Music = Emotions = Life

            Emotions are a huge part of music and how music is interpreted. Think of your favorite music or music group. Got it? Now imagine that without any passion, with no feeling of any kind. It would sound awful, would it not? Music is emotions. Emotions are music. No matter what mood you are in, it is almost certain that you will be thinking or listening to some sort of music, whether it is to cheer you up, pump you up, or even to just escape life, it always creates some type of emotion in human beings.

            I personally believe that without music, life would be pointless. There would be nothing to rely on when everything else has abandoned you. Music surrounds us all whether we know it or not. Without it there would only be silence. Music is an emotional escape and without that escape people would find other ways to escape, for example killing each other. And if everyone killed each other there would be no sound, nothingness. Empty. The world would become a hollow shell that once inhabited an uneducated and primal species. Emotions are part of every human, without them they aren’t human, or just crazy, literally. Music is life and we all depend upon it.

            If you truly stop and really think, just listen, without headphones on, everything you hear can be called music. The cars racing by on the street outside your window. The birds and bees buzzing around and singing their weird song. The tapping of a branch on your window. The waves of a lake, lapping and carefully licking the shore. The silent crash of feet above your room. The beat of sweet neighborhood children jumping rope or shouting a cadence. The screech of your rusty door hinges. The heartbeat controlling your destiny and life. Just listen. It all comes together in a weird song, one that never dies, that will live on with the human race. It’s all there. Listen.

            This goes back to one of my previous blogs, in which I discuss the matter of running out of music. Emotions control us. There is no way to escape the inevitable, we are all prey to this wonderful animal. Take a moment and think, listen, and the answer will become as clear as glass. Music is a part of us all and so long as the human race lives on, so will music. 

Jazz Appreciation

            April is Jazz Appreciation Month. In the past, I have talked about Jazz: its effect on me, the disappointment that it brought, specific groups, groups I am personally involved in, and even jazz improv and theory. Clearly Jazz is important to me, but I don’t know if I’ve talked about how much I appreciate what Jazz has done for me.

            I didn’t really start to love or have as great of an appreciation for Jazz until about 2 months ago. My passion really started to grow when I went to one concert. This concert wasn’t any normal concert, it was with the University of Northern Iowa’s Jazz Panthers and Jazz One. At this concert I got to see what the next step in Jazz involved. I got to see professional musicians; not only the guest artist but the actual jazz bands themselves. It was an amazing concert and my eyes and ears were finally opened, as if I had been blind. After this concert I wanted to go home and spend the next 12 hours practicing, it didn’t happen, sadly.

            What made this concert so great you may be asking? Well, like I said it was professional musicians and seeing pros versus listening to recordings are two incredibly different tasks. It’s just like going to see a professional sports event, a professional Broadway production, a professional, you name it, it’s all the same idea. It’s the experience that inspires and strikes awe into the audience. Let me tell you, this concert was well worth the time and money; the experience was like none I’ve ever had before.

            Details. Right. Like I said before, the Jazz Panthers and Jazz One bands were both playing, but to put the cherry on top of a delicious sundae, a guest artist was brought in. This year the guest artist was Dave Douglas. He is a trumpet player involved in many groups; he has a quartet with Joe Lovano, previously mentioned in my blogs. He has also had many different awards, including Guggenheim Fellowship, an Aaron Copland award, and two Grammy nominations. He has composed many different pieces and highly influenced the jazz improv world. So this was really a treat for me to see and hear him live. Some of the pieces they played were amazing and made me feel energized and unlocked a whole new world in Jazz, I had never known I could feel this way about music. I was truly in awe and inspired after this wonderful experience.

            I walked out a changed man. Before all I had known was high school jazz band, now I know what a real jazz band and what real jazz music can do. The feeling of fear and the unknown had struck me. But along with this fear came an understanding of being fearless and unafraid. I had seen what lies ahead of me and am glad to take on the challenge.

            I finally understand what it means to truly appreciate Jazz. Jazz appreciation month has meant more than it ever has, I can turn on jazz and truly be inspired by the musicians of old, the greats who set the standards. All I have to do is follow their lead. How hard could that be?  

