I for one would be proud to attend the Patrick Bartley Institute of Whatever

"The focus should not be on sounding original, the focus should be on sounding good." Yes! what's interesting is that when players focus on sounding good, they eventually discover the best version of themselves which is always going to be original.

Playing jazz without blues is like cooking without salt

Man, one of the saddest moments I remember from my 1st year of music school was when an upperclassman was doing a pretty good solo on the guitar while we were playing Au Privave during a class. Everything was fine till he dared to play a little bend, just a little bit of stank on the note, and my teacher shot him the most disapproving frown I've ever seen. The guy did it another time another couple of times during his solo, and after we finished playing the teacher called him out and said: "Listen, you played good overall but you gotta cut it with the rock n roll stuff. This is jazz we're playing, you have to think and play like a saxophonist" 💀 Edit: I feel like I should specify; for 99% of his solo he played typical language of the style we were actively learning during these classes (bebop)

Freshman year of jazz school I put together a medly that jumped from Wes Montgomery's "Four on Six" to the White Stripes "Ball and a Biscuit" and had an instructor call me white trash. Left that cesspool that spring.

The problem jazz has nowadays is that the audience is full of students, there aren't many normal non music people just there to have some fun, just other people who are spending a ton of money on their education.

One of the first things an 4th year student told me in my 1st year at college was that Bebop, Bird and the Blues were all "old-school", "hokey" and "out-of-date".

Man, you really have a clear view on this. Soo many times at jam sessions everybody avoids melodies and sounds, except the occasional split tone or licks everybody freaking knows because they seem to suddenly feel humoristic, this is current and relevant.

This makes me really appreciate the teachers of the jazz band in my HS growing up. Greg Lewis always said “it’s gotta FEEL good” and Liuzzi taught the method of “start with just two notes and make that sound good”. We never really focused on learning scales and changes that much. (Which did make me feel like I was missing something in college compared to other classmates at times.) But I still go back to always trying to make solos and sounds FEEL good. Thanks, Greg :)

Yep this is my wakeup call to start playing sound rather than changes. I've always to play a 1930s trad jazz sound rather than modern enclosures and shapes. Never had the courage to branch away from changes and play sound until now. Thanks Patrick for making this video!

Every time I listen to Johnny Hodges I wonder why that sound and style isn't more popular today. It's hip and soulful, I love it.

As a HS teacher who has taught Jazz for over 20 yrs now I have seen plenty of the good and bad of Jazz pedagogy. Way too many teachers teach improv the same way they teach western-European band music, with a largely cerebral approach. Lots of theory. Lean these licks. Learn these scales. Learn these arpeggios. I'm gonna play something and you play it back to me. All process. All something you can write out and fully explain. All CEREBRAL. Now Jazz done right, yes has some degreee of cerebral - but the emphasis - the thing that makes that human connection - has to be the VISCERAL. The thing that can not be written down. That doesn't come from playing exercises. It comes from digging the music itself. All of us learned to talk by sitting there in the crib and digging our parents as they talked. Little by little our babble became talking. Music is no different. You "babble" at first, and little by little the bad notes fall away and the good notes are left. But listening to the masters is the key. Patrick, the reason why cats now don't play the blues is because they don't listen to the blues. That listening time is vital. Most choose to invest their energy in following the analyticial/cerebral path. You come out of IU, you sound like you came out of IU. You come out of North Texas, you sound like that. Berklee, the same. Not evrerybody of course, but A LOT. It's formulaic. You see these cats in clubs. Go to a jam session today, everybody wants to play Cherokee at 250 in all 12 keys. Now, you get up there and call a slow gutbucket blues - they scatter into the wind. That cerebral game only gets you so far. With my students, I take a Star Trek Prime Directive approach. I give them the tools (yes, fundamentals but more so access to the masters' recordings), I give them a safe space to explore, and I GET OUT OF THE WAY. Yes, initially they suck. But little by little like I said, just like that baby in the crib, the bad notes fall away and the good notes (THEIR good notes) stay. Prime Directive because the last thing I want for them is toget all up in their business and make them just sound like me. Lord no! Take a good couple of scoops of the masters, add a couple tablespoons of yourself, turn up the heat and stir (practice), and boom - that's YOUR gumbo. It works. It drives me bananas hearing my colleagues turn out cookie cutter players running changes and never truly telling their own story. That ain't Jazz. Jeez, sorry. Rant over. This topic just gets me worked up! Keep doing what you're doing Patrick! Our music needs more cats like you.

