Blues, as digested by a classical musician

[Bobby Simons]

I really only actively follow two people on YouTube: Rick Beato, who has gotten some air time here, and Nahre Sol, who hasnt hasnt had any (to my knowledge). She a classical musician who does great YouTubes on a number of topics, mostly interpretation and practice techniques for classical playing. I enjoyed this particular video, mostly because Ive never seen such pleasing, groovy, dynamic and self-contained playing on a three octave keyboard - from the last place youd expect. It was a revelation for me.

Yes, Virginia, you can play convincingly on 37 keys. . .

 

[video:youtube]

 

I encourage you all to look into her many other, well done videos. There is a treasure trove of information and inspiration.

[Theo Verelst]

It's a shame respect can't be easily learnt by some people, like "why on earth does anyone feel the need to noodle, trance, and generally make awfully sh*tty Blues licks" as if for sone reason, that's good.

 

Classical music requires respect for the idiom, years of practice for performing good, why would the Blues be any different?

 

T

[Bobby Simons]

Can someone translate that?

[bennyray]

The English language can be very misleading when not used in proper context.

[Al Quinn]

Can someone translate that?

I think hes saying he doesn't like it: that there's a lack of respect for the blues.

 

For me, anyone who has the desire, listens to great blues recordings like she did, and transcribes an Oscar Peterson solo is showing great respect. To each his own. I thought she did a good job but would have learned more about the blues if she transcribed an Oscar solo like this one where he plays more blues and less jazz:

 

[video:youtube]XzOwrqlVFu4

[Steve Nathan]

She has enormous talent with her technical skills, and I suspect her curiosity is genuine, but she doesn't "get" Blues" and probably never will. She reminds me of a scientist, explaining why the sky is blue, using everything there is to know about light waves, wave lengths, retinas, etc, but unable to relate to those who simply feel the overwhelming beauty of a blue sky that reaches out and grabs them in the gut.

It also doesn't help that she wears her out-sized opinion of herself on her sleeve.

 

[EscapeRocks]

She has enormous talent with her technical skills, and I suspect her curiosity is genuine, but she doesn't "get" Blues" and probably never will. She reminds me of a scientist, explaining why the sky is blue, using everything there is to know about light waves, wave lengths, retinas, etc, but unable to relate to those who simply feel the overwhelming beauty of a blue sky that reaches out and grabs them in the gut.

It also doesn't help that she wears her out-sized opinion of herself on her sleeve.

 

 

Agree on her enormous talent and skill. You're description comparing her to the scientist is exactly how she came across to me as well.

 

 

[yamoho]

...why the sky is blue...

 

I see what you did there...

[El Lobo]

"This week I decided to focus on the blues." There's your problem right there.

[Bobby Simons]

Yes, this is pretty much the reaction I expected here. She has also done similar episodes on funk and bossa nova.

Have at it!

[re Pete]

Someone put up this Youtube link on her practice tips. I never heard of her before. I wrote out the 2-5-1 arps she's doing in all keys if anyone wants it. It's well worth practicing for me as it opens up the hand and the use of arm movements. Wish I could do as easily as she, but some keys are tough. She has some really good practice exercises.

 

 

[Threadslayer]

Can someone translate that?

I think hes saying he doesn't like it: that there's a lack of respect for the blues.

 

For me, anyone who has the desire, listens to great blues recordings like she did, and transcribes an Oscar Peterson solo is showing great respect. To each his own. I thought she did a good job but would have learned more about the blues if she transcribed an Oscar solo like this one where he plays more blues and less jazz:

 

[video:youtube]XzOwrqlVFu4

Every time I hear an OP recording I'm as blown away as the first time I heard him - which was over 40 years ago -

just an unparalleled genius. Thank you for posting this. Put a big smile on my face.

 

Blues digestion girl not so much...

[Outkaster]

She has enormous talent with her technical skills, and I suspect her curiosity is genuine, but she doesn't "get" Blues" and probably never will. She reminds me of a scientist, explaining why the sky is blue, using everything there is to know about light waves, wave lengths, retinas, etc, but unable to relate to those who simply feel the overwhelming beauty of a blue sky that reaches out and grabs them in the gut.

It also doesn't help that she wears her out-sized opinion of herself on her sleeve.

 

Exactly.

[Bobby Simons]

LOL, you guys are falling over each other to point out her shortcomings and how she didnt come close to getting the blues. Yeah, no kiddin. She is a classical musician and composer with a curious mind and a nice little YouTube side thing going on. I was simply pointing out her apparent mini-key chops. How was that not clear, I pretty much said it twice.

