

Music a story or something else - WAS looper vs storyteller. ifthere even is

I basically agree, but the very basic difference is that music speaks to emotions directly bypassing our language. II think we might do music a disservice by saying that we create stories we need to understand that music can be wordless. I'm not sure but I think that Evans, Jarret et al does not think stories. I only REALLY know how i improvise and i seldom try say something, i might start out with a mood or sound that want to explore and then i start playing and try to react to what i hear and it quite often end up being rather different than i thought it would. I recently saw Mike Landau and he really painted with guitar, much closer to visual than narrative art. I cant really ever say that instrumental music ever made me think of a narrative or story, pictures developing and changing, like a film. Maybe the music, film, pictures could be seen as a sort of "story" and I'm tempted to say that some music is a journey from one place to another, one picture after another and yeas i can give the jorney a name and perhaps invent a narrative or story around it.
I like to think of instrumental music as abstract art, it is what it is, it's not a picture OF something. A bit like Kandinsky's compositions  the are not a picture OF something they are just the puicture
> Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2009 10:04:59 -0600
> From: highhorse@mhorse.com
> To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
> Subject: Re: looper vs storyteller. if there even is
> Without getting too esoteric, I hear all music as having a story.
> Instrumental music is a more loosely defined story than music with
> words, and it's much more subjective, but it's there. It's why I've
> always found it easy to name instrumental pieces; I just listen for a
> bit and I hear the story develop, which is often both visual and
> emotional, then it's just a matter of choosing the best title to
> describe it, same as if I had written a novel.
> In music there are conflicts, resolutions, climaxes, denouements, even
> characters and plot development to my mind. I've found this to be true
> even when listening to someone improvise a solo, if they know what
> they're doing. Pat Metheny, Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett come to mind as
> some players who are especially descriptive storytellers in improvisation.
> Daryl Shawn
> www.swanwelder.com
> www.chinapaintingmusic.com