Blues is all about the ups and downs of life. People that have really lived get the blues. It's a beautiful, vibrant art form that is utterly human - and it always will be. Go Pat!

Man, actually right now this is the most important conversation that needs to be had in jazz. And in the black tradition I will tell “You Preachin Doc!”

This video is very important for all musicians. It’s been a whole process for me to try and play to express myself instead of trying to play to impress or trying to think too much while playing. Digging into your emotions is key but a lot of that is beat out of us as kids. I love my playing so much more when I let myself get let loose and get dirty with it!

I learn more from you in a 15 min video than I've learned in years. I've said it before, Bird would be proud of you.

I got chills hearing you play that blues stuff man, thanks.

this is so true, i really hope more jazz players start realizing this and just be more out there! Jazz is supposed to touch our emotions !! not just playing scales and shit. the best players i’ve seen take the melody and make small variations that are so well executed and have dynamics and that feel. If you play fast and have no intention you’ve lost the audience AND yourself. Thanks for the video!!

My teacher put it to me like this when I asked him to help learn to tear through with speed, "What do you want to sound like? Now, what do you think people want to hear? Ok, now, what do you actually WANT to sound like?" The thought process being that people are playing to impress other musicians, and not to express themselves. I'm so happy to have a teacher who is constantly teaching feeling and always asking what I want to work on. For the ages where I was slacking on my technique (tremendously) we worked on playing melodies, phrasing, and tone so much to the point that he got me into composing. Now that I'm building the technique, I have tools to make what I want and sound how I want

I noticed this phenomenon happening as well. Like especially during HS and college, I noticed a lot of my peers were trying to play very clean, and fast with no STANK. The people I looked up to always made a point of not being that way in their playing (even if they were unaware of it at the time). It's probably one of the reasons why I transcribed and played so many "Dexter Gordon sounding" solos back then because it was the complete opposite of how everyone played around me. Nowadays I like to incorporate a lot of different things into my playing, but I think by really going to town with Dexter's solos back then, really helped give me a good foundation for what I wanted to do whenever I'm playing. Even know, I'm going back and listening to people like Gene Ammons (specifically him and Sonny Stitt playing Walkin'). For me anyways, it' so important to try and always understand what I'm doing melodically. Like I want people to feel that I'm creating a melody (even if I do decide to play fast, out and "hip") and I also want to be able to groove with what I'm playing, like how I do when I listen to people like Dexter, and Gene Ammons.

I appreciate you making these kinds of videos, because you creating an online space where nameless band scrubs can complain about how hard they have it in their first world problems is really helpful. I mean that sincerely. Because of videos like this, you provide spaces for scrubs to be scrubs and complain about that one time in band class. Now there's even less people out there looking for gigs because they're too busy being wrapped up in these feel-good discussions. Working cats love these kinds of videos. Thank you for making it easy to work in LA. Keep up the musical inçel spaces and discussions so working guys can keep working, while 1st world, upper-middle class, 3rd chair music school kids who have never struggled in their lives outside of an orchestra can keep complaining 🙏

Also, what you said about the importance of this here in 2023 is VITAL. The lessons this music teaches - problem solving, analyzing a situation on the fly, telling a compelling story (and recognizing the VALUE of your story), that said - fully digging the story of others, knowing when to speak your piece, knowing when to hush up and listen, how to lift up others, how to be cool with recieving a lift FROM others, how to make the next chorus better than this one was, the notion that the answers are not on the paper - the answers are within US. If you're hip enough to take it in, this music will fill your toolbelt with all you need to adapt to anything this crazy world throws at you. Jazz needs to be in integral part of every school's music curriculum.

Happy you are out here talking about these things! As a fellow alto player and champion of a BIG BEAUTIFUL SOUND, I love your playing and thoughts on music. So much of this music is about how you make people feel and that gets lost in academia. It takes vulnerability and confidence in one's self to play the blues!

