Everything But The Weed

Approved by:
Linda Maze, a Wedding photography Gainesville FL in Gainesville Florida

In my field I have met and known a number of musicians and artists, who simply could not wait and learn a few random skills, then just hit the ground running. These people believe that execution is more important than learning the skills to properly execute the idea.

These people want to rush things and pass on things that are somehow “insane” and “time consuming”.  There were even some musicians I know that even skipped completely over the basic chord patterns and progressions that were all necessary for them to progress and grow as an artist, in the hopes of “becoming the rock star of tomorrow”.

Everything needs time to grow. There is no way that you can plant the seeds today and expect to harvest the oranges tomorrow. This rule of nature applies to almost everything in the world. However, that basic law of nature can simply be overlooked because our modern society pushes the idea of “do THIS instantly!”

If join this bandwagon, you might just rid yourself a few pounds after a week, do Yoga in three days, and earn your Master’s degree in a couple of weeks. Taking things slowly, what do you think is the quality that you can have? How many moves can you readily memorize in 7 days?  Can you do a Head-stand without killing yourself if you rush Yoga?

There are a number of musicians out there who does not have the time to learn to play the bass guitar and form a rock band right there and then. They buy some random equipment, start hammering things out, and end up finding that they hit a brick wall.

I learned from Dave Frank’s workshop after he showed the very entertaining and talented Marx Brothers that you have to learn the rules first before you can break them. Although Chico Marx’s playing stunts were certainly beyond what any piano teacher could teach, the fact remains that he knew the basics of the game. Chico fired the wrong notes intentionally to entertain, but the piece still was great – he hit the “perfect wrong notes”. Of course, there is no other way of learning which notes to miss if he did not know which ones he was supposed to hit, in the first place.

The rules should be learned before they can be bent. As a musician, it is important that you learn that you know the proper scales and chords before you can improvise.

In case you have not heard the name before Dave Frank is one of the hottest solo jazz pianists music educators on the jazz scene today, author of Hal Leonard’s best-selling book series Joy of Improv.

Dave Frank’s feature on the Marx Brothers is on Youtube. To view visit Youtube and search for Dave Frank Marx Brothers.