 

I would be thrilled to suck as badly as she does - you all must be fabulous!

[Jazz+]

My feedback if she were my student:

 

1. Pocket piece not swung: failed, came off as mixolydian minimalism like Phill Glass or Steve Reich.

2. Pocket piece played in swing was a success!

 

I would advise Nahre to now freely mix her right hand Oscar Peterson vocabulary over a stride style left hand blues or rhythm changes on a real piano.

 

And how about the famous marvelous blues left hand patterns?

[Jazz+]

 

 

This is what classically trained Hiromi came up with when she took her Oscar Peterson vocabulary and freely mixed it over I got rhythm changes:

 

[video:youtube]

[Bobby Simons]

My feedback if she were my student:

 

1. Pocket piece not swung: failed, came off as mixolydian minimalism like Phill Glass or Steve Reich.

2. Pocket piece played in swing was a success!

 

I would advise Nahre to now freely mix her right hand Oscar Peterson vocabulary over a stride style left hand blues or rhythm changes on a real piano.

 

I agree, and thanks for the thoughtful, helpful response. And to some of you other respondents, please feel free to tag yourselves, lol. . .

 

[video:youtube]

[El Lobo]

LOL, you guys are falling over each other to point out her shortcomings and how she didnt come close to getting the blues. Yeah, no kiddin.

WHICH IS THE POINT. Maybe not your point, but it sure stuck out to me.

I was simply pointing out her apparent mini-key chops. How was that not clear, I pretty much said it twice.

It's clear that's what you were noting. To others in this thread, that was not the most notable thing. It's a forum. We don't have to agree with what you think is worth noting.

I would be thrilled to suck as badly as she does - you all must be fabulous!

Her technical skills are way above mine. But that's not what I'm noting. I thought her pocket piece was not very interesting and did not have a feel for the blues. I could play a simple blues with very limited technique and more blues soul than she displayed.

[Bobby Simons]

I could play a simple blues with very limited technique and more blues soul than she displayed.

Wow, I will take your word for that. And maybe I could, too. And if she spends a couple of months, or a year, or two, on the blues, instead of an afternoon? Will you remain confident in your paid-my-dues superiority? Im really curious.

 

Im not sure how I ended up playing defense for a musician who mostly shows me how to best practice to improve my playing and optimize my rate of progress, but I like her and really like her dog, Bobby - and brought her into the conversation - so Im game.

[Steve Nathan]

To others in this thread, that was not the most notable thing. It's a forum. We don't have to agree with what you think is worth noting.

 

Im not sure how I ended up playing defense

 

You put yourself there. You posted a video and we all had our own reactions. Somehow you seemed to decide that if we were not as impressed with her, that somehow meant we we're denigrating you. None of it was about you. Chill out.

[El Lobo]

It's not "paid-my-dues superiority". She is far superior to my keyboard playing in almost every way I can think of except one, and that is feel for the blues as an idiom, as an expression of emotion within a specific musical form. If she spent a couple of years playing and listening to blues and working on expressing pain and heartache and joy in that musical form, she could become better at playing a simple soulful blues than I can. I can't know the answer to a hypothetical like that. I'm mainly a sax player and really just a hacker on keys. I don't know for sure, but I think I could play a more soulful blues solo on sax than she could on a keyboard regardless of how long she worked at it because it's about soul, not keyboard technique or intellectual analysis of the genre. If, on the other hand, she actually has or develops deep soul in her playing, she would smoke me. I just didn't see the evidence of that in this one video.

[Steve Nathan]

If, on the other hand, she actually has or develops deep soul in her playing, she would smoke me

 

I suspect if she had it it would have been apparent, which to my mind indicates that she will not develop it either because we're talking about that which is rarely, if ever "learned".

 

I used to have a sig about music being part math, part magic and my preference for more magic. She just sounds more math to me.

[Jazz+]

I was taught by a wise musician that one should not criticize other musicians, especially in public ... and especially a musician that can play much faster than oneself. That can be something that says more about me... It s a good guideline outside of music too.

 

I was impressed how much ground Nahre Sol covered in a week. A+ for effort in my view.

OT: I like the way she intertwines her two hands.

 

People talk about soul and try to judge it. It is an abstract idea... Therefore, I try to remember to avoid judging it. And you certainly dont have to suffer to play good blues.

 

However, style regarding and idiom, such as African American blues, can be critiqued in concrete musical terms such as rhythm inflection, melodic sense, phrasing etc...

 

In the end Nahre Sol only exhibited a little pocket piece that she composed; remember, she is a composer and is drawing upon a short survey of the blues for some influence. She is not purporting herself to be the next B.B. King or Muddy Waters. Pocket piece in even eighths was not bluesy at all. The swung version was bluesey. Thus: mission accomplished. Its as simple as that.