When you played the second version with more of that blues influence at 7:03, I heard Bird instantly! I enjoyed this video a lot. You have chops, good charisma, and a lot of interesting stuff to say - even for an amateur musician like myself.

You are one of the best teachers that I have listened too on youtube . Right now you are one of biggest inspirations . I recommend you to anyone because you are telling the TRUTH. Thank you !

I can't tell you how much I appreciate this video! I have shied away from playing with "serious" jazz musicians for years, not because I don't think I can keep up, but for fear of being judged because I don't subscribe to the straight style that has become the norm. Thank you for calling out the pervasive fear of expressive playing that has stifled saxophone culture.

I was 54 and I thought I could play the sax . And I have not played anything before. I don't read music and have no teacher. All I did was what you just said. I play what's want. Melody is a big part. Now it's 5yrs since I play it professionally. My style and people like it

One of the greatest explanations of music playing I've heard! I've been trying to get back into playing although I just turned 69 today, what I need is an infusing of blues, something I've neglected for alone time. After going through life and all its ups in downs, I'm just trying to get to the point where I can express what I feel. Thanks, Patrick!

You made some excellent points. I didn't listen to much jazz for awhile. When I was younger,I listened to "the masters".They had more distinctive sounds than some of the younger musicians that I've heard recently.Some of the younger musicians have great techniques,but not much in yhe way of an original sound.

Hi Pat, I share many of these feelings about how jazz is played. We are listening to a lot of melodies and solos where the magic of emotional expression is hidden just to fit a generalised style without taking risks

When I saw that post it seemed so resonant with what I've seen so many jazz players struggle after they've gotten the "hard stuff" under their fingers, I genuinely thought it was posted BY A JAZZ COMPOSER

Love this. I’ve been feeling stuck with my music but I like the reminder of playing what feels good 🤙🏽

I'm only a mediocre piano player with only a real like amateur interest in jazz, but this reminded me a whole lot of a talk the late, great comic book artist Jack Kirby gave in 1970. Somebody in the audience asks him if he's got any advice for young artists and he tells them to steal everything they can form artists they like and not worry about it one bit because the longer they work at it, the more the stuff they stole will become their own. Then, talking about one of his inspirations, he says: "So I took from Raymond, unashamedly, and I never really kept it. I never kept it because I took what he had and I blended it with what I had. And I had something. Just like you have something. I don't know what it is, but if you can grab or snatch something from the next guy who's had the experience, take it because that's what you lack. I mean, that's all you're lacking. If you're lacking experience, take it from a guy who has it because if you can't go to a place where they teach it to you properly, take it on your own and help fortify what you have. And something's going to come out of it, something with your imprint, your fingerprints. I mean, Gershwin songs are fingerprints, Alex Raymond's drawings were fingerprints and they're indelible and immortal because they were him, see. And I don't know what you've got, but it's the same damn thing. It's an immortal thing. Whatever you put your stamp on is going to be you for all time, and not only that, people are going to recognize it, see. They're going to say you did that, and if it's good, they'll say you're good and if it's bad, they'll say, boy, you need a little more instruction. But it's going to be you, and that's the magic of it. That's the magic of it."

I think the first 3 min of this vid is the most important thing I’ve heard in jazz in years!!!!!!

What's crazy is you can get to a level where "playing lines" sounds super expressive. The greatest example of this for me is Coltrane. He could play lines but they never sound like "lines" at least to me, if that makes sense. He sings the line, transforming it into a sound. Even him playing down a dominant "bebop" scale from the 1 sounds unique!

Sound like yourself and play from the heart, no matter how that sounds, and it will always be someone that will enjoy you.

Fantastic video, I get into with some folks about sounding original. I think we aim to sound mature. Spot on Bartley-San....

Great commentary! I play guitar, and I believe I played better when I just flowed and used my imagination, versus always trying to play appregios with chord changes. If find myself bored in.