Very High In Pitch

            Altissimo. Weird word right? The definition for this word: Adj. Very high in pitch. It is an Italian superlative of alto, high. Now, to be clear, this is music we are talking about. It is the extreme high of instruments; these so called, “notes” aren’t even notes, meaning, they aren’t in the natural range of instruments. So when a musician plays in the altissimo register, are they even there? If the notes aren’t real, why are the musicians? If they aren’t real notes, how can we hear them? The answer, it would be hard to not hear them. Altissimo notes are like nails scratching a chalk board, except not quite as annoying. Very high in pitch.

            In the recent months, I have been learning the art of squealing; yes, I am learning how to master this technique. So far, I’ve done pretty well. Each time I practice the altissimo register it gets slightly easier and the notes are deciding to show their faces. I have gotten as high as, not the first, but the second D above the staff. That’s pretty high, only slightly annoying.

            What is altissimo though? I have given the dictionary definition. Now it’s time for the actual definition, or so what I’ve been told. The altissimo notes are really just a part of the overtone series.

            Another vague definition, right? What is the overtone series? That’s a tough question to answer. To start off, music is made by vibrations, no matter the instrument, something has to vibrate to create a sound. Within each of those vibrations are multiple notes; meaning, a G also has the same vibration pattern, or something of that matter, as C; meaning the overtone of G is C, but not necessarily the other way around. It’s the same concept as all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares. Ok, now, stay with me. The overtone of C is actually C, not G. In other words, when playing a G a musician can make an altissimo C by adjusting their embouchure; or playing a high C and adjusting embouchure again to create the C above that C. Confusing yet cool.

            The other overtones: F-A# (or B flat), F#-B, G-C, G#-C#, C-C, B-B, etc.

            Got it? No? Ok.

Now, adjusting the embouchure. This is very hard to describe. I know exactly what I have to do on my saxophone to get into the altissimo register but I don’t know about other instruments. The best way I can describe this is that I almost make a clover with my tongue and flex my tonsil chords (this last part is impossible, I know, but there is no other way to describe it). It’s a weird feeling and that is what makes altissimo so difficult, there is no one specific way to form your embouchure, just like there is no one specific way to finger any one note.

Don’t even get me started on fingerings. There are an infinite, or so it seems, number of fingerings for any one specific note. Once a musician gets into the altissimo register, the details get a little sketchy and each person has to figure out which one is best for a certain situation.

A brief summary, altissimo is tricky. That’s the easiest way to put it. Altissimo clearly draws a line between good musicians and not-so-good musicians; those who can play altissimo well are amazing, those who can’t, well, you’ll be able to hear what happens, or not seeing as how your eardrums will most likely be bleeding. Altissimo. Very high in pitch.

Altissimo Notes

Altissimo Notes

No Words

All-State Jazz is a difficult topic for me to discuss. It is an elite group of jazz musicians chosen from high schools all across Iowa. To audition for this elite group, you have to record an etude, which is the one song that everyone has to perform, and at least one song, of your choice, to improvise on. Preparing for this audition can end up taking months; I choose my song in December and took until February to at least get somewhat good at it. I spent almost 3 months of practice and stress, all, it seems, for nothing. My recordings were sent in on March 1st and I didn’t get the results back until March 26th. I thought my recordings were good but, in fact, they were not even close to good enough to make All-State Jazz.

          I love jazz. Every time I play or even listen to jazz, it’s as if the world is right, nothing can go wrong, all the fears and doubts of yesterday are washed away. Jazz is like a cool breeze in the summer, it is much needed and much appreciated by all; yet, there is always a feeling of discomfort on these breezes, as if there is always a looming storm, something to completely destroy everything in its path. In this instance, jazz took a turn for the worse; a tornado came and destroyed everything, tearing me apart as if I were an insignificant ant. I live for jazz but jazz doesn’t always live for me. I just can’t beat the onslaught that jazz brings towards me.

When I looked at the results, it was as if I had been sucked into the middle of a tornado; the world was spinning all around me, my confidence and hours spent on this task had been ravaged in seconds. I am bare and exposed, the storm of jazz took my possessions as if I were being mugged. I felt sick to my stomach and mad that I could not do better. My passion, jazz, was all a big lie, a slap in the face. Am I ever going to be able to recover? What more can I do to be able to improve my jazz skills? The answers…still to be determined. All I can think of doing is to continue to learn more improvisation vocabulary. I clearly don’t know how to develop an idea or know what exactly to play within each key, each song. The feeling of self-disappointment has almost overcome me, like a wave capsizing my ship of confidence. 

 

Words cannot fulfill my disappointment. I feel empty. I have failed myself.