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MrGando
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- MrGando parentLearn to play Jazz. It's like learning a language and you can "speak it" with a lot of people. It's also as hard as you want it to be if you're serious ;)
- Sullivan, in terms of where he's taking jazz piano is comparable to the greats in terms of impact at his current age/maturity. This is what Brad said about Sulli last May, when he saw him live in Amsterdam (where Brad lives)
> Got to hear the incomparable Sullivan Fortner last night at @bimhuis in Amsterdam. I’m sure many of you know how unreal his music is … he just blows me away every time I get to hear him. Last night was piano solo.
> Sullivan is deep on all levels—touch, counterpoint, utter relaxation, swing, transparency of ideas, no matter how dense the texture. He takes you through the whole emotional spectrum, unabashed joy included.
> It’s completely rooted and completely original all at once. If you have the chance to hear him, don’t miss it. He is quietly revolutionizing jazz piano playing. Actually piano playing period. (And by the way he can sing like nobody’s business, if that weren’t enough!)
Hard to put it better than Brad... nails the review.
- This is a very uninformed opinion that I see very often. In bebop, LH can be deceptively simple (but actually rhythmically it's not so simple). However things have dramatically changed, Brad Mehldau who's a foundational modern jazz pianist, probably the most relevant one after the last Big Tree (Hancock, Corea, Tyner), popularized things like LH counterpoint in jazz. Some of his arrangements if you watch them in mute, you could thing he's playing a Bach Fugue almost. The amount of pianists that followed this style after the 90s, is hard to keep track of, probably every single relevant pianist took things from brad, and LH counterpoint was one of them (a big one there too was Fred Hersch, who heavily influenced Brad).
Then, I recommend you to check out what Sullivan Fortner is doing. Probably the next really heavy one that has managed to push the jazz lang forward after Brad.
- A few days ago I asked ChatGPT to help me find an argument to perform "some filtering operation" with a world class command line tool. It confidently aswered.
./tool arg1 param1 arg2 param2 --filtering-operation param3
I went for it and it didn't work... I did google a bit and `--filtering-operation` didn't exist.
I then told chat GPT that `--filtering-operation` wasn't real. It apologized and offered me an option that made sense if I made some extra work.
Googling and scanning the crappy documentation would have probably gotten me a faster result.
- I'm pretty into wine, not in the industry though. But I've tried a lot of stuff (from garbo wines, to stuff like Rayas, Haut Brion, Romanee Conti, etc... some pretty heavy hitters), and I agree that money is not the driving factor. The economics are huge, like sometimes some small producer will just explode and their production is little... but the demand might be high and suddenly you're looking at a 10 euro bottle of wine, going for 120 euros. Lot's of times it's because they actually make something pretty remarkable, but sometimes not.
Having said that, I've seen some incredible stuff. There was a tasting were a friend brought a bottle with him, it was a blind tasting and everyone was supposed to write down what their bottles were. So my friend presented his bottle concealed in aluminum paper as we used to do, and he wrote down the bottle + vintage.
At the end of the night, notes were exchanged, and there was a very very strong taster in the group. It was burgundy night, and he nailed 4/5 wines (6 in total, but the one you brought didn't count), producer, wine, and vintage. My friend told him "you didn't guess the vintage of the one I brought", I don't remember but I think my friend thought that it was a 2008 and this guy said like 2009. When they revealed the bottles, the bottle was indeed a 2009 from the same producer. My friend had taken a different bottle from his cellar and he didn't realize :^). Some folks know what they're drinking very well indeed (5/5
- Love the comment! I honestly think California's most interesting wines being produced now are Syrah's. Crazy good stuff there made by the newer generations.
Agreed on Cabernet Sauvignon. Regarding Pinot Noir, there's just nothing in the US that compares to a good Burgundy, some things I think are interesting are Domaine De La Cote in California and Kelley Fox in Oregon though :)
- The defining feature of Cheval Blanc is the huge amount of Cabernet Franc that goes into the blend, not the Merlot in general... some vintages like the 2011 one have less Merlot than Cabernet Franc. Yes, it's a right bank Bordeaux, but it's by far the most atypical. Petrus for instance is one that I would call primarily a Merlot Right Bank Bordeaux.
source: https://www.chateau-cheval-blanc.com/en/vintages/chateau-che... (you can check other vintages there etc)
- There's very good teachers doing zoom lessons these days. And I think Taubman technique is the sort of thing that you'll need a teacher so that the concepts can be applied to how you're playing. Start here https://www.golandskyinstitute.org/faculty-of-the-golandsky-...