9:23 - We had a teacher at music school, Eric Ajaye, who taught us this lesson. Great words.

it's funny, i paused the video to make myself some breakfast (eggs and coffee) and came back, unpaused, then you started on the egg analogy. it's true though, every time i cook eggs, i'm always thinking about the various different ways i've learn and what i've come to like as my own twist.

Great video. Thanks for posting. I'm a trumpet/trombone player, watched this whole video waiting to see if I would hear a certain word. And in the last minute, there it was. "Inspired". There is only one radio station where I live that plays jazz. I put in on in the garage while I'm doing wood working or other projects. And if you eaves drop on me, from time to time you will hear me say (out loud) in response to a solo - "that was uninspired", or "you already played that lick", or some complaint about the soloist only playing fast for the sake of playing fast. The saxophone is capable of much more nuance than the trombone or trumpet. But there are a FEW guys out there who are "playing sounds", not just licks. I think of trombonists like Phil Wilson, Michael Davis, Marshall Gilkes, to name a few.

My jazz orchestra director in college always said, "They're not instruments, they're people". He wanted us to sing, to cry, to shout, to be expressive, to be emotional through our playing. He would get upset when we played boring and straight. He's a black ethnomusicologist who grew up in South Carolina, so it's no surprise his approach was diametrically opposed to the approach that results in "sounding white". I was lucky to learn from him.

This was great. Your thoughts are so well put. It seems like you've thought about this for some time.

I've been learning guitar and piano and the saxophone i want to play is that right there. All day long. Just need to save a little bit longer. Rent must be paid.

I love everything you said and demonstrated, but one of my favorite takeaways is that being in my 40's makes me old... Thanks for your honesty and artistry!

Man! I appreciate this video. Chasing a real sound and a real feel is what I've always thought for myself and what I've always gravitated towards in the music that I listen to. It's a harsh truth that so many of us do sound the same across all instruments. Having an authentic sound is no easy task! But I love what you said about listening to and imitating other people in order to get to your own sound. It's an all encompassing thing! Even as a drummer, I started off copying my favorites, and then eventually adding little bits and pieces from so many different influences until I have my own little hybrid way of approaching things. Awesome vid!

Damn I'm gonna play some dirty blues with my group tomorrow

Dog I needed to hear this. Growing up I didn’t have any private teachers and my practice discipline was nonexistent. I was so intimidated by what I heard players doing cuz I didn’t understand chords or changes. I thought everything had to be perfectly clean and that it wouldn’t be possible to be good without knowing how to play changes. I just thought I couldn’t learn how to improv, and everything I said for myself would just be bad and unintelligible. I learned how to play written out music, not what I felt inside and how to express it in sound. Now, a few years out of 2 classical degrees, I’m finally realizing what I can say for myself after focusing all my effort outside school learning jazz language and expression. It’s so refreshing to hear that it’s not just about nailing changes, I’m so tired of music being taught to be so mechanical. I remember having to solo over Moment’s Notice one year in grade school. Only 2 years total “experience” on tenor or in a jazz band. My teacher just told me “play around an F major scale, you’ll be fine”. I feel like I had more to say for myself then than I ever learned how to express in 2 degrees. Sure I needed to get my fundamental chops squared away and learn the basics of how to learn chords and changes to be aware of what’s going on, which those helped me to do, but performance agency is so lacking in academia it’s crazy.

Gene Ammons used blues lines, but his approach is very unique.

I've run into far too many adults, who played music all through school, yet once out of college, put their instruments down, never to play it again. And it's usually because the teachers they had along the way never ensured that their students had the freedom to explore, to enjoy playing, to have fun! And absolutely, way too many young sax players have no personality, no sound, nothing that can identify them, the way the older cats could be identified, within just a few notes... “When asked to offer advice to young musicians: "I would tell them to get a sound. Practice their sound. That's the most important thing." . . . - Gene (Jug) Ammons

Another thought here, it seems to me like a lot of the jazz cats I've met over the years really value being impressed or humbled by another player's chops but don't seem to value being MOVED by the music that they hear. The beautiful thing about being moved is that it has much more to do with the music itself, rather than the technique behind it. It's about actually taking in the sounds you're hearing in the moment and having them touch you. Not seeing someone execute something physically or theoretically difficult. When I'm moved by music, it's almost always an encouraging experience that makes me want to pick up my axe. When I'm impressed... not so much.

