still not feeling it.

Note that “jazz” without further context is referring to over 7 decades of styles.

You absolutely can dance to jazz, depending on the song and rhythm.

Jazz is not random, nor pseudorandom. (That would make it a lot easier for me in my solos, but also would ultimately make jazz a very boring genre). It may sound like that to a new ear - jazz is not particularly accessible compared to other genres. But for the most part it follows forms and has a regular structure.

It’s a living, mostly ephemeral thing. It’s a live conversation - listen to the interactions between the players, it’s not static.

I’m on mobile at the moment but here are some good songs/albums:

[0]: https://youtu.be/qjrGjomFhpQ

[1]: https://youtu.be/YovfrsCML48

[2]: (this album has two takes of the same song, so you can compare the solos and see how they handle them differently) https://youtu.be/Ykm517sOieE

what you are doing is picking up a copy of hamlet in a language you cant read, looking at it for 30 seconds, and then declaring shakespeare sucks

Thank you, I was trying to think of a way of responding to the GP, but couldn't do as well as this! It's a very good metaphor. Perhaps even closer: "and then declaring 'Plays suck'." (Also, Martino is hardly jazz's Shakespeare.)

>what you are doing is picking up a copy of hamlet in a language you cant read, looking at it for 30 seconds, and then declaring

I don’t like this elizabethan bullshit, i find it unpleasant, and rather than waste my time on something that I feel doesn’t deserve my time, I’m gonna read some michael crighton. or maybe some dean koontz, stephen king or heck, tom clancy. it’s my life and I like what I like, and I encourage everyone to like what they like personally, and not allow themselves to be goaded into reading taming of the shrew, even if that is the best thing ole billy boy ever wrote.

also before all you culture warriors jump all over me for liking shakespeare, i’m talking about the version of tots as portrayed on moonlighting with bruce willis and cybil shepherd

>jump all over me for liking shakespeare

I'm losing track of this

it’s a joke

I don’t think anyone here is saying what one can and can’t like things. I personally was just responding to the idea that jazz somehow “fails the musicality test”.

If you prefer classical or whatever, awesome!

that’s because no one downvoting me understands what i’m saying. musicality is a property of music. i am not saying it’s not music, i’m saying it’s often not musical, especially to some. that’s a fact of the universe that you can either accept or continue to be ignorant. i feel like i’ve made a good faith effort to explain myself and expand the understanding of those on here who may care. moving on.

i actually like jazz, i play a lot of jazz, i bought an amazing guitar 25 years ago that has been recorded, not by me, on 17 jazz records that i find to be pretty amazing. so like, i get what you persons are saying, but like unmusical music is something you’d be exposed to in a well run music 101 class in college/university

19 actually

I'd add on to this: when you listen to a piece of music, you subconsciously anticipate what will come next, and you get enjoyment from the way the piece meets or surprises your expectations. This plays a big part in the perception of musicality.

Jazz artists play with their listeners' expectations just like artists in any other genre of music, but people who listen to a lot of jazz have developed a set of expectations that others don't have. Jazz listeners find jazz musical and viscerally enjoyable in the same way listeners of other genres enjoy their music - it's not (only) an abstract intellectual appreciation, which I get the impression a lot of people suspect.

To me, a better analogy than reading Shakespeare in a language you don't understand is watching a sport you don't know the rules to. We're both watching the same people make the same moves, but if you don't know the rules, you don't know what to expect, and every move looks random and purposeless. Someone who knows the rules watches the same thing and is able to enjoy the interplay between the expected and unexpected, to appreciate the skill and the moments of brilliance and drama, on what I think few would claim is not a visceral level.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com