[Legatoboy]

I thought she did a good job on the transcription, she was headed in the right direction...sounded good...just stiff, But! Most times classical 'only' trained folks are so dependent on written notes....when she brought her goods to the table in the mall it became obvious her internal feel was not strong on the jazz or blues material she improvised, but that feel was there at the piano with the transcription more because she had the notes (she transcribed)...note rhythms are so important in jazz and the players time feel!

 

It may take her 'a while' to have to vibe bubble up all by itself emitting from her internally (a while can be years)...she is very talented, but she just has to spend more time and deconstruct some of herself a bit, not necessarily the purely musical part of herself...studying jazz and blues is different than studying other music, Jazz is a 'refined' music as is classical, yes but with very different priorities for the player....the amount of discipline and the amount of letting go are almost equal, take your shot, live in the moment, after working on all your skills in a shed like type of manner against the material . . .that's hard for classical folks to get with or even very very good 'cover' musicians often in terms of their expression and improvising..Those concerns are 'chops' in themselves, just the 'other chops' as my teacher would say . Classical and purely cover music or pop are more 'uni-dimensional' skills and don't ask as much of the player, they are 'Directed Music' - less of an art in fact! Jazz and Blues are Non-Directed musics. Classical was more of an art for the classical composers themselves though, not the players, the composers many times were coming from a place much more like where Jazz/Blues musicians live! The letting go is about emotional and psychological issues and a certain type of 'emotional maturity', really questions of 'Authorities' internal and external in terms of your letting go....they have to be worked slowly just like a difficult measure in a written piece. Takes time to develop just that! She should have picked a slower/simpler piece than one with those flying licks in C Jam Blues I thought...I can see how that level of playing would appeal to anyone but after having gone through almost 30 years of Tristano based learning about improvisation, I would have to say she bit off more than she could chew to try an internalize a jazz feel, equal to her chops for sure, not her Jazz emotional level though, too far ahead!....Lennie's study started with just lay in one or two notes a measure with feeling and note placement being the highest order of business not technique and then you are really headed in the right direction. Technique should be just a bit ahead of improvising ability, so her balances are way off , she needs to get out of the way of her own chops, they could actually obfuscate what lies in her in a deeper well! Simple note placement against the beat with Tristano, with 'your note', not Tommy Flannagan's. That would have been much more in line with her abilities as an improvisor at her stage of the game rather than the highly technically involved music she picked at the piano ...

 

 

She played that more than fine but had to work through an external means (copying) which will keep it stiff.... internal is the way...might not be riffs that will win you a Grammy but thay would be 'your improvised lines' she needs to get 'inside' her own notes to get that, easier to do with your own notes to get the feel. Lennie Tristano would have brought her all the way back to simple scales and 8 th notes . . . then triplets and 16th then have her pull notes out and work on her 'non-notes' and rests...8 beats at least before she improvises a line again so she know what she wants to say....that's how to build those 'creative and emotional muscles', through internal mechanisms to create your improvised line! Unless someone tells her, because folks don't know the ground rules of real jazz often, she can wind up being considered just a stylist, even with those hot licks and all her wonderful technique, not a true improvisor.....that would be ashamed because she's a really really good musician I must say! Sorry for the typos, I'm in work...before she works on jazz accents, she needs to investigate 'inflected scales' ... just a simple C major scale. Accent, non accent then non accent and accent...at 60 BMI to start or slower . . . Jazz feels are inflected...off the beat .. 2 and 4...Rock and Classical are heavy on the 1st beat usually!

[DanL]

If, on the other hand, she actually has or develops deep soul in her playing, she would smoke me

 

I suspect if she had it it would have been apparent, which to my mind indicates that she will not develop it either because we're talking about that which is rarely, if ever "learned".

 

I used to have a sig about music being part math, part magic and my preference for more magic. She just sounds more math to me.

 

BB King could make 1 note sound like it came straight from the heart. You can't teach that. There are various degrees of soul and BB is at one end and players like this woman are at the other.

 

[BluMunk]

It seems to me that this video, like a lot of YouTube videos, is presented as "watch me learn a bit about something, and maybe learn something yourself too." It's a pretty common genre, and relies on the video maker's prior tangential knowledge to make the video interesting and informative.

 

This video fits quite nicely in that niche. The object of the video isn't to illustrate Nahre Sol's objective mastery or skill at the blues, but to just show her personal process of discovery, while adding a little bit of general information and fun at the same time.

 

It's a great success! If I wanted to be critical, I would say that the video is too long, and her pocket piece should have been shorter, and/or she should have done a cut or fade half way through. Two minutes for the first version, and then two and a half for the second, was too much time to spend on that neat but repetitive piece.

[MathOfInsects]

I was taught by a wise musician that one should not criticize other musicians, especially in public ... and especially a musician that can play much faster than oneself. That can be something that says more about me... It s a good guideline outside of music too.

 

I was impressed how much ground Nahre Sol covered in a week. A+ for effort in my view.

OT: I like the way she intertwines her two hands.

 

People talk about soul and try to judge it. It is an abstract idea... Therefore, I try to remember to avoid judging it. And you certainly dont have to suffer to play good blues.

 

However, style regarding and idiom, such as African American blues, can be critiqued in concrete musical terms such as rhythm inflection, melodic sense, phrasing etc...

 

In the end Nahre Sol only exhibited a little pocket piece that she composed; remember, she is a composer and is drawing upon a short survey of the blues for some influence. She is not purporting herself to be the next B.B. King or Muddy Waters. Pocket piece in even eighths was not bluesy at all. The swung version was bluesey. Thus: mission accomplished. Its as simple as that.

 

It seems to me that this video, like a lot of YouTube videos, is presented as "watch me learn a bit about something, and maybe learn something yourself too." It's a pretty common genre, and relies on the video maker's prior tangential knowledge to make the video interesting and informative.

 

This video fits quite nicely in that niche. The object of the video isn't to illustrate Nahre Sol's objective mastery or skill at the blues, but to just show her personal process of discovery, while adding a little bit of general information and fun at the same time.

 

It's a great success!

 

These are wonderful posts. This board can be a tough crowd: if she had come here asking for tips on playing the blues, she'd have been told to go off and listen, listen, listen. Instead she goes off and listens, listens, listens, and now we're griping that she's not natural enough at it yet. I would hope not, after a week!

 

I thought she played great, and the video was cool. And props to her for making it work on that little keyboard.

 

There is so much mythology about the blues. The fact is, the stuff we call the blues was the product of someone just like her--a classically trained composer. WC Handy formalized this small slice of musical practice, that he did not grow up hearing. The elements we associate with the blues--the scale, the AAB form, the 12 bars--those are the products of very intentional (intellectual) decision-making; they were not inherent in the practice.

 

Yes, the sound was inspired by Henry Sloan putting field shouts to music, and Charlie Patton sliding his knife on the strings while playing those shouts. But there was nothing formal about "the blues" until that conservatory-trained composer swooped in and made hit songs out of it.

 

I think we still tend to romanticize the form as something that grew magically out of the cotton fields of Mississippi and Alabama. That's white fantasy-fulfillment. Some elements of the genre did originate there, but the form itself was a very intentional creation after the fact, by Handy and the (white) song collectors who toured through the South recording the songs that sounded "blackest" to them, and rejecting anything that sounded too "sophisticated" to be authentic. We're kind of doing that to Sol here.

 

Nifty vid, thanks for posting.

[Theo Verelst]

To me the idea of "doing a Blues" for someone with musical training would incorporate respect for the "home" area of the person at hand, as well as for the "excursion" into a another musical field. Even a moron (which I don't perceive she is) understands the connotation of most Blues songs, even from some non main stream Blues examples. The string of examples so modernly cut to short example flints is done expert-wise enough to stand to my attention. And I don't like the sound that was creating (assuming the recording of the examples was done similar as the piano). If you want such a specific, expressive music to become part of your repertoire, even if you'd never heard any of it (which for most Western people, especially musicians is hard to believe), you'd need to "get it" where that pounding bass, those driving drums, that specially produced lone guitar are for, musically.

 

So to me it can easily be explained as playing into the "new" idea of cutting Blues, creating a new mix, or mess with musicianship to please certain idea makers, rather than musicians with integrity.

 

The piano examples also give me the creeps because it's searching for cheap thrills, also not something I appreciate easily, and then certainly someone used to music should be able to hear when it comes out, well, kind of wrong. Takes more practice?

 

T.

[Outkaster]

I am glad this board is a tough crowd honestly. Bottom line for this as I age I think you are either born with things or you aren't.

[Geoff Grace]

She has also done similar episodes on funk and bossa nova.

I enjoyed her funk video. In fact, I almost posted about it here at the time it came out.

 

Of course, it wasn't exactly funk; but it was enjoyable as a funk influenced composition. It actually reminded me a little of Gentle Giant.

 

[video:youtube]

 

My viewpoint is that a flawed attempt at being derivative can often yield a more original result.

 

Best,

 

Geoff