subscribed. man you saying what i been saying for a long time. Hendrix and Trane i hold above all others for going for sound over note and technique. I'm technique'd and theoried out. i make arabic/blues sounds with my guitar more than set pieces. free ideas in and out of a set key

I've heard some people call that the "academic jazz" mindset, and I completely 100% agree with everything you're saying. At the community college I go to it's an interesting dynamic, because it's starting to get called out a bit since there's also a thriving commercial music program here. You get guitarists and drummers and bass players from outside the enclosed jazz space who know theory and are great players who have skillsets that academic jazz tries to limit. I do jazz upright bass/bass guitar and commercial vocals, so I have my foot well planted in both programs and the mindset is so vastly different. Like to most of the commercial musicians I've met who play well, the idea of substance being more important than sound is crazy. Sound is what you hear, why would we not play what serves the music? The idea of using your ear to decide what your part is and how strong to play on a song is such a foreign thing though to so many academic jazz musicians who have been told to fit into that box. But the big thing I notice with most of the commercial musicians is that they LOVE blues. they haven't been told that it's "wrong" or "overdone" or "cringe", and it feels good to hear and it feels good to play. I remember in my jazz combo class the jazz guitar faculty guy who was advising it had an issue with us doing two minor blues tunes, even though they were completely different. We were doing stolen moments in a pretty standard way with a few minor alterations and Terrence Blanchard's version of Footprints(Check it out if you haven't, it's so good). Point is, they're incrdibly different tunes, but still technically variations on a minor blues. I brought up that the tunes don't sound the same so we shouldn't treat it like it's the same tune, because he was talking about it like they were, and he said this: "Maybe the audience won't notice but the people there who KNOW jazz will be like "two minor blues tunes?🤨"". It's one thing when it's the students, but it's beyond when it's the faculty like that guy or the trumpet instructor describing doing commercial gigs as "whoring yourself out".

Around 5:30, was big eye opener for me. I played in blues and soul bands for years. Yes, it can get corny if musicians just play notes over it. But, I had no idea teachers were correcting students for even approaching it.

I appreciate this conversation on music from a young person in these days and times of the "dark ages". I have alot of suggestions but I think dude's journey as it is his own is in good hands on his own. One thing tho. If the focus is on "sounding good", you will most likely sound like a "model" already being done by every other person looking to "sounding good". Be yourself and don't be afraid of "sounding bad" as this is a surefire way to flush out originality. There are MANY motifs, patterns, etc that one hears including many in this video that were not considered as "sounding good" amongst the society norms of a certain time. Those persons "loving" their particular sound in many cases were able to draw people in and in the case of a Coltrane, imprint it on the genre itself.

I'm a geezer from the 60's and believe me....this man speaks the TRUTH! I've heard so many cats doing what he describes; I don't think that jazz interpretation is compatible with academics. If you think about it, they teach that way cos that's the only way they know. transcribe and imitate! Academia can't teach art; they can teach the history and the technique but that's about it. But that's probably a good thing cos you got to get out there and do it for yourself! I mean, how would Pharoah Sanders have done in class? Or Trane for that matter?

I'm very happy to donate towards the founding of the Patrick Bartley Institute of Whatever 😄

Is a really interesting discussion... when i have to learn a new tune, expecially when it has complicated harmony i also try to see what i hear on top of the chord progression, not only listen and steal from other players. It would be nice if you spoke about some of this process more in detail if yoh also do it.

I'm trained in jazz but I also produce hip hop and electronic music. What I notice about hip hop and electronic producers is they start with the drums and fill up space so there's little room left for much else. I usually start with chords and melody, but I'm in the minority it seems. They seem to pay more attention to side chaining bass drum and bass together before they focus on the melody

Fantastic analysis!!! Thank you so much wow :D

Thanks for putting this out there. I agree.

I agree Patrick. ‘Blood n guts’ gets the audience reaction every time in spite of trying to be more ‘cerebral’. . . what I’ve found.

Exactly why Dolphy has always been tops for me, he makes Sounds beautiful and sounds unexpected. (And I guess why he may Not be preferred by many. ). Also why I took particular note of you Mr. Barkley first time I heard you bout a year ago in Mr Cohen’s pad, wow! You really hit me! “First we feel”

love the videos and agree with your take! Im no pro musician but lately ive been thinking about this (got reminded by your comment about perfect pitch)... pitches are not notes. You need a pitch to play a note, but its just the mechanical aspect of it. In other words, you can play a lot of different notes with an A pitch, a happy A, a sad A, etc. So pitch is a component of sound, but notes are what you use those pitches for to make music. Thats why bird's A wont sound the same as dizzy's A on the same bar of the same tune. So starting to learn the blues and jazz my goal at transcribing is not only figuring out the pitches (can probably read those off a sheet anyway) but how to choose and play musical notes. Your solos in particular are so filled with music that I love man.. Since first seeing that youngarts video with Wynton in 2011 with you and Russel Hall, yall are my age and always been so amazed at the way yall play.

If you play something that sounds good to you, then that can lead the way to playing something original because everybody thinks/ plays differently. Your influences will most likely show, but your own voice will come through. Peace ✌️

Great video. While I do appreciate academia music has to feel and sound good. I need these lessons to keep me searching and learning.

4:40 is such a succinct explanation of what I find wrong with the Don Moen "Don't Overplay" video. Yes, don't overplay, absolutely serve the music, but if we're not going to follow our taste, if we're going to play exactly the same thing every time, let's just not play and listen to a CD. If we're going to play, let's make it sound good!

patrick saying “that’s easy” hurt me feelings :(

Fantastic playing and right-on observations. How is it that we just stumbled upon you? We’ll be checking out the rest of your content for sure!❤

I soo agree with your views on sound. As an alto player, I love Cannonball, yet when I try to play day a blues and throw in all the ‘blood n guts’ stuff I sometimes feel less ‘intellectual’ like say Desmond or Konitz (who borrowed my horn once) - although folks will tell me I have a great sound ! 😎🙏🎷

Your awesome brother. Wish I had heard you 50 years ago.

" If you don't feel the blues. You have a hole in your soul" . - Albert King

You've articulated the best and worst parts of what playing saxophone has meant for me. I started playing in the 3rd grade and felt discouraged by my difficulty with the cerebral stuff of learning scales and arpegios since other students could do it better and learn it faster. I think the only reason I continued playing sax was that I was mesmerized by the way the horn reverberated and projected this viscerally amazing sound. I would spend hours trying to imitate Ronnie Cubers tone on Bari listening to this one album 'In a New York Minute'. All I could do was play the heads of the songs because I was totally overwhelmed by what was being improvised and I figured I couldn't play that stuff because I didn't know my chord tones, scales, 3rds, 5ths, etc well enough. If only I knew what I know now... I should be glad that I did at least that much and now with whatever free time left I have I can focus on actually playing the sounds and doing meaningful transcriptions. I think I would like to become a teacher down the line and do everything to emphasize this so other students wouldn't squander what I did. Good luck to anyone else on their jazz journey.

This is the best video I seen in awhile!!! You speak so much truth!

7:02 bro I'm transcribing this tomorrow, was f'in sweet. This is what I've been needing to hear, I feel like I'm gonna have fun practising for the next wee while😊 How have I not seen your KZfaq before? And you're Vegan too? Niceee!🌱❤

Fantastic video and really sums up a lot of the frustration I feel about jazz in an academic setting, that this holding up of tone purity and technique as THE measures of great playing really holds people back from just playing what gets them (and an audience) going and having fun. As someone who grew up listening to jazz day in and day out in my house (Monk, Duke, Parker, Coltrane, Brubeck, the works), that sense of "playing sounds" always just felt... right to me. Maybe because I had spent so much time absorbing the music before I gained a more technical understanding of it, on a deeper personal level jazz first and foremost was associated with feelings and overall sounds. The structure (or at least my understanding of it) really came after all that in my life, and I think musicianship being born out of a genuine love for the music you're playing can be an undervalued part of learning music in general. Personally I really like playing with a soft light sound (something like Johnny Hodges meets Paul Desmond if that makes any sense), but I love playing bluesy, I love getting really into riffs and feeling a certain kind of sound and just making my playing swing as hard as it can and feel joyful and expressive. In the end I think every musician will sound the best and most interesting when they're playing what they have fun, like big-dumb-grin laugh-out-loud fun, playing.

I'll totally admit to moving toward the "cleaner" sounds however for me personally it's because I'm more interested in harmonic intricacies. Though I guess with a solo that doesn't mean much.

love it patrick. i tell people all the time, jimi hendrix didnt just wake up one day and naturally figure out a c chord without any form of reference. nothing is truthfully original. our sounds 100% or at least should derive from the sounds we internalize. and thats in return original

These days I feel like I can play for myself, just following my own natural sense of melody. Or I can play for others by running changes. The interesting thing to me is that when I follow my melodic instincts and the emotion of the moment rather than the changes, I seldom leave the major scale.

So glad someone else is saying this. The conservatories are turning out jazz robots.

At Music School it blew my mind that we didn't learn a LICK of melody. Absolutely nothing was about melody and that's entirely how I process music (as a blues player). It was really weird when my classmates told me they didn't improvise, like at all. Like even when I practiced a piece I can't help but noodle, just no inclination to put character in something sounds so monotone and weird and I don't get it.

Every musician needs to watch this video. I play guitar and I love all types of guitar playing doesn’t matter if it’s flamingo to death metal. If it sounds good to me no one can talk it down.

Interestingly enough with your food analogy, this might be why some people are so bad at cooking. I suppose this also explains why people who practice a lot but have uninformed influences can struggle as well. Some people really are out there just grabbing stuff that has no business to be together and put them together .... this happens in cooking and music - I suppose sometimes we discover some good recipes this way. Also on both sides, the people with actual training seem to have the edge in shaping their recipes.

I think you're talking about putting the "soul" back into the blues

Love these videos!

To me ; your perspective is right on.

So many comparisons can be made to cooking and learning jazz. I love that. Maybe because it's another wordless artform. I'm hungry now...

Loved this.

Original can be an accident. However, I think to be unique a valid goal and it will likely will need to listen to oneself and make choices. Building you own collection of phrases. Gene Ammons, Rusty Bryant used their same licks on most of their recordings.

Now I gotta try putting some of that growl into my viola lol!

Also, if you put up a kickstarter for your Patrick Bartley School of Music, you'll probably be able to create it

I personally do not worry about playing original, but it is an interesting point of discussion to note that bird and diz were very original for inventing Bebop. Obviously influenced by Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Johnny Hodges et al. Are there any more ground breaking innovations to be made in jazz? Curious about your thoughts

When you're playing what you DON'T like, your body is like a cold dead fish. When you're playing what you DO like, your whole body is into it! You completely change!

Imagination is the MOST important thing in 2023/2020’s future decade!!!!! That’s powerful statement that hit me like a ton of bricks.

i have always noticed that about sax players, as a guitarist i feel like it was the other way around. i think your observation about it being because of the fear of standing out is true, but i think its also because tracking your progress using dirty blues is much more vague than judging your chops and theoretical knowledge. In the end fear is the underlying culprit, and its a shame to watch musicians limit themselves because of it

I think there are different stages in evolution as a musician. I think you start playing to have fun, and you can be very expressive very quickly, but you can only go so far if you never put in the effort to study changes and emulate the clean technical playing. Developing technically is a lot less fun, and there is a lot less expression, but it is necessary for growth. The final stage comes once you master the clean technical playing, and that's when you get to have fun again, fully express yourself. I had fun all throughout college, and I loved playing the blues, and develop really great style. I never really learned changes though, so my improvisation was very limited by genre, and by arbitrary things like key (I stuck to what I knew, and didn't like exploring different keys, and I majored in software engineering, so I didn't really have to). I want to continue to develop as a musician, and I really need to dig in to the technique and understand changes before I can fully express myself.

Totally agree with everything you’re saying in this video. Sounding good is being original. Good players don’t think it to death like Spock.

Patrick Bartley - Jazz Philosopher, Music Jesus

SO SO ON POINT!

if the blues is corny then call me a cob