Just listened to an interview with a musician on NPR about the differences between klezmer and classical clarinet. The difference in styles, techniques, embouchure (shape and use of lips, tongue, mouth)... As a beginner this world both overwhelms and fascinates me. Anyway a follow up search took me to a doctoral thesis called "a classical clarinetist's guide to klezmer music". I really love the whole notion of scholarship not just as a scholar but as a consumer of knowledge too 🥰
I am learning classical. Which is all about technique, perfection, proper everything. Klezmer is the opposite, embracing imperfections in style and the natural flexibility of the instrument. I eventually want to go that way so I hope what I learn now doesn't hold me back later.
@devezer
I am just fooling around on piano doing whatever I want. Been doing it a few years irregularly. I can now play stuff that sounds like where the ideas in my head are going... It's incredibly fun. I'm not good in any sense but I'm happy about what I'm doing. That's what matters to me.
@twitskeptic
@dlakelan @twitskeptic Age is definitely a factor for me. I was a kid when I started playing the piano and didn't have my current mindset. There was no way. Everything needed to be more structured and disciplined back then for me. Kinda sucked the joy out of it tbh.
@devezer
This is my feeling about most kids experience with classical music training. It is probably very effective at helping the 0.1% of people who want to play classical music professionally. Jazz, folk, blues, rock, bluegrass, and free form improv etc are much more "natural" forms of music, in the sense that cultures without high art classical music all have something similar to that.
@twitskeptic
@devezer
Virtually everyone can listen to a piece of music and then hum the 7 notes of the associated major key. Virtually no one starts off in music having kids use that ability for example. The western piano keyboard has 12 different patterns for major scales. The Djanko keyboard has ONE.
@twitskeptic
@devezer
If kids are interested in playing music, it's way more fun for most kids to get together and say "hey let's play something" and then start experimenting... One of them plays some phrase over and over, the other invents a thing to go with it... Then switch it up... Etc. Have creation, not recitation be the focus. At least that's my take.
@twitskeptic
@dlakelan @twitskeptic I wish that kind of learning was a greater part of my (our) childhood, and not just for music either. Recitation instead of creation continues to also plague science today, sadly.
The same thing goes for math in my opinion. Learning math by memorizing what to do to carry out some procedure is a terrible way to learn math. The quadratic formula, and long division, and 10 common rules for differentiation and how to calculate dilutions of chemicals and etc... it's super limiting to think of math as a huge set of these "tasks to carry out" rather than a way of talking about the world. Bayes vs Frequentist stats is another instance of this dichotomy.
@twitskeptic ugh that was exactly my issue with piano as well. so now with clarinet, I split my time halfway. first do all the practice exercises. then play whatever I want regardless of how I butcher it. never did that with piano.