Rock musicians vs. classically trained musicians

[pvwolfgang5150]

This thread=

 

First of all, anyone who plays music is an artist. Whether the music they play is classical, jazz, country, rock, or any other genre you can think of. Second of all, classical music is not all just reading music and sticking to it. You can change dynamics, you can change bowing's (in the case of string instruments), you can change the accidentals, you can change the tempo, you can change the fingering, and you can change around some of the notes themselves. It is all about your interpretation of the music because in many cases, there is no original recording of the music.

 

Second of all, classical musicians do improvise, and quite often at that! When they do it is called a cadenza. Not to mention classical music can still/is still being composed. It is not a dead genre. While different genres of music have risen and fallen in popularity, classical music has always remained popular and it is one of the few styles of music that will never die.

 

Third of all, just because you are classically trained, doesn't mean you can only play classical music. A lot of the time people who are classically trained benefit from having an ear for music and the hand eye coordination required to play any instrument. There are plenty of rock musicians who were classically trained. For example: Eddie Van Halen and Jimmy Page.

 

In conclusion, rock and classical are very different. However, they are both still arts, they are both your interpretation, and they both are designed to express emotions and convey feelings.

[Brewski]

 

I am not sure about the others, but Jimi was not a classically trained musician.

 

 

please reread his bio - his dad and he were violinist first.

 

And Page was a session musician who started on the piano

[ihavenofish]

 

please reread his bio - his dad and he were violinist first. And Page was a session musician who started on the piano

 

 

cant seem to find a reference to back up either of those...

[boynamedsuse]

I agree that a lot of "apocryphal" stories have developed around Jimi Hendrix, but one story that doesn't seem to change is that he was self taught.

[csm]

Let's not get carried away here. In terms of 'classical training', the kind of rudimentary piano or violin lessons which many middle- and lower-middle-class kids receive bears about the same skillset relationship to proper conservatory tuition and professional (or even semi-professional) classical musicianship as junior-high track does to the Olympics.(Same applies rto the kind of jazz study you'd do at Berklee or Juillard.)

 

Hendrix was an ear-trained autodidact. There's a famous story about a party thrown in Hendrix's honour at Miles Davis's house by Miles's then-wife Betty ... Miles stayed away because he didn't want any other man being alpha in his house in his presence, but he scribbled out some sheet music for Hendrix and left the sketched composition in his music room. Next time they met, he asked Jimi how he'd liked the tune, and Hendrix had to confess that he couldn't read music. So Miles went to the piano and played it for him ... hendrix said something like, 'OH-kay, I get it ...' and proceeded to play it, improvising beautifully.

 

Because the great classical composers lived and worked before the advent of recording, all we have on which to base a performance of their work is the written music -- and yes, all the great conductors and soloists interpret those written scores differently. It's like not being able to taste the food cooked by a great chef and having to work exclusively from their written recipes and first-hand accounts by those who DID actually eat their meals.

 

Apart from a few of the earliest pioneers like Buddy Bolden, all of the great jazzmen of the 20th century were recorded. This was a VERNACULAR music which combined written scores and arrangements with improvisation -- but it was primarily radio and records which spread folk musics (blues, country etc) which had already passed through the generations via oral transmission and performance. Travelling musicians would know hundreds of songs, and develop the abvility to learen new ones, by ear and memory.

 

To be ANY kind of classical musician, you have to be able to read, and to SIGHT-read. To be any kind of blues, country or rock musician, you have to be able to memorise and improvise. To be any kind of jazz musician (or a topflight studio player), you have to be able to do both. (Which triple-scale Nashville cat was it who said, 'I can read music, but not enough to hurt my playing'?)

 

Finally, let me cite a great rocker who actually studied classical violin and piano to a reasonably high kid-level before he ever picked up a guitar -- Mick Ronson. The late and much-missed Ronno was equally capable of composing, arranging and writing out a faux-baroque string-quartet score literally overnight (I witnessed him doing this during the recording of Bowie's Pin-Ups album in 1973) and then, the next day, hooking up a Les Paul to a Marshall and playing the dirtiest, raunchiest, most utterly visceral rock and roll filth guitar you could possibly imagine.

 

Now THAT was a man with an enviable skill-set.

[Ratae Corieltauvorum]

^^^^^^^^

 

 

Ya just don't get that quality of post anywhere else

 

Great info Chas

[Steadfastly]

This thread= First of all, anyone who plays music is an artist. Whether the music they play is classical, jazz, country, rock, or any other genre you can think of.

 

I'm an artist! I'm an artist! I can't wait to tell my wife.:)

[Willyguitar]

I don't agree with the statements that classically trained musicians can't improvise as well as rock or jazz musicians.

 

I went to a Cathedral school, which provided two organists for Cambridge while I was there - these guys could improvise like the best of them on a keyboard. In fact, a guy in my year used to regularly improvise around and between pieces of organ music every morning in our 'assembly' on the cathedral organ. We used to hear bits of Beatles, theme songs to soap operas, children's film melodies interspersed with classical composers at the end of each assembly... which was actually really well done and amusing.

 

So, despite having a bit more halitosis and bad dress sense, maybe their arrogance was justified.

[Angry Tele]

Ray Charles

[JilaX^]

Third of all, just because you are classically trained, doesn't mean you can only play classical music. A lot of the time people who are classically trained benefit from having an ear for music and the hand eye coordination required to play any instrument. There are plenty of rock musicians who were classically trained. For example: Eddie Van Halen and Jimmy Page.

 

Jimmy Page wasn't classically trained.

The man couldn't even read bloody notes!

When he was doing sessions he could read the chart like a child reads a book. "...A..... .....C..... ...E...m?... " He would basically just fake his way through, picking up on the others and improvising.

 

As for Eddie, learning how to play piano =/= classical training.

[pvwolfgang5150]

Jimmy Page wasn't classically trained. The man couldn't even read bloody notes! When he was doing sessions he could read the chart like a child reads a book. "...A..... .....C..... ...E...m?... " He would basically just fake his way through, picking up on the others and improvising.

 

You don't have to know how to read music to be classically trained. Most people do, but it is not, by any means, a requirement.

[schiz]

two opposite ends of the spectrum...but yeah rock are more improvisational and creative. But mostly we cant read a note (i'm generalising here!!) Classical musicians read well, understand music theory and can play well whats on the score. But they play old old cheesy music mostly.

I have to disagree with this 100%

 

While I dont know anyone that has made it big with a band or anything, I do know someone that really, and I mean really, should have.

Friend of mine has a bachelor's degree in music from USC (Go Gamecocks!) That dude is so amazing with a guitar. Pisses me off to see

him jump around from job to job trying to find something else he is good at. All while not even playing in a band because his wife doesnt want him to.

 

He started out playing as a kid and then went to college. So really I think he was a rock musician BEFORE he was classically trained. I try to talk to him

about the guitar and he goes on these rants about how "this muscles, or that muscle, in this finger can be exercised by... to get your fingers to do..." or,

"if you exercise your hand like... you can build tremendous speed in alternate picking." Its just WAYYYY out there but the dude really knows his {censored}!

Ive seen him pick up a Hannah Montana guitar and make the damn thing sound like a freakin $1000 guitar. Honestly.

We were at this wedding and some little girl walks up with her little 3/4 size HM guitar. She sat it down and my buddy picks it up. He started playing some

odd version he made up of an old Hendrix tune. I looked around and noticed all these people just stopping and watching. He messed around with it for about

10 minutes and stopped. People literally started clapping and he was embarrassed as {censored}.

 

Fact of the matter is a rock musician that is classically trained is a superior musician in every sense of the word! Ive seen it firsthand.

[pvwolfgang5150]

You all have to remember that the guitar was originally designed to produce classical music.

[JilaX^]

You don't have to know how to read music to be classically trained. Most people do, but it is not, by any means, a requirement.

 

It is a huge part of it.

Secondly, he only received a few guitar lessons, other than that he was self taught! How was he in any way, remotely classically trained.

 

EDIT:

[YOUTUBE]WuhnEcSm5sU[/YOUTUBE]

You don't have to be clasically trained to be ridiculously brilliant.

Case in point, Jeff Beck.

[schiz]

 

^^^^^^^^ Ya just don't get that quality of post anywhere else Great info Chas

 

 

{censored}ing awesome! Great post!

[pvwolfgang5150]

You don't have to be clasically trained to be ridiculously brilliant. Case in point, Jeff Beck.

 

Yes, I know that reading music is a huge part of classical music, I played violin for 8 years before I ever touched a guitar, and have now played violin for 15 years strong. I am no stranger to classical music or to playing music in general.

 

Now, I admit, I was wrong about Jimmy Page being classically trained. I always thought that he was, but I admit, I was wrong and you are right.

 

I never said that you had to be classically trained to be ridiculously brilliant. There are tons of examples of people who were not classically trained and are excellent musicians. There are also tons of people who were classically trained and are terrible musicians. There are also tons of people who were not classically trained and are terrible musicians and there are also people who were classically trained and are amazing musicians. I don't understand what made you think I said that it was a requirement to be classically trained in order to be a good musician.

[JilaX^]

Yes, I know that reading music is a huge part of classical music, I played violin for 8 years before I ever touched a guitar, and have now played violin for 15 years strong. I am no stranger to classical music or to playing music in general. Now, I admit, I was wrong about Jimmy Page being classically trained. I always thought that he was, but I admit, I was wrong and you are right.

I wasn't doubting you in the least, I was just stressing what a big part of classical training it is.

 

As for Jimmy, I'm/was a bit of a Zep fanatic, so I got a little irked on that one.

I can sort of see why you thought so by listening to Achilles Last Stand, etc.

 

I never said that you had to be classically trained to be ridiculously brilliant. There are tons of examples of people who were not classically trained and are excellent musicians. There are also tons of people who were classically trained and are terrible musicians. There are also tons of people who were not classically trained and are terrible musicians and there are also people who were classically trained and are amazing musicians. I don't understand what made you think I said that it was a requirement to be classically trained in order to be a good musician.

 

That one wasn't aimed at you at all, sorry.

More of a in general/the post above me directed post.

Sorry for not making that clear o:

[SteinbergerHack]

 

You all have to remember that the guitar was originally designed to produce classical music.

 

 

No.

 

The guitar was originally a bar/tavern instrument derived from the lute, which was a very lowbrow instrument.

 

While there was some serious baroque work for the lute, much of what was written from lute was very low-end minstrel material drinking songs and stuff for ....ahem..... working women. The guitar really didn't achieve "serious" status until Segovia came along. This is why there is such a big time gap between works like Vivaldi's lute concerto and Villa-lobos, Sor, and Aranjuez.

[Jkater]

 

its very hard to compare the two style because of them being so different. i would say compare jazz to classical and get a better face off.

 

 

That was my thought as well.

 

But if we stick to the rock vs classical, I would say that it's in the intermediate level that the most interesting and significant difference occur. I have played with people who learned to read with "proper" lessons, etc and they need a music sheet in front of them all the time. Some seem to be hardly able to play anything without one. At that level, the self-thaught is often the better musician.