Good luck :)
- This is great advice. And I completely relate, after two years of working on Jazz (one pretty seriously), I can say that I feel like I'm being born again as a Pianist. It's extremely challenging and for me, all the classical luggage that I carry has made some things harder (swing, articulation).
My biggest leap in jazz so far, was to stop thinking about chord-scale relations and just focusing on chord-tones and extensions to outline the harmony of a piece, and approach notes to connect them.
I listen to a ton of jazz (nothing else but Jazz for a while). I've been transcribing Charlie Parker for a whole year, really working on his phrasing, heads, articulation, getting deep.
Disclaimer, I still think I'm terrible. My goal is to be somewhere less terrible in a couple more years... but I know I won't feel like that when I get there :D
PS: Get a great teacher, that's the biggest thing you can do to help yourself. Crazy good cats available for lessons these days.
- I think it's very interesting and there's a lot to be gained by working on it (which I'm actually starting to do). The hardest scale in piano is C major probably, or at least one of the hardest ones... just started with Taubman, but C major (and D major) are sounding way better, even with what I would say is not a huge time investment.
- You can read only up to a certain level (not super high). Out of the context of music, it would be like thinking about learning to play Tennis to a very high-level just by reading books. It's just extremely unlikely these days. In Piano, you might find some examples here & there (hard in classical, but look more into Jazz)... but the reality is that those folks were exceptional.
In piano (but true for a lot of sports too), when you hit a certain level, it will be more about how to make a lot of things work for your body, your hands... the way you are built. Doing that alone is possible, specially if you had a lot of instruction before. It does require a lot, a lot of intuition and a very solid foundation. It's also easier with the appropriate teacher, or mentor/s I should say.
Hopefully this helps you out a little?
- It's both the way the technique is described and the name given to it "thumb over" that are unclear and misleading. I know the technique, and in my years of practice (semi-pro) I've never seen it described anything like that. It doesn't even have a "name" per-se, because you learn to play the piano with your whole body, so it becomes a natural thing that you just have to do to get that speed. And by the way, you can still use it when playing slow, if you want to obtain a certain "tone" or "sound".
- The methods that work and are the kind of thing that any good teacher will tell you to do over a conversation in a coffee shop, meaning that you don't even need a piano to learn about them. Yes they do work, eg: learning a few bars at a time and separate hands.
The book totally falls apart when getting into the weeds. Piano is a corporal activity after all and while yes, there's definitely "frameworks" to make learning pieces more efficient, or practicing more efficient, the author gives very bad advice when he starts crossing the threshold towards what's technical and corporal... because he just doesn't know.
- There's a specific thing I always remember about this book, which is that the author recommends the "thumb over" technique for scales. I would never, ever suggest a beginner to approach scales like that. Thumb rotation is super important to absorb and master. Of course, when you go for fast scales you do a "thumb over" which is not really that, but instead of the thumb rotation, you reposition your whole hand using your arm to keep going upwards (from reading the book, it feels like the author doesn't understand that, because he probably never really went through that process... which takes many many years of piano playing).
I clearly remember the first time I went through the book, being a bit shocked when I read this particular take.
- Have to chime-in here as a piano player since age 7 (so been going for ~28 now), who about 2 years ago got very serious about Jazz.
I have stumbled across this book many times, I have read it. It's the single most controversial book that I've read about piano technique and playing that I've found.
The author, is not even a player himself (!!!). There's a great summary of reviews about the book here (https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=38247.0), if you're starting into piano, stay away, get a decent teacher.
- If we're going to restraint to personal opinions, my strong personal opinion is that startups have to operate in the context of truth, rule of law and business ethics. That would be my hope. I think it's totally possible to succeed and still work through that lens. I think thinking otherwise, is actually a fallacy perpetuated by certain groups here in the Valley.
I strongly believe that you can challenge the status quo and abide by honesty and rule of law.
- I think you're somewhat making an argument that the "means" are justified if the end is noble. I think the whole discussion revolts around the several issues with that "system" or "philosophy" here in the Valley.
I personally don't think it's the right way to do things. Big fraud, small lies (fraud), it's all pretty bad.