neo soul / new soul and players who are clueless

[kensuguro]

I've been listening to beat blender on soma fm lately, and am noticing that many neo soul / new soul style tunes have absolutely horrid instrument playing. Not to assume that the best of the best is on beat blender, but it seemed very ironic since many of these these supposed soul / funk / jazz influenced tunes have solos to showcase... well, just how bad their solo playing is. The answer should have been easy.. if you can't play, don't play a lame ass solo. lol. Or at least write out a good on and practice it 'till you can play it.

The worst offenders are usually organ solos and sax solos.. Usually it's just doodling around one blues scale, staying within a narrow comfort zone, terrible phrasing and nonsensical manure that's been lavishly poured over 4 bars. These are really solos, in that after the solo everyone would have left the venue.

Have we become so 'non live instrument' orientated that the most mediocre players can claim to have been influenced by soul / funk / jazz? I can easily imagine a casual meeting on FB or something. "dude, I saw you have a real sax in one of your photos. There's 8 bars in a tune we're recording that you can jam over! You can play whatever you want, it'll be cool. That sax is real, and that's all that matters." Perhaps the mere ownership of a physical instrument is enough to remind us of the old school soul / funk / jazz days. Yes, people played instruments back then. If you have one, then you can add authenticity to the tracks. I have congas, so that must make me an expert in afro-cuban rhythms.

I don't want to sound pretentious or condescending, but I think this is not a purely subjective like or dislike thing. In fact, judging whether a performance is crap, or acceptable (forget how "good") is a fairly objective thing especially because by being soul / funk / jazz influenced, the neo soul performers lend themselves to being measured by specific precedence. (bar is set pretty damn high) Blues doodles are especially exhausted, so that's even less excuse for a bad line. I mean, how can a person who calls himself a musician not be able to put together even a mediocre blues line.. It's been documented so well. It's like making a hot dog. The pieces are already done, you just need to put them together, and practice. (for a mediocre line, anyway)

[dawman]

They record for tips and food, what do you expect......
And Neo Soul may as well be called Neo Butthole.....

I work in a town where 50% of the " entertainers " have to stare at their Bass Guitar more than Mike Huckabee.
For these performers I can only recommend some good skunk, or pharmacueticals.

[kensuguro]

lol, I remember when I fell asleep half way into a roll of skunk. That was a really heavy downer, but on the flip side, Some Skunk Funk will get my heart beating twice as fast and twice as hard anytime. So maybe I just needed some funk with the skunk and it would have made it a turbo pill. hehe. That's like music that actually makes sense.

I'll get you some samples of what I'm talking about for you to laugh at. I mean, these are not even session players. No session player can get away with such awful playing. If I met these players, I would have kindly ripped them a neo butthole right away, no additional cost.

[Nestor]

Hilarious Ken, your words were so funny…

Look, it is so nice to see the developer itself playing it:

http://www.samplemodeling.com/en/products_mssaxs.php

No doubt that with instruments like this one, many people don’t even need to learn to play anymore, they go straight to it loads into their DAW and play. Beethoven it is said to have had a big room full of all sort of instruments that he actually could play pretty well, even if his main instrument was the piano. In this way he could understand the dynamics of every one of them and how to write for them, which was the limitation of the player, etc.

I think that actually playing an instrument, it doesn’t matter how good an emulation could sound and be, will never rejoice and fulfill you in the way it does.

In the other hand, I thank life, Mr. Steinberg, former Creamware and present Sonic Core for having all these invisible guys at home that makes the miracle of being a one-man-band possible.

I have all my life wanted to compose for the big symphonic orchestras and bands. When I did it a few times, I was very lucky I have to say, it was always difficult for two reasons: 1- because you had to wait about one whole year for the orchestra to be available for you, because they always had many concerts already booked and it was frustrating to wait for such a long time to hear at least the rehearsals; 2- because I had to do everything by hand, and this was a really hard job to do, writing the scores needed by hand puts you down because you need so many hours, in those times computers were not used to print music scores, they were emerging products only.

Today I can sit in from of my screens, whenever I can, in the middle of the might perhaps, and develop anything I want. This is not the same, but common, is pretty damn close to it! The emotions flow anyhow. So, it is a mix pack, in one hand, please, play instruments, in the other, thank you for having fake instruments that allow us to make music by ourselves.

Anyway, the more you are involved with music directly, the better, IMO.

[wayne]

It does seem dues aren't being paid as much - over here young bands often only have 20 minutes of material, and never get to hone it on 3,4,5 hour gigs.

*brandishes false teeth* "Now back in my day....!"

[dawman]

How true that is.
I did 6 nights a week since 85, and finally am starting to get those specialized venues where you do 90 minutes strait, and an encore, and that's after 3 years of this crap, but it's still 6 nights.
I know you know, especially if you played Crystal Bay.......where the dead come to gamble.
But a very beautiful area of Lake Tahoe...

[kensuguro]

Jimmy, i think you require an above average crowd to appreciate every nuance in your sound making and playing. You're sound is definitely above a certain threshold.. in a good way. crowd definitely needs good ears. and a very wide listening repertoire.

I mean I'm sure you can whip up a tasty line even staying in dorian minor of the root key. Let's not even talk about alternative scales to follow along with the progression. A lot of what I'm hearing on Beat Blender can't even do a mildly flavorful line in dorian minor in root key. Kenny G could even do a better job. That's how bad it is. That's like not being able to tie your shoe laces!

wayne, what do you mean by "never get to hone it"?

[garyb]

well, there are a lot of different elements that make music. the points being discussed are certainly part of it. to some degree it's possible to sciemtifically map out what it is that works about viration, how it relates to the world and what physical changes it brings upon the listener. then there are more subjective aspects. what is "good" is determined by what effect is desired. what is desired changes from person to person and from reason to reason. there are many reasons for music, some benign and some quite virulent and horrifying. there are even reasons that are quite banal.

blues musicians like Robert Johnson or Bo Diddley or John Lee Hooker rarely played anything right. but they have spawned more imitators than detractors. what it was that it was all about, wasn't anything like what you find important Ken, yet people find great meaning in it. most true folk music is like this. Berbers in their tents do not discuss meter nor do they discuss scale tones.

i understand, these clowns are supposed to be playing Jazz, for crying out loud, and Jazz is mostly academic music, even though it is also pop because pop forms are what the academics are used on in the form that came out of New York, that was made by working musicians from show bands that needed a considerable amount of skill and reading abilities. guys who had been to school for music...

on the other hand, what was originally called Jass in New Orleans, was low class stuff. we Love Louis Amrstrong and his big tone and style, and he did know music, but he wasn't a university student like Diz and it shows in his work. Louis was never "outside".

what i'm saying is that there is an obvious market for crap. people have paid an extrodinary amount of money for a painting that was merely someone dribbling left over paint onto a canvas. i can't look down on these guys for holding down a gig. they may suck, but not in the way that keeps them from working, it would seem. i hope to suck less in the wy that my thinking about how much i suck keeps me from doing things, because really, if these guys do suck and they're getting mega love, then we all suck for being better than them and not taking their work for ourselves.

if they're just making noise on the internet, so what? let them waste their time. since they suck, they won't make any money anyway.

[garyb]

stop listening to beat blender on soma fm and they will go away.


maybe.

[dawman]

And on the other hand the excessive classical and jazz studies I did, were extremely helpful in helping me woodshed solos like ELP or even use to love copping Charlie Parker solos, Steve Howe solos, JohnMcLaughlin, etc.
But trying to play simple music alone on a PC is very difficult for me, I am so used to hearing someone else start the improv process and add to it, I am a skillful collaborator, but the original bones I have in my body are so far out of touch with the average listenere, and even musicians I feel burdoned from over education.

Reminds of these economic experts that never get anything right in the USA. Every month they use their years and years of academic knowledge, yet still some upcoming CEO can see train wrecks long before these Pipe smoking " elite experts."

FWIW the Berber Warrior chick El-Kahina was suppose to be a super mesmorizer in the way she would dance and play some anceint reeds.
Sounds like a serious babe to me...

[Nestor]

Marcus Miller is certainly a great bass player, but it is even better as a “musician”, he is really versatile and has an amazing school (the most relevant of it all) of many years of playing without stop with all sort of artist. And he is such a nice guy too.

The following interview is really great. Listen to what he has to say about Jazz, older and newer players, and music, it is so enlightening, ig goes to the bone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbGemsCJEr8

[Nestor]

BTW, my most serious complain and concern about new music and players, is not much the luck of skills to play extremely well, what really tires me immediately, is the total luck of harmony development. Most music today tend do go on forever based in a few chords and without any watermark between them, so to say; I mean without ornaments, well…, without dedication hell, It’s too lazy